It's worth noting that the term "Sherpa" does not actually mean "mountain guide," as many people believe, but instead refers to an ancient ethnic community of some 154,000 members.

The Sherpa people of Nepal are a perfect example of evolving a superpower, she says. Members of this ethnic group have lived for more than 6,000 years at an average 14,000 feet above sea level, ...

For every four people who make it to the top and manage to descend alive, one dies trying. When Maya Sherpa decided to climb K2 in 2014, her family thought she had gone mad.

“Sherpa people are naturally happy because they are born and raised in the mountains without distractions,” Lhakpa said. “Buddhism is not religion, it is a way of living.

The Sherpa people belong to an indigenous ethnic group that has lived in the high-altitude eastern regions of the Himalaya since migrating from eastern Tibet to Nepal in the 15th century.

It never fails. Whenever I walk into the Sherpa House Nepalese restaurant in Golden, my olfactory receptors whisk me back to the Himalayas and a three-month expedition to Mount Everest nearly 40 ye… ...