Nancy Svendson on the life of Pasang, the 1st Nepalese woman to climb Mount Everest

This podcast was a wonderful opportunity to speak with film director, Nancy Svendsen, about her 10-year passion project covering the remarkable life of Pasang, a Nepalese climber. She documents the obstacles Pasang had to overcome to climb Mount Everest and become the first Nepalese woman to climb the highest mountain in the world. Fascinating chat learning what she lived for—and ultimately died for.

Episode Transcript

(00:13):
Again with another great episode of FindingYour Summit, all about people overcome university
in finding your Way. Today,I have got an amazing guest. I
can't wait to talk about the filmthat she produced. But before we get
there, I want to direct theattention to my website www. Dot Mark
Pattison, NFL dot com. There'sa lot of stuff going on over there,
over two hundred and sixty episodes ofamazing podcasts of people doing incredible things,

(00:38):
achieving really amazing inspiring things that weall need to be inspired every day.
And so check those out if youwill. If you scroll through,
you find those there. That's numberone. Number two is we continue to
raise money for Higher Ground through amillions everest. My daughter is epilepsy and
spending wonderful experience to try to raisemoney, help others and through it all
help my daughter overcome the thing thatshe battles every day, which are seizures.

(01:03):
And the last thing is the NFLshot amazing film Searching for the Summit,
which we won a Best Picture.For anybody watching or listening this right
now on YouTube, you can seeMiami right here to my left, which
is really cool and I'm very pleasedto have that, so there's a button
you can push that and you cansee the full thirty minute best Documentary film.

(01:25):
Hopefully it will inspire you to doother things and go out there and
she as well. Okay, onthat note, let's jump into today's wonderful
guest. Her name is Nancy Spencer. Nancy, how you doing great?
Nice to be here, so nice, so pleased to be here. Thanks.
Yeah, yeah again. I've gotall the sun blasting through the window
here. I'm in Sunny Sun Valley, Idaho. Just snowed about a foot

(01:48):
yesterday and now the sun is outso it's glistening and the snow is what
I'm used to, what I like. But I want to talk about a
couple of things. So number one, you are a movie director. You
dreaded to film which I want totalk about called Pas Sang in the Shadows
of Everest. And before we getthere, I want to start back on

(02:10):
your particular journey on how you gotintroduced to storytelling. Where did that love
come for from you? You knowthat that love came from a deep,
deep place in my childhood. Honestly, I mean I have been telling stories
for as long as I can remember, and and I think back to when

(02:31):
I was I don't know, tentwelve. I mean, we had a
little neighborhood group of kids where itwas the playwriting group and we would climb
up into our treehouse and we wouldwrite plays and then we would put them
on for the neighborhood. And Iloved books as a child. I was
one of those kids that you know, was always reading and rereading the same

(02:54):
book over and over again. Lovingthe power that story telling had from me
in my life. It felt likesomething that could could inspire me, could
to to either you know, amazingjoy or move me to tears. And
it's something that as I grew up, I really found had you know,

(03:19):
powers in other ways. Power storytellinghas power to actually make people do things,
to change their lives, to toinspire change and all kinds of things.
So I mean it started really young. Well there's actually, uh,
there's no there's no question that alongthat journey too, that there was this

(03:40):
pull for you to really be talkingabout you know, women empowerment as well,
um and kind of the underdog andsome of the stories that it seems
like you've come up with and you'vebeen behind. And again we're going to
get into this really amazing story aboutthe song. But you know, from
from your standpoint, you know,why was did you see an injustice or

(04:00):
you just wanted to be a spokespersonfor women in general, or did you
just find those stories more compelling toyou well as a woman. You know,
I first of all, I thinkpart of it goes all the way
back to my mom. You know, my mom. I grew up in

(04:20):
a small town in Iowa, smallfarming town. My mom actually grew up
on a farm during the Depression,and and you know, she wanted more
than anything to go to school.She actually had to move to town.
There were no school buses. Shehad to move to town when she was

