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Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThis article contains descriptions of domestic violence which some readers may find distressing.<\/i><\/p>\n Lhakpa Sherpa has a startling life story – to the outside world she holds the record for climbing Mount Everest a staggering 10 times, the most of any woman.<\/p>\n But behind the scenes, her personal life has been dangerous and fearful.<\/p>\n While conquering the world’s highest mountain, she says she was enduring domestic abuse from her husband – including during their 2004 descent from Everest.<\/p>\n Now based in America, she has raised three children, supporting them by working in a grocery store and as a cleaner. <\/p>\n Her life – on and off the mountain – has been made into a Netflix documentary, Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, directed by Lucy Walker.<\/p>\n Sherpa is proud of the film. <\/p>\n Eyes blazing, she tells the BBC: “I want to show people women can do it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What is perhaps surprising about her record-breaking climbs is that she does so with little training. <\/p>\n Climbing Everest can be fatal – there have been more than 300 deaths in the region<\/a> since records of mountain climbing there began a century ago. <\/p>\n So it’s vital to be in peak condition. <\/p>\n In the film, we see Sherpa keep fit by walking in the Connecticut mountains. But she also carries on with her normal working life, out of necessity. <\/p>\n “You’re an exceptional athlete,” Walker tells Sherpa during our interview. “Very tall. Very strong.<\/p>\n “People underestimate it. It’s an unbelievable accomplishment that you can climb Everest from doing your day job.”<\/p>\n Sherpa responds: “I’m not good with being educated, but I’m very good with the mountains.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Born in 1973 to yak farmers in the Nepalese Himalayas, she was one of 11 children.<\/p>\n Crucially, she was raised in an area where education for girls wasn’t a priority – she carried her brother to school for hours through the hills, but wasn’t allowed inside.<\/p>\n Things are now improving in Nepal – women’s literacy rocketed from 10% in 1981 to 70% by 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Sherpa’s lack of education left lasting consequences – she’s still unable to read. <\/p>\n Things people take for granted, like using a TV remote control, are difficult for her.<\/p>\n Her son Nima, born in the late 90s, and daughters Sunny, 22, and Shiny, 17, help bridge the gaps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n With no schooling, by the time she was 15, Sherpa was working as a porter on mountain expeditions – often as the only girl.<\/p>\n Through her climbing work she was able to avoid a traditional arranged marriage. <\/p>\n But life got difficult when she became pregnant after a brief relationship in Kathmandu.<\/p>\n An unmarried mother, she was too ashamed to return home.<\/p>\n Still climbing when she could, she met and fell for Romanian-US mountaineer and home-renovation contractor, George Dijm\u0103rescu.<\/p>\n He’d escaped Romania, under dictator Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu, by swimming across the Danube river.<\/p>\n Dijm\u0103rescu had already forged a new life in the US when he and Sherpa married in 2002, settling in Connecticut, where they went on to have Sunny and Shiny.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But the couple’s relationship fractured when Dijm\u0103rescu became violent, Sherpa says.<\/p>\n In 2004, this became apparent when they ascended Everest with a New England climbing group.<\/p>\n After reaching the summit they encountered bad weather.<\/p>\n Dijm\u0103rescu\u2019s behaviour \u201ctook a turn almost immediately\u201d, according to journalist Michael Kodas, who reported on the climb for a local paper. <\/p>\n Recalling it in the documentary, he says things around Dijm\u0103rescu got “hostile”.<\/p>\n Sherpa, who was in a tent with him, says on camera: \u201cHe look like thunder, look like bullet… George was yelling and he punch me.\u201d<\/p>\n We then see multiple photographs taken by Kodas, of her lying unconscious afterwards. <\/p>\n The journalist says he witnessed Dijm\u0103rescu say “get this garbage out of here”, as he dragged his wife from the tent. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the film, Sherpa describes being unconscious as an out-of-body experience.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople\u2019s voices turned to lots of birds. I saw my whole life. I fly near my mom\u2019s house. I saw through everything\u2026 I felt ashamed of myself. I want to go die.”<\/p>\n Then she remembered her children, and says: “I\u2019m not ready to die.”<\/p>\n Kodas included the violent incident in his 2008 book, High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in the Age of Greed.