Learn to Speak Sherpa

Im going to nepal to climb/ski next year and wanted to try and learn some of the Sherpa language before I go. I've found online dictionaries, but i'm undoubtedly butchering the accent trying to teach myself. Anyone have any idea of where I could find a tutor or language courses somewhere in northern california? I live in Truckee. Pretty random question, but maybe the internet can help!

Honestly, if your hope is to be able to speak with people working as sherpa, you may be better served learning Nepali. Those working as Sherpa come from a diverse group of ethnicities (among which there are Gurung, Tamang, Sherpa, Newar, and even Pakistani, among others), and I think you'll find relatively few people who speak Sherpa - Gurung and Tamang are much more common secondary languages among the Sherpa, and Nepali is spoken universally (it's what kids learn in schools). 

Thanks Thomas, I've asked some friends about that who have been over there and they said it was mostly the sherpa language up on the mountain? But then i read something more similar to what you're saying. I've heard conflicting things about the best thing to learn....thanks for the info!

To a Westerner, Sherpa and Gurung are both very similar (many Gurung will even just say that they are Sherpa for simplicity's sake). For a working language, I'm not sure what they use - but I guarantee that almost everyone on an expedition's team will speak Nepali.