As a child, Tamting Sherpa reared yaks in the rugged terrain of Rolwaling Valley in the Beding village of Dolakha, where he was born some 49 years ago.

As he grew up, he found himself trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty and scarcity of resources, spending around a decade and a half living in a chaurigoth (yak sheds). When he turned 16, he started working as a porter, carrying heavy loads of visiting tourists, mainly the foreigners, up to Thame of Solukhumbu through the treacherous Tashi Lapcha pass (5,755 metres). He continued working as a porter during tourist season and worked in the chaurigoth rest of the time.

Tampting gradually grew comfortable working at high altitudes. He then went on to climb all of the world’s 14 mountain peaks above 8,000 metres—the 8,000ers in mountaineering parlance. He achieved the feat after summiting Nanga Parbat and GI peak in 2023.

Tamting has come a long way since he climbed the Kusum Kanguru peak (6,360 metres) in Solukhumbu with a Japanese expedition team in 1996. He climbed all the 8,000ers while working as a porter, he says.

Tamting is the youngest among four brothers and two sisters. In 1994, his brother Nawang Toche Sherpa died of apparent altitude sickness while working as a high-altitude worker.

“I was in the chaurigoth in Beding when my brother died on the mountain,” Tamting recalls. “I was a seasonal porter then. I was discouraged from pursuing a career in high altitudes because of that tragedy.”

When Tamting started working as a porter, carrying loads from Beding to Thame, he used to earn Rs150 per day. He hung on to this work for five years. Then the Japanese team hired him to climb Kusum Kanguru peak and so began his career as a high-altitude worker.

Beding village, which lies at ward 9 of Gaurishankar Rural Municipality, is about 80 km north of Charikot, the district headquarters of Dolakha. There are around 85 households of Sherpa and Tamang communities in Beding, which lies at an altitude of 3,721 metres.

Once known as a ‘village of porters’, Beding is now renowned for its mountaineers. According to Dawa Chhering Sherpa, chairman of Everest Summiteers Club, as many as 87 people from the village have climbed the world’s tallest peak so far.

Tamting did not get any training to climb mountain peaks. He said he did not have the mountaineering gear. “I used to wear the boots and clothes provided by the foreign members of the expedition,” he recalls.

“A Japanese expedition took me to Pakistan’s Mt K2 as a high-altitude worker in 1997. They returned me to the camp from an altitude of 8,100 metres stating that I could not climb higher due to my age. I still don’t know why I was denied the summit.”

Tamting was above 20 years at that time. According to him, he finally climbed K2 in 2022.

“I summited the world’s highest peak [Everest] in 1998,” Tamting says. Since then, he has climbed Everest 11 times. “I first climbed Everest as a porter for India’s Tata Motors team.”

Tamting climbed all the 8,000ers over 25 years, narrowly escaping death several times. He recalls a harrowing experience in 2023, when his team was struck by an avalanche while scaling Mount Shishapangma in Tibet. “The avalanche suddenly struck while we were climbing,” Tamting recalls. “One of my friends got injured while two American mountaineers and two Sherpas went missing. I survived luckily.”

The incident during the 2014 Everest expedition, according to Tamting, was the biggest tragedy he had witnessed. “It was around 5 am,” he says. “I saw an avalanche near us at the Khumbu Icefall. I gave out a shout to all to run away and fled. The avalanche buried many mountaineers and high-altitude workers.”

The avalanche claimed 16 lives. Tamting is now thinking of hanging up his boots. For his final expedition, he aims to summit Mount Shishapangma, which, in 1964, became the final 8000er to be climbed. He plans to do so next year and then train mountaineering enthusiasts and get involved in rescue missions.

“I climbed many mountains carrying loads,” Tamting says. “I think it is now time to take a rest.”