Tima Deryan

She does not fit into the clichés that many people in the West have of Arab women. Fatima, called Tima, Deryan does not stand in the shadow of a man. She is cosmopolitan, self-confident and independent. She has founded a company in Dubai where she lives – and she is a mountaineer: Tima has already scaled five of the “Seven Summits”, the highest mountains of all continents. Mount Everest and Mount Vinson in the Antarctica are still missing from her collection.

On 23 March, the 26-year-old will fly to Nepal to climb the highest mountain on earth. On the trek to Everest Base Camp, Tima will certainly pay special attention to the yaks. In October 2017 on her way to Island Peak, she was attacked by a yak when she had just crossed a bridge over the Dudh Kosi between Phakding and Namche Bazaar. She was flipped over by the yak. The horns hit her at the thigh, Deryan was slightly injured.

Tima, how did you become a mountaineer?

On the summit of Aconcagua (in 2017)

I was born in Kuwait, my family moved to Lebanon when I was two years old and then moved to Dubai when I was nine years old. I‘ve been always into sports in general. During my teenage, I was into bodybuilding and then started bungy jumping by the age of 16. I then started my scuba diving and got my advanced PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) license, then I thought I should also get my skydiving license and I did.

In 2015 I attended a speech by Omar Samra, the first Egyptian man to climb Everest (in 2007) and I was reminded about my goal: I’ve always wanted to climb Everest ever since I was 14. I have visited Nepal five times and flew over Everest twice and I always said I will climb to the top of this mountain one day. So I took the first step to see if I like mountaineering or not and took off to climb Mount Elbrus in Russia. This was when I got hooked and my mountaineering journey started.

How would you describe your character?

I’m am a strong woman both physically and mentally. I love laughing and I enjoy the simple things in life. I‘m a minimalist, so to me it’s all about the experience rather than material. I have two jobs when I’m not on the mountain, one is in finance, the other is my own business which means I work hard for my money.

I‘m a loud person when I’m happy and I try to control it. I would consider myself between both an extrovert and introvert at this stage in life. Mind over matter is what I believe in. A positive, balanced and happy life is what I try to achieve all the time.

On the ladder across a crevasse (on Island Peak)

Which of your qualities do help you the most in the mountains?

Believing that I’m strong, being positive and laughing (especially when the altitude hits me) and of course now that its all about mind over matter which I actually tattooed on my hand as a reminder.

What does mountaineering mean to you today?

I honestly wish mountaineering is my job but this doesn’t work in my world. My dreams are big and I need to earn a lot to be able to achieve them. So now mountaineering for me is a run away from the standard city life and mainstream world. It‘s when I refill all my positive energy and boost my confidence. It‘s when I’m in peace with myself and I push all the limits happily. It‘s when I rebalance my thoughts and mentally heal. Mountaineering is literally my heaven on earth and happy place.

How do you prepare for Everest?

While rock climbing

Given that Everest has been a long time dream of mine, when I decided that I want to do it, I discovered that it takes about two months! As a newbie, I continued climbing for three years until I gained confidence and learned enough to take such a decision.

As for training, I do my strength training from 6am to 7am then I’m off to a long day at work. I come back and do my HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) in the evening.

I run ten kilometers one or two times a week, do indoor climbing two, three times a week and I’m always hiking over the weekend.

How do you finance the expedition?

I’m a minimalist, I live with my family so I really do not spend much of what I earn. Everything goes into mountains and trips. As for Everest, it is a launching event for my new company Yalla Cleaning (an online portal for cleaning industry). Part of my initiative is contributing to cleaning Everest, so currently working with the Nepalis on how I can help to bring the trash off the mountain through a system.

South side of Mount Everest

What are your expectations for Everest?

I think anyone wanting to climb a mountain would have the ultimate goal of reaching the top. For Everest, my ultimate goal is definitely reaching the top but I am very well aware that things might go against my expectations. The fact that I have the chance to spend around 50 days on the mountain, be there and live the experience, it is way too beautiful. But to top the cake with the cherry, it’ll be great to come back home with the summit! So I really do not have a lot of expectations besides – expecting the cold, stainless-steel ladders, Khumbu Icefall, crevasses, and the epic basecamp life!

