2 Sherpas from Utah summit Everest

The Sherpas did it.

A group of Sherpas, including two who now live in Utah, reached the top of the world Tuesday night, when it was Wednesday morning in Nepal, according to www.everestnews.com.

Utahns Apa Sherpa and Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa were part of the seven-Sherpa summit team that set out for the top of the 29,035-foot peak, located in a time zone 12 hours ahead of Utah's.

"With great excitement in his voice, Apa (Sherpa) called base camp on his radio and said, 'We are on the summit. We are all on the summit,"' Roger Kehr said in an e-mail.

Kehr has kept in constant contact with the group from his home in Utah. He said all but one of the seven made it to the summit (Dawa Sherpa had to return to Camp 4), and all were "safe and sound," ready to take the "necessary" photos just before 9 a.m. Wednesday and then make a "hasty" departure.

The SuperSherpas Expedition became one of the first two teams this year to summit from the mountain's more technically difficult south side. This time, however, these Sherpas weren't porters working for pennies on the dollar.

They weren't carrying heavy loads of food and supplies in the bitter cold and wind for foreigners who typically pay an outfitter tens of thousands of dollars for a trek up Everest.

On the world stage, they were just a bunch of Sherpas, that is, before they became the first-ever all-Sherpa team to summit Everest.

But how will the successful summit of the SuperSherpas Expedition be received by an international media that critics say have, in the past, glorified foreign climbers while leaving Sherpas essentially in the shadows of their own back yard?

"They still do not command even a fraction of the attention that foreigners still attract," Kehr said in an interview earlier Tuesday.

Kehr was part of the SuperSherpas team in Nepal until he became ill and had to return to Utah.

"It's our fervent hope that they become Hollywood stars," Kehr said. "That way they can get paid. Right now they don't have enough money to pay for their children's education."