Two reasons to celebrate in Nepal: Just in time for Losar, the Tibetan New Year, an end of the supply crisis in the Himalayan state is on the horizon. After more than four months, leaders of the Madhesi ethnic group declared their blockade of the border with India ended. The Madhesi, who live in southern Nepal, felt disadvantaged by the country’s new constitution. Meanwhile, it has been changed in some respects. The blockade had paralyzed Nepal. The reconstruction work after the earthquake in spring 2015 had come to a virtual standstill. Fuel and building materials as well as food and medicine had run short because the imports from India had been staying away. Since the weekend, tank trucks are rolling towards Kathmandu again.

Many cancellations

Happy Losar!

The trekking and expedition operators will be delighted too. Due to the blockade, they had been forced in some cases to organize fuel, flights and food for their clients even on the black market. The spring season is just around the corner – high time for the Nepalese Government to accelerate: The official decision to extend the validity of the 2015 climbing permits is still missing. After the earthquake, climbers from all over the world had prematurely terminated their expeditions. “I had seven expeditions of around 100 mountaineers last year”, Tashi Lhakpa Sherpa, executive director of the Nepalese operator Seven Summits treks, told the website Republica. “Around 50 percent of them have already cancelled their Nepal visit, saying that they won’t have sufficient time for preparation even if the permit is extended.”

Even last year, the Government of Nepal was pretty relaxed in this matter. Only when most climbers were already in the country, they had announced that the 2014 permits remained valid. Even two years ago, the season on Mount Everest had been over before it really began, after an avalanche in Khumbu Icefall had killed 16 Nepalese climbers.

Russell Brice

He is the doyen of the western expedition operators. The New Zealander Russell Brice has been leading expeditions to the Himalayas since 1974. Hardly any of his colleagues has so much experience as the 63-year-old head of Himalayan Experience, not only in organizing trips to the eight-thousanders but also in dealing with the authorities. It is something that has almost been forgotten, that Russell at an earlier age was an excellent high altitude climber – and an Everest pioneer: Along with the Briton Harry Taylor he first climbed the Three Pinnacles on the Northeast Ridge in 1988.
I wanted to know what Brice thinks about the current situation in Nepal:

Russ, for this spring Himalayan Experience is offering expeditions in Nepal to Mount Everest and Lhotse. How great is the demand?

Very small numbers compared to past years.

Do you notice an impact of the events in 2014 (avalanche in Khumbu Icefall) and 2015 (earthquake and avalanche that hit Everest BC) on your client’s attitude?

Yes very much so, many people want to see a safe and successful season before they book. So the 2016 season will be quite important as an indication that we can still climb Everest relatively safely.

South side of Mount Everest

In 2015, the Nepalese authorities announced stricter rules for climbers on Everest – restrictions on age (denying access to climbers younger than 18 and older than 75), a minimum of high mountaineering experience (at least having scaled a 6,500 m peak) and physical requirements. What do you think about this?

Nepal authorities are always making announcements but then it takes them forever to actually formalise. Yes I think that it is a good idea to make a minimum and maximum age limit as this can stop some ridiculous pursuit by some.

To climb 6,500m means nothing. You can climb a relatively easy summit like Aconcagua and this would be admissible, but a more difficult summit like Denali is not admissible. Do you think the Nepal authorities have any idea if people have climbed these summits or not, of course not, and they do not take any interest in any case, and most people will just lie. Much better to ask that Everest climbers have climbed another 8,000m summit before Everest, and then the Nepal authorities actually have a chance to check.

Two and half months before the beginning of the spring season, these new regulations have not yet come in effect – as little as the promised extension of 2015 climbing permits. Are you annoyed at the government’s apathy – or maybe used to it?

Yes totally I am extremely disappointed in the lack of effort by the government to distribute earthquake funds to those who need help, and the lack of interest to try and rebuild the tourist industry. So easy to make statements and then do nothing.