A woman as a mountaineer – there are not many in the male-dominated Arab world. What resistance did you have to overcome?

I always say the Arab world is in a transition phase. It is true that it is male-dominated but women are rising up in all domains. Women in the Middle East are achieving the impossible whether it is in fitness, business, culture, music and entertainment.

Nepal, I’m coming

As I started my mountaineering journey, it was difficult to convince my family to travel alone knowing that I will be disconnected and they might not hear from me for a while. It was very hard for them to accept it but I managed to convince them. Otherwise, I did not really face a lot of difficulties kick-starting my passion.

As for society, I usually have a lot of respect from both men and women when they know what I go through to reach the peak. Just like in any other part of the world, some people think I’m too crazy and my future will be complicated. I don’t really bother explaining instead I climb more and prove them wrong. It’s all about action at the end of the day.

How do Arab men react to your mountain successes, how do Arab women?

Both Arab men and women react in a beautiful way towards my summit successes. It makes me so happy to hear “we are proud of you”. I must say, I do get challenged by some men when it comes to fitness so they can prove a point. I accept it for fun. Whether I lose or win doesn’t matter but I make sure my message goes through which is: Women are strong creatures with a high pain threshold.

Is there also a message that you want to give to Arab women by climbing Everest?

On expedition (to Denali)

Yes. Through my Everest climb I would like to demonstrate that an Arab woman is able to fight all sorts of limitations that society imposes upon her. She can earn her freedom only by action. If she wants something she must work really hard to get it! Being strong does not mean not being feminine enough. Being strong is way more attractive than being “soft”.

Arab women are still going through the phase of being independent and doing anything on there own. Most women still find it difficult to date to depend solely on themselves. So If I can climb Everest and depend on myself on the mountain then they can do anything. All it takes is courage and hard work.

I want Arab women to know that they are beautiful, they are strong and they can conquer the world. But only with the right mindset.

P.S.: By the way, the first Arab woman on Everest was the Palestinian Suzanne Al Houby, who reached the highest point at 8850 meters in spring 2011.

This is where the game is to be played

Mount Everest has long been an event venue. Thus in 2009, the Nepalese government moved a cabinet meeting to the base camp at the foot of Mount Everest to attract media attention. Also there the British DJ Paul Oakenfold gave a benefit concert in 2017. Last year a British star chef organized the “world’s highest dinner party” on the Tibetan north side of Everest: exclusive dining on the North Col at about 7,000 meters, with a white tablecloth, candlestick and champagne. And it goes on. Next spring, Everest will probably host the highest rugby match of all time.

Two Guinness book entries?

Ollie Philipps on a trekking in the Nepalese Everest region

Former and current British rugby stars Lee Mears, Ollie Phillips, Shane Williams and Tamara Taylor alongside 20 players are set to make two entries in the Guinness Book of Records: the highest game of full contact rugby and the highest game of touch rugby between mixed teams of women and men. Touch Rugby is the variant of the sport without hard body contact to keep the risk of injury low. The game is to be played near the Advance Base Camp (ABC), on a snow plateau at an altitude of 6,500 meters, located between the 7045-meter-high Lhakpa Ri and Everest. The organizers are still looking for some players.

Help for handicapped and disadvantaged children

More important than the records: The campaign is intended to flush money into the coffers of the aid organization “Wooden Spoon”, which supports disabled and disadvantaged children in Great Britain and Ireland. Mears and Phillips were already involved in the “Arctic Rugby Challenge” in 2015. At that time, a team had played rugby at the magnetic North Pole to raise money for “Wooden Spoon”.

Furdiki Sherpa (l.) and Nima Doma Sherpa (r.)

Mount Everest took their husbands. And the fathers of their children. Nevertheless, Nima Doma Sherpa and Furdiki Sherpa want to climb the highest mountain on earth this spring. “We are doing our expedition for the respect of our late husbands because they were mountaineers too,” Nima Doma replies to my question about the purpose of their project. “And we want to motivate all the widows.” Everest has left a lot of single mothers behind. According to the mountaineering chronicle “Himalayan Database”, 37 Sherpas have died there in the past 20 years alone. Furdiki’s husband, Mingma Sherpa, belonged to the so-called “Icefall Doctors” who set up and secure the route through the Khumbu Icefall every year. The 44-year-old died in a fall into a crevasse on 7 April 2013. One year later, on 18 April 2014, Nima Doma Sherpa’s husband, Tshering Wangchu Sherpa, was one of the 16 Nepalese victims of the major avalanche accident in the Icefall. 

