Told at Last: Stories from Darjeeling’s High-Altitude Climbing Community

Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar’s important new book, Headstrap: Legends and Lore from the Climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling, tells stories from the often-overlooked Sherpa and Bhutia communities whose members have played a crucial role in high-altitude Himalayan climbing since the 19th century.

In addition to an introduction by the authors, the following excerpt contains three short profiles. The first of these tells the story of one Wangdi Norbu, who participated in expeditions to Kangchenjunga (1930), Kamet (1931), Everest (1933, 1936, and 1938) and Nanga Parbat (1934), only to lose his career (but not his life) in 1947 to a tragic, multi-stage mountain accident. 

The second tells the story of Lewa, a “highly sought-after porter and sardar” who earned a coveted tiger badge as a reward for his “amazing tenacity and endurance both as mountaineer and as leader” in the 1930s, only to be tossed aside when a Western booking agent arbitrarily decided he was too old.

The last story is about Phuchung, a 21st century climber who worked for three years as a salesman in Dubai before returning to Darjeeling, attending the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, and heading into the mountains for work. His comments about modern mountaineering would sound familiar to Wangdi Norbu and Lewa:“People don’t climb alone,” he says. “They take Sherpas who usually look after their clients very well. … Unfortunately, after they come down, only the members’ names will be on the list of those who summited. Not the names of the Sherpas—that still happens.”

—the Editors

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The following text is excerpted from Headstrap: Legends and Lore from the Climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling by Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar (April 2024). Published by Mountaineers Books. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

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