A couple of weeks earlier, when Netflix released a documentary film titled Skywalkers: A Love Story, many perceived it as an unnecessary and shameless presentation of an activity that literally involves made-up problems and overcoming them through illegal acts. This week’s documentary film, Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, is almost a redemption by Netflix, as it tells the highly inspiring story of Lhakpa Sherpa, the woman to have summitted Mount Everest the most number of times. The film also deals with the extreme difficulties in her personal life, which she had to overcome before creating history in an overwhelming manner. Overall, Mountain Queen is an entertaining and rousing watch that definitely puts our small and relatively insignificant struggles into perspective.
Who is Lhakpa Sherpa?
While Mountain Queen begins with the protagonist and her team walking up to Everest Camp Four, also called The Death Zone, Lhakpa Sherpa’s story begins much earlier. Born in 1973 to a humble Sherpa family in the Makalu region of Nepal, Lhakpa was named after the day on which she was born. According to her interview, the custom in the Sherpa tribe in Nepal is to name newborn children based on the specific days of the week. It is also part of Sherpa tradition and custom, or at least it was back in the 1970s, for women to not receive any education, and they were instead restricted to household chores and responsibilities. Therefore, Lhakpa was also not allowed to attend school or receive any education, despite her being quite interested in learning about new things, and her only role in this regard was to walk her brother to school through a difficult hilly track.
But Lhakpa always had a penchant for the extraordinary, or rather, anything that she was supposedly not allowed to do, according to the rules set by patriarchal customs. Women had to mostly stay indoors and tend to the needs of the kitchen and the comforts of the men in the house, but to Lhakpa, this was no life at all. She was much more interested in the outdoors, in climbing and exploring, and even the long hikes to her brother’s school were of more significance to her than household chores. The woman still remembers the specific rhythm in which the Nepali alphabet was taught at the school, which she obviously overheard from outside, as she was not allowed to enter. Naturally, the young girl was often scolded and reprimanded by her elders, who did not like her dismissive and rebellious attitude towards the rules.
Lhakpa recalls one particular time during her childhood, when she suddenly grew very curious about the high mountains around their village, and particularly regarding what lay beyond them. This was the first time that Lhakpa wanted to climb mountains, just to see what was behind them and who was living there, and this ultimately went on to become an integral part of her life. Although she was a regular rule-breaker, society and its laws did take their hold once she grew up into a teenager, and soon, Lhakpa was married to a man from the Sherpa tribe. The couple had a baby boy, Nima, within some time, but the arranged marriage turned out to be an utter failure. The husband did not spare any chance to abuse and humiliate Lhakpa, citing how she was not docile enough and how she did not hail from the better villages of the region. Lhakpa could no longer bear with the toxicity and abuse, and she left her husband with her young son, which was a matter of extreme disgrace in her family and tribe. For years, she stayed cooped up inside her mother’s house in the city of Kathmandu, avoiding public visits and interactions with anyone from her family or tribe, simply out of fear that she would be shamed for her choices.
Despite all these tribulations and turmoil in her life, though, Lhakpa Sherpa’s love for the outdoors and her desire to climb the majestic and holy mountains never left her. As a young adult, she was extremely inspired by Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, a Nepalese woman who had made mountaineering her profession solely to give hope to the girls and women of her small nation to do something other than the ordinary in life. In 1993, Sherpa attempted to climb Mt. Everest and also succeeded in becoming the first Nepalese woman to summit the same. However, the weather tremendously deteriorated after her triumph, and rescue parties could not go help her out in time either. Pasang Lhamu unfortunately died on the summit of Mount Everest, but her accomplishment had inspired thousands of Nepalese and foreign individuals, not just women.
Lhakpa admits that it was really for Pasang’s daring adventure that she decided to follow the same profession and become a mountaineer no matter what. During her teenage years, Lhakpa was frustrated at the fact that her male cousins and brothers were let to work as porters for the foreigners who came to climb Everest, but she was not allowed, despite her being stronger than many of them. In an act of utter defiance, she cut her hair short and pretended to be a young man, only to become part of the team of porters for European and American climbers, and this gave her quite some experience with mountains. A little later in life, she participated in and won a mountain race and used the $2000 prize money to set up a shop of her own on the mountain trail. It was here that she asked every visitor about what she could do next to become the first Nepali woman to summit Mt. Everest and return alive.
Almost miraculously, an officer from the Nepal police force visited her stall one day and took Lhakpa seriously. He stated that the only person who could help in funding the woman’s expedition would be the Prime Minister of the country, and he even agreed to arrange such a meeting. As promised, the police chief took Lhakpa to meet with the erstwhile PM of Nepal, who immediately agreed to help her out. An expedition with a few women mountaineers was planned, and Lhakpa was chosen to be the leader of the team. Although she had a difficult time walking with the group and matching their comparatively slower pace, Lhakpa remained determined towards her dream, and finally, on the 18th of September, 2000, she became the first Nepali woman to summit Mount Everest and safely return to the base camp.