I heard that there will be a climbing permit credit for those that were on expeditions last year, for two years, but again this has not been passed at parliament level, and we have no details of how it will be implemented. So how can we pass this on to our members.

Last year we got our previous permit credits at 8 o’clock the night before we left for BC at 06.00 the next morning. So it was us as operators who took a big risk in bringing these members to Nepal, with no support from the authorities.

North side of Mount Everest

Despite of the fact that there were no summit successes from the Nepalese side of Everest in the past two years, you don’t switch over to north. Why not?

I am not geared up to operate in Tibet, but also still do not trust the Chinese authorities like Tibet was closed again this last autumn season. When Tibet was closed 3 days before I was supposed to go there in 2008 I lost a quarter million dollars, I cannot afford to have this happen again.

But also I need to try and help the Nepal people as much as I can, the government certainly isn’t.

The situation in Nepal is still difficult – also due to the continuing blockade of the Nepalese border with India. Do you look forward to the upcoming spring season with optimism or mixed feelings?

I am ashamed and embarrassed that the new Nepalese government has not been able to resolve the embargo after so many months. I am also very worried that it will not be resolved by the time that the climbing season starts, and this is going to have a big impact on us as operators with the cost of food, fuel, transport and the like.

I am not looking forward to the next season, but we need to be there and be positive, because if the local authorities cannot offer that, then we had best do our best. Too many people rely upon us to bring tourists to Nepal, so we need to do our best to try and rebuild this business.

Much in demand: firewood for cooking and heating

If there is a season, which stands for optimism, it’s spring: Winter is leaving, it’s getting warmer, brighter, more colorful. This may entice people painting the world more beautiful than it is soberly assessed. Also the people in Nepal long for spring, in the hope of better times. 2015 was a bad year for the country. First the devastating earthquake in spring that killed according to official figures more than 8800 people. And were this not bad enough, the blockade of the border to India, now continuing for almost four months. There is still no sign of spring fever in Nepal.

Ambivalent feeling

Fuel, food and medicine are still scarce because the imports from India have been staying away. The blockade holds the reconstruction in the earthquake hit regions up. Tourism is affected too. The conditions for operators of trekking and expeditions in Nepal are far from ideal. His agency was still able to obtain fuel, ensure flights and organize food, “of course often on the black market”, Manfred Haeupl, head of the German operator Hauser Exkursionen writes to me, adding that he has an “ambivalent feeling, because we want and should send tourists, while on the other hand the locals are suffering”.

Double standards

“The booking situation is far from having recovered”, Haeupl says. “We are currently still about 30 percent below the number of bookings in 2015. The NTB [Nepal Tourism Board] does nothing to boost tourism, but has now increased the entry fees.” In contrast, the Nepalese government waives visa fees for visitors from China since the beginning of the year. Perhaps the authorities in Kathmandu should think about such a gesture to Western tourists too.

Less bookings, but uptrend

Limited sale of gas bottles

Other large German operators as the DAV Summit Club and Amical Alpin note a similar decline in bookings for trips to Nepal as Hauser does. “Compared to 2015, we have currently 26 percent less bookings for next spring “, Markus Herrmann, product manager of DAV Summit Club, writes to me. However, his company is now recording an increasing demand for Nepal traveling. “Things are once again looking up”, says Herrmann.

Via Kathmandu or Lhasa?

Dominik Mueller, head of Amical alpin, is cautiously optimistic too. Their scheduled spring expedition to the eight-thousander Makalu in Nepal is “already well booked and thus secured”, says Mueller. However, he refers to uncertainties before the upcoming season: “For us as expedition operators it’s still an open question whether China will open the border with Tibet for expeditions, so that we can organize our equipment material and also our arrival via Nepal. Of course, an arrival via Lhasa is possible too but means significantly higher costs.”

