The spring climbing season on Mount Everest came to an official close in late May when monsoons once again crept up the Khumbu Valley and shrouded the world’s highest peak in clouds.

The world’s highest peak saw both ambitious climbers breaking new records and images of conga lines clogging the summit ridge this year. But this season’s most notable statistic may be the dramatic downturn in fatalities from the record high in 2023. Nine climbers perished or went missing in 2024, down from 18 a year ago. Why? Experts cannot agree on one specific reason.

Government officials confirmed six deaths during the season, and three others are considered “missing,” however they are presumed to be deceased. The downturn in fatalities came amid a busy year on the peak. According to Rakesh Gurung, managing director of Nepal’s Department of Tourism, the agency issued 421 permits to foreign climbers in 2024—down from 478 last year—and approximately 600 people reached the summit, between climbers, high-altitude guides, and other mountain workers.

What Made Everest Less Deadly This Year?

Gurung attributes the decrease in deaths to new safety regulations imposed by regional Nepali lawmakers—rules that required —as well as to greater oversight by government officials. “Recognizing the tendency for climbers to push their limits despite deteriorating health at high altitudes, field officers actively engaged with climbers at various camps, emphasizing the importance of safety measures,” he told ���ϳԹ���. “There was a heightened sense of vigilance and caution among guides and operators.”

Yellow band on Mt Everest (8848.86 m), 20.05.2024. Video ©: Rajan Dwivedi.

— Everest Today (@EverestToday)

Expedition operators told�����ϳԹ��� that there is some truth to Gurung’s perspective.

Thaneswhar Guragai, general manager of Seven Summit Treks, believes the tragic deaths in 2023 forced Nepali expedition operators to boost safety measures this year. Some forbade clients who were unprepared from venturing to the summit, he said.

“This year the Nepali companies are more cautious about their reputation. If the climber and the guide are not ready, they won’t send them up to the summit,” he told�����ܳٲ������.��“When the situation is not ready, it’s not like in the past when they would still send the clients. If the client decides to go up, we will stop them and bring them back.”

But others pushed back on Gurung’s assertion that the government’s new safety protocols had a dramatic change. “I never saw the Recco system in anyone’s clothing or gear, and I don’t think it would help,” said American guide Garrett Madison.

Did Weather Impact Safety?

Instead, Madison and Guragai pointed to the weather on Everest for creating safer conditions in 2024 than last year. In 2023, temperatures plunged well below freezing during the two-week climbing window, and climbers had to battle extreme cold for most of the ascent. In 2024, some climbers reached the summit wearing baseball caps.

This year climbers enjoyed an early weather window, and several dozen reached the top on May 13. But then high winds and snowfall descended on the peak, pushing the majority of climbing teams to summit when the weather cleared on May 21st. Huge crowds formed on the fixed ropes in the days after, but those climbers enjoyed clear skies and warm temperatures.

“Overall the 2024 season was much warmer than the 2023 season,” Madison said. “So it seemed like less people got sick from colds, viruses, etc, and there were fewer weird fatalities.”

Bili Bierling, manager of the website, Himalayan Database, which tracks ascents on 479 peaks in Nepal, believes climbing teams may have also benefitted from a more intangible factor: good fortune. “The conditions and the weather were very stable this year—the number of deaths is sometimes pure luck, sometimes the conditions,” she said.

Everest Season Still Wasn’t Perfect

But this spring was far from flawless, and nine deaths is still higher than the annual death total in recent years. According to The Himalayan Database, three people died on Everest in 2022, while five died in 2021, 11 perished in 2019, and five died in 2018. Austrian guide Lukas Furtenbach believes most of the fatalities this year were preventable and could have been avoided with “regulations, uniform minimum standards and mandatory safety protocols.”

One rule guides proposed was limiting climbers from scaling the peak without using supplemental oxygen. Of the nine dead, four were climbing without the use of supplemental oxygen. Mongolian climbers, Usukhjargal Tsedendamba, 53, and Purevsuren Lkhagvajav, 31, were found just below the summit. According to Bierling, who tracks climbers on the 8,000-meter peaks, neither man had previous climbing experience in Nepal, and both were attempting the peak without supplemental oxygen. A Kenyan climber named Cheruiyo Kirui, 40, also died near the summit while climbing without oxygen—his guide, Nawang Sherpa, has yet to be found. And Romanian climber Gabriel Tabara, 48, was found dead in his tent while attempting to ascend 27,940-foot Lhotse without oxygen.

“There could be a minimum amount of oxygen cylinders for each person, also no solo climbing, clients of guided expeditions are at no point on the mountain left alone and many other basic things,” Furtenbach wrote to ���ϳԹ���. “Fourteen of 18 from last year and six of nine from this year died because of a lack of oxygen at some point above Camp III.”

Two other fatalities were also preventable: Pas Tenji Sherpa and his client Daniel Paul Paterson fell to their deaths when an ice cornice collapsed. The two had unhooked themselves from the fixed ropes to navigate a traffic jam on the summit ridge when the accident occurred.

Records Tumble Across the Himalayas

Climbers set several ascent records on Everest in 2024, with notable expeditions completed by Nepali climbers. Photojournalist Purnima Shrestha became the first woman to summit three times in a single season, and Dawa Finjok Sherpa, also of Nepal, became the first person to record four ascents in the same year. Phunjo Lama, another Nepali, shattered the women’s speed record by climbing from Base Camp to the summit in 14 hours and 31 minutes, and finishing the round trip in 24 hours and 26 minutes.

These ascents came amid a flurry of Nepali accolades in the Himalayas this spring. Nima Rinji Sherpa, an 18-year-old Nepali climber, became the youngest person to summit 28,169-foot Kanchenjunga, marking his 13th ascent of an 8,000-meter peak. Nima Rinji is hoping to become the youngest person to ascend all 14 8,000-meter peaks, and he is now tied with 19-year-old Frenchman Alasdair McKenzie. who has also climbed 13.

Near Everest, a team of Nepali climbers completed a rare ascent of 26,864-foot Cho Oyu from the steep Nepali side. The peak straddles Nepal’s border with China, and most climbers ascend it from China. The successful expedition came after Gelje Sherpa and others had attempted for several years to climb the peak from the Nepali side.

For the first time in four years, China opened the north side of Mount Everest to international climbing expeditions. However, the official announcement was delayed until early May, prompting a number of companies to shift their ascents to the more crowded Nepal side. Overall, north side ascents went smoothly, and a handful of international companies enjoyed having the mountain to themselves.

The post Fewer Climbers Died on Mount Everest this Year. We Dug into Why appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

At 6 A.M. on May 21, Nepali climbing guide gazed from the summit of Mount Everest for the fourth time in his life. The sun was cresting the horizon, its rays painting the peak’s eastern face in shades of orange and pink. Vinayak, who holds a certificate from the International Federation of Mountain Guides Association, marveled at the unusually high temperatures atop the mountain—it was so warm that he removed his gloves to snap photos of his client, a climber from Peru. The conditions were ideal for a summit push, and Vinayak predicted that the 100 or so climbers he’d seen the day before above Camp III would soon reach the top.

After 15 minutes, the two headed down toward the peak’s serrated summit ridge, which forms the international border between Nepal and China. The narrow and rocky section, usually scraped bare by wind, was covered in snow from a recent storm. The winds had sculpted the drifts into fin-like cornices that hung over the peak’s sheer Kangshung Face overlooking Tibet. They looked like gargoyles sitting atop a medieval cathedral.

After descending a few hundred feet, Malla abruptly halted. A massive group of climbers was trudging toward the summit on the knife edge. Both ascending and descending climbers were clipped into the same safety rope, and Vinayak knew that everyone would soon come to a standstill.

“The line was moving extremely slowly,” he said.

Ahead of Malla stood another descending climber, American Mark Baumgartner, a 49-year-old tech entrepreneur. He had just summited Everest, his first Himalayan peak, reaching the top alongside four guides and assistants.

Baumbartner told ���ϳԹ��� that he was unfazed by the traffic jam—the calm conditions kept his spirits high. “When the weather’s nice, a busy day means you go slower,” he said. “I was happy to go at the pace of the mountain.”

The ascending and descending climbers navigated the narrow section, carefully skirting each other while unclipping and then reclipping into the safety lines. The route took them over jagged rocks, chunks of ice, and the puffy snow cornices. Then the crowd heard a rumble. Without warning, one of the snow ridges detached from the rocks and plunged down the Kangshung Face.

“It felt like an earthquake,” Malla said. “There was a huge noise and everybody jumped back away from the cornice. I cried out because the mountain under us was shaking, but nobody could hear me. Everyone was terrified.”

Baumgartner heard the noise and looked at the ridge line ahead of him. A horrifying scene played out in slow motion: multiple climbers who had been standing on the ledge fell and began sliding downhill. He could see people grabbing the fixed line. “I assumed that everyone was clipped into the rope,” he says.

But not everyone was. Baumgartner stands six foot four, and from his vantage point he saw four of the climbers stop falling after the safety rope pulled tight. But two others continued sliding downward toward a sheer dropoff below.

“I was like holy shit— those people aren’t stopping,” he says. “Two people were sliding to their deaths. And it was silent.”

A Sheer Drop into China

Those who ascend Everest from the south side in Nepal must traverse the mountain’s daunting southeast ridge—the final section before the summit. Here, the route narrows after crossing the false south summit at 28,500 feet. Everyone’s pace slows due to the combination of thin air and traffic.

The route across the ridge shifts slightly each year due to snow conditions, wind, and rockfall. A major change to the route occurred during the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal in 2015. The infamous Hillary Step—a 40-foot vertical rock that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay famously shimmied up in 1953—partially collapsed, leaving a series of step-like rocks.

No matter the conditions, one element of the route is a constant: the sheer drop-off on either side of the knife edge. In some areas, the walking pathway is no wider than three feet. On one side is a plunge down wind-scoured rock into the Western Cym. On the other is the infamous Kangshung Face, a nearly vertical wall of rock and ice that plunges 11,000 feet to a glacier below.