How did Lhakpa reach the United States of America?
After her conquest of Everest, Lhakpa was celebrated in Nepal and given accolades by the government, which made her even more interested in continuing to pursue her passion. Around this time, she met a European man who caught her interest, and there was a budding romance about to follow. During her childhood days, when foreigners came to her village for the first time, their tall statures, blonde hair, and blue eyes made the villagers fear that they were yetis from the other side of the mountain. Therefore, it was almost like a play of fate when Lhakpa found herself attracted to George Dijmarescu, a Romanian mountaineer, and he, too, grew an interest in her. The two started to go on expeditions together and also summited Everest as a team, all while a romantic relationship was developing between them. Although Lhakpa initially felt that it was all infatuation and there would be no future in their relationship, fearing that the man would abandon her, George returned the next year, proving that he was very serious about his proposal.
Eventually, George asked Lhakpa to move in with him in the United States, where he had fled as a political refugee from his native Romania. The woman was naturally very ecstatic about the offer, and after getting the feeling that she would be genuinely cared for and loved, she agreed to the move. This was when Lhakpa moved to Connecticut in the United States of America for the first time and started living as George’s partner. She did whatever labor work that she found and also had a daughter with her boyfriend, whom they lovingly named Sunny. After this addition to their family, the couple got married as well, and although Lhakpa had found a job at Whole Foods, she wanted to return to her beloved Everest. Thus, the couple then started to organize climbing expeditions for other interested Americans, which would also earn them some extra income. The 2004 Connecticut Everest Expedition, which was a planned adventure to summit Mount Everest, brought the couple further recognition and fame, as many signed up to be led by them.
Why did Lhakpa’s marriage with George fail?
According to Lhakpa’s interview, she started to see the real side of her husband only a few years after their marriage. It is said that extreme conditions like being high up on snowy mountains bring out the actual character of any person, and Lhakpa, unfortunately, learned this the wrong way. During the expedition, George started drinking a lot, which would often lead to violent situations. While alcohol and friendly but fierce fighting were nothing uncommon to the man, something distinctly odd happened during this particular expedition. Lhakpa’s younger sister was also a part of this expedition, and when she mistakenly stepped on George’s back, he cussed at her and even slapped the girl. Later on during the climb, when a disagreement broke out between the couple with regards to George foolishly wanting to go rescue some mountaineers by putting their own lives at risk, things took an even more grim turn. George punched Lhakpa and dragged her unconscious body out of his tent, and this was even photographed by one of the participants of the expedition.
This was really when all the violence and humiliation started, and it continued after the couple returned to the USA as well. George once abandoned his wife at the airport for a number of hours simply because he was angry with her, and he then started having affairs with other women. While Lhakpa knew about these affairs, she was supposed to be okay with them and was not allowed to protest. Gradually, he started to treat her like a housemaid, all while continuing to physically and mentally torture her. Although they now had two daughters, Sunny and Shiny, George’s treachery did not stop, and it reached a moment of pathetic extreme when he assaulted Lhakpa right in front of his daughters and friends during a party. During such moments of conflict, he would even hit his daughters and hurt them by pulling their hair. This party scene got so violent that Lhakpa had to be hospitalized, and it was then that she took an ultimate stand for herself and her daughters.
With the help of social workers, she left her husband’s home together with her daughters and spent the next few months at shelters. Although times were difficult for her, they were admittedly nothing in contrast to the physical struggles and setbacks that a mountaineer is used to. She continued working multiple shifts and then could arrange enough money to afford a house for her daughters. The marriage had to be ended, too, and the divorce case had to be settled by the court, which made it quite difficult for George. It was ultimately decided that Lhakpa would get full custody of her daughters, as George was simply too volatile to be with children. George Dijmarescu still made a number of efforts to manipulate the women and bring them back into his life, to no avail, until his death from cancer in 2020.
Where is Lhakpa Sherpa now?
Once her legal battles were over, Lhakpa once again returned to her passion for climbing mountains, and she made yearly visits to Nepal to summit Everest continuously. Mountain Queen extensively features her latest expedition, in 2022, when she also took her youngest daughter Shiny to be a part of the adventure, although the teenager only climbed to the base camp. After a series of tests and tribulations, Lhakpa summited Mt. Everest for the 10th time, breaking her own record of being the woman to have summited the highest mountain peak on Earth for the most number of times. At the same time, she also completed a personal mission of beating her abusive ex-husband’s record, as George Dijmarescu had climbed Everest nine times. This expedition once again brought her a lot of recognition, support, and sponsorship, with which she summited K2 in 2023 as well. At present, Lhakpa Sherpa continues to live with her three children in Connecticut, USA. While she still works a regular job at Whole Foods, her indomitable spirit still makes her dream of tall mountains, and Lhakpa Sherpa still desires to conquer the unconquerable.
