The Snow Leopard's Coldest Hour: Ang Rita Sherpa's Historic 1987 Winter Ascent of Everest Without Oxygen

In the dead of winter, the Death Zone of Mount Everest (8,848m) is arguably the most inhospitable environment on the surface of the Earth. Between December and February, ambient temperatures at 8,000 meters routinely drop beneath minus 45 degrees Celsius. The stratospheric jet stream descends directly onto the summit ridge, generating hurricane-force gales exceeding 100 miles per hour that strip the snow down to polished black ice. At this altitude, air pressure is one-third of sea level, and without compressed oxygen, human blood oxygen saturation drops to levels that induce fatal cerebral or pulmonary edema within hours.

Medical consensus in the 1980s asserted that climbing Mount Everest in astronomical winter without supplemental bottled oxygen was physiologically impossible.

On December 22, 1987, a 39-year-old Sherpa from the village of Yillajung in Solukhumbu proved the medical dogma wrong. His name was Ang Rita Sherpa—known across the high valleys as Himchituwa, The Snow Leopard.

The Anatomy of a Legend

Born in 1948, Ang Rita never attended school. As a child, he spent long winters herding yaks in the biting winds of the high pastures beneath Ama Dablam and Kangtega. This upbringing forged a superhuman cold tolerance and an extraordinary cardiovascular engine. Where foreign climbers required weeks of acclimatization and struggled for every breath above Camp II, Ang Rita moved through the thin air with effortless, rhythmic composure.

Between 1983 and 1985, Ang Rita had already climbed Everest three times without supplemental bottled oxygen. His sheer stamina, total absence of altitude sickness, and preternatural ability to navigate shattered glacial terrain earned him the Snow Leopard moniker.

In November 1987, a South Korean expedition led by Lee Sang-bae hired Ang Rita as Sirdar and lead climbing climber for a winter attempt via the South Col route. Ang Rita made a personal vow that astonished his companions: he would attempt the winter summit without breathing bottled oxygen.

The Jet Stream Tempest

The winter expedition was an unrelenting trial of psychological endurance. The Khumbu Icefall was in continuous violent contraction, shattering ladders and opening yawning crevasses in sub-zero contractions. Higher up, on the colossal wall of the Lhotse Face, hurricane winds tore away tents and gear.

Climbers endured agonizing coughing fits from breathing super-cooled dry air, and taking off a single glove for even sixty seconds resulted in instantaneous frostbite. Yet day after day, Ang Rita led the route, hammering ice screws into bullet-hard blue ice and hauling supplies to Camp IV on the South Col (7,920m).

By December 20, the team was in position at the South Col. The meteorological winter had officially commenced. Outside their frozen nylon shelter, the wind roared like an approaching freight train, with temperatures inside the tent registering -38°C.

The Historic Push: December 22, 1987

At 3:30 AM on December 22, 1987, Ang Rita Sherpa and Korean climber Heo Young-ho stepped into the raging gale. Heo wore a full oxygen mask connected to heavy steel cylinders. Beside him, Ang Rita wore only a woolen face mask and goose-down hood, breathing the raw, freezing Himalayan atmosphere directly into his lungs.

The physical challenge was monumental. With every breath, the freezing air seared his trachea and lungs. To maintain core body temperature against a windchill factor exceeding -65°C, Ang Rita had to keep moving continuously without rest. Step by agonizing step, he kicked his crampons into the wind-crusted snow, climbing past the Balcony and traversing the corniced Southeast Ridge.

At the Hillary Step, where brittle rime ice covered the rock, Ang Rita hauled himself up the vertical cracks with bare-handed precision before putting his mittens back on.

At 2:20 PM on December 22, 1987, Ang Rita Sherpa and Heo Young-ho stood on the 8,848-meter summit of Mount Everest. Ang Rita had achieved what no human being had ever done before—and what no one has ever repeated since: he had stood on top of the world in the dead of winter entirely without supplemental oxygen.

The Immortal Record

Ang Rita’s 1987 winter conquest was officially ratified by Guinness World Records as the only winter summit of Mount Everest without bottled oxygen in human history.

Over his career, the Snow Leopard summited Mount Everest ten times—every single climb accomplished without supplemental oxygen—alongside four oxygenless ascents of Cho Oyu and Dhaulagiri. Decorated with Nepal’s highest civil honors, Ang Rita passed away in 2020 at age 72.

He remains the ultimate symbol of Sherpa endurance, physical mastery, and high-altitude courage—a true titan who reigned supreme in the coldest realm on Earth.