(04:40):
twelve and lived by herself and ina little you know, guest or whatever
guest house so she could go tohigh school. And then she, you
know, at sixteen, graduated andyou know, got her first school,
country school where she had to walktwo miles in the snow and start the
fire. I mean it was youknow, here I am today that sounds

(05:01):
like it was Laurenele's wilder back andthen you know whatever, But but it
was my mom, and she feltthat education was the most important thing and
that for women to be educated.So she she got an education, she
put herself through through college, savingmoney teaching. She got a teaching job

(05:23):
and saved money. And I watchedmy mom and I and I listened to
her talking about how empowering it wasfor women to be educated. And and
then, you know, I cameout of college, and I guess sort
of played it safe. I neededto support myself. I got a job.
I kind of happened into a careerin the medical field, in medical

(05:46):
business, and and I ended upbeing good at it, and I got
promoted, and you know, hereand all of a sudden, here and
then this was my career. Iwas a healthcare executive. And and I
found myself in so many, Iguess, situations where I'm in a room
full of men and and that youknow, I would be negotiating deals.

(06:11):
And then afterwards, the you know, celebrations, the men celebrated and they
I didn't always get invited. Imean, I really did feel the difference.
I felt that there was something there, and I felt how incredibly important
it is for women to raise otherwomen up. I mean that's saying it
was my mom raising me up.I mean my mom saying, you know,

(06:31):
we stand on the shoulders of thewomen that came before us, and
so I think it started at areally young age, but then I really
saw it in the workplace. Andand not not that there weren't some amazing
men, very dear friends that thatthat I worked with and that were incredibly
supportive, but but there is apattern. I think we all know there's

(06:54):
a pattern, and that that thatthat kind of those kinds of issues exist
for women, and that it ismany times harder for women to do to
get the same recognition as men.So so that's you know that came I
through lived experiences, honestly, andwhen I came upon this story, you

(07:15):
know, Poissan really came alive forme as someone who lived it in a
much bigger way than I had livedit. Well, there draws the parallel
right now, and I can certainlyunderstand why again, trying to lift up
one other women and the story withthe song we were going to talk about
here in a minute, you know, really resonated with you in a way

(07:40):
that you wanted to go out thereand really highlight her story. And what
an incredible story. So let's talkabout that. So, first of all,
I want to plug Allison Levine.I know she's your executive producer on
the film. She was on apodcast with me probably one hundred and fifty
episodes ago, so a long timeago, and she was wonderful and she's

(08:00):
for for anybody that doesn't know,Alison Levine has climbed the Seven Summits,
I think actually she's done the Explorer'sGrand Slam, which also includes the South
and the North Pole. So she'sone up on me on that. But
you know, she's remarkable. She'sa public speaker, and she does have
some influence out there, and certainlyshe's been on Everest a couple of times.
And so this film pas song andlet me just give a quick set

(08:26):
up and then I want to askthe question. So the quick setup is
she ultimately became the first Nepalonese womanto climb Mount Everest in nineteen ninety three.
Okay, but in order to getthere, there were just all these
hardships and going back. And I'veobviously been in Nepal now since I climb

(08:46):
out Everest. But it's such amale dominated society to think that any woman
in nineteen ninety three doesn't seem thatfar long ago. It's not like nineteen
fifty or something, but still verymale dominated. You know, the women
are more or less expected to,you know, raise the children and cook

(09:07):
the food and you know, dothose types of things. And the men
are out doing other types of jobs. But very traditional, yeah, in
that sense. And so any ideaof having a women go up and dominate
and climb on evers back in thosedays wasn't really a thought. So where
did this how and when did thisstory land in your lab? It's ten

(09:31):
plus years ago. I was workingaway in the healthcare field, like I
said, I had big jobs.I was traveling a ton, and my
sister met a man that she workedwith in San Francisco and they ended up
getting married. And his name ison Georgie Sherba. They met at work
and fell in love and got married. And so I was having dinner at

(09:56):
their house, like I said,ten plus years of probably twelve, ten
years ago, and and Georgie,over a lovely bottle of wine, told
me this story about his sister.And you know, market was one of
those like I don't know if you'veever had an aha moment, a moment