<\/p>\n Walker later persuaded him to release his film footage to her, including the raw tapes, calling it a “huge act of trust”.<\/p>\n “It’s such a difficult subject and people don’t sort of want to get involved, because it’s controversial… but I didn’t take no for an answer,” she tells the BBC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Despite their relationship being damaged, they stayed together for several more years. <\/p>\n But she says she was admitted to hospital when Dijm\u0103rescu assaulted her again in 2012.<\/p>\n This was a turning point. <\/p>\n With the help of a social worker, Sherpa moved with the girls to a women’s refuge, where she started to rebuild her life. <\/p>\n The couple divorced in 2015, and in 2016 a court awarded Sherpa “sole legal custody of the girls”. <\/p>\n A report at the time, in OutsideOnline<\/a>, said Dijm\u0103rescu received a six-month suspended sentence and a year of probation, after a conviction for breach of the peace. <\/p>\n He was found not guilty of second-degree assault because court documents stated she did not have a visible head injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Dijm\u0103rescu died in 2020 of cancer, but the trauma he left behind is tangible.<\/p>\n Sherpa found it really hard discussing their relationship for the documentary. <\/p>\n “I wish all the turmoil keep secret, I don’t want in my life it’s everybody know[ing],” she says.<\/p>\n But her son advised her to make the film with Walker, after researching her previous work.<\/a><\/p>\n The director says to Sherpa: “When you tell your story, you skipped bits, saying, ‘We’re not talking about these years’.<\/p>\n “And slowly, slowly, we go to the difficult things.<\/p>\n “It is very traumatic for you. You get very upset, you don’t sleep. It’s very intense.<\/p>\n “But actually, if you can share it, people love you more. Because when you let people know you have difficult times, other people, I think, connect much more now.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sunny and Shiny echo this.<\/p>\n They appear in the film, and found it “a bit overwhelming to watch at first, because of how vulnerable we were to have our whole life put on display”.<\/p>\n They agreed to take part because “the struggle we have been through as a family, and how we have used it to strengthen not weaken us, is such a crucial part of our mother’s story”.<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, Sherpa says life was tough after the trauma of her marriage.<\/p>\n “Oh my God, yeah, crying. I carry so much in my life. I work hard, I courage hard,” she says.<\/p>\n “Sometimes I say, ‘Why am I alive, why am I not dead, so many danger. Almost I’ve been in heaven, and come back. So difficult. But somehow I did it…<\/p>\n “Hurt woman is very tough. Does not give up easily. And I keep doing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Climbing is not only her passion – it’s also a healing process.<\/p>\n “My darkness I leave behind [on the mountain],” she says. <\/p>\n We see her begin her record-breaking 10th Everest ascent in 2022.<\/p>\n Whispering goodbye to Shiny, sleeping in a nearby tent in base camp, the climb begins at night, by torchlight.<\/p>\n This means her descent from the summit can take place in daylight. <\/p>\n It’s clear her daughters are proud of their mum.<\/p>\n Sherpa says she is creating a “better life” for her children in the US, including giving them an education. <\/p>\n “I really want changing my life, my daughters – I work hard,” she says.<\/p>\n She wants to earn her living with her own guiding company, and to find more sponsorship.<\/p>\n “I know the mountains, I wish I can share my expertise and experience with other people,” she says.<\/p>\n Sunny and Shiny add: “Women have started climbing big peaks and following our mom’s footsteps.”<\/p>\n If you or someone you know are affected by the issues in this story, support is available via <\/i>BBC Action Line<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa is on Netflix on 31 July.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png\")
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Netflix<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Netflix](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/76ed\/live\/f3085de0-3847-11ef-a044-9d4367d5b599.jpg.webp\")
Netflix<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Netflix](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/6195\/live\/5c316830-3847-11ef-bbe0-29f79e992ddd.jpg.webp\")
Netflix<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nHospital turning point<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Netflix](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/82a3\/live\/8aa5a640-3847-11ef-a044-9d4367d5b599.jpg.webp\")
Netflix<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n‘Hurt woman is very tough’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Netflix<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n