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Last Surviving Member of 1st Team to Conquer Mount Everest Says it is Crowded, Dirty Now

Kanchha Sherpa sits on a chair during an interview with The Associated Press at his residence in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, March 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
Kanchha Sherpa sits on a chair during an interview with The Associated Press at his residence in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, March 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
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Last Surviving Member of 1st Team to Conquer Mount Everest Says it is Crowded, Dirty Now

Kanchha Sherpa sits on a chair during an interview with The Associated Press at his residence in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, March 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
Kanchha Sherpa sits on a chair during an interview with The Associated Press at his residence in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, March 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

The only surviving member of the mountaineering expedition that first conquered Mount Everest said Saturday that the world's highest peak is too crowded and dirty, and the mountain is a god that needs to be respected.
Kanchha Sherpa, 91, was among the 35 members in the team that put New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay atop the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak on May 29, 1953.
“It would be better for the mountain to reduce the number of climbers,” Kanchha said in an interview in Kathmandu on Saturday, “Right now there is always a big crowd of people at the summit.”
Since the first conquest, the peak has been climbed thousands of times, and it gets more crowded every year. During the spring climbing season in 2023, 667 climbers scaled the peak, but that brought in thousands of support staff to the base camp between the months of March and May.
There have been concerns about the number of people living on the mountain for months on end, generating trash and waste, but authorities have no plans to cut down on the number of permits they issue to climbers.
There are rules that require climbers to bring down their own trash, equipment and everything they carry to the mountain or risk losing their deposit, but monitoring has not been very effective, The Associated Press reported.
“It is very dirty now. People throw tins and wrappings after eating food. Who is going to pick them up now?” Kanchha said. “Some climbers just dump their trash in the crevasse, which would be hidden at that time but eventually it will flow down to base camp as the snow melts and carries them downward.”
For the Sherpas, Everest is Qomolangma or goddess mother of the world, and is revered by their community. They generally perform religious rituals before climbing the peak.
“They should not be dirtying the mountain. It is our biggest god and they should not be dirtying the gods,” he said “Qomolangma is the biggest god for the Sherpas but people smoke and eat meat and throw them on the mountain.”
Kanchha was just a young man when he joined the Hillary-Tenzing expedition. He was among the three Sherpas to go the last camp on Everest along with Hillary and Tenzing. They could not go any further because they did not have a permit.
They first heard of the successful ascent on the radio, and then were reunited with the summit duo at Camp 2.
“We all gathered at Camp 2 but there was no alcohol so we celebrated with tea and snacks,” he said. “We then collected whatever we could and carried it to base camp.”
The route they opened up from the base camp to the summit is still used by climbers. Only the section from the base camp to Camp 1 over the unstable Khumbu Icefall changes every year.
Kanchha has four children, eight grandchildren and a 20-month-old great-granddaughter.

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Harry Chandler, Navy Medic Who Survived Japan’s Attack on Pearl Harbor, Dies at 103

Pearl Harbor survivor Harry Chandler, 102, of Tequesta, Fla., speaks to the media during the 82nd Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremony on Dec. 7, 2023, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. (AP)
Pearl Harbor survivor Harry Chandler, 102, of Tequesta, Fla., speaks to the media during the 82nd Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremony on Dec. 7, 2023, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. (AP)
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Harry Chandler, Navy Medic Who Survived Japan’s Attack on Pearl Harbor, Dies at 103

Pearl Harbor survivor Harry Chandler, 102, of Tequesta, Fla., speaks to the media during the 82nd Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremony on Dec. 7, 2023, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. (AP)
Pearl Harbor survivor Harry Chandler, 102, of Tequesta, Fla., speaks to the media during the 82nd Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremony on Dec. 7, 2023, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. (AP)

Harry Chandler, a Navy medic who helped pull injured sailors from the oily waters of Pearl Harbor after the 1941 Japanese attack on the naval base, has died. He was 103.

Chandler died Monday at a senior living center in Tequesta, Florida, according to Ron Mahaffee, the husband of his granddaughter Kelli Fahey. Chandler had congestive heart failure, but Mahaffee said doctors and nurses noted his advanced age when giving a cause of death.

The third Pearl Harbor survivor to die in the past few weeks, Chandler was a hospital corpsman 3rd class on Dec. 7, 1941, when waves of Japanese fighter planes dropped bombs and fired machine guns on battleships in the harbor and plunged the US into World War II.

He told The Associated Press in 2023 that he saw the planes approach as he was raising the flag that morning at a mobile hospital in Aiea Heights, which is in the hills overlooking the base.

“I thought they were planes coming in from the states until I saw the bombs dropping,” Chandler said. His first instinct was to take cover and “get the hell out of here.”

“I was afraid that they’d start strafing,” he said.

His unit rode trucks down to attend the injured. He said in a Pacific Historic Parks oral history interview that he boarded a boat to help pluck wounded sailors from the water.

The harbor was covered in oil from exploding ships, so Chandler washed the sailors off after lifting them out. He said he was too focused on his work to be afraid.

“It got so busy you weren't scared. Weren’t scared at all. We were busy. It was after you got scared,” Chandler said.

He realized later that he could have been killed, “But you didn’t think about that while you were busy taking care of people.”

The attack killed more than 2,300 US servicemen. Nearly half, or 1,177, were sailors and Marines on board the USS Arizona, which sank nine minutes after it was bombed.

Chandler's memories came flowing back when he visited Pearl Harbor for a 2023 ceremony commemorating the 82nd anniversary of the bombing.

“I look out there, and I can still see what’s going on. I can still see what was happening,” Chandler told The Associated Press.

Asked what he wanted Americans to know about Pearl Harbor, he said: “Be prepared.”

“We should have known that was going to happen. The intelligence has to be better,” he said.

After the war Chandler worked as a painter and wallpaper hanger and bought an upholstery business with his brother. He also joined the Navy reserves, retiring as a senior chief in 1981.

Chandler was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and lived for most of his adult life in nearby South Hadley, Mahaffee said. In recent decades he split his time between Massachusetts and Florida.

An avid golfer, he shot five hole-in-ones during his lifetime, his grandson-in-law added.

Chandler had one biological daughter and adopted two daughters from his second marriage, to Anna Chandler, who died in 2004. He is survived by two daughters, nine grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

Military historian J. Michael Wenger has estimated that there were some 87,000 military personnel on the island of Oahu the day of the attack. With Chandler’s death only 15 are still living, according to a tally maintained by Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors.

Bob Fernandez, who served on the USS Curtiss, also died this month, at age 100, and Warren Upton, 105, who served on the USS Utah, died last week.