(10:16):
and that sort of pierces through everything. And I was just so struck and
moved by the story of his sister, and certainly the way that Doorgie told
it, which was, you know, from this incredibly heartfelt place of a
lot of grief, honestly, becausewhen his sister, He's Georgie's the eldest,

(10:37):
the oldest brother, a family offive brothers, one sister. And
he was actually in the States andhe grew up guiding people on everest.
His father was a serdar. Thewhole family, u you know, was
they were up in the Koomboo andand you know, Georgie had come to
the United States by the time hissister was really doing her climbing, and

(11:00):
he lived then full time in theStates, and he didn't get to go
back when she passed away, whenshe summoned and passed away. And I
think he lived with that, thatsadness and that that sense of morning ever
since. And so he told meabout her and about all about what an
amazing person she was, what acharismatic and dynamic person she was that just

(11:24):
was never satisfied with what somebody elsetold her. You know, what was
was what she was allowed to have, right she wanted more, and she
wanted to define her own life.And he told me the story, and
then he told me how he,you know, had never hadn't been able
to be there, and how he'dreally wanted to make a film right after
she died, and he'd contacted alocal Bay Area filmmaker, Rick te Hata

(11:48):
Flores, and together they got alittle bit of money from somebody and went
back to nepal And and filmed someinterviews. And this was again back in
the late nineties. So thank godhe did that, because we have these
amazing archival interviews of people, someof whom are no longer living, closer

(12:09):
to when all of the events actuallyhappened. But then they came back to
the States and tried to get fundingfor the film, and as so often
happens with documentaries, independent documentaries,they couldn't get funding, and they just
put all the footage in a box, put it up over the store in
Rick's storeroom, and kind of forgotabout it. And so it was after

(12:33):
Georgie told me the story, andI carried the story around with me for
probably a year, you know,and thinking about it, and then it
turned out that I had the opportunityto step out of what I was doing.
I was they were moving my wholedivision to Nashville, and I had
the opportunity to take a nice seven'spackage and I said, I'm going to

(12:56):
make this film. And I wentto door Jay said, you know,
will you help me. I'd liketo make this film. And of course,
knowing that I had never made afilm, I had been in an
entirely different industry. But he said, yeah, Nancy, I'll help you.
Let's do it. And so Iembarked on this pool ten to twelve

(13:16):
year project of making this film.So you kind of spilled the beans a
little bit, but it took Ibelieve it was her fourth attempt before she
actually made it to the top,which means she tried three times earlier,
didn't make it in her fourth time. And the heroic thing is that she
makes it up there, and thenon her way down there was bad weather.

(13:39):
It was something that came up,and she ends up falling off the
mountain and she passes away and dies. And so we're going to talk about
kind of her celebrity, you know, post mortem after she did pass and
what the Napoleones have done. ButI can't imagine, you know, as
a Napoleones person just in general,were the average salary with a sherpas is
six thousand dollars a year, andthat's on today's dollar. I can imagine

(14:03):
what it was back in nineteen ninetythree. And then you take this as
a is a woman trying to pullthis off and not just once, not
twice, three times and four times, actually going through this and having to
go raise money in a way thatpeople are going to support her, when
again it's a very male dominated culture. So to try to make that happen,

(14:24):
I can only imagine the type ofperson she must have been, relentless
to try to get this done.Yeah, she was. You know,
it's it's it's hard, you know, given in twenty twenty two and our
western lenses that we're looking at thisstory through, it's really hard to fully
appreciate. I think what it tookfor someone like her here she was,

(14:48):
Yes, she was a woman ina male dominated society. And remember this
is the eighties and the nineties inNepal, it was still a Hindu kingdom
there, and and then there wasin the backdrop these themes and yearnings for
democracy that we kind of all overthe globe was when the Berlin Wall fell,
all of this, and and thatwas happening in Nepal as well.
And so here she was a woman. Here she was an indigenous woman.