“For a first-time Everest climber, the summit ridge might feel the same as the rest of the climb. But as an experienced guide, the dangers are obvious,” Malla said. “The soft snow and the cornices are the first thing you notice, and it’s quite scary.”

This spring, rope fixers encountered a relatively uncommon feature along the section: deep snow. Heavy precipitation deposited drifts on the ridge which were quickly flattened into a platform by the footfalls of the rope fixing team, allowing climbers to quickly and easily progress through the section.

Small groups of climbers pushed for the summit after workers completed the lines to the top on May 11. But strong winds and a violent storm kept most of the expedition operators grounded until the third week of May. That’s when a week of favorable conditions opened, prompting several hundred climbers and guides to push for the top.

Amid this rush to the summit, gridlock was inevitable. Guides told ���ϳԹ��� that in this situation they teach clients how to safely pass slower climbers or those descending from above. The maneuver involves unclipping themselves from the safety ropes as quickly as possible, making the pass, and then clipping back in. It’s an exercise that’s only done in areas where fall risk is minimal.

“You only overtake when absolutely necessary, and when the situation is safe to do so,” Malla explained. Often, a guide will attach a separate rope to the client as an extra safety precaution, so that one of them is always clipped in.

“We always use a guide rope or our safety line to attach the client to us,” Malla continued. “Ideally, when you have two guides, you attach on either side of the client so that someone is always connected to the fixed rope.”

But not everyone follows the guidelines during every moment of the ascent. And guides often look for ways to save time on the peak—limited oxygen puts a premium on a speedy ascent and descent. Some guides simply attach themselves to their clients and opt not to clip into the fixed safety ropes to bypass traffic. We may never know what caused two climbers to tumble down the ledge without being clipped into the safety rope. But sources told ���ϳԹ��� that it’s not uncommon for climbers to quickly unclip from the rope, navigate traffic, and then clip back in.

Cornices and snow often collapse on the high peaks—something guides call “objective danger,” or a risk that’s simply inherent to the mountain and cannot be completely eliminated. But Himalayan experts told ���ϳԹ��� that the deadly collapse on May 21 was still shocking. Billi Bierling, Everest summiteer and director of the Himalayan Database, an online archive of expeditions, said she’d never heard of a fatal accident of this nature. “I’ve never heard of it near the summit, and I’ve been doing this job for more than 20 years,” she said. “But maybe this is what is happening with climate change, and with it getting warmer. Maybe it was not necessarily only too many people, but also the warm temperature that made this thing collapse.”

Paralysis at 28,000 Feet

Baumgartner and others who had witnessed the collapse stood on the summit ridge in shock. Those nearest the accident site helped pull the four climbers up on the fixed ropes—they had tumbled approximately 30 feet below the ridge. Others watched in silence. Baumgartner wondered if what he’d just seen was real.

“After three or four minutes I saw the people that were clipped to the rope start to climb back up,” Baumgartner said. “Then I realized that we were all kind of stuck because the mountain broke away.”

The delay stretched on for ten minutes, then 15, then 20. Nobody could see where the two missing climbers had fallen, but it appeared that they’d disappeared over the Kangshung Face. Malla said the group seemed to be paralyzed—should they look for the two missing men or continue down the peak?

“In the death zone, search and rescue isn’t always possible,” Malla said. “Besides, there wasn’t any point as they were definitely dead.”

Malla realized that one of the missing men was a Nepali guide named Pas Tenji Sherpa who, just minutes before, had stood alongside him on the summit. Malla said Pas Tenji had reached the top of Everest wearing a white baseball cap on his head—a testament to the balmy conditions. His climbing client—later identified as 40-year-old British climber Daniel Paul Paterson—had been wearing an oxygen mask, but Pas Tenji had not, Malla said.

“He was obviously very strong because he was guiding his client without using oxygen himself,” Malla said. “He was a young guy, very talented.”

Malla had glimpsed Pas Tenji’s white baseball cap navigating through the crowds near the Hillary Step just moments before the collapse. Now, both Pas Tenji and Paterson were nowhere to be found.

Malla believes Pas Tenji and his client must have briefly unclipped from the fixed ropes to overtake slower climbers at the exact moment the cornice collapsed. “He and his client were passing on the outside of the cornice that came off the ridge,” Malla said. “He had likely attached his safety line to his client when it collapsed.”

Raising Funds for a Search

News of the deadly collapse spread quickly from Camp IV down to Everest Base Camp. Pas Tenji had been guiding for operator 8K Expeditions, which organized a team of climbers to sweep the summit ridge for the missing men. But the search came up empty. On May 26, attempts to locate the two were suspended.

Paterson’s partner, Beck Woodhead, launched a GoFundMe page in the days following his disappearance. The proceeds, she wrote, would offset the costs of a recovery mission to bring his remains home.

“He is known for his adventurous spirit, his kindness, and his unwavering dedication to helping others,” Woodhead wrote on the page. “Now it is our turn to help him.”

Sources have confirmed that efforts are underway to secure permission from the Chinese government to search the Kangshung Face with helicopters flown from the Nepal side. But China is historically a tricky partner in recovery missions for international climbers. Sources told ���ϳԹ��� that the mission will require coordination between the Nepal, China, and UK governments.

“It is going to be difficult to search for them because they have fallen on the Tibet side which needs coordination,” Khim Lal Gautam, an official with the Nepal Department of Tourism, .

A Ticking Clock near the Summit

As more climbers ascended the ridge, the traffic jam at the Hillary Step grew longer on both sides of collapsed cornice. But nobody wanted to climb down, Malla said. He snapped photos of the logjam—but he knew he had a responsibility to get his client to lower elevation.

“Nobody wanted to move. Nobody had the courage,” Malla said. “We were all running out of oxygen. I realized that I had to do something. So I moved forward and started breaking a new trail.”

Malla walked around the waiting climbers and affixed himself to the now-empty rope. He slowly moved across the steep face, kicking footsteps in as he went. Once he reached the other side, one climber followed, then another. In his eyes, Malla helped prevent a greater tragedy atop the peak. Had climbers continued to stand around in shock, some could have run low on oxygen and died.

After a few minutes, it was business as usual on Everest once again. Malla and his client descended to Camp III where they spent the night and continued down to Base Camp.

Baumgartner and his team took a brief rest at Camp IV and continued all the way to Base Camp. After witnessing the disaster, he had one objective in mind.

“I just wanted to get off the mountain,” he said.

The post “Two People Were Sliding to their Deaths. And It Was Silent.” appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Every year, a vast ecosystem of Nepali mountain workers helps hundreds of climbers ascend and then descend Mount Everest. In 2024, approximately 1,500 of these guides, porters, cooks, rope fixers, and expedition operators will support the 414 paying clients on the peak.

Abiral Rai, 33, is one of these unsung heroes. Abiral is not Sherpa—he is from the Thulung Rai ethnic group, one of many found across Nepal’s eastern hills. He grew up in a small village in the Solukhumbu district of eastern Nepal, about a six-day walk south of Everest Base Camp. He began his career at age 18 by portering loads of rice, soda, and other supplies for the commercial trekking industry in the Khumbu Valley, and then ascended through the expedition industry’s labor force until he became a high-altitude mountain guide. In 2019 Abiral completed his certification with the International Federation of Mountain Guides Association (IFMGA).

This year, Abiral is working as a VIP guide for expedition companies Climbing The Seven Summits and TAG Nepal to help his client, a 29-year-old business owner from Singapore named Blake Li, reach the top. Abiral spoke to ���ϳԹ��� shortly after he and Li returned from their second acclimatization rotation on Everest—a hike to higher elevations to prepare their bodies for the summit push. He gave us a glimpse of daily life on the world’s highest peak.

Day 1: Navigating the Khumbu Icefall

Midnight, Mount Everest Base Camp (17,500 feet)

Abiral wakes alone in his tent and eats a quick breakfast of porridge, boiled eggs and toast. He gives his assistant, Tenzing Sherpa, the 22-pound bag of high-altitude gear his client packed the night before. Tenzing is paid by the weight that he carries, and on this trip he has chosen to carry a double-load totaling 70 pounds. Then, Abiral stuffs a sleeping bag, climbing and safety gear, a mattress, food, and water into his pack. He and Tenzing meet Li, and the three start hiking toward the peak. This is not their summit push, but a four-day acclimatization ascent up to Camp III at 23,500 feet. It’s still dark as they head down the trail, and their headlamps light the way to the Khumbu Icefall.

2 A.M., Khumbu Icefall (18,000 ft)

Abiral and Li reach the base of the notorious Khumbu Icefall, the dangerous glacier on the peak’s southwest face that is riddled with crevasses and collapsing ice blocks. Here, they both don crampons and remove warm layers to avoid overheating and soaking themselves with sweat. Due to their ability to travel quickly together, they are among the first to reach the tricky section. Every year, the Icefall Doctors, the route fixers who focus specifically on this section, establish the ever-changing pathway through the dangerous glacier. They break the route into sectors, assigning each a number from one to five.

3:30 A.M. The Football Ground (18,300 ft)

Abiral and Li pass sectors one and two quickly, stopping just once for a drink. They encounter the first large crevasses on sector three—a massive crack in the ice that’s bridged by aluminum ladders and safety ropes. Abiral crosses the ladders first and then holds the safety lines tightly to provide more support for Li. After they complete the third sector, they reach a wide-open area of the icefall known as “the football ground.” This area is safe from collapsing ice and rockfall, so the pair rests for ten minutes.

5:45 A.M. Danger Is Everywhere (19,000 ft)

Sector four of the Icefall presents two sizable dangers: unstable snow bridges across deep crevasses, and huge seracs towering overhead. Abiral walks faster through this section to minimize their exposure to avalanches. Traveling under darkness means the air temperature is colder, and the glacier ice is more firm. This reduces but does not eliminate the risk of avalanches. Just as the sun begins to rise, they meet a group of 30 load-carrying workers and climbers waiting beneath a 150-foot tall vertical wall of blue ice. Two nylon ropes dangle down the steep face of this terrifying fifth and final sector. Progress is slow, as the workers with heavy loads must remove their backpacks, climb up the fixed ropes, and then haul their gear up behind them. After waiting for several minutes, Abiral jockeys his way onto one of the nylon ropes and uses an ascender called a “Jumar” to scale the sheer incline. Once at the top, he hammers two aluminum anchors into the ice, secures his own guide rope, and drops it down to Li. Li ascends the fixed rope while Abiral’s guide rope adds an extra level of safety.

