Pasang Lhamu Sherpa has been enshrined in Nepal´s national consciousness as an authentic heroine, her legend established: need anything more be said?
Decidedly, yes. The article in Himal of May/June 1993 suggests that Pasang Lhamu was hot a strong climber and her achievement relatively modest. There is more to the story. Nepal may need a national heroine, but not at the expense of its soul. ThaNs the price of this concocted story: a freshly-minted myth, has¬tily packaged, that js a perversion of the truth.
I am a writer who has travelled several times to Nepal. I was at Chomolongma Base Camp this spring with my husband who was a scientific member of the American Sagarmatha expedition. Pasang Lhamu´s story unfolded while we were there.
It has been presented as a drama of courage and determination: how a Nepali woman pursued her dream, and how through sheer grit she reached the summit, but then tragically perished with one of her "companions". The story bears an uncanny resemblance to the apotheosis of Robert Falcon Scott, the British explorer who ted an expedition to the South Pole in 1911-12. Arrogant, stubborn and intolerant of dissenting opinion, Scott´s blunders led his men to their death. (They were beaten" to the Pole by the Norwegian Roaid Amundsen, who returned safely with his whole team.) Scott´s widow doctored the records and suppressed the evidence; Scott was painted a hero and was revered as sucli by generations of British schoolchildren. Only recently has the myth of the noble Scott been debunked.