(15:11):
So as a Serpa woman, ninetypercent of Nepal is Hindu, and Serpa's
are less than ten percent of thepopulation. They're Buddhist, and so they
are not they don't fall into thecast system. So the cast system that
it was certainly very much in effectin the eighties and nineties, and of
course still is today. But Imean all of the ruling people, the

(15:33):
ruling party, the ruling the king, and all the government officials would have
been high cast into and Paisan.As a Sherpa woman, her first language
was Serpa, which is an unwrittenlanguage. And so when she ran away
from her arranged marriage, you know, found her her partner and they ended
up, you know, walking tokat Mendu back in the eighties and to

(15:56):
make their life together because there werethat was only way you could get there
when you had no money. Andyou know, she would have had to
learn to Polly, and she wouldhave spoken to Polly with a really heavy
country accent, and she would havebeen looked at as as a kind of
a country bumpkin by the ruling parties, by the government officials, she would

(16:17):
have been ignored, She would havebeen taught that as a woman, as
an indigenous woman at that time,she really wasn't even allowed to make eye
contact with these high government officials becausethey were so much above her in terms
of their their place in society.And and in fact, the term outcast
comes from being precisely being outside ofthe cast system. She was an outcast

(16:42):
outside of the entire cast system.And so you think about that, and
then couple it with you know,men mostly men on Everest, and and
and her first expedition, which sheactually was a part of a French expedition
that was put together by a Frenchclimber named Mark Batard. And and you

(17:07):
know there was in talking with somany people on that expedition, both French
women, climbers. It was itwas the climb where the first French woman
summited, actually Christie Jenna. Andand but talking with all those those climbers,
and I've talked with lots of otherWestern climbers, I find that there
is a lack of understanding about whatit would have taken for somebody in the

(17:33):
song's position to even be in aplace where they were attempting to summit Everest
number one, just the money toput together the expedition. Training. She
had no training, I mean sheshe didn't belong to a gym. I
mean she didn't. She didn't,you know, I mean you think about
what you know, so many ofthe elite climbers do to prepare for Everest,

(17:55):
and especially now right sleeping in hyperbolicchambers and all kinds of things,
and all the latest technology and interms of what what they you know,
their gear and instruments. When whenPoisson went up on her fourth climb,
the government would not even allow themas a Napali expedition to have walkie talkies

(18:17):
because it was a controlled item becauseof the fears of political unrest, and
so they didn't even have walkie talkieson that expedition, which quite honestly could
have saved you know, saved herlife. Um So, so I think
that it's it's it is. Itis. Yes, we can, we
can look back and appreciate, butwhen you learn a little bit more about

(18:37):
all of the cultural trappings that existedat the time. It was pretty damn
amazing that she, you know,was there on the mountain and trying to
do something that everybody told her shecouldn't do, including her government. Yeah,
I mean, that's that's nuts.And you know, look, I
had a lot of people saying thatI wouldn't do it, and I had

(18:59):
all those things that you talked about. The just the bells and whistles of
climbing today versus twenty years ago,fifteen. You know, it's just a
it's a different game. I dohave a gym, I do live at
the mountains. I have all thebest equipment, you know, all those
kinds of things. So, andmost importantly, they probably had walkie talking
you know, in case something youknow, went south. But where on

(19:22):
the mountains since I've been there fromtop to bottom, where on the mountain
did she fall to her death?Well, she didn't actually fall to her
death. They they she summited andthen they came back down to the South
Summit and they died overnight at theSouth Summit. And she'd actually done the
same thing two years before and survivedand came down in ninety one. And

(19:47):
so I think that she and everybodyfelt that you know that they might she
might survive, but they ran outof oxygen during the night. She was
with two other sher Buzz and theone them who had been the cerdar on
the expedition. So I'm staring Cherpawas having some some sort of health issue
where he was coughing blood. Hewas really impaired, and then she was.

