The Team That Helped Fix the Ropes on the Hornbein Couloir
If you’ve watched Everest: The Other Side, or you’re familiar with the historic expedition, you might be curious about the team that was trusted to fix the ropes up a route that only a handful of people have ever climbed, on the tallest mountain in the world.
At Alpenglow Expeditions, we know that our team of expert guides, athletes, and support staff is a huge part of what makes our expeditions so special. Our trip to Everest in the fall of 2025 was full of climbers from alldifferent backgrounds who have each mastered their craft. Keep reading to learn a little more about the Alpenglow team members who supported Jim Morrison’s climb and descent of Everest’s Super Direct route.
The Sherpa and Support Team
We would never be able to climb these mountains without our Sherpa teams. They are the core of our strength and experience on Everest, and the Sherpa team that we worked with on the Everest: The Other Side project was made up of some of the best Sherpa and mountain workers on the planet.
Our team had more than 100 summits of Everest among them, and their strength and skill helped set the stage for the summit push:
- Dorji Sonam Sherpa
- Pemba Ongchu Sherpa
- Matias Moreira
- Chewang Lendup Sherpa
- Lhakpa Nuru Sherpa
- Lhakpa Sonam Sherpa
- Kama Rita Sherpa
- Sonam Tashi Sherpa
- Ngima Sona Sherpa
The Summit Team
These are the Alpenglow Expeditions lead guides and Sherpa who summited Everest with the National Geographic expedition in October 2025. Before that expedition, only five people had climbed Everest’s North Side via the Super Direct route (the Japanese Couloir and Hornbein Couloir). On this expedition, we had twelve team members at the summit.
Esteban “Topo” Mena
Born in Ecuador, Topo started climbing at age 13 with his school’s climbing club. Even though the trip was meant as a punishment, he was hooked on the sport.
At 19, Topo climbed the highly technical Messner Route on Aconcagua with Carla Pérez and Joshua Jarrin, which earned him the attention of his future mentors and cemented his decision to become a guide. Topo went on to earn IFMGA certification in 2016 and at 23 became the youngest non-Sherpa to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen or high-altitude porter support.
On the expedition featured in Everest: The Other Side, Topo anchored the climbing side of the trip, and working with him was one reason that Jim Morrison, Jimmy Chin and their team wanted to collaborate with Alpenglow.
Carla Pérez
In 2019, Carla became the first woman from the Americas to climb and descend both Everest and K2 without supplemental oxygen, and the first woman in the world to do both in the same year. Her path began in Quito, where she started climbing as a child in the Ecuadorian highlands.
Carla has a master’s in geochemistry and has been climbing full-time since 2007. Five 8,000-meter peaks later, including Manaslu, Cho Oyu, and Makalu, National Geographic named her to its 33 list in 2025. Carla was an integral part of the ropefixing team, and summited Everest with the team on October 15, 2025.
Roberto “Tico” Morales
Tico, who is based in Quito, Ecuador, developed a love for the outdoors at an early age and first climbed Cotopaxi at 14. He has chased big walls and mountains around the world ever since, from a free ascent of “The Free Rider” in Yosemite to the Trango Towers and the remote walls of Kyrgyzstan.
Tico has guided professionally since 2006 and is an IFMGA rock and alpine guide. His team’s first ascent of “Directa Ecuatoriana” on Larkya Peak in Nepal earned a Piolets d’Or mention, and he now leads Alpenglow’s Aconcagua and Peru expeditions — and we are lucky to have him.
On the Everest expedition, Tico and Topo worked from Camp 3 at 26,080 feet to fix the route up the Hornbein Couloir, a narrow 1,500-foot gully that the whole team would later climb. Tico summited Everest with the team on October 15, 2025.
NGIMA TENZING SHERPA
Ngima Tenzing Sherpa is a veteran Sherpa mountaineer from the Khumbu with 12 Everest summits, including his 10th with Alpenglow Expeditions in May 2025, his 11th on the National Geographic expedition in October 2025, and his 12th from Nepal in May 2026. His climbing record also includes Manaslu (3 times), Makalu, Cho Oyu (4 times), Gasherbrum I and II, Ama Dablam (6 times), K2, Broad Peak, and Cholatse. He is closely tied to Phortse village and the Khumbu Climbing Center, and was a key part of the hand-picked Sherpa team on the 2025 North Side expedition. Most recently, he summited Ama Dablam with Alpenglow Expeditions on October 28, 2026.
Pasang Sona Sherpa, “PSO”
Pasang Sona Sherpa comes from a well-known Everest-region climbing family. His father, Lhakpa Sonam Sherpa, set a speed record on the 1988 China–Japan–Nepal Friendship Expedition, and his brothers Sonam Dorjee and Mingma Tenjin have also climbed Everest. Trained at the Khumbu Climbing Center in Phortse, he made his first Everest ascent in 2017 and has worked on National Geographic expeditions that installed weather stations in the Everest region.
Between May 2025 and May 2026 he summited Everest by three different routes: from Tibet on May 27, 2025, via the Hornbein Couloir on October 15, 2025, and from Nepal on May 21, 2026. He has also run the Everest Marathon three times. Most recently, in autumn 2026, he summited Ama Dablam (6,814 m) with Alpenglow Expeditions.
Pemba Gelje Sherpa
Pemba Gelje Sherpa (“Pemba G”) is an IFMGA-certified mountain guide, a longtime friend to Alpenglow, and the Managing Director of Expeditions High Mountain Treks in Kathmandu. From the Solukhumbu region, he has climbed 8,000-meter peaks over twenty times, including eight ascents of Everest, and set a speed record on Manaslu in 2023. A strong skier as well as a climber, he has guided extensively with Alpenglow Expeditions and was one of the guides who set up the North Side camps ahead of the 2025 summit push. His life story is told in the biography Step by Step by Mark Powell.
Yukta
Pur Bahadur Gurung, known throughout the climbing world as Yukta, was one of Nepal’s most respected high-altitude guides. Born in Laprak, Gorkha, he began as a helper and porter and became the first climber from the Gurung community to summit Everest ten times. He also climbed 12 of the world’s 14 8,000-meter peaks and had recently completed the IFMGA mountain guide course. Yukta was known for his calm leadership and contagious smile.
Yukta tragically passed away on July 30, 2026, in the Broad Peak avalanche in Pakistan. He was 37 and is survived by his wife and son.
Tenging “Ale” Gyaljen Sherpa
Tenging “Ale” Gyaljen Sherpa is an incredibly talented climber and Sherpa, having made several summits of Everest, and climbed Cho Oyu via the South Face. Ale helped the team reach the summit, carrying loads and always providing a smile on the team.
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