Move to Kathmandu

During the ascent on Island Peak

When Everest’s fate struck, the two Sherpanis each worked in the small tea houses of their families: Furdiki in Dingboche, a small village in the Everest region at 4,340 meters, Nima Doma in Khumjung, further down the valley at 3,780 meters. Their income was too low to make ends meet for their children in the long run. Both moved to Kathmandu and started working as porters and later guides of trekking groups. Furdiki wanted to give her children greater opportunities for the future than she could finance herself. The 42-year-old found adoptive parents in the USA for her three daughters, who are now 14, 17 and 20 years old. Nima Doma has a ten-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter. When the 34-year-old is on the road as a trekking guide, her mother looks after the children in Kathmandu.

On top of two six-thousanders

Nima Doma (l.) and Furtiki in the climbing wall

In order to prepare for their “Two Widow Expedition”, Nima Doma and Furdiki attended several climbing courses of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA). Last November they scaled the 6,584-meter-high Chulu East in the Annapurna region and the 6,189-meter-high Island Peak in the Everest region, two popular trekking peaks. Is that enough experience for Everest? I asked the two Sherpani if they were not afraid that something might happen to them on the highest mountain on earth and that their children would then be orphans. “We are not afraid of the mountains because we believe we gain basic technic that is need in the mountains and well wishes from all the people who know us and our story,” replies Nima Doma Sherpa. “Every mother loves her children and so do we. But after the death of our husbands all the responsibility suddenly lay on our shoulders. We want to show our children that we can be independent. This will motivate them and make them proud.”

P.S. Nima Doma and Furdiki still need more money to finance their expedition. On 19 October, they will be hosting a fundraising dinner party in a hotel in Kathmandu. If you want to support the two Sherpani, you can also send them money online. Here is the link to their crowdfunding campaign.

Ang Rita Sherpa with certificates of the Guinness Book of Records

Ang Rita Sherpa‘s Everest record could be one for eternity. The legendary climber from Nepal, who the locals reverently call “Snow Leopard”, is now 70 years old. No other climber has scaled the highest mountain on earth as often without bottled oxygen as Ang Rita did in the 1980s and 90s. “His record of nine will probably stand for a long time since current climbing Sherpas are required to use O2 by their companies,” Richard Salisbury from the “Himalayan Database” writes to me.

Not ten times

Tents on Everest South Col

Recently I had reported about the remarkable feat of the Pakistani climber Fazal Ali, who last summer had been the first to stand on the summit of K2, the second highest mountain in the world, without bottled oxygen for the third time. I remembered Ang Rita, the Everest record holder. I had in mind that he had climbed to the summit ten times without breathing mask. So it is written in newspaper and internet articles and in books, e.g. the Guinness Book of Records. He himself has always mentioned this number too. Strictly speaking, however, it is not correct, as I discovered during my research in the “Himalayan Database” and as Richard Salisbury confirmed to me.

Bottled oxygen while sleeping on the South Col

Ang Rita has indeed ascended ten times without bottled oxygen to the highest point on earth at 8,850 meters, but during his first successful ascent in May 1983 he used a breathing mask to sleep in Camp 4 both before and after the summit push. The US climber David Breashears pointed this out at the time. According to Breashears, he had been in the same tent with Ang Rita on the South Col in spring 1983 and they had shared a Y-connection from the same oxygen bottle.

Huge respect for Ang Rita

On the summit

Breashears, who scaled Everest five times with bottled oxygen during his career, stressed to the legendary Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley (1923-2018) that he did not want to diminish Ang Rita’s outstanding performance. After all, the Sherpa had climbed to the highest point without bottled oxygen on the summit day of 1983. “I can’t think of a stronger climbing companion or a Sherpa for whom I have more respect than Ang Rita,” Breashears wrote. On his following nine successful Everest climbs, the legendary Sherpa forewent bottled oxygen – also when sleeping at great heights.