(20:11):
They ran out of oxygen because they'rethere. They summited late number one,
it was after two, you know, which is really kind of the
cutoff time at you know, worstcase scenario for when you're supposed to turn
around. And then they got down. It was a snowstorm had come in
from the Tibet side and so thevisibility was really bad. They made it

(20:32):
down to this south summit and thenthey ran out of oxygen. So then
they stayed for the night and oneof the sherpas, pambenore Be Serpa,
who I interviewed, he was stillokay the next morning Passng was completely clear
mentally, but she couldn't she couldn'tget up. I mean, she was
the lack of oxygen overnight after she'dbeen on oxygen, she couldn't get up.

(20:55):
And then so what I'm searing wasactually very sick. So so she
told Pambanore who to go down tocamp four and bring oxygen up to them,
and and so he did. Soshe was alive that morning, and
he went down to camp four andyou know, as this was all happening,
this incredible snowstorm, I mean itwas just it lasted for ten days.

(21:17):
I mean, people were it wasan incredible storm. And so he
got he got down to camp fourand you know, there were three other
sherpas there and some oxygen, andthey made an attempt to they started to
try to get back up to themand they just couldn't make it. So
they went back and and so that'syou know, when they actually mounted a
rescue effort for i well, arescue effort, an effort to bring the

(21:41):
bodies back, which was also imprecedented. I mean they that she's the first
sherpa who was whose body was everretrieved from Everest. And so they went
up and they found her at theSouth Pole or at the South summit frozen
sodom searing. However, they didnot find and suspicion is that he just
was blown off. It was sucha fierce storm and it's such a small

(22:03):
place as you know. Yeah,well yeah, very steep too to say
the leads. Yeah, you know, I feel very blessed because when I
made it down to twenty six tofive Camp four, I spent the entire
night with Noah's I had run out, and so you know the fact that
I'm sitting there having this conversation withyou today, you know, I feel
very blessed. How I survived thenight, I have no clue, but

(22:26):
it's just the way it played out. Okay, So let's talk about two
things. One, the celebration ofher life. It seemed like the government
and now it may have this wrong, but the government kind of made a
pivot and went from we don't wantto recognize this person to now we want
to celebrate this woman who became thefirst person woman to climb Mount Everest.

(22:52):
Very true. They so they wentfrom charging her the full twenty five thousand
dollars fee that they charged all ofthe foreign expeditions they tried. They she
went and actually got an audience withthe Prime Minister and asked them to waive
that fee given it was an allNepali team, and he wouldn't do it,
or they wouldn't. The government wouldn'tdo it, so I think and

(23:15):
I think they really underestimated her interms of her power, her star power,
the number of people who were awareof what she was doing, because
I mean, remember she's some sherbook. I mean, they really had very
little regard at that time. TodaySherpas have a lot more economic power,
but at that time they were juststarting to gain economic power in nepal And.

(23:41):
And so I think personally that theywhen they saw that she summited and
then she you know, went missing, there were headlines in the newspapers,
on TV, where's the song she'dbeen? She'd done these press conferences,
and I think they realized they hada problem that you know, they needed

(24:03):
to try to fix because they hadn'tsupported her. That was that was public
knowledge, and so you know,they actually went back to the family,
uh, you know, in Katmanduand tried to refund the twenty five thousand
dollars UM that they they had madeher pay to climb for the permit,
and the family refused um. Butso yes, the government did um.

(24:29):
Certainly if you read a lot ofthe news reports of the time, there
was a lot of criticism from againsome of the you know, the high
cast publications et cetera about what abig deal they made, such a big
deal and and um. But theyended up giving her the Nepal Tara,
which is the highest honor um thatthey that Nepal can bestow. The other

(24:52):
person that has the Nepal Tara inrecent history as Tenzig Norgay, who of
course with Sardman. And then theyhad this huge public display our outpouring of
grief. They bought brought the bodydown. The body went to the house
for a few days and as inBuddhist custom, and then they took the

(25:15):
body and made the circle around katMendou and thousands and thousands of people were
in this procession. They took herto the soccer stadium downtown and they had
people could come and pay respects there. And then they took her body up
to a well known Buddhist shrine andthey, you know, they burned the
body there again according to Buddhist custom. So um, and now you know