The great silence

Whereas the 2015 earthquake in Nepal made headlines around the world for weeks, hardly anyone seems to be interested in the conflict in the Nepal-India border region. The ethnic group of Madhesis, who live in the border area, initiated the blockade to protest against the new constitution of Nepal, through which they feel discriminated. The government in Kathmandu accuses India of actively supporting the blockade, the authorities in New Delhi dispute this.
At the end of November, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, he was “alarmed by reports of the obstruction, and destruction, of life-saving medical supplies and continued impact on humanitarian operations” in Nepal, urging all sides to resolve their differences. Ban underlined Nepal’s right of free transit.
I didn’t find any statement of a Western government on the conflict. My questions to the German Foreign Ministry, what they think of the problem and whether they have already contacted India on this issue or intend to do so, are still unanswered.

Imja Tsho, glacial lake in Everest region

It’s five to twelve, maybe later. Time is running out to tackle man-made climate change. The impacts of global warming can be observed also in the Himalayas, gpt instance in Nepal. “Largely because of climate change and the recent impacts of the earthquake and aftershocks, Nepal has entered an era of accelerated catastrophic events that will impact the country’s population, their lives and livelihoods for several years to come”, US and local scientists said after having researched the greatest and most dangerous glacial lakes in Nepal after the devastating 25 April earthquake.

In these days, delegates from all over the world are debating a new climate change agreement in Paris. On this occasion, I called Dawa Steven Sherpa in Kathmandu. Along with his father Ang Tshering Sherpa, the president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), the 31-year-old is managing the expedition operator “Asian Trekking”. Dawa Steven scaled Everest twice (in 2007 and 2008) and in addition the eight-thousanders Cho Oyu (2006) and Lhotse (2009). For years he has been engaging for environmental and climate protection. He is a climate change ambassador for WWF.

Khumbu Icefall

Dawa Steven, what changes caused by global warming do you notice in Nepal, particularly in the Everest region?

The whole mountainous region of Nepal is changing, including Everest region of course. As a climber you can see these changes. New routes have to be found, like the Icefall Doctors did in Khumbu Icefall this year. The dangers associated with climbing are changing too. We are seeing more rock fall because the snow and ice that used to hold the rocks in place on the slopes are gone. We also notice more avalanches and collapses of seracs. Of course it’s a natural process that these things happen on high mountains but it has never happened so often and in such big magnitude.

What do you consider to be the greatest dangers for Himalayan people in the future?

I have just talked about the dangers for climbers but there are many, many other problems. Glaciers are melting and turning into huge lakes with water that can burst out and strike the lower valleys where people are living. That is one direct concern, but there are others as well. For instance, weather patterns are changing. It’s no longer possible to predict when rain will come or stop, how dry, how cold it will be. Before, you could rely on historical patterns, now it is very difficult to say that. So for people who rely on agriculture it is becoming very difficult, not only in the mountains but in the valleys too. Furthermore, due to increasing temperatures, more insects are able to survive in higher altitudes. Pests are seen in places where they didn’t use to exist. Mosquitoes and parasites are also moving higher up where people never had seen them before. In effect they are destroying the crops and the health.

Dawa Steven Sherpa

Climate change is also impacting on tourism which is very important for Nepalese economy. For instance in 2013, Lukla airport [entry for climbers and trekking tourists to the Khumbu region] was closed for twelve days in October, what should have been the busiest month in tourism. But when more than a third of a month is blocked because of bad weather, it has a serious impact on the livelihood of the local people, on the health of the local economy but also on the health of the nation, because it is not good for Nepal’s reputation as a solid and reliable tourist destination.  

Nepal is currently facing other major problems: the consequences of the devastating earthquake, shortages due to the blockade of the border to India, a new government. Is there any scope left for the awareness of climate change at all?

We have to distinguish between urgent and important needs. Right now there are more urgent needs in Nepal like to get the blockade lifted. So of course people are not so concerned about the long-term climate change. But climate change or the blockade or the earthquake, they all have a direct impact on the livelihood of the people. After the earthquake, hundreds of thousands people can not return to their houses, because due to the blockade there is no help coming in and construction has even halted. These people don’t know what to do. They can’t go on the fields because their crops were destroyed. It’s not black and white that climate change is one problem and earthquake another one. It is all related because at the end of the day it all impacts the ability of the local people to look after themselves.