19 summit successes on eight-thousanders

Ang Rita was born in 1948 in Yilajung, a small village in Khumbu in eastern Nepal. As a child he tended Yaks. At the age of 15, the Sherpa first worked as a porter on an expedition. Ang Rita scaled his first eight-thousander in 1979: Dhaulagiri. In total, he achieved 19 summit successes on eight-thousanders by the end of his climbing career in 1999: ten times on Everest, four times on Cho Oyu, three times on Dhaulagiri, once on Kangchenjunga and Makalu. He always did it completely without bottled – with one exception: during the aforementioned expedition in 1983.

Aerobic exercises at night at 8,600 meters

Admired and often honored

The “Snow Leopard” set Everest milestones. In 1984, he opened a new route variant via the South Buttress with the Slovaks Zoltan Demjan and Jozef Psotka. During the descent, Psotka fell to his death. On 22 December 1987, Ang Rita succeeded the first and so far only winter ascent of Everest without breathing mask. Along with the Korean Heo Young-ho, who used bottled oxygen, the Sherpa reached the highest point. In bad weather the two climbers were forced to bivouac at 8,600 meters. “We spent the whole night just below the summit,” Ang Rita recalled later, “doing aerobic exercises to keep our body active which is the only way to survive there.”

P.S.: Ang Rita’s two sons also scaled Everest several times – with bottled oxygen: Karsang Namgyal Sherpa (born in 1971) nine times, Chewang Dorje Sherpa (born in 1975) five times. Karsang died in 2012 at Everest Base Camp, apparently as a result of alcohol poisoning.

Everest (l.) in the first daylight

In the coming winter there will be no commercial winter expedition to the highest mountain on earth after all. The Nepalese operator “Seven Summit Treks” (SST) postponed their Everest project by one year to winter 2019/2020. “We are personally busy this year”, board director Chhang Dawa Sherpa writes to me, adding that a strong SST team will accompany the Spaniard Alex Txikon on his upcoming winter expedition to K2 in Pakistan.

Clients opted out

Alex Txikon on Everest in winter 2017

The US mountaineer and blogger Alan Arnette had previously reported, citing SST Managing Director Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, that two of the original five interested clients had opted out of the winter expedition and that the project had therefore been postponed by one year. As reported, for the first time ever an Everest winter expedition had been advertised as a commercial one. Pointing that out, Alex Txikon had given up his original plan to set off for the third consecutive winter to the highest mountain on earth to tackle it without bottled oxygen. “Well, honestly, the perspective of having a commercial expedition on the mountain has put me off,” the 36-year-old had said.

Last success 25 years ago

The mountaineering chronicle “Himalayan Database” has so far recorded only 15 Everest summit successes in the meteorological winter. For weather researchers, the cold season begins on 1 December, while the calendar winter does not start until the winter solstice on 21 or 22 December. The first winter ascent was made on 17 February 1980 by Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy. The only one who scaled the highest mountain on earth in winter without bottled oxygen was Ang Rita Sherpa on 22 December 1987. The weather on that day was unusually good. The extreme cold in winter usually causes the air pressure in the summit region to drop even further. An ascent without a breathing mask is then at the absolute limit of what is possible.

Tibetan north side of Mount Everest

The expedition operators in Nepal might have been so shocked that they dropped their pencils. In the “New Regulations for Foreign Expeditions 2019” in Tibet (available to me) it says under point 6: “In order to ensure the healthy and orderly development of mountaineering and minimize the occurrence of mountaineering accidents, mountaineering teams which were organized in Nepal temporarily will not be accepted.” As I have learned from a reliable source, a delegation from Nepal immediately traveled to China to have this regulation removed or at least weakened. Apparently the delegates of the Nepali operators were at least partially successful. Some agencies, however, are supposedly to receive no more approval. The Chinese and Tibetan Mountaineering Associations announced to cooperate in future only “with expedition companies with good social reputation, strong ability of team formation, logistic support, reliable service quality, excellent professional quality, and (who are) law-abiding”.