(25:40):
they ended up they built a lifesize statue of Pasan which exists today in
in Bodha in kat Mendou, andthere's a postage stamp, and there's a
school in hospital and all kinds ofthings named after her, so they really,
you know, after the fact,did go um, you know,

(26:00):
quite far to honor her. Solet's talk about the film now in its
entirety. It's it's it's it's beenin several different film festivals. I think
you want some more awards and thingslike that. What has that experience been
for you? You know, goingaround a lot of times when you sometimes
you don't always have to be there, but a lot of times the director
is there and stands up and answersquestions and everything at the end, the

(26:22):
reception, all those types of things. What's that been my for you?
It's been amazing. It's number one. I mean, you know, this
was a film, a labor oflove over a period, over a decade
of my life. So to seeaudiences or to experience it with audiences and
feel them really loving the song andand and weeping and being inspired has been

(26:48):
everything. I mean, it's it'swhat I wanted, you know, for
the film. So that it's beengreat. I mean we started in March
at Santa Barbara. That was ourlaunch that Santa Barbara International Films. Well,
and we've been to quite a numberof festivals, and yes it's great
to win awards. I mean,that's that's validation that both audiences because we

(27:10):
want a few audience awards and alsoJuries. We've had won a number of
Best Mountain Film at BAMP. Wejust want an award over at Kendall Mountain
in the UK. We won oneat Mountain Film and Tell your ide and
and that's validation that others. Numberone, that that Juries and filmmakers see
this as you know, a filmthat's well made and and and a story

(27:33):
that's important to tell. So it'sit's been really validating for me as a
filmmaker and for my team. Imean, as you mentioned, you know,
Alison Levine has been a supporter formany years and been instrumental as kind
of leading my executive producer group interms of helping to get funding for the

(27:55):
film and really get the word out. And the rest of my team and
amazing group of executive producers Jan Katsav, Robert Fishbook and my team. Jeffrey
Friedman is my editor. He's anAcademy Award winning Bay Area documentary filmmaker.
I just I've been completely blessed tohave this amazing team both on the creative

(28:18):
side, and on the financial businessside that's awesome. And where can people
find this film? Well, we'restill in festivals, so we have we're
going to be that's going to bewrapping up in the first quarter. We
have a few more festivals where we'regoing to be in bill Bow, Spain
next week, but we have anotherwe're going to be in Boulder actually in

(28:41):
that I think the first week inMarch at the Boulder Film Festival. But
we're in active conversations with a coupleof streamers right now and and so we
expect that in the spring we arehoping to dovetail a streaming release with these
several tent pole events that are happeningMarch, as you know, as Women's

(29:02):
History Month and International Women's Day.And then in April. April twenty second
April is the thirtieth anniversary of Pisong'sClimb, and May is the seventieth anniversary
of Sir Redmond Hillary intending Norgay's Climb, and so our whole film team plans
to be in Katmandu and probably upin Noam shape bizarre in April celebrating because

(29:26):
because the folks in Nepaul haven't seenthe film yet. So so this is
going to be our big Napali launchand again we were hoping that we will
be able to have some kind ofa streaming deal by then as well.
So, but people can certainly followalong on our website at our which is
possongmovie dot com, which always hasthe latest in terms of what festivals are

(29:48):
coming up or any private screenings thatsort of thing. Love it, love
it, Okay, listen, it'sbeen wonderful to listen to your story,
you know, kind of coming outof right field. You fail towards a
certainly a pursuit of passion to createthis film. It's now winning awards and
all these different film festivals and youknow, again following your dreams and what

(30:10):
you like to do, which atthe end of the day, going all
the way back to when you're akid storytelling and I think you've done a
great job. I've seen some ofthe trailers and things like that. It
looks really cool. So I justI'm here trying to promote the film and
anybody that wants to go out thereagain. The name of the film is
called Passan in the Shadows of Everest, and you can find all information pass

(30:32):
the movie dot com. I thinkthat's right. A song movie, all
one words dot com, pisan movie. There we go, Okay, there
it is. Thank you so muchfor coming on. Nancy. There.
She is the one, the only, Nancy Vincent