Join The Explorers Club and the American Himalayan Foundation on May 29th to celebrate Everest Day with performances, presentations, and community.
On May 29th 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa accomplished the first summit of Everest – a monumental achievement and one of The Explorers Club’s Famous Firsts. Now, 73 years later, The Explorers Club will be joined by President of the American Himalayan Foundation and Tenzing’s son, Norbu Tenzing, to celebrate the culture of the Himalayas and ongoing climate work being done to protect this sacred region.
The day will begin with a traditional puja followed by tea at the Sherpa Cultural Center, which is optional and the public is welcome to attend (no ticket required). The evening at club headquarters will feature a traditional Sherpa musical performance, as well as a presentation on Climate Change in the Himalayas by Sherpa climate scholar Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, Ph.D.
Although communities across the Himalaya have been living with the impact of climate change for decades, the risks from geological hazards such as glacial lake outburst floods, as well as extreme events like heavy rain flooding, have become increasingly acute. Scientific studies report that glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalaya disappeared 65% faster in the 2010s than in the previous decade (ICIMOD 2023). Rapid melting has continued into the 2020s alongside further changes in temperature and precipitation patterns. In Khumbu, warmer winter months and reduced snowfall are causing ice and snow to melt rather than replenish for use in the summer months, with serious implications for water availability. Pasang Yangjee Sherpa examines how these accelerating environmental changes are reshaping everyday life, resource security, and local responses in the Everest region.
RESERVATIONS
This will be an in-person event at Explorers Club Headquarters.
In-person tickets are $20 for Members, and $35 for the General Public.
No tickets are needed to attend the gathering at the Sherpa Cultural Center, which will
begin at 11:00 am at 41-01 75th St, Elmhurst.
Check-in will begin at 5:30 pm, with a beer and wine reception from 5:30 – 6:30 pm, the program will run from 6:30 – 7:30 pm.
Norbu Tenzing
Norbu Tenzing is President of the American Himalayan Foundation and the son of Tenzing Norgay Sherpa who, along with Sir Edmund Hillary, was the first to climb Mt. Everest in 1953. Though Norbu lives in San Francisco, he travels often to his native Himalaya and is deeply familiar with the challenges faced by Sherpas and the other mountain communities who live there.
The American Himalayan Foundation supports vital education, health care and cultural
and environmental preservation throughout the Himalaya and each year touches the
lives of 300,000 Sherpas, Nepalis, and Tibetans.
Pasang Yangjee Sherpa
Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, Ph.D., is a Sherpa multidisciplinary scholar from Khumbu (aka Mount Everest region) in Nepal, who studies human dimensions of climate change in the Himalayas. She is an assistant professor of Lifeways in Indigenous Asia in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies and the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia.
