This Europe: Sherpas learn the ropes at Austrian climbing school

Nepal's Sherpas helped to conquer Everest, but Hans Gapp is convinced that the best mountaineers have something to learn at Austria's lower altitudes from Alpinists such as himself.

Skills such as how to tie a knot, for instance. Important, Mr Gapp says, because nearly half a century after Tensing Norgay helped Sir Edmund Hillary to scale the world's highest mountain, many Sherpas still don't know how to tie knots useful for climbing and other tricks that could save dozens of lives a year.

"They are very good climbers," says Mr Gapp, one of a group of volunteers taking Nepalese visitors through a three-month course on mountain safety, environmental consciousness and modern alpine inn-keeping. "But for the most part they have no clue of climbing safely."

The Sherpas are studying at Prielschutzhaus Lodge above Hinterstoder, about 35 miles south of Linz. The chief organiser, Gertrude Reinisch, started bringing members of the Sherpa ethnic group and other Nepalese to Austria six years ago after she went trekking in the Himalayas and heard of needless deaths. Ms Reinisch said a Sherpa risked his life to save a friend of hers who had fallen into a glacier crevasse but died months later after tumbling into another fissure. He was not secured by a rope – "the equivalent of committing hara-kiri", says Ms Reinisch.

Kaji Sherpa, 27, said: "Sure, we have big mountains, but we don't have the technical expertise to climb those mountains, and to rescue those who fall." (AP)