UNDER EVEREST: LAURENCE ELLIS

LUKLA, A SMALL NEPALI TOWN, IS THE ENTRY POINT FOR MANY THOUSANDS OF HOPEFULS LOOKING TO SUMMIT THE WORLD’S TALLEST MOUNTAIN. LAURENCE ELLIS TURNS HIS LENS NOT TO ITS DIZZYING PEAKS, BUT TO THE COMMUNITY THAT THRUMS IN THEIR SHADOW.

Sat a soaring 2,860 meters above sea level, the small town of Lukla is home to fewer than 500 Nepalis. It’s also the most common starting point for hopefuls of all nations and backgrounds, looking to reach the top of the world—to summit Mount Everest. Lukla is 138 kilometers from Kathmandu, the South Asian nation’s capital, most easily accessible via the Tenzing-Hillary Airport. Surrounded on all sides by vertigo-inducing peaks, boasting a single asphalt runway, it’s known to pilots as the most dangerous in the world. Still, it gets traffic—upwards of 100,000 passengers annually by recent counts.

Tenzing-Hillary gets its name from Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay—the former, a Kiwi mountaineer, the latter, a native sherpa. Together, they became the first confirmed pair to reach the top of Everest: 8,850 meters. They reportedly spent 15 minutes at the peak before turning back, “taking photographs and eating mint cake.” It was May 29, 1953. There was no one else in sight.

Today, if you try to climb Everest, you’ve got to wait in line. Sometimes, it stretches back more than a hundred people. On average, there are one and a half sherpas to every foreign climber, and that ratio’s only increasing, particularly on the mountain’s Nepali side. Sherpas play a vital role in the nation’s tourism industry. Some of their practices have evolved—adopting modern climbing technology, acquiring technical certifications, and learning multiple languages—but much of their training has been passed down as traditional knowledge. In recent years, female sherpas and mountaineers have become increasingly common. Cultural barriers remain, but they’re beginning to dissolve. Lhakpa Sherpa is somewhat of a celebrity amongst female climbers, having summited Everest 10 times thus far.

Hillary’s influence in the region (and Norgay’s, by extension) spans beyond the memory of that fateful 1953 morning—beyond the airport and the biographies and commemorative golden statues. In 1961, the mountaineer became the namesake of a secondary school, the first of several he built in a bid to widen access to education for Nepali youth. This one is located in the Khumjung Valley; originally comprising just a single classroom, the campus is now spread across multiple buildings, with student hostels in the vicinity, rendering an otherwise backbreaking daily commute much simpler for remote students. It adds dimension to a bond that’s become fraught in the modern age: Foreign climbers often take sherpas for granted, coming and going and leaving nothing in their wake when it comes to contributing to Lukla’s culture.

Since its inception, the Edmund Hillary school has overseen the instruction of thousands of children, across multiple generations. It’s performed exceptionally by national standards, attributing its success to constant consultation with local community members. While some students eventually make their way to Kathmandu and other larger cities, they largely remain committed to carrying their hometown’s traditions far into the future. Lukla, by virtue of its extraordinary location, was thrust into a position no one saw coming. A travel destination, a hub for passing-through—treated, all too often, not as a place with a longstanding way of life, but as a temporary camp trampled by the masses.

The communities in Lukla and Kathmandu, and across localities in between, are carving out new paths in the wake of their global presence. But these changes aren’t made at the expense of their heritage. Photographer Laurence Ellis takes a closer look at the scene, searching for faces and stories and landscapes off the wider world’s beaten path.