CASPER — A 53-year-old Nepalese mountain guide who summited Mount Everest twice in one week was comparing notes on the world’s tallest peak with those in the United States while visiting Wyoming.
Tika Bahadur Tamang scaled Mount Everest twice over a seven-day period in May 2007 and has climbed 20,000-foot mountains dozens of times.
The Nepal native has been spending some of his summer in Casper helping out friends at the Himalayan Indian Cuisine restaurant on Second Street.
While in the United States, he visited Colorado to see a former climbing client and scout out some of the peaks in the state. He is also planning a stop in Washington.
Tamang is co-founder of Trek Climb Ski Nepal, a company he and an Australian partner launched in 2006 that is dedicated to providing Australians with trekking, climbing, and skiing expeditions in Nepal. Tamang’s journey to becoming a co-founder of the company was not a straight line or an easy climb.
The muscular man with an easy smile said he grew up in a farming area of Nepal about 200 kilometers southeast of Kathmandu.
“When I was 17, I ran away to the city,” he said.
Tamang said he wanted to work in a different “sector” than farming and was interested in tourism and mountaineering. Where he grew up was hilly but not mountainous.
In Kathmandu, he got a job with a travel company as a porter carrying loads for people on treks. He also spent time helping in a kitchen that supplied mountaineering groups before becoming an assistant guide for tours.
He said the company he worked for saw that he was strong and thought he could become a mountain guide, so they sent him to get trained in basic mountaineering.
“I wasn’t that confident,” he said. “I was new.”
He said the need for planning and safety as a mountaineer was challenging and the company he worked for assigned him to work with groups climbing mountains up to 6,000 meters or 19,000 feet. He was 21 years old at the time.
Tika Bahadur Tamang is helping out at his friend’s restaurant in Casper during his first visit to America. As a mountain guide in Nepal, he is also checking out what North America has to offer in terms of mountain peaks. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Sunset on Mount Everest. Tika Bahadur Tamang, 53, has summited the mountain twice in seven days. (Courtesy Trek Climb Ski Nepal) 
Nepal mountain guide Tika Bahadur Tamang, 53, is visiting Casper and helping at his friend's restaurant. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Working His Way Up, And Up
During his early 20s, he was an assistant guide for climbers on the 19,000-feet peaks and at 26 graduated to being the chief guide for treks up mountains such as Island Peak in Sagarmatha National Park at 20,226 feet, Mera Peak at 21,247 feet, Pokalde Peak at 19,048 feet.
Climbs up those peaks still take 18-20 days.
“I became kind of a professional and the company I was working for was running American groups,” he said. Tamang said at that time he remembers guiding a college group from Durango, Colorado.
During those years he climbed Mera Peak 21 times, Island Peak 17 times, and other peaks multiple times. Each season would have him guiding several groups on the mountain treks.
Then came an opportunity in 2003 as he was working for World Expeditions an Australian company.
“I was leading all the high passes groups up in the mountains,” he said. “Like from one valley up the mountain through a pass into another valley.”
He met a group of Victoria, Australia, policemen who had an opportunity to climb Mount Cho-Oyu, which at 26,864 feet is the sixth highest peak in the world and 20 kilometers west of Mount Everest on the China-Nepal border.
They wanted to summit the mountain from the Chinese side.
Tamang said he was chosen by his company to guide the expedition. There were four Australian police officers from Victoria doing the climb along with three climbing Sherpa assistants and Tibetan staff. One of the Nepalese on the team now works at the Casper restaurant.
“Unfortunately, we went up to 7,380 meters (24,212 feet) which is camp three and my group leader (an Australian police officer) unfortunately he died there,” he said. “And we had to finish the expedition and bring the dead body to the Chinese base camp and call the helicopter from Nepal.”
A Negotiation
He said the situation was not good.
They worked 72 hours nonstop to bring the body to the Chinese advanced base camp. Then there was negotiation between the Australian, Chinese, and Nepalese governments about flying a Nepalese helicopter across the border to pick up the body.
When they finally got permission from the Chinese for the Nepalese to send their big Russian-made helicopter to the camp, it couldn’t land there.
