Running and Baking in Thin Air
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The Story of Ang Chhutin Sherpa - Everest Marathoner and High-Altitude Baker
Every morning, Ang Chhutin Sherpa wakes early to open up her café and bakery in Pheriche, a small village that’s a popular stop for trekkers making the journey to Mount Everest Base Camp. She runs Cafe Altitude in the lodge owned by her husband’s family. Before most people awake, she starts the espresso machine and gets the coffee brewing. Then, she’ll step outside to lace up her running shoes and escape to the trails.
This daily dose of high-altitude adrenaline in the rugged terrain of Nepal’s Himalayas fuels her days. Now she’s present and focused on baking pastries at an elevation of 14,341 feet or managing projects at the highest medical clinic in the world; that serves trekkers and Sherpa communities in the region.
She’s a runner. Not just the kind of runner who logs a daily jog. She is a self-taught ultramarathoner who climbs and descends thousands of feet in the world’s highest places. No fancy gear, no coaches - just pure drive. And she finishes at the top of the competition, with hardly a glance at the clock.
Ang has been running since childhood, when she was a girl helping her parents tend their yaks and cows in a small town near Namche Bazaar, the gateway for the trek to Everest and a hub of commerce and travel in the Himalayan foothills. When she was young, she didn’t realize that running was a sport. Running, like walking, is integrated into daily life in Nepal. It’s how most people get from town to town.
As she grew older, Ang saw people running along Nepal’s trekking paths, for fun which sparked a new fire. She thought she could do that, too. And in 2014 driven purely by her passion for running, she signed up for her first marathon.
Every year, on May 29th, the highest marathon in the world begins at Mount Everest Base Camp, elevation 17,598 feet, with a view of the Khumbu Icefall rising up behind runners at the starting line. The date of the marathon holds historical significance. It’s the anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest by Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hilary, on May 29, 1953. However, unlike the mountaineers and Sherpas who make the pilgrimage to Base Camp only to keep climbing up to the summit of Mount Everest, the runners in the full marathon must descend more than 6,000 feet in 26 miles. The race begins in a frozen landscape and descends with the trekking path, down, down, down all the way to Namche Bazaar’s greener, more temperate climate.
The weather is unpredictable in Nepal, but on May 29, 2014, the sky was a crisp, clear blue when Ang raced in the Everest Marathon. Hundreds of runners come to Nepal every year for this race, traveling from all over the world to compete in the thin air. Without fancy running shoes or even a watch, Ang just ran. At the finish line, she was in the top 10 overall and the women’s champion. She says that if she had known she was being timed, she could have run faster.
Running the Everest Marathon in 2014 changed Ang’s world forever. For her running wasn’t about winning. It was about opening doors for adventure, new cultures, and new connections all over the world. Later in 2014, she ran the Royal Penguin event, a 37-mile ultramarathon, from Namche Bazar—this time up, up, up—all the way to Renjo La Pass, elevation 17,536 feet, and back.
She’s traveled abroad for races, too. She ran the Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon in Malaysia, where runners race to the top of the highest mountain in Borneo, elevation 13,435 feet. She ran the Liechtenstein Alpine Marathon, which ascends almost 6,000 feet and then descends another 2,000 feet. Back home in Nepal, she also ran the Solukhumbu Trail Race, a stage race that traverses 280 kilometers, or 174 miles, in 16 days, with two mountain passes in between. In the Solukhumbu race, Ang remembers meeting so many people from all over the world. She won that marathon, but she says the reason she loves to run is every race introduced her to new people and new cultures. When Ang ran with them language barriers dissolved in the shared passion for pushing their limits.
“I know (many things) about many places through running. Through running, I can meet many people,” Ang says. “Running gives me fitness, and (in return) I can learn more about the different places, their culture, and customs from the different places.”
In 2016, Ang took a hiatus from running. She got married. She gave birth to two daughters, who are now growing girls. She opened her bakery and started managing the medical clinic. Through her businesses and her work in Pheriche, where trekkers pass through every year on their way to Mount Everest Base Camp, she continues to meet different kinds of people from all over the world. That’s how she met the KÜHL team, who are helping her get back to running by supporting her with better gear, and better shoes. New shoes are expensive in Nepal, and something Ang says she couldn’t afford without help from KUHL.
“Last fall, I was lucky enough to meet with the KÜHL team,” she says. “I’m so happy and pleased that KÜHL is helping me with running. KÜHL has become my motivators, after they decided to provide me with running equipment.”
Now, in 2024, a decade after she smashed the competition in the Everest Marathon, Ang is back on the trail. Since reconnecting with her passion for running, she runs every day, if not twice a day. After the bakery closes, she’ll often head outside for another run in the evening. She chooses running over other outdoor pursuits and sports because running, she says, she can do any time, in any place.
In the last year, she’s already run two marathons: the Rainaskot Vertical Race, near Pokhara, in the Annapurna region of Nepal. And the Everest View Trail Marathon, in lower Solukhumbu region. “This year, I’m ready to run,” Ang says.
Ang Chhutin Sherpa isn't your average runner. She's a testament to the raw power of persistence, a woman who carves her own path through the thin air, one determined step at a time.
