While Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa climbed the world's tallest peak earlier this month, his wife, Fulli, was back at home in Draper climbing her own mountain, one made up of the time and distance that had separated her for so long from her husband and three children in Nepal.
It had been six months since she had seen her children, Ang Dawa, Nima and Tashi. They had been at a boarding school in Katmandu until their parents were able to successfully navigate immigration laws to secure the proper visas for them to come to the United States.
After two months without Lhakpa, Fulli was at the Salt Lake City International Airport on Wednesday to embrace her entire family.
"I'm so sad," she said about the wait. "Now, I'm happy."
Lhakpa said it was hard getting his children out of Nepal and to their new home in Utah. He thanked Utahns Jerry Mika and Roger Kehr for their help with all of the red tape.
"I'm so very happy," Lhakpa said. "Everyone is together."
Lhakpa and fellow Draper resident Apa Sherpa made history May 16 in Nepal when they led an all-Sherpa team of climbers, dubbed the SuperSherpas Expedition, to the summit of Mount Everest. It was Apa's 17th Everest summit — a world record.
During the trip, he and Lhakpa also helped recover the bodies of two Korean climbers. Base-camp manager Jerry Mika said this season has been a particularly deadly one on Everest, which claimed the lives of three people who had been close to members of the SuperSherpas team.
Foreign travelers usually pay huge sums of money to outfitters for a go at reaching the mountain's 29,035-foot peak. Members of Nepal's isolated Sherpa community, living in the high Himalayas, are typically hired by the outfitters as porters.
Sherpas, who often share the same last name although they are not directly related, carry heavy loads so that the foreign climbers can stay light and have an increased chance of reaching the summit. The Sherpas endure the same extreme weather conditions as their clients. And Sherpas, like Lhakpa and Apa, set ropes for climbers, keep them out of danger and even rescue those who get in trouble on the mountain.
But after the high-paying customers reach the peak, all the glory in the media goes to them, while Sherpas comparatively get little recognition.
"They don't mention anything about Sherpas," Apa Sherpa said. "I don't know why."
The pay for Sherpas, considered the world's best high-altitude climbers, is often only a small fraction of what foreign climbers pay for the Everest experience.
So the twist for this expedition was that Mika and other Utahns were the support crew for the Sherpas. The goal was to raise awareness of Nepal's Sherpa community and the struggles they face in getting health care for their families and an education for their children.
Apa and Lhakpa also were pleased to leave behind $2,500 each in donated money for education and medical needs in their hometowns before heading back to Utah.
At the Salt Lake City International Airport, Apa's wife, Yangjin, and their three children, Tenzing, Pemba and Dawa, were relieved to have Dad back home.
"My heart feels good and happy," Yangjin said.
Some in Apa and Lhakpa's families are still learning English. Most of their children will be or are attending schools in Draper. Apa works for an outdoor retailer, and since moving to Utah, Lhakpa has been employed by Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort's coffee house Peak Java.
A book and documentary are in the works about the SuperSherpas expedition. One goal of those two projects is for more people beyond the climbing community to learn about Sherpas. Fund-raising efforts will continue in order to help Sherpas back in Nepal.
In Katmandu, Apa and Lhakpa were paraded through the streets as heroes and cheered by Nepalese dignitaries and citizens. "All the Nepalese people are very proud," Apa said.
Apa is hopeful the book and documentary about the team will change the way the world views Sherpas.
The medical community also will be learning more about Sherpas based on research conducted during the expedition to figure out why Sherpas perform so much better than anyone else under extreme physical and mental stress at high altitudes.
As for Fulli and Yangjin, having their husbands home means that their prayers were answered — and that the revered Mount Everest, known to Sherpas as Chomolungma, or "Goddess Mother of the Land," had a hand in delivering these two fathers back to their families, safe and alive.
E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com