“We had to again take the dead body to the border, and it took nine hours from there,” he said. The Australian ambassador came to the border to get the body via helicopter.
Tamang said it was a terrible experience for his first expedition leading a group. They had to walk three days to another Chinese base camp to get picked up and then were taken back to the border.
At the border, they were picked up and driven to Kathmandu.
Then the situation changed his life. The Australian embassy invited him and members of the team to a dinner to thank them for their efforts. The body of the deceased climber was flown back to Australia about four days later.
“My friend who I (now) partner with from Australia worked very hard to bring us to Australia to honor us,” he said.
In September 2003, he and the two other members of the team who brought the body down the mountain, were sent round-trip tickets to Australia for a 10-day visit to the country. He was and other members of the rescue team were honored there.
He said he also learned the officer on the climb died of a heart attack.
Once back in Nepal, the experience transformed Tamang into a sought-after guide for the 8,000-meter peaks.
In 2004, he led trekking expeditions, but in 2005 he tried to get on a Mount Everest assignment, but his company assigned him to lead a Spanish Army expedition to summit Mount Makalu, at 27,838 feet the fifth-highest mountain in the world.
Seventh Hardest Route
They wanted to climb the West Pillar route up the mountain, the seventh-hardest route in the world, Tamang said.
The mountaineering website, explorersweb.com describes the West Pillar route on Mount Makalu as “complicated and dangerous” as well as technically challenging. Climbers are exposed to the mountain’s strong winds.
“I was guiding for them, and we tried our best,” he said. “And we spent 64 days on the mountain. The West Pillar is like a wall, you have nothing.”
He said they climbed up to 7,300 meters (23,950 feet) and the next day tried to go up 400 more meters, but the weather became so bad they had to call off the expedition.
“It was really great training for me because we used all the different devices,” he said.
In 2006, he met Nick Farr, his Australian business partner, and they went back to Mount Cho-Oyu where the officer had died on the climb and summited it on Oct. 2.
In May 17, 2007, he was on Mount Everest guiding a Texas climber to the top. After they summited, he didn’t think he officially qualified for the accomplishment because he was working.
“When you are climbing a mountain, just to summit is not a successful climb. You have to get back to the base camp,” he said. “Then you can think you did successful climbing.”
He said he guided his client back to the base camp and other team members applauded him for a successful summit. Tamang said he was surprised.
And the next week, he had a friend who was supposed to lead another group up Mount Everest. His friend got sick and had to return to Kathmandu.
Tamang said his boss chose him to take over and lead the group.
“I went straight back to climb Mount Everest again on the 24th,” he said. Tamang said he again made the ascent but was not credited with the climb because the Nepalese government had not issued a permit for him for the second climb, it had been issued to his friend.
That system has now changed, he said.
“I do have a certificate for the 17th of May, but not the 24th,” he said.
Wyoming Everest climber Mark Jenkins, who was with a National Geographic expedition that summited Everest in May 2012, said Tamang’s two summits in a week likely were made possible because guides use oxygen to keep their minds clear and provide the necessary strength and energy.
He said if the summits were made without oxygen that would be an extraordinary feat.
Still Climbing
Tamang said he has had offers from American and British companies to work with them on Everest but he decided to focus on building up his company with Carr.
He said he still climbs the 6,000-meter mountains. A group is scheduled to climb Mera Peak, the 21,000-foot trekking peak that offers a view of Mount Everest in November.
“It will be 22 times,” he said.
He said his company hopes to lead climbs on Mount Everest but has not been able to generate enough qualified climbers to make it financially possible.
Tamang said mountaineering can be addictive. He agrees it is dangerous, and he understands that people who become his clients often want to challenge themselves. As a guide, he focuses on safety.
He does not get tired of the reward, even though he knows at his age, the mountains don’t get easier.
“Once you get to the top, it seems like you are on a different planet,” he said. “You see everything below you.”
Tamang said he would like to climb some mountains in America and will meet with climbing friends in Seattle next week. He hopes one day to come back and try some peaks on this continent. He’s got his eyes set further north than Wyoming.
“My plan is to do one trip in Alaska,” he said.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