7:15 A.M. Reaching Camp I (19,900 ft)

Past the vertical ice, the route turns into a dangerous glaciated plateau, strafed by occasional rockfall. Abiral ties a rope to Li, and the other end to himself for safety, allowing one of them to quickly stop a fall should the other fall into a crevasse. They move as quickly as possible through this section. The sun is still low in the sky as they walk into Camp I. They find their section of tents, which were set up days before by other workers on their team. Abiral unloads their personal gear and sets up sleeping bags and mattresses in the tent that he will share with Li. He then heats water on his small gas stove and they drink tea and eat the last of their trail snacks. They will spend the rest of the day here, chatting with other climbers, resting, and allowing their bodies to acclimatize to the altitude.

5:30 P.M. An Early Bedtime

Abiral and his client have spent the last ten hours resting in Camp 1: hydrating, going on short walks, talking to other climbers, and trying their best to avoid the burning sunlight. Dinnertime comes early and with little fanfare. Abiral cooks a freeze-dried meal for Li with his camp stove. He eats a large bowl of mashed potato flakes with chili powder. They retire to the tent and are asleep by 8 P.M.

DAY 2: Avoiding Rockfall in the Western Cwm

6 A.M. Sherpa Oatmeal (19,900 feet)

Abiral wakes in the dark and cooks another freeze-dried meal for his client. Then, he cooks his own food: a large helping of “tsampa,” a Sherpa staple made of roasted buckwheat flour. They get onto the trail. Even though the walk to Camp II is short—less than two miles with 1,500 feet gained in altitude—it’s safer to complete the journey early in the morning before the sun warms the glacier and triggers avalanches along the route. Abiral also prefers to walk in the cool temperatures—direct sunlight slows clients down. The same journey may take twice as long during the heat of the day, and the exposure can lead to painful sunburn. As they walk, Abiral keeps an eye open for rockfall coming off the Nuptse face to their right.

9 A.M. A Short Journey to Camp II (21,000 feet)

Abiral and his client arrive at Camp II, which resembles a small, bustling city atop a rocky outcropping. The collection of tents is located halfway up the wide and dramatic undulating valley called the Western Cwm (pronounced “coom.”) There are 300 people here, the CTSS/TAG Nepal camp alone boasting 53 people. Guides, cooks, assistants and other workers mill about busily. Abiral prepares the tent, and then he and his client rest. Around noon, they meet in the heated dining tent and enjoy lunch.

5 P.M. Speeding up the Ascent

Abiral is impressed by Li’s strength at altitude. After discussing with him, Abiral decides to skip the rest day in Camp II and to instead venture higher onto the peak the next morning. He and his client eat dinner early and then head back to their tent. They are asleep by 6:30 P.M.

Day 3: A Punishing Climb Into Thin Air

3 A.M. Departure in the Dark (21,000 feet)

Abiral eats a quick breakfast of porridge, toast, and an omelet. He packs a light bag of snacks, two liters of water, and his warmest climbing gear. Above Camp II, the terrain and the temperature demands that he and the client don a set of heavier boots, gloves, and a full down suit. They rope themselves together, leave camp at 5:30 A.M., and walk across the glaciated valley towards the looming Lhotse Face.

7:30 A.M. A Wall of Rock and Ice (21,500 ft)

After nearly two hours of walking, Abiral and Li reach the base of the Lhotse Face, an intimidating, nearly-vertical 2,000-foot wall of rock and ice leading up to Camp III. Here, the climbing requires using jumars that allow climbers to ratchet themselves up the fixed ropes. This year, heavy winter snowfall never arrived on Everest, and now the route is mostly ice and rock. The hard surface makes the climbing more difficult and increases the potential for injury or death. Loose rocks and ice tumble down the slope as Abiral and Li begin the ascent. They started their day so early so that they could be alone on the tricky section, and avoid the famous traffic jams of climbers following in their footsteps. The Lhotse Face is often where photographers snap images of hundreds of climbers standing in a queue to reach the top. Abiral knows that at this altitude, speed means safety. Li’s strength on the jumar line is an asset—on previous ascents, Abiral has had to rope himself to clients that struggled on the incline and tug them upward. But this time, he and Li ascend at the same pace.

9 A.M. Reaching Camp III (23,500 ft)

After reaching the top of the Lhotse Face, Abiral and Li follow fixed ropes across exposed terrain for another few hundred feet to reach Camp III. The jumble of tents—both standing and shredded—sit between rocks, ice, and piles of gear. A few workers are chipping away at the bare ice to make room for additional tents. Abiral snaps a few photos and eats some chocolate. But this is a brief moment of enjoyment. Peering down the Lhotse face, Abiral sees a long line of climbers, guides, and high-altitude workers beginning to ascend the steep roped section. This gaggle of ascending people will create headaches for anyone heading downhill. So, after just 15 minutes, Abiral makes the decision to head down to minimize waiting time on the ropes. They don rappelling devices and begin to descend.

11 A.M. Traffic Jam (22,500 ft)��

In many places on the Lhotse Face, there is only a single rope for both ascending and descending climbers. Despite moving quickly, Abiral and Li must wait for ascending climbers to pass. They locate safe anchors on the lines for each pass—it’s a time consuming but necessary step to ensure their safety. Rappelling down the face takes only 45 minutes without traffic, but today it takes Abiral’s group nearly two hours. They return to Camp II in time for lunch at noon. At 12:15 P.M. it begins snowing heavily, depositing more than 8 inches at Camp II over the course of the afternoon. Abiral is delighted by the new powder—it will make the Lhotse Face safer when they return in a week for the summit push.

Day 4: Back to Base Camp

4 A.M. An Early Descent (21,000 ft)

Abiral wakes up in the dark and packs his high-altitude boots, gloves, and other gear into a duffel bag that will stay in Camp II until he returns for the summit push in a week or so. After a quick breakfast, he and his client rope together and set out into the fresh snow below camp. The route they followed two days ago is now gone, and they must navigate slowly and carefully, following small flags that indicate safe passage through the glaciated terrain. By 6:30 A.M. they reach Camp I, where they retrieve the filled poop bags that they stashed on the way up. They hydrate and descend into the Khumbu Icefall.

7 A.M. A Final Bottleneck (19,000 feet)

As Abiral and his client arrive at the vertical wall of ice in the Khumbu Icefall’s fifth sector, they encounter a long line of heavily-laden workers and climbers waiting to descend. They wait for 45 minutes for the traffic jam to ease, and to save time Abiral fixes his own anchor into the ice and lowers his client down the cliff using his personal guide rope. This practice gives Li an added layer of safety in the case of a fall. Abiral quickly follows, rappelling down the fixed ropes before another climbing group can get on. As they continue the descent, Abiral notices that the icefall route has already changed significantly since they climbed through only two days ago. There are new crevasses to cross and fresh ladders. In some places, the old route has disappeared into a crevasse, or been buried by falling ice. By 10:30 A.M., they reach the foot of the icefall and remove their crampons. Abiral estimates that they have passed at least 70 clients, workers, and guides since departing Camp II.

11 A.M. Safe At Home (17,500 ft)

Abiral and Li return to the relatively thick air of Base Camp, where hot drinks and lunch are waiting for them. Abiral has maintained close radio contact with the Base Camp team throughout the climb, and they know what Abiral and Li like to eat. Li downs a sandwich, boiled vegetables, fried fish and a salad. Abiral eats a giant plate of rice and lentils with chicken. After lunch, Abiral arranges laundry and a hot shower for Li. He does not schedule bathing time for himself, as he believes that showering weakens the body at extreme altitude. Abiral notices that the other clients and guides are starting to develop a slight cough from being at altitude for so long, and he doesn’t want to do anything that might weaken his immune system. He returns to his tent and video calls his wife to let her know he is safely back in Base Camp. In the afternoon, he scrolls through his latest photos, updates his Instagram, and prepares for the clients-versus-guides ping-pong tournament scheduled for the next day.

The post For Nepali Guides on Mount Everest, Daily Life Is Full of Danger appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

The 2024 climbing season on Mount Everest is in full swing this week as some expedition teams are arriving at Base Camp and others have begun acclimatization rotations on the peak. As ���ϳԹ��� recently reported, the official start on the mountain’s Nepali side is delayed this year due to dangerous conditions in the Khumbu Icefall. The circuitous route through the glacier that precedes the easier climbing up to Camp I and Camp II is longer than the one used in previous years, due to an unusually dry winter and a lack of snowfall.

The scheduling delay and new route aren’t the only dynamics impacting expeditions on the world’s highest peak this year. Competition from China has drawn some climbing teams away from the southern Base Camp in Nepal. And new rules and regulations imposed by the Nepali government will shift how some teams handle safety, decorum in Base Camp, and even poop.

Climbers may encounter slightly fewer of their peers along the route to the top, as recent statements from officials in Nepal hint at a smaller crowd than in recent years. According to Rakesh Gurung, Director of Nepal’s department of tourism, the country expects to issue approximately 400 climbing permits for the season—down from the record-breaking 478 last year. As of April 22, 365 permits had been granted to 34 different expedition teams. Permits for three additional teams are still being processed, Gurung said.

“Climbing permits are down across all the peaks,” Gurung said. “One reason is the global economic situation, and another is that China is open for Everest permits this year.”

China Attracts Summit Seekers

Indeed, China has once again opened its borders to Everest climbers in 2024 following a four-year closure due to Covid. Unlike the Nepali Base Camp, the Chinese Base Camp can be accessed by car, making the transport there much easier. Some expedition operators prefer to climb from the Chinese side, claiming that Everest’s Northeast ridge is less vulnerable to avalanches and rockfall than the southern flank. The smaller crowds on the Chinese side present another advantage.

