PK Sherpa: An unpromising dream leads to a promising career–at the peak of Nepal’s mountaineering industry

Growing up in his village in the Sotang rural municipality in lower Solukhumbu, Pasanga Kaji Sherpa (more popularly known as PK Sherpa) never thought he would get into mountaineering. No one from his village had ever been a mountaineer. Most of them were into agriculture with only a few venturing out of the village becoming porters or guides for trekking groups.

That is how PK Sherpa started his journey into mountaineering. At the tender age of 13, he joined a trekking group as a porter and ventured out to make a living for himself. But deep down, he would always be looking at the mountains, hoping and dreaming that one day, he too would be on the summit of the highest peaks in the world.