One client, one Sherpa

Garbage cans in Everest Base Camp

From spring 2019 onwards, every client commercial expeditions on one of the Tibetan eight-thousanders will have to be accompanied “by a Nepalese mountain guide”. There are also new regulations regarding environmental protection and mountain rescue. For example, each summit aspirant on Everest will have to pay a “rubbish collection fee” of 1,500 US dollars, on Cho Oyu and Shishapangma 1,000 dollars each. Nepalese mountain guides will be exempted from this fee, as well as the base camp staff. In addition, all members bar none will be required after the expedition to hand in eight kilograms of garbage per person from the mountain to the responsible Chinese liaison officers in the base camp.

Rescue team in ABC

In future, a team provided by the Tibetan authorities and the local operator “Tibet Yarlha Shampo Expedition” will be responsible for mountain rescue on Everest, Cho Oyu and Shishapangma. During the time of summit attempts, four to six rescuers are to stay permanently in the Advanced Base Camps. For each expedition, the Chinese-Tibetan authorities will collect a deposit of 5,000 US dollars, which will only be refunded if there have been no accidents within the group and if all environmental protection requirements have been met.

Khumbu glacier

The Khumbu Glacier at the foot of Mount Everest is apparently even more endangered by climate change than previously assumed. British glaciologists, who measured the ice temperature of the glacier in 2017 and 2018, point to this. At three drill sites up to an altitude of about 5,200 meters near Everest base camp, they used a specified adapted car wash unit to conduct hot water under high pressure into the ice. The scientists hung strings with temperature sensors in the resulting holes, the deepest of which reached about 130 meters deep into the ice. “The temperature range we measured was warmer than we expected – and hoped – to find,” says Duncan Quincey of Leeds University, leader of the “EverDrill” project.

Warmer than the outside air

The drill sites near Everest BC

According to the glaciologists’ study, the minimum ice temperature was minus 3.3 degrees Celsius, “with even the coldest ice being a full two degrees warmer than the mean annual air temperature”. A similar study carried out near Everest Base Camp in 1974 found ice that was two to three degrees colder. “’Warm’ ice is particularly vulnerable to climate change because even small increases in temperature can trigger melting,” explains Quincey. “Internal temperature has a significant impact on the complex dynamics of a glacier, including how it flows, how water drains through it and the volume of meltwater runoff.” Millions of people in the Himalayas and Hindu Kush are affected by these processes because they depend on glacier water, says the researcher.

“Water tower for Asia”

Five years ago, scientists at the University of Milan pointed out that the ice masses around Everest had shrunk by 13 percent over the past 50 years. “The Himalayan glaciers and ice caps are considered a water tower for Asia since they store and supply water downstream during the dry season,” said the Nepalese geoscientist Sudeep Thakuri at that time. “Downstream populations are dependent on the melt water for agriculture, drinking, and power production.”

The Hillary grandchildren Alexander, Lily and George (from l.) in Auckland

The Hillarys seem to carry an Everest gene. Edmund Hillary succeeded in 1953 with the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay the first ascent of the highest mountain on earth. In 1990 and 2003, his son Peter followed in his father’s footsteps and reached the top of Everest at 8,850 meters twice. And in a year and a half, in spring 2020, three of the six grandchildren of the first Everest summiter could follow: Lily, Alexander and George Hillary.

Rising to challenges

Sir Edmund Hillary with his grandchildren Lily, Alexander and George

“It’s in our blood,” said 18-year-old Lily about mountaineering in an interview with the newspaper “New Zealand Herald”: “We really do enjoy it but more than the mountain itself it’s who you’re actually do it with and the challenges that you face.” Conquering those challenges while learning something about yourself was what her grandfather, who died in 2008, liked most, Lily says: “And I definitely can say it’s my favourite part too.”

Trekking to Everest Base Camp

Next year Lily and her father Peter, mother Yvonne and the brothers George and Alexander want to hike to Everest Base Camp on the Nepalese south side of the mountain. 26-year-old George will lead the family trekking group as a guide. From the base camp the Hillary grandchildren will be able to get a taste of Everest. Lily is about to finish school. Afterwards she wants to do “serious climbing” along with her father and her brothers, “just so I get a hang of the ropes so I won’t kind of hold back the team … or be the weakest link.”