But there’s a drawback in climbing from China—currently, the government has yet to issue the final permits to Everest expeditions, or even allow climbers into the country. Just this week officials told expedition operators that they would be allowed to enter the country on May 7—significantly later than originally planned.

“Thankfully the north side doesn’t have the same end-of-season issues that the south side does,” Adrian Ballinger, CEO of Alpenglow Expeditions, told ���ϳԹ���. “Tibet is in the rain shadow of Everest and the monsoon is generally much later. It’s not our ideal, but everyone is doing their best and that’s our plan.”

The Everest delay is just one curveball facing climbers in China. The country recently canceled all climbing on 26,335-foot Shishapangma and 26,864-foot Cho Oyu.

The uncertainty prompted Seven Summits Treks, Nepal’s largest Everest operator, to cancel its Chinese Everest expedition altogether, moving all eight of its clients to climb in Nepal. “We have had clients waiting here [in Kathmandu] for 15 days, and our Shishapangma clients have been waiting since April 5th,” said Thaneswhar Guragai, the company’s general manager.

The cancellation of permits on Cho Oyu and Shishapangma presents a significant setback for climbers hoping to complete all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters this year, and two well-publicized expeditions hoping to retrieve the bodies of four victims of an avalanche last October. The deceased are American climbers Anna Gutu and Gina Marie Rzucidlo, along with their guides Mingmar Sherpa and Tenjen ‘Lama’ Sherpa. Two months before the avalanche, ‘Lama’ earned the speed record for climbing all 14 8,000-meter peaks in 92 days, along with Norwegian climber Kristin Harila.

New Rules in Nepal

A record number of Everest fatalities in 2023, combined with the mounting pollution on the peak, prompted Nepali officials to enact new regulations governing expeditions. The regulations oversee a wide swath of operations, from climber safety to the size of tents allowed in Base Camp. The most cumbersome rule may be the new mandate that all climbers must carry their human waste down off the mountain in biodegradable bags and deposit it at a collection center at Base Camp.

The local government body that oversees the Everest region, the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality, is responsible for this program. According to Jagat Prasad Bhusal, the organization’s chief administrative officer, officials are still debating what, exactly, to do with all of that poop.

“We are currently exploring options for handling the feces. If feasible, we will either convert it into manure or dispose of it safely near Tengboche or Pangboche in Upper Khumbu,” he said.

Expedition operators who spoke to ���ϳԹ��� expressed positive sentiment toward the poop rule, despite the logistical challenges it presents. “This will be beneficial in the future because the whole world is looking towards sustainability. A small contribution to help the mountain is never a bad idea.” Guragai said.

Another new rule requires climbers to wear RECCO-style tracking reflectors during their climbs. In theory, this technology allows rescuers to find lost climbers by using a specialized transponder that tracks the reflectors. But there are doubts this will work in Everest’s extreme altitude and vast terrain. “We don’t know how well it will work,” Gurung told ���ϳԹ��� “But let’s try.”

Gurung said Nepali officials are planning to make GPS tracking mandatory in future seasons. The devices will improve safety, he said. “This will also reduce false summits,” Gurung added.

To enforce these new rules, Nepal’s department of tourism has opened a field office at Base Camp. Officials stationed there will make sure expeditions follow the regulations, and they will also teach climbers lessons on mountain safety and “expedition ethics,” Gurung said.

“The rules and regulations are one thing. But people have to be aware of their own abilities, too,” Gurung said. “If something happens at 8,000 meters, a rescue is basically impossible. If expedition ethics are followed in these situations, the number of casualties will be reduced greatly.”

Despite the new regulations and the slight downturn in climbing permits, officials still expect the route to become crowded. Advanced weather forecasting means most expedition operators head onto the peak at the same time to take advantage of clear skies. And many expedition operators send as many, or more, guides onto the peak as paying clients.

An estimated 1,500 porters, guides, and Sherpas will be working above Base Camp to build camps and ferry gear, and the total number of climbers heading for the summit from both sides is likely to surpass 700, officials said.

Gurung told ���ϳԹ��� that officials will examine the 2024 season to see if the government should make additional changes for the future. “There are many issues—do we only want to make Everest cheaper? Should it be accessible to everyone or not? Gurung said. “We’ve discussed these things many times. Let’s see what the future brings.”

Record Chasers and Adrenaline Junkies Return

As is often the case, a handful of record-chasing climbers will attempt to make history on the world’s highest peak in 2024. One climber, 59 year-old Russian alpinist and mountain guide Valeriy Babanov, is attempting to become the oldest person to reach the top of the world without supplemental oxygen. Babanov is a two-time winner of the coveted Piolet d’Or award for first ascents in India and Nepal including a solo ascent of the Shark Fin on India’s famed Meru Central peak (6,310 m). “I’ve been preparing for this all my life,” he wrote on Instagram.

Two Nepali women are seeking their own records: Purnima Shrestha is hoping to become the first woman to summit three times in a single season, and Phunjo Lama is attempting to reclaim her record for the fastest ascent by a woman. Both women face major challenges with their respective efforts due to the 2024 route through the Khumbu Icefall, which adds approximately two hours to the total ascent compared to 2023.

Everest legend Kami Rita Sherpa, 54, will attempt to complete his 29th Everest summit, breaking his own world record, set after two back-to-back ascents last year. If successful, this would also mark his 43rd trip to the summit of an 8,000-meter peak.

A top international BASE jumper named Tim Howell is also targeting a record: the highest wingsuit jump in history. Howell plans to ascend from Base Camp to the southern face of 27,940-foot Lhotse, which is located next to Everest. He plans to then jump from just below the summit—the sheer face makes it perhaps the highest spot on the globe where a wingsuit jump can be accomplished. “I like the idea that this can’t be beaten.” Howell told ���ϳԹ���.

“It’s the highest wingsuit jump in the world.” Howell expects to reach speeds of 160 mph on his descent, dropping over 16,000 feet in under five minutes.

Could such a jump ever be done from the summit of Everest? It’s not impossible, Howell told ���ϳԹ���. “Maybe with the advancement in suits, somebody who is willing to risk it all maybe could do it one day,” he said.

Tulsi Rauniyar contributed to this report.��

The post Everest Season Kicks Off with New Rules, Big Crowds, and Poop Bags appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

In late July, 2022, Nepali mountaineers Pasdawa Sherpa and his uncle Dawa Ongju Sherpa were breaking trail high on the summit ridge of 26,414-foot Broad Peak in Pakistan. The two were working as guides for Norwegian climber Kristin Harila, who was attempting to set a speed record for summiting the world’s 14 peaks above 8,000 meters, which is currently held by Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja.

In an instant, an avalanche swept two Sherpas off the ridge. Alive but shaken, they freed themselves and continued towards the summit, only to be hit by another slide.

“At that point we knew we should turn back” Dawa Ongju told ���ϳԹ���. “But we thought, ‘If we live, we live. If we die, we die. It doesn’t matter.’ So we risked our lives and continued on to the summit.”

“We did it all for Kristin,” he said.

The trio continued, eventually reaching the top. Broad Peak was the eighth summit that Harila reached alongside the two men, and her success and unorthodox climbing strategy drew attention from international media. Other record seekers on the high peaks often use fresh teams of sherpas for each mountain, but Harila told the media that she wanted to make history alongside her two guides, both of whom work for outfitter 8K Expeditions. “Pasdawa and Uncle Dawa are amazing.” Harila told me in May, 2022. “I would love to share the record with them. I don’t need it to be focused on myself.”

But in November 2022, the relationship between the three abruptly dissolved, despite the trio having two more mountains to ascend: 26,864-foot Cho Oyu and 26,335-foot Shishapangma. Both peaks are typically climbed from China, but the country’s borders were closed due to the pandemic, and Harila couldn’t secure permits to enter the country. She planned a winter ascent of Cho Oyu from the Nepal side, but Pasdawa and Dawa Ongju were conspicuously absent from her roster. Pasdawa and Dawa Ongju did not provide specifics for why they stopped working with Harila, but a representative from 8K Expeditions said in a March 2023 interview that there was a disagreement over payment.

Harila’s Cho Oyu bid was unsuccessful, and a few weeks later she announced plans to pursue the speed record on the 14 peaks in 2023 alongside a different outfitter—but she invited Pasdawa and Dawa Ongju to join her on her first two climbs in April, Cho Oyu and Shishapangma, so they could complete the 14 peaks together.

���ϳԹ��� spoke to Pasdawa and Dawa Ongju in April, 2023, and they admitted that the situation left them with hurt feelings, but they both wished Harila well on her 2023 attempt. “We were planning to share the record, so of course this hurts.” Dawa Ongju said. “We struggled together, and we put our lives on the line for her. But I give her my blessings.”

Shortly afterwards, their permits to climb the peaks from the Chinese side were not approved, and Harila wound up climbing without them. When their travel plans fell apart for the second time, their feelings changed. Dawa Ongju wrote an icy message on Facebook. “We carried all the gear, backpacks, crampons, clothes, water bottles, oxygen canisters, camera, backup batteries, food and all the equipment while giving priority to Kristin. She did not have to lay a single meter of rope nor tie a single knot. After receiving our cancelled [sic] passports back we were shocked and dumbfounded,” he wrote. ���ϳԹ��� reached out to the Chinese consulate in Kathmandu about the travel problems but did not receive a response. Six days after their travel plans fell through, Harila summited Cho Oyu, and by the end of May she had climbed four additional 8,000-meter peaks.

Harila also declined to discuss specifics of why she chose to work with a different expedition operator in 2023. “I think people believe that this was our project, but the thing is like it was actually my project from the start,” she told�����ܳٲ��������in April 2023.

The dissolved relationship highlights a lopsided power dynamic that has existed for decades in Himalayan mountaineering. Western climbers often earn celebrity status and sponsorship cash for ascending the highest peaks. The media attention generated by these accomplishments fuels their future expeditions, and sometimes even helps them navigate the tricky diplomatic barriers that stand in the way of the mountains. But the high-altitude workers who help them rarely achieve stardom or wealth. Their climbing and survival skills in the world’s harshest climate are among the best, and their job is difficult and dangerous. And when a problem arises—be it avalanches or visa issues—they are often on the losing end.

“As Sherpas, we often do not get the credit for the job we do,” Pasdawa says. “We labor, but the clients get the spotlight. It’s hurtful. It would have been completely different if we had a chance to climb in Tibet this year.”

Dawa Ongju and Pasdawa’s inability to obtain travel visas to China had consequences for their careers. Both men said that completing the 14 peaks would have boosted their value as guides, and given them credibility to branch out into other types of work, like mountaineering education.

“I’ve had 37 successful summits of 8,000 meter peaks in my career. But that alone isn’t enough.” says Dawa Ongju. “I really really want to teach and train other climbers. But people won’t listen to me unless I have some sort of a record. That’s what upsets me.”

Many of the current generation of Nepal’s strongest high altitude workers grew up in the cash-strapped remote villages of eastern Nepal, with very few opportunities for education. Dawa Ongju left school to join the workforce after the third grade, Pasdawa after the fifth. Pasdawa and Dawa Ongju cite their lack of education as the reason they must work on the high peaks. Nepal’s flagging economy makes finding employment in other industries tricky, and relative to other jobs in Nepal, mountaineering pays well.

In recent years the wider world has slowly opened its eyes to the plight of Sherpa climbers on Mount Everest and other Himalayan mountains. A 2014 study done by ���ϳԹ��� found that Sherpa climbers face a workplace fatality rate of 4,053 deaths per 100,000 people—a rate ten times greater than the U.S. military’s fatality rate in the Iraq war.��Earlier this spring the , who has climbed Everest a record 28 times. Kami Rita told the��Times that he struggles to support his family of four in a rented Kathmandu apartment, and that he hopes his children pursue a profession away from the high peaks.

Both pay and recognition for Sherpas has been improving in the last few years. Nepalese climber Nirmal “Nims” Purja, who is not Sherpa, says he’s seen more acknowledgement of Sherpa climbers’ accomplishments within international mountaineering.

“The Nepalese community have always supported people to make their big mountain dreams a reality—from the Sherpas, guides and porters to tea house owners, base camp cooks and teams. Often their contribution has been overlooked. But I think there has been a shift recently in the way the Nepalese climbing community is being recognized for this work, which is really positive.”

Harila, for her part, thinks that climbers generally respect and appreciate their sherpas.

“Yeah, of course, climbers care most about saying I reached the summit. But I also understand that is because they have put so much into that,” Harila said. “And they have paid for the service that the fixing team does, the company does, and the sherpas do. So I think most of the time, I see that the climbers are really appreciating the sherpas.”

There’s also an uptick in Sherpa-owned expedition companies that now take paying customers��to the top of the highest peaks. But among the cadre of record-chasing celebrities in the tight-knit circle of climbers, few are Sherpa.

Part of this is due to the self-promotion skills and international relationships that record-chasing climbers must cultivate in order to fund their expeditions and navigate diplomatic hurdles. Both Pasdawa and Dawa Ongju cited their lack of English and personal marketing as the main factors that have held them back on the global mountaineering scene.

Some Sherpa climbers have tried to make names for themselves by pursuing speed records. In 2022, 31-year-old climber Gelje Sherpa raised funds via the crowdfunding site GoFundMe while attempting to become the youngest to scale the 14 peaks. Like Pasdawa and Dawa Ongju, Gelje was prevented from entering China to ascend Cho Oyu, and instead mounted an unsuccessful mission to ascend it from the Nepal side.

On April 26, Harila summited 26,335-foot Shishapangma alongside a Norwegian filmmaker and two guides: Tenjen Sherpa and Mingma Sherpa. Six days later, she topped out on Cho Oyu. By the end of May, she had climbed three other peaks.

Pasdawa and Dawa Ongju, meanwhile, were on the slopes of Everest, establishing camps and leading new clients on acclimatization rotations through the dangerous Khumbu Icefall. If successful, this trip will mark Dawa Ongju’s eighth trip to the summit and Pasdawa’s 11th.

Despite his frustration, Dawa Ongju said he wishes Harila good fortune. “From my side, she was my family. I still consider her family… I’ll be so happy if she succeeds,” he said.

When asked if he and Pasdawa could break the speed record on the 14 peaks if given access to Harila’s resources, his response, punctuated by the clamor of a noisy basecamp kitchen, came quickly:

“We’d be able to go twice as fast because we wouldn’t have to wait for the clients to catch up,” he said. “I’m entirely confident that we could break the record by at least a month.”

The post The Race to Climb 8,000-Meter Peaks Tore This Team Apart appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

It was late August when Kristin Harila answered our call from her grandmother’s house in Norway, where she was staying between expeditions in Pakistan. Harila, a 36-year-old former elite cross-country skier, had just sold her apartment in Oslo to help fund her quest to become the fastest person to climb the world’s 14 peaks above 8,000 meters (26,246 feet). At the time of our interview, Harila still had three peaks remaining to surpass Nirmal “Nims” Purja as the fastest to ascend all 14. In late October, Harila eventually conceded that beating the record would not be possible—she was unable to gain access to China to climb Cho Oyu and Shishapangma.

OUTSIDE: To complete the record, you need to climb 26,906-foot Cho Oyu and 26,289-foot Shishapangma, the latter fully in China, which is still closed due to the pandemic. Have you made any progress in securing permission to climb there?
KRISTIN HARILA: I am still optimistic. Of course, the COVID situation doesn’t make things any easier, but we are willing to quarantine both in Tibet and in Nepal if we have to. I think we just have to try what we can until we cannot.

Was watching the documentary 14 Peaks instrumental in your decision to attempt to break the record?
The movie came out after I decided, but of course I knew about what [Purja] had done and it was an inspiration for me. I wanted to show that it’s possible for a woman to do something that many people believe is only possible for a guy. I was thinking more and more about the 8,000-meter peaks. I really wanted to do them all, and I thought: OK, if I’m going to do them all, I want to do them fast, because last year I was 35, and I don’t have kids. I want to have kids, and I think that if I am lucky enough to have kids, then I won’t want to climb 8,000 meters for a while, because I won’t want to be away for so long.

Your stated goal is to prove that there is a place for women in the world of high-altitude mountaineering. Have you seen women treated unfairly?
Yes. In the industry, the brands support 90 percent men, even in Norway. If you look at the pages where they present their athletes, it’s almost entirely men. This isn’t just one company; it seems to be all of them.

On K2, my group had more women than men this year. But I still couldn’t find a down suit for women—they were only produced in men’s sizes. Big international brands came out with new collections just for men. For me it’s like they’re saying, “Girls can go hiking, but the high mountains are for the cool men.”

It also seems to be more socially acceptable for men to leave families behind when they go climbing than it is for women.
It is. We see in the community all the time that it’s very acceptable for a man to leave a small kid at home, while for the women, not at all. But also I’m seeing more mothers coming to climb. Like my friend Becks Ferry. She has five kids and she has climbed, I think, six 8,000-meter peaks now. I really respect the mothers that are going out and doing this.

Now that it’s possible to helicopter between mountains and to climb all 14 peaks in a matter of months, some feel that this style of ascent doesn’t fall within the category of “fair means.”
First of all, I think as long as people are telling the truth and are open about how they climb, then it’s OK. We shouldn’t care if someone wants to climb Everest in three weeks. If they use hypoxic tents and fly directly to Base Camp, pour on the oxygen and have four Sherpas, I think it’s OK. It’s a different type of climbing, in a different style, and it’s changing, but the rest of the world is changing also.

I have to say it’s very different—totally different—to climb a mountain without ropes. It’s so much easier to just put the jumar in front, rest, pull yourself up. Like on Gasherbrum I, it was very steep. We pushed like 1,000 meters up in only seven and a half hours, but it was very long getting down, because we had to go backward using our ice axes. Of course, there were no people and so no steps. When you go on Everest and K2, it’s like going on steps all the way, and with ropes there it’s so much easier.

You want to share the record with your Sherpa guides, Pasdawa and Dawa Ongchu.
I wanted to give them the opportunity to climb them all, because I think it’s nice if we can show the world the job that they do, how important they are. But of course they have to want to, because it’s not an easy job for them or for me to climb to 8,000 meters. They always have an opportunity to not climb if they don’t want to. I don’t pressure them.

On the mountain we do different things, of course. They carry more, they fix more ropes than I do. But it’s not like they carry me, or that I don’t carry anything. Like on K2, I had 20 kilos [44 pounds] in my pack all the way, because two members of the team were out front fixing ropes. I can carry, and I go in front sometimes. But when it’s a very hard day, they, of course, fix ropes.

The post Kristin Harila Chased Nims Purja’s Record on the 8000ers appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

A crowd of onlookers cheered as Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila walked into the polished lobby of the brand new Aloft Hotel in downtown Kathmandu in mid–June. Within minutes of arriving, Harila found herself seated on a couch being force-fed a slice of celebratory cake by people she did not know.

The celebration was to honor Harila’s recent ascent of 27,766-foot Makalu, and her dogged pursuit of the speed record for climbing the 14 mountains that stand above 8,000 meters. Harila, 36, is tackling all 14 peaks alongside two Nepali guides, Pasdawa Sherpa and Dawa Ongchu Sherpa. Makalu marked the group’s sixth summit, and it came just 29 days after their ascent of 26,545-foot Annapurna, which put them two days ahead of the current speed record of 6 months and 6 days, established by Nirmal “Nims” Purja in 2019. Since then, Harila has added four more peaks to her tally: K2, Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak, and .

Harila arrived to the party via helicopter from Makalu Base Camp. She was sunburned and fought to speak between rattling bouts of coughing.

“Climbing mountains is so much easier than the normal world,” Harila told me. “When you’re up there the only thing you can think about is the next step.”

As the celebration waned, Harila agreed to do a short interview in the lobby. Before we began she leaned over to me and said, in a thin voice: “I’m so exhausted. I haven’t showered since Dhaulagiri.”

Harila is an unlikely superstar in the high-stakes and macho world of Himalayan mountaineering. In her youth, she was a competitive cross-country skier who bought her first apartment at age 16. She soon traded her training for a career selling furniture for a large national firm. Money and success followed, but she sought challenges outside of normal life. On an organized trip to Kilimanjaro (19,341’) in 2015, Harila suffered from severe altitude sickness that left her unable to see. Despite the setback, she pushed on to the summit. She was hooked on mountaineering, and her life steadily reorganized itself around this new passion.

“[When I quit my job] everyone thought I was going to be just sleeping, because I didn’t sleep much,” Harila said “I was always working, working, working. Right away I went to the mountains in Norway and had a really good training summer. Then I had a climbing trip to Nepal in the autumn of 2019 when we climbed 23,700-foot Putha Hinchuli, which was my first high mountain after Kilimanjaro.”

In 2021, Harila set her sights on Mount Everest, but the expedition got off on the wrong foot. On the trek to base camp, she suffered from vomiting and extreme altitude illness, and had to stop in the Sherpa village of Lobuche, still a day’s walk from Everest Base Camp. Despite the illness, Harila pushed herself onward toward camp, and further up the mountain. She climbed with impressive speed, and recorded an unplanned world record, becoming the fastest woman to ever link Mt. Everest (29,032’) and Lhotse (27,930’) in a single climb. She reached both summits in under twelve hours.

“Ok—I’m pretty good at this,” Harila said about the achievement. Before she finished her descent to Base Camp, Harila had set her mind on Purja’s record. Purja became a global celebrity after setting the new record, and in 2021 the film documenting his climbs called��14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible aired on Netflix.

“Of course it’s a crazy idea to try to do the same that Nims did because people don’t believe I can do it,” Harila said.

Harila said that she encountered hurdles in financing her attempt at the record in part because of her gender.��“I asked one big Norwegian company for sponsorship four times. At first I got an offer for a 30 percent discount,” she said. “Now, they’ve written me and have said ‘we would like to have a talk with you.’ Because now it’s real. People haven’t believed in this project—they don’t believe that a girl from Norway can come and do this.”

According to Harila, achieving the record is a secondary goal of her expedition. She wants to prove that women have a place in high-altitude mountaineering. “People believe that men are better at climbing mountains, but that’s just not true,” she said. “I only care about the records because they will give the publicity we need to focus on this. And, of course, to show that we can actually do the same.”

In recent years, climbing the 14 tallest mountains on the planet in a single year has become more accessible due to the use of helicopter transportation between base camps, artificial oxygen systems, and a growing number of Nepali expedition companies that specialize in stringing together ascents on a back-to-back schedule. The risk and the challenge are still extreme, but the biggest hurdle for Harila and others comes months before they set foot on a mountain.

Raising the funds to pay for a project of this nature has been her primary challenge.

“Most of the project, I’m paying for myself,” she told me. “The dream would be to find one big company that would to sign up [to support me] and then to work with them in the industry after to bring change.”

And in the extreme sport of fundraising for major expeditions, the gender gap is amplified.

“We are still very far apart, even though we believe we are equal,” she said. “It’s much harder for women to get sponsorship, because we have a lower [brand] value. And that’s what I want to use this project for. I don’t think anything will happen if we don’t do something or say something.”

To her point, Harila couldn’t find the specialized equipment required for 8,000 meter summits in women’s sizing. “My down suit is specially made in Kathmandu.” she told me. “They needed to make it smaller, because it was impossible to find one small enough for me. But of course, everything comes in men’s sizes.”

Our interview began to wind down, and Harila prepared to head to her room. The next day, she had a flight booked back to Norway where she was scheduled to finalize a sale of her apartment to fund the remaining expeditions.

But before leaving, Harila spoke about the the two men helping her in her quest to climb the peaks. She is hoping to share all of her ascents—and the subsequent recognition—with Pasdawa and Dawa Ongchu. “They really love what they are doing and they are just as happy as I am when we reach the summit. It means a lot to them, and they have a great time,” she said.

One of Purja’s keys to success was to have separate teams of Sherpas working simultaneously on different peaks, fixing ropes and establishing the route to the top. As he traveled between peaks, he would swap out his Sherpa support teams to save time and increase his chance of success. This also, conveniently, meant that he wouldn’t have to share the record.

Harila said that Pasdawa and Dawa Ongchu’s role as guides requires them to work much harder for each ascent than she does as a paying client, and this factor may limit their chances of success. “If I can, I would love to share the record with them. But we will have to see how they are feeling. It’s a hard race and they are doing more and carrying more [than I am].” She continued, “I want them to have the record to show what they are doing. Climbing an 8,000 meter peak is never a one-man job. Or, um, a one-woman job.”

The post Kristin Harila Has Climbed Ten of the Planet’s 14 Tallest Peaks in Record Time appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

On July 21 at 10:45 P.M. Pakistan time, five climbers stood on the summit of 28,251-foot K2. They were the first mountaineers to reach the peak’s top during the 2022 summer climbing season, after spending more than 24 hours battling their way to the summit. For Pasdawa Sherpa, Chhiring Namgyal Sherpa, Siddhi Ghising, Dorjee Gyelzen Sherpa, and Rinji Sherpa, turning around wasn’t an option, as hundreds of climbers further down on the mountain were relying on their work. This team of elite high-altitude workers from Nepal had fixed a series of ropes that would be later used by climbers waiting in cramped tents at Camp 4.

By the time the rope fixers began their descent, a horde of climbers was already working its way towards the summit, leading to what was to become the most crowded day on the peak.

One of the climbers ascending the mountain was Nepali guide Mingma Gyalge Sherpa, better known as Mingma G, who captured a video on Instagram that was quickly circulated around the globe. The video showed dozens of climbers waiting in a so-called “conga line” on the mountain’s infamous bottleneck couloir at 26,900 feet.

“Many of the climbers were expected to go to the summit on 20 and 21 July but there was no route fixed to the summit until 21 July at night so everyone made the summit push for July 22, that made the traffic jam,” Mingma G said in a WhatsApp message.

The scene marked a historic moment for K2, long called the “savage mountain” in climbing circles. In previous decades, K2 was off-limits to all but the most seasoned mountaineers due to its extreme danger and steepness. Now, K2 has exploded in popularity, driven by a generation of paying clients that seek a greater challenge than Mount Everest, and a coterie of expedition operators who specialize in getting climbers to the top—regardless of the dangers found along the way.

By the end of the day on July 22, well over 100 climbers had reached K2’s summit, which is notorious for brutal weather and a high fatality rate. In the ensuing days, this number continued to rise. As of Thursday morning, 145 climbers have notched the summit since July 21, a figure that has added 30 percent more total summits to the mountain’s tally since it was first climbed nearly 70 years ago. Prior to the historic day, just 302 people had stood on the summit.

But this bonanza on the mountains produced the cringe-worthy moment on the bottleneck, and other scenes of crowding.

“I never thought this would happen on K2,” said Himalayan Database director and mountaineer, Bili Bierling, when she saw Mingma G’s video.

The bottleneck is notorious for danger. In February, 2021 it claimed the lives of three elite mountaineers: Muhammad Ali Sadpara, John Snorri, and Juan Pablo Mohr. The deaths sent shockwaves through the mountaineering community. In the video, the line of climbers stood below a soaring wall of seracs that are known to send tons of ice crashing down the mountain at irregular intervals. The video also echoes a viral photo��shared by Nirmal ‘Nims’ Purja in 2019 of an overcrowded Everest summit ridge. While in Purja’s photo the climbers are stacked on an open ridge and surrounded by blue skies, on K2 the traffic jam was positioned directly beneath the dangerous seracs.

The video generated more than 200 comments, and a simmering debate about the mountain’s popularity this year. “K2 is not Everest—it cannot be commercialized like this. What a pity,” read one comment on the video.

Pemba Sherpa, the founder of 8K Expeditions, a leading Nepali outfitter, told ���ϳԹ�����that the increase in climbers this year was due to multiple dynamics, among them pent-up demand that occurred during the pandemic.

“So many people are on the way to climb 14 peaks,” Pemba said. “And so many people were stopped because of COVID and the financial downturn. Now, in 2022…. people are coming to K2.”

Pemba estimated there to be more than 200 total permits for the mountain this year. But he downplayed the danger caused by the crowding on the mountain. The conga line at the bottleneck was a large group that had been traveling together, and not a queue of disparate teams trying to reach the top.

“Two hundred people on a mountain of that size will get spread out,” he said. “The issue is when everyone wants to climb on the same day.”

When asked about his video, Mingma G echoed Pemba’s sentiment, saying that his company has seen a steady increase in interest for guiding on K2 in recent years. “Since 2017, we have seen summits every year on K2. It wasn’t like this previously,” he said. “And COVID-19 also increased the number of climbers on K2.”

Thanks to a patch of unusually stable weather in the Karakoram, summits on K2 have continued throughout the week. Notable ascents include Pasdawa Sherpa who, as part of the rope fixing team, became the fastest person to summit the five tallest peaks on the planet.

Norwegian climber Kristin Harila notched the eighth peak on her quest to climb all 14 peaks over 8,000 meters in six months and to draw attention to the role of women in high-altitude mountaineering. To prove her point, three women summited without the use of supplemental oxygen—Grace Teng from Taiwan, Andorran climber Stefi Troguet, and He Jing from China.

Huge crowds may be the norm on some of the world’s highest peaks this year. Thanks to a recent report by German archivist Eberhard Jurgalski on his blog 8000ers.com, that offered convincing evidence that the vast majority of recent ascents of Manaslu (26,781 feet) were, in fact, a few meters below the actual summit, operators in Nepal are expecting a�� wave of climbers to return to the mountain this fall. Sources told ���ϳԹ��� that they expect to see several hundred climbers on that peak later this fall.

“For my company alone, we have 50 clients already signed up.” said Pemba Sherpa. “Everyone is coming to repeat Manaslu.”

The post There Are Conga Lines and Huge Crowds on K2 Now appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Like most people in Koma, a village in the vast desert of Nepal’s remote Dolpa district, Dakpa Gurung has never had it easy. Since his youth in this tiny town of a few low stone homes and terraced wheat fields, he has scraped a living out of the dramatic landscape on foot, shepherding large flocks of pashmina goats through the mountains.

Dolpa is one of the poorest and most isolated regions in Nepal, itself one of the poorest countries in Asia. The vast majority of residents live extremely close to the bone, patching together a living by herding livestock and subsistence farming crops of buckwheat, potatoes, and barley. After trade across the nearby border with China shut down in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for goats in Nepal triggered a sort of gold rush. Last fall, a healthy male goat would fetch up to 30,000 rupees ($245) from traders, up from 20,000 rupees ($160) the year before. In a country where the average per capita income hovers around $1,000 per year, Gurung’s family flock of nearly 70 goats represented a chance to make a decent living.

For Gurung, the morning of April 15, 2021, began like any other. He woke early and went to check on his animals, which he keeps in a deep-walled stone corral attached to his home for safety.

“When I opened the corral door, all I could see was dead goats,” he told me. In the night, a snow leopard had slipped through a hole in the ceiling of the corral and massacred nearly his entire herd. Fifty-seven goats were killed and a number more injured. In a matter of hours, Gurung’s family’s entire livelihood was gone. Given the high price of animals, the debt required to rebuild his herd could set his family back for a generation.

Gurung is sharply handsome: his angular face is sun-creased and framed by a thick head of long black hair, pulled back into a loose ponytail. When we spoke, he wore a heavy set of polished Tibetan buddhist prayer beads around his neck. He spoke slowly and deliberately, measuring his words. “The snow leopard is a creature full of anger,” he said. “It drank the blood of one goat and then another, and stacked their bodies like sacks of salt. It didn’t stop until nothing was moving at all.”

The worst part for Gurung was the newborn kids, spared by the leopard and now motherless. “Those baby goats were like my own children. I helped raise them from the beginning. Watching them starve completely broke my heart.”

Snow leopards’ proclivity for mass killing is due in large part to an unfortunate twist of evolution. In the wild, where prey is scarce and tends to scatter quickly, being able to kill two or three animals at once gives a snow leopard a much better shot at survival. However, when this same instinct is applied to a confined space that is packed with prey, like a stone corral, it begins to look more like bloodlust.

“When a snow leopard—or other large predator like a leopard, hyaena, lion, or even wolf—goes on a killing spree, they dispatch any animal that moves until all are dead or lying mortally wounded,” says Rodney Jackson, a leading snow leopard researcher. “The herder arrives to observe an exhausted snow leopard at rest, with all his livestock having neat throat punctures from the cat’s piercing canines. Hence local people’s belief that the snow leopard is a ‘blood-sucker.’”

Mass killings of livestock similar to the incident in Koma happen frequently in Dolpa, along with isolated attacks when animals are at pasture. Some families even share stories of being attacked themselves when trying to protect their animals.

Despite the threat of a 15-year jail sentence, retaliatory killings of snow leopards are also a relatively common occurrence. Lacking access to other means, shepherds will lace a snow leopard kill with rudimentary poisons like flea powder or insecticides, knowing that the cats will return later to feed. To increase the potency of the poison, sometimes they mix in broken razor blades, which causes a slow, painful death.

The anger of some herders doesn’t stop at the illicit poisoning of snow leopards. Local conservationist Tshiring Lhamu Lama came upon a cellphone video filmed by a local herder while she was performing field research for her master’s degree. In the video, a group of locals harass a pair of juvenile leopards that seem to be severely drugged. Filmed on a shaky mobile phone, the camera follows a small group of herders as they violently drag the two young leopards by their tails across an open pasture on a mountainside. The herders take turns kicking the young animals and cursing them before they are tossed into a deep stone pit.

In the conflict between shepherds and the snow leopards, there are no winners. Dolpa is home to one of the densest snow leopard populations in the world, but a growing number of leopards are found dead every year, despite extensive conservation efforts by the local Shey-Phoksundo National Park and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). A GPS collaring program supported by the WWF set out to track four healthy snow leopards in Dolpa in 2019; within two years of the collaring, all four leopards were dead. While the exact cause of these deaths is likely to remain a mystery, all signs point to the increasing competition between humans and wildlife for scarce resources.

Snow leopards occupy an outsized place in the human imagination. They are a symbol of wildness and solitude. Iron age petroglyphs of the animals are etched across their habitat range in central and southern Asia, including one in Kyrgyzstan that appears to show nomads using a tame snow leopard to hunt ibex. Snow leopards also play an important role in Tibetan Buddhist legend and other local religions across the Himalaya.

The large cats are beautiful, with thick white-gray fur dappled with black rosettes that camouflages them in the craggy, snowy mountains. And even for the most seasoned biologists, it’s rare to spot one in the wild, earning them the moniker “ghost cats.” With his seminal 1978 book, The Snow Leopard, writer Peter Matthiessen played a large role in popularizing the animal, “whose terrible beauty is the very stuff of human longing,” he writes. The work chronicled his travels through Dolpa with famed naturalist George Schaller in search of the creature. “It is, I think, the animal I would most like to be eaten by,” Matthiessen writes.

Snow leopards also occupy a special place as a poster child for the $20 billion–plus wildlife conservation industry. As an apex predator, they are seen as an indicator for the health of the entire ecosystem, and their wild beauty attracts funding from donors at all levels.

Conservation activities and scientific research on snow leopards are generally predicated on an assumption that the animals are under threat. But their notorious elusiveness makes it difficult to prove (or disprove) this with any certainty. Despite being listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, nobody knows how many of the animals actually exist in Nepal or in any of the other 11 countries that make up the animals’ range.

Still, many experts believe that, like many other wild species, the global snow leopard population faces unprecedented pressures from habitat loss and conflict with humans. The impacts of climate change are amplified across the mountains and steppes that snow leopards call home, where average temperatures are predicted to rise at a rate more than twice the global average. Wild prey herds are threatened by poaching, new diseases, and pests being introduced into the already fragile ecosystems.

In 2017, Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, in partnership with the WWF, launched a $3.15 million, five-year snow leopard conservation action plan. The plan includes research, habitat improvement, community engagement, poaching reduction, and collaborating on similar efforts with India and China. The majority of these funds are earmarked for research, conferences, and reviews with little left over to support herders like Dakpa, who arguably provide the largest material subsidy for the survival of snow leopards, in the form of involuntary donations of livestock.

Koma is situated on the very edge of Nepal’s 1,300-square mile Shey Phoksundo National Park, the largest in the country.��In November 2019, officials from the National Park and the WWF placed GPS collars on two healthy male snow leopards, each weighing around 80 pounds. The animals were photographed and given names chosen by the local community before they were released, groggy and confused, back into the wild. Zebrong and Samling, three and six years old, instantly became darlings of the Nepali press.

The aim was to track the movement of the animals and better understand their range. This data would help conservation organizations estimate the total population in the region and confirm whether the leopards crossed the nearby border with China, which would demand an international approach to management and protection.

Within six months of the collaring, both were dead.

Samling’s body was recovered five months after his death at the base of a ravine so steep that national park authorities needed to rig a makeshift lowering system from nylon ropes to safely reach the body. It seems likely that he died from a fall while chasing prey or during a conflict over territory with a rival snow leopard.

The other leopard, Zebrong, died in late May 2020. His GPS data showed that he was the likely perpetrator of a mass killing that claimed the lives of 50 goats. The proximity of his death to this incident indicates that his death was likely a retaliatory poisoning by villagers. However, it took national park authorities a month to reach the body due to heavy snow and difficult terrain—which meant they were unable to get tissue samples to prove it. (The family who lost those goats to Zebrong lost an additional 101 goats in a separate mass killing by a snow leopard this past April.)

The WWF and the national park quickly mounted another collaring expedition to the same area in May 2021. The team successfully collared, photographed, and christened another two healthy males: Langyen and Ghangri Ghapi Hyul. Press releases showed each animal looking a bit stoned, wearing tight black collars affixed with two gray boxes, each slightly larger than a cigarette pack. No mention was made of the dead snow leopards from the previous year.

Within months, Gangri Ghapi Hyul’s GPS collar triggered an emergency email to the WWF office back in Kathmandu indicating a potential mortality. A few days later, he too was found dead.

In an email, a spokesperson for Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation acknowledged the deaths of the three collared leopards publicly for the first time. The statement claimed that the causes of death for all three “could not be reliably ascertained” but were most likely natural. But numerous community members, conservationists, and local officials suspect that’s wishful thinking.

Ghana Shyam Gurung is a Nepali WWF representative and a designated Snow Leopard Champion for the organization. Tall, clean-cut, and careful with his words, he listed off a plethora of tactics currently in use to reduce retaliatory killings: building predator-proof corrals in local communities, providing training and support for alternative livelihoods and scholarships for local students, and funding a fledgling livestock insurance program. The WWF admits that none of these programs is large enough in scope to eliminate the conflict altogether.

Another common approach to reducing livestock predation is to ensure that wild prey populations are healthy and adequate to sustain the local snow leopard population. But the truth is that livestock are a key part of the animals’ diet. showed that areas with a greater abundance of wild prey actually exhibited greater losses of local livestock. Another study that analyzed DNA within snow leopard scat found that more than a quarter of the animals consumed by snow leopards, on average, are livestock.

“We have to look at managing conflict, not eliminating it,” says Sheren Shrestha, senior program officer for the WWF in Nepal. “Conflicts will never be zero. There will always be losses.”

In the meantime, Nepal’s Department of Wildlife Conservation and National Parks has established a fund to provide compensation for losses sustained by wildlife predation across the country. But these funds remain tied up in government bureaucracy, and the amount received by victims can vary wildly. The majority of the money is spent on victims of tiger and elephant attacks along the Indian border. According to Gopal Khanal, an assistant conservation officer for the Shey Phoksundo park, the fund distributed just over $1 million to families across Nepal last year, but a very small portion actually made it to Dolpa. As a whole, Khanal admits that the funds “aren’t even close to enough.”

For farmers like Gurung, filing out the paperwork necessary to qualify for compensation from the government requires walking five days from Koma and crossing two 18,000-foot passes—a trip that is impossible for many months of the year. Travel costs alone can total hundreds of dollars. Despite these obstacles, Gurung completed the process and was promised 200,000 rupees ($1,670)—a tiny fraction of the actual value of the goats, which is closer to $10,000. But now, a year later, he is still waiting for the money.

When officials reached the body of Ghangri, the third leopard to die, they noticed extensive signs of mange—a parasitic infestation that can be deadly and is often indicative of other underlying immune disorders. Jigme Gurung, a citizen scientist working with the WWF in upper Dolpa, has recently found numerous wild blue sheep that were severely ill or dead with mange-like symptoms and has seen camera-trap photos of other snow leopards with similar symptoms. These incidents all point to the possibility that a new pathogen could be spreading unchecked across Nepal’s mountainous areas.

This invisible threat could prove to be far more deadly than retaliatory killings. Earlier this year, , and according to Martin Gilbert, a wildlife health specialist based at Cornell University, the animals are known to be susceptible to common viruses like canine distemper. Gilbert has also noted that outbreaks of the extremely contagious peste des petits ruminants virus have also been recently confirmed in mountainous areas of Nepal. An outbreak of the same virus killed more than 80 percent of the global population of Mongolian saiga antelope in 2018.

The WWF acknowledges that disease is a serious threat to the snow leopard population in Nepal but does not yet have a concrete plan in place to address it. WWF program officer Shrestha explains that conducting an accurate biological study in a remote environment like Dolpa comes with many challenges, like keeping tissue samples frozen on the multiday journey to the diagnostic labs in Kathmandu.

Nepal has plans to collar another eight animals in the central part of the country in the coming years. When asked if the WWF will support these collaring efforts in light of the recent deaths in Dolpa, Representative Ghana Shyam Gurung emphatically said that it would. The WWF and the Nepal government have consistently maintained that the leopard deaths are just bad luck.

This spring, Langyen, the last surviving collared snow leopard in Nepal, roamed the hills and pastures above Koma, his GPS collar transmitting his location data every few days. The bulky collar made him easy for villagers to identify, as did his affinity for local livestock. By mid-April, Langyen had already killed five of Dakpa Gurung’s goats and two of his neighbors’ young yaks. Rumors circulated that he was involved in a mass killing of 25 goats in the nearby village of Nijal.

In early May, Langyen’s body was found near the tiny settlement of Nishal, about four miles from Koma. National park officials allegedly took samples from the body and sent them to labs in Kathmandu for testing, but the cause of death remains unknown. Despite repeated requests, both the WWF and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation declined to comment on the incident.

Today, Gurung follows his goats across the high pastures around Koma, as he has for decades. He has had no choice but to continue to bear the losses and try to rebuild his earnings. Toward the end of our initial conversation, he took off his worn prayer beads and began fingering them unconsciously. “I want to practice compassion towards snow leopards,” he said, “but they already have so many powerful people looking after them. Who is looking after us?”

The post What Is Killing Nepal’s Snow Leopards?�� appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

After two stressful years of pandemic-fueled climbing closures, the 2022 season on Mount Everest will go down as one of the safest and most drama-free in the history of Himalayan mountaineering.

Nepali officials are still collecting data, but they predict more than 500 successful ascents of Everest via the southern route this year. That number is down from recent years: in 2018, 802 people reached the summit, while in 2019, 876 did, according to the Himalayan Database. But with fewer permits issued this year due to pandemic precautions, a global recession, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the success rate for 2022 may be higher than in 2019 or 2018.

The rosy statistics were made possible by an unusually long stretch of clear skies that lasted three weeks.

“It’s been an amazing year,” climber and director of the Himalayan Database Billi Bierling told me. “I can’t remember a year when we had so few deaths and cases of frostbite.”

The climbing bonanza in the Himalayas was helped along not just by the weather but by the Nepalese government, which this year did not enforce a series of restrictions that went into place after an exceptionally crowded and deadly 2019 season. In previous years, Nepali officials required climbers to show proof that they had first climbed a mountain in Nepal above 21,300 feet before obtaining a permit for Everest.��But in 2022, Everest was open to anyone who could afford the price, regardless of climbing experience.

To further the success rate, the mountaineering community has embraced a new series of preparation strategies and climbing infrastructure, specifically hypoxic tents for pre-acclimatization and helicopter shuttles to ferry expedition teams from Kathmandu to base camps. The combination of new methods and looser regulations means Mount Everest is far more accessible than at any point in history.

Not everyone believes this is a good thing.

In a recent blog post, longtime Everest chronicler Alan Arnette wrote: “People are now buying a summit, not earning it.”

I phoned Arnette to discuss his views.

“Everest is not about climbing. It’s about business,” he told me. “And I question whether it’s honoring the heritage of the sport.”

Arnette says that improvements to expedition logistics and climbing technology have opened the door for less experienced climbers and Sherpa guides to venture into the Himalayas. Arnette believes this is why Everest is now prone to overcrowding, and the summit-or-bust culture places profits above safety. It’s an opinion he’s held for several years, as commercial expeditions on the mountain have swelled, and hardcore climbers have been replaced by paying clients.

“The truth is that you’ve got inexperienced climbers with unqualified guides on these mountains. And it’s all driven by money,” he says.

Still, even Arnette has a positive outlook on the 2022 season, with its lack of disasters and deaths.

“I was so happy this year that we only had six deaths across the 8,000-meter mountains compared to 21 deaths in 2019,” he says. “We had more records on Everest than a 1950’s jukebox.”

Indeed, ambitious climbers from around the world set new historic marks on the world’s highest peak, including a group of young mountaineers. Lucy Westlake, 18, became the youngest American woman to reach the top. Nepali pop star Raju Lama also summited, and he even performed a solo concert above Camp II that was, in his words, “probably the highest performance on land, ever.” Not to be outdone, teenager Juan Diego Martinez Alvarez, 19, became the youngest Mexican to summit, and then performed the world’s highest piano recital, playing a portable keyboard that had been carried to the summit by a climbing Sherpa.

Another musician made history atop the peak: Johannes Ettlinger of Austria became the first person to play a bass trumpet on the summit. Ettlinger is a professional musician with the Vienna State Opera, and he was part of a 16-person expedition led by European climbing company .

Women climbers recorded first female Everest ascents for Vietnam, Qatar, Uruguay, and the United Arab Emirates. Three heroes of the peak surpassed their own records for most ascents: Kami Rita Sherpa for all-time climbs (26), Lhakpa Sherpa for most by a woman (10), and Kenton Cool for most by a non-Nepali (16).

Instagram photos of concerts atop Mount Everest and news headlines celebrating records underscore a question swirling around the peak: Are alpinists—those who tackle punishing new routes—still interested in the mountain? French alpinist Marc Batard unsuccessfully attempted to chart a new route to Camp II via the base of 25,791-foot Nuptse to sidestep the infamous Khumbu Icefall. Other than Batard, all of the climbing on Everest this year occurred via the crowded standard route up the South Col.

“The whole world has become more accessible, and Everest has also become more accessible,” Bierling says. “Of course, I look at it and think, ‘My God, where are the good old times? Where is alpinism?’ But I think alpinism will probably happen on other mountains—lower mountains.”

Perhaps no experience on Mount Everest underscored the mountain’s newfound accessibility than that of legendary Italian climber Simone Moro, who recently hung up his crampons and began working as a helicopter pilot. This summer Moro ferried climbers and equipment across the Himalayas, from various base camps to Kathmandu.

“This year, I saw really not so many ‘ancient’ or ‘romantic’ or ‘pure’ mountaineers that were not using oxygen, Sherpas, or fixed ropes. Very few,” he told me in Kathmandu.

Instead, Moro flew tired clients back to the city to rest in upscale hotels. He also supplied camps with supplies—including luxury items. On one flight, Moro’s cargo included a stack of freshly baked pizzas from a restaurant in the Nepali capital.

“In some of my flights I carried coffee machines—exactly the same machine you can find in any restaurant here in Kathmandu,” he says. “I was delivering boxes with brand-new boots inside. I was feeling like an Amazon helicopter.”

The debate over Everest’s accessibility is likely to continue in the coming years, as more climbers return to the mountain after the pandemic closures of 2020 and 2021. The conversation has been further exacerbated by social media, says Pedro Querios, who was the first European to reach the summit this year. In the past, expeditions to Everest occurred with very little moment-to-moment media coverage. Now, audiences around the globe can see photos or videos from the summit as soon as the climbers post them online.

Querios wonders how the modern world would have reacted to the classic expeditions on the mountain.

“How many Sherpas were involved in the Mallory or Hillary-Tenzing expeditions? How much money did those expeditions cost? I tell you: they all had hundreds of Sherpas and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars!” Querios says. “So why are we criticizing the modern climber who is paying to get more service, more quality, and less risk?”

Moro says the events of 2022 are simply part of the evolving ecosystems of global mountaineering and Nepal’s guiding industry. In the past, Nepali guiding companies offered lower prices because there were plenty of hardcore mountaineers wanting to climb the peak, and these climbers had fewer resources.

“Now, 95 percent of people who climb to 8,000 meters are clients—exactly like the ones you find in the Rocky Mountains or Alps,” Moro says. Moro also believes that the Nepali operators are safer than more-expensive companies using foreign guides, due to a growing number of local mountain guides with international certification. “In Nepal there are now more than 60 IFMGA-certified mountain guides,” he says. “Even the western expeditions don’t always include IFMGA mountain guides. There is a high level of skill and a high level of professionalism in guiding here.”

Most likely, safety and success on Everest in the future will have more to do with the fickle nature of the jet stream than any amount of regulation or experience on the mountain. For the coming months, mountaineers are shifting their attention westward toward the steep peaks in Pakistan’s Karakoram Range. Operators are expecting an unusually busy season as more record seekers flock to Nanga Parbat, K2, and Broad Peak. Let’s hope the weather cooperates.

The post Mount Everest Is More Accessible than Ever. Is That a Good Thing? appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.