Ang Rita Sherpa

Ang Rita Sherpa (1948 to 2020) was a Nepalese mountaineer who climbed Mount Everest ten times without supplemental oxygen between 1983 and 1996. His sixth climb set the world record for the most successful ascents of Everest, which he re-set on his tenth climb, and although others have since summited the mountain more often, he still holds the record for the most summits without supplemental oxygen. He was also the first, and so far the only, person to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen in winter, and his peers nicknamed him the Snow Leopard. He was born in Thame in Solukhumbu, where his family reared yaks, and as a child he looked after the yaks and worked as a porter on trading expeditions across the Himalayas to Tibet.