First Denali, then Everest

In 2019, the three Hillary grandchildren want to climb the 6,190-meter-high Denali, the highest mountain in North America, in preparation for Everest. George and 22-year-old Alexander have already scaled Kilimanjaro (Africa), Elbrus (Europe) and the Carstensz Pyramid, also called Puncak Jaya (Australia/Oceania) from the “Seven Summits”, the highest mountains of all continents.

North side of Everest

Will the mountaineers on the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest be chauffeured to the base camp next spring with electric buggies, as we know them from golf courses? This Tibetan provincial government’s plan is reported by Chinese state media. Step by step, all vehicles without electric motors should be banned from the base camp in order to reduce air pollution, it said. “In peak season, the camp welcomes an average of 200 to 400 vehicles every day,” said Tang Wu, director of Tibet’s Tourism Development Commission. “The camp receives an average of 20,000 vehicles every year.”

More than 100,000 visitors per year

The Chinese Base Camp, which can be reached on a paved road, has increasingly developed into a tourist attraction.  According to the state news agency Xinhua, in 2017 more than 100,000 people visited the starting point for Everest expeditions on the north side of the mountain. It is obvious that so many people produce a lot of garbage. The provincial government has commissioned a company to keep the area between the Chinese Base Camp at 5,200 meters and the Advance Base Camp at 6500 meters clean.

Special bonus for the transport of faeces

Garbage cans in Everest Base Camp

After the last spring season, 8.5 metric tonnes of waste were collected according to official data. It was said that it was particularly difficult to remove the faeces: The locals did not want to pack the human waste on their yaks because they thought it would bring bad luck. Only after special payments did some people agree to take the faeces away.

No more news about the planned mountaineering centre

Whether the plan with the electric cars will really be implemented remains to be seen. Almost two years ago, the news had gone around the world that by 2019 an Everest mountaineering centre, the size of twelve football pitches, was to be built in Gangkar, also known as Old Tingri, with accommodation and restaurants for mountaineers, a helicopter rescue base, offices for expedition operators, repair shops for cars, motorcycles and bicycles as well as a mountaineering museum.  After that you didn’t hear anything more about it.

Rescue flights also on the north side of Everest?

Rescue helicopters from Nepal at the foot of Shishapangma

However, there are persistent rumors that from 2019 there will also be helicopter rescue flights on the Tibetan north side of Everest. Last spring, Chinese rescue forces and Nepalese helicopter pilots worked together to find Bulgarian climber Boyan Petrov, who has been missing on the eight-thousander Shishapangma in Tibet. Unfortunately, the search was unsuccessful in the end, but the rescue operation could serve as a model for the highest of all mountains.

Mount Everest

Winter climbing on the eight-thousanders was previously reserved for the best and toughest. In the 1980s, the heyday of winter expeditions to the world’s highest mountains, the Polish experts for the cold season were called “Ice Warriors”. In that decade they achieved seven winter first ascents of eight-thousanders. Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy kicked off on 17 February 1980 on the highest of all mountains, Mount Everest. It’s strange that a commercial winter expedition might pitch up their tents there for the first time.

Five clients by the end of May

Wielicki (l.) and Cichy after the first winter ascent of Everest in 1980

However, the whole thing’s a little mysterious. On 28 May, Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, chairman of “14 Peak Expedition” and managing director of “Seven Summit Treks”, announced for the first time on Facebook that there would be an Everest winter expedition between 1 December 2018 and 28 February 2019. Five clients had already decided to join the expedition, wrote Tashi, adding that there was now “an open platform for all interested parties”. In total, the team would consist of more than 30, Tashi said. Shortly afterwards, “Seven Summit Treks” and “Arnold Coster Expeditions” – the operator was then called “Co-Partner” – also tendered this winter project. It was interesting that the introductory passage was changed: “Welcome all, but (you) should be experienced!”, it was said at first, then “Welcome all if you would like to take an advantage of less crowded and more adventure on Everest”. Tashi Lakpa Sherpa quoted a prize of $38,000 per person on Facebook at the beginning of July. By the way, the permit for climbing Everest is much cheaper in winter than in spring: 2,750 instead of 11,000 dollars per foreign climber.

Txikon: “It has put me off”

Alex Txikon wants to experience loneliness on Everest

Then it became quiet about the planned commercial Everest winter expedition