What do you expect from the climate summit in Paris?

I hope that not only powerful nations but all nations reach an agreement of reducing carbon dioxide to keep the global warming well below two degrees Celsius and to make it legally binding – so that if one country is found not to be following the rules, they are liable. Because it’s not just our but everybody’s future. I hope that this sense will be there when they negotiate and sign those papers that they say, it’s not just an economic incentive. At the end of the day, when the earth starts to collapse, I think economic reasons will be a joke. Nobody will look back and say, well, me made that decision. It should be based on future generations and not on economic concerns that we are facing today.

Do you think it’s one of the last chances because time is running out?

The chances are running out, things are getting worse and worse. Maybe some people in some parts of the world which are better developed and more industrialized have more chances in the future. But for the people of Nepal or other people who live in these developing countries in the world, chances have been running out very fast. They are already feeling the impacts.

South side of Mount Everest

Backing for the Nepalese authorities: The International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA) “fully supports the decision to propose more stringent measures for climbers wishing to scale the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest (29,029ft / 8,848m)”, as it said. These measures will include individuals having to prove they have already scaled a peak higher than 6,500 meters, thus eliminating the possibility of novice climbers scaling the mountain. “Everest should become a mountaineers’ mountain again”, said UIAA president Frits Vrijlandt.

“Restore a sense of dignity and glory to Everest”

“We support the requirement restrictions on age (denying access to those under 18, and over 75) and the minimum requirements regarding physical and mental ability to assure you are able to climb by yourself or with a partner. If you have to be hauled up the mountain you don’t really belong on Everest.” Vrijlandt said that the Nepalese authorities “have Everest’s best interests at heart”. The UIAA president was in 2000 the first climber from the Netherlands who scaled Everest from the Tibetan North Side and in 2003 the second from his country who completed the Seven Summits.
The UIAA said that they and the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) “believe implementing these measures will drastically improve safety on an increasingly overcrowded mountain, lessen pressure on guides who are often reduced to risking their lives assisting ill-prepared climbers and restore a sense of dignity and glory to Everest.”

Plea for self-responsible climbing

The new Everest rules have still to be implemented into the Mountaineering Expedition Regulation, which is part of the Nepalese Tourism Act. But I think, the country’s new government is currently facing more pressing problems that have to be solved than dealing with Everest climbing, for instance the still continuing blockade of Nepal’s border to India. Even in case the new measures on Everest come into force before the beginning of the next spring season, the question remains how to ensure compliance with the regulations. The Tourism Ministry will hardly establish training grounds where the Everest aspirants have to prove their climbing skills before granting them permits. Thus the expedition operators will have to ensure that their clients comply with the conditions to climb Everest. The operators would be well-advised to transfer the responsibility to the clients themselves, because in the end every climber who wants to scale Everest should be self-responsible for his decisions on the mountain. That would be a major step forward.

Ueli in the North Face of Cholatse

The fall season in the Himalayas is not over yet. Although the expedition on Mount Everest as well as those on the eight-thousanders Makalu, Dhaulagiri and Annapurna were recently canceled due to dangerous conditions on the mountains, there are still a few climbers under way on the highest mountains. So the team of South Korean Sung Taek Hong, who wants to tackle the Lhotse South Face again, decided in favor of a later expedition start. And also Swiss climber Ueli Steck and American Colin Haley have just completed their acclimatization. They did it on separate ways. Steck climbed along with Tenji Sherpa through the North Face of the 6,640-meter-high Cholatse. “That was pretty cool. He is the first Sherpa who climbed this wall”, Ueli writes to me. “It’s nice to see how a ‘new’ generation of Sherpas is growing up, who are really interested in climbing and not just in business. I think that’s awesome!” Steck and Haley want to first repeat the extremely difficult route via the Southeast Pillar to the summit of the 7,804-meter-high Nuptse East which was opened in in 2003 – but contrary to the first climbers, the Russians Valerij Babanov and Yuri Kosholenko, in Alpine style. I sent Ueli three questions to Base Camp.

Acclimatization typical of “Speedy” Ueli

Ueli, expeditions on Everest, Makalu and Dhaulagiri were canceled during the last two weeks because of too much snow and high risk of avalanches. What’s about the conditions on Nuptse?

The expedition on Everest was canceled too? On Cholatse, a week ago, we really had perfect conditions. I have climbed the wall three times so far, and never before I had such good conditions. It was like a dream. Now here on Nuptse, it looks a bit different. The wall was extremely dry, as it was very warm. Now the weather is very unstable, and there has been some precipitation everyday. I think it’s not very good, but we don’t just throw in the towel!

In the pictures that you have sent from Khumbu region, you always look top fit and good-humored. In contrast your climbing partner for this ambitious project on Nuptse, Colin Haley, had health problems. What happens if he doesn’t become as fit as you obviously are?

Colin is on track. I feel very comfortable in high altitude, and I get used to the thin air very quickly. We had to complete our acclimatization each with our own program. Therefore, I went to Cholatse, along with Tenji. But Colin is now ready too. Let’s see how it works.

The earthquake in Nepal is about half a year back. How do you experience the people and the situation in the Khumbu region?

It is impressive to see how the people deal with it. The Khumbu is already completely rebuilt. If you did not know that there was an earthquake in spring, you would not notice. It is striking how few tourists are here. But as always the local people have a very positive attitude. The country has more problems than just the consequences of the earthquake – currently no more fuel reaching Nepal. I think the whole policy is causing more suffering.

Run on scarce petrol

At last! Many Western governments have now canceled their general travel warning for Nepal that they had imposed after the 25 April earthquake. Instead, they are now only warning not to travel to certain regions of the Himalayan state. So the German Foreign Office called the trekking regions Langtang and Manaslu problematic areas, where access “is not possible or only with considerable difficulties”. The British Foreign Office advises against traveling  to these regions too and calls in addition the districts Sindhupalchowk and Dolakha. From the perspective of the German Government “particular caution is advised” when traveling in these or other areas that were hit hard by the quake. The US Department of State notes that “the frequency and severity of aftershocks have greatly diminished”, but encourages travelers “to consult carefully with their travel and trekking agencies for current, location-specific information and to heed warnings of potential danger”.  All those governments point to a new problem in Nepal – a political one.

Everything is short in supply

For two weeks, the border to India is next to closed due to political protests in the Terai districts. Fuel, gas, basic food, medicine – everything is running short in Nepal. “Several hotels are serving sandwiches and salad only. Many small restaurants already had to close”, Michi Muenzberg writes from the capital Kathmandu. “At normal mealtimes thick trails of smoke are billowing through the streets, as people are cooking on open fires.”

Stranded in Kathmandu

Michi Muenzberg (r.) in Kathmandu

Three years ago, the German woman, who is living in the small town of Wilthen in Saxony, traveled to Nepal for the first time. Since then, the country has become her second home. Michi founded a private aid project, “Hope for Nepal”. She arranges school sponsorships for Nepalese children and supports a children’s home in Kathmandu. Now Michi traveled to Nepal again to help the earthquake victims. But she is stranded in Kathmandu for two weeks because of the border blockades in the Terai districts.

No material transports possible

“Sure, we could rent one of the few still driving taxis, but that would generate horrendous costs so that it would be simply useless. And the transportation of construction materials could not be done this way”, Michi writes. “I feel very sorry for the people in these areas who were hoping that things turned better after the monsoon. There is an urgent need to build shelters for winter and sanitary facilities. How, in any way, can we manage this?”