Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa (2024)

Next time you are in the supermarket, have a look at the staff and imagine that one of them has climbed Mount Everest ten times! That's the story of this illiterate Nepali woman who has struggled to bring up her two daughters, hold together an increasingly violent marriage and then work with her brother at home in Nepal to lead teams of people to the top of the world's highest peak. What's clear from the outset here is she is an immensely grounded and humble woman who has a deep respect for the mountain: she even asks it's permission before ascending (and assumes force eight winds and avalanches is it saying no!). Using her latest attempt in 2018 as the starting point for the story, we are introduced to her daughters - Shiny, who is accompanying her mother on the trip, and the not so aptly named Sunny who, at 19, is staying at home. It's never been an easy ride for Lhakpa Sherpa. She couldn't even get a job as a porter when she started out - women weren't deemed to be strong enough, but her perseverance eventually convinced the then Prime Minister to encourage women to take a more active part in the business of the mountain. She meets and later marries Romanian climber George Dijmarescu and the pair become a formidable team as her summit's start to mount up, but he had baggage of his own stemming from a poverty-stricken youth in Romania and a dependency on the bottle which adds to the trauma for both her and to her troubles at their home in Connecticut. The photography both current and archive is frankly quite breathtaking, illustrating the bleak hostility of the almost lunar terrain and by the end of this documentary, I thought she made it look almost straightforward (even if she does admit, in her mid-40s - to feeling "a little crappy" at 25,000 feet!). There's something engaging about Lhakpa Sherpa. A woman dedicated, respectful and loving who is certainly addicted to the outdoor life, but who is clearly motivated to do all she can to support and educate her daughters. It's hard to imagine that she will ever stop and it wouldn't surprise me if she were to inspire one of her daughters, and a great many Nepali women, to follow in her footsteps.