At 16, Tshiring Pasang Sherpa has done what most people only dream of — stood on top of the world.
On May 20, at 10:05 in the morning, Tshiring Pasang Sherpa stepped onto the summit of Mount Everest. He was 16 years and 167 days old. With that step, he became the youngest Nepali climber to reach the world’s highest peak from the Nepal side the Southern Face.
He was born on December 4, 2009. His home village is Lokhim Safarma, in Thulung Dudhkoshi Rural Municipality-9, Solukhumbu in the hills near Everest.
This was never going to be someone else’s story.
Tshiring did not grow up hearing about Everest from a distance. He grew up inside it. His father, Lakpa Temba Sherpa, has summited Everest three times. His mother, Dolma Lama Sherpa, has climbed it too her summit came in 2022, just a few years before her son followed the same path.
Mountaineering is not just a career in this family. It is who they are.
“We are Sherpas,” his mother said in an interview. “He had the interest, and I supported his interest.” She believed he could do it. And he proved her right.
At the summit, Tshiring thought of his parents. “They once stood here,” he said. “So I am here as well.”
He wanted to go sooner, but Nepal made him wait.
Tshiring had his eyes on Everest at 13. But Nepal’s minimum age rule stood in the way. During those waiting years, he did not sit still. He trained mountain biking, rock climbing keeping himself sharp for the moment permission would finally come.
His uncle, Da Dendi Sherpa, shared this part of the story the young boy who wanted the summit badly, who had to hold back, and who used every year of waiting to prepare himself.
When the permission finally came, he was ready. Before the Everest attempt, he climbed Lobuche East as preparation. Then he went for the top.
While his classmates were preparing for exams, he was on the mountain.
Tshiring sat his SEE Nepal’s School Leaving Examination and when the results came out, he was at Everest Base Camp. He received a GPA of 3.63. Most teenagers were home, resting after exams. He was acclimatising at altitude.
He is not just a record he is a name in history.
The Nepal Mountaineering Association congratulated him and called the achievement “an inspiring milestone for a new generation in the history of Nepali mountaineering.” The association’s president, Fur Gyalje Sherpa, confirmed that Tshiring Pasang has set a new record as the youngest climber from Nepal to summit Everest.
The record has context. In 2001, Nepali climber Temba Tshiring Sherpa had climbed Everest from the northern face in Tibet at the age of 16, holding the world record at the time. American Jordan Romero later broke that record at 13. But from the Nepal side the Southern Face Tshiring Pasang Sherpa now holds the record.
He wants to stay in Nepal and keep climbing.
Tshiring is not done. He wants to build a career in mountaineering and contribute to Nepal’s tourism and mountaineering industry. Next on his list K2 and Annapurna I, two of the most dangerous mountains in the world.
He said his inspiration came from his family. He watched his father summit Everest three times. He watched his mother stand on the top of the world. And then, at 16, he stood there himself.
The mountain has always been in his blood. On May 20, he showed the world what that means.
