Twelve footfall pitches. That’s the size of the new mountaineering center, which the Chinese want to build on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest. According to the state newspaper “China Daily” the giant complex in the town of Gangkar, also known as Old Tingri, by the year 2019 is to be completed in 2019. The site is located about 60 kilometers northwest of Everest, on the travel route of expeditions that head to the highest mountain on earth.  According to the “China Daily”, the mountaineering center will cost more than 100 million yuan (13.7 million euros). Accomodation and restaurants for mountaineers are planned, furthermore a helicopter rescue base, offices for expedition operators, repair shops for cars, motorcycles and bicycles as well as a mountaineering museum. The mountaineering scene is discussing the project on social media. Some see no less than the downfall of adventure on Everest.  The Everest north side “will turn into a Chinese Disneyland,” says one. Another believes that a chair lift to the summit is only a matter of time. Dominik Mueller, head of German expedition operator Amical Alpin, doesn’t see why there should be outrage.

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That has little to do with a lonely mountain experience. It’s more like a rolling wave. The first summit successes of this fall season are reported from the eight-thousanders Manaslu and Cho Oyu. Citing Mingma Sherpa, head of the expedition operator Seven Summit Treks, the Kathmandu based newspaper “The Himalayan Times” reports, that at least 30 climbers reached the 8163-meter-high summit only until 9 a.m. on Friday morning. At this time more than 50 others were still on the way to the highest point.

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“We walked into base camp, dropped our packs, threw on our down jackets, and looked up. Makalu chose that moment to expose her summit”, Adrian Ballinger wrote on Instagram after yesterday’s arrival at the foot of the fourth highest mountain on earth. “Awe is the only word to describe the feeling.” Ballinger is leading a team of US climbers that is remarkable in several respects. First, it is even the only expedition on this eight-thousander in Nepal this fall. Second, the team will try to realize the first ski descent from the 8,485-meter-high summit. And third, three of the five expedition members are women, two of them mothers, and that’s not just commonplace in high-altitude mountaineering.

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More than 300 Everest dreams are gone. As many climbers returned home empty-handed after their expeditions had been cancelled after the avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall on Good Friday. One of them was David Goettler. The 35-year-old from the German town of Munich had wanted to climb the highest mountain in the world via the normal route on the Nepalese south side without bottled oxygen. Goettler was still acclimatizing when he heard the first still inconsistent reports about the avalanche. “Initially, I hoped that I might still be able to make an attempt”, David told me on the phone. Therefore, he first continued his acclimatization program. “But when I was on the summit of Island Peak (6000er in the Everest region) and wanted to sleep below the highest point, the news came that my expedition and all others would be cancelled.” He returned to Kathmandu.

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