Early on Oct. 9, Dawa Yangzum Sherpa took the final, labored steps to the pointy summit of Shishapangma (26,335 feet), the 14th highest mountain on Earth. At 8,027 meters tall, it’s the lowest of the 8,000-meter peaks, but for Dawa, it was a spectacular high point — the finish line in her quest to become the first Nepali woman to climb all 14 “8,000-ers.”

Born in 1990, Dawa grew up in the village of Beding, Nepal, a small town at 12,300 feet in the Rolwaling Valley without electricity or running water. As a young girl, she would see the local men leave each spring to work for expeditions in the high mountains — a prestigious career that sometimes offered the chance for summits, including Mt. Everest (29,032 feet). Dawa wanted to climb Mt. Everest too, but as a girl — whose formal education ended at 11 years old — she was expected to stay home.

Traditional roles didn’t suit her well.

At 13, she left home without telling anyone by joining a trekking group that needed porters for the strenuous Tashi Lapsa pass. For six days she carried loads, earning $20 — enough for a plane ticket to Kathmandu, where her uncle lived. “That was the beginning of everything for me,” she said, in a 2018 Outside article.

In the ensuing years she learned, she trained and she climbed 7,000-meter summits. Then in 2012, famed American alpinist Conrad Anker asked Dawa if she would join a North Face/National Geographic Everest expedition as one of a dozen Sherpas, and the only female. She would ferry loads between camps, then afterward she could climb. On that trip, at 21 years old, she achieved her dream of summiting Mt. Everest.

As happens with ambitious young climbers, that dream was immediately replaced by another: to further her guiding career by earning her International Federation of Mountain Guides Association (IFMGA) credentials, the most advanced certification possible. “I wanted to be able to guide internationally like the men did,” she said in Outside.

The IFMGA training and certification is a years-long process involving many courses and month-long tests in the mountains. Part of the requirement is real-world experience, which Dawa took to extremes. In 2014, she became the youngest woman to climb K2 (28,250 feet) as part of the first all-female Nepali team to summit.

In December 2017, when she finally earned IFMGA status, there were roughly 6,000 IFMGA guides worldwide, with fewer than 1.5% being women. Moreover, she was the first Asian woman to earn the certification.

After a brief sigh of relief, Dawa Yangzum ramped up her tally of 8,000-meter peaks, including a 21-hour speed ascent of Makalu (27,838 feet), Annapurna (26,545 feet) without supplemental oxygen and Broad Peak (26,414 feet), on which she was the first Nepali woman to summit.

Yet amid the hype of high mountains and lofty achievement, the 34-year-old has remained committed to positive influence beyond her personal success. “For me, it’s about inspiring other women and shining a light on important issues like climate change,” she said in an October interview for The Kathmandu Post.

With her IFMGA diploma, Dawa returned to Nepal in 2019 to teach an all-female program for the Khumbu Climbing Center — a school where she had learned crucial climbing skills seven years earlier. “Since 2019, I’ve been leading female courses and mentoring girls for guiding and climbing class,” Dawa emailed. “In our culture, it’s very difficult (for women) to get outside the first time, and we usually have to travel with men. So, I would help them travel outside with all-female teams.”

She did all this while training for and climbing the remaining 8,000-meter peaks, some of which she guided. Her clients were Westerners, a few of whom shared her goal of doing all 14. “If they can do it, then I can also do it,” she said.

And last month, on the summit of Shishapangma, she added her name to the short list of those who’ve climbed all the 8,000-ers — a victory for herself and, as Dawa said, for the women of Nepal. “They are just proud to see a Nepali female also on that list.”

Contact Chris Weidner at cweidner8@gmail.com. Follow him on Instagram @christopherweidner and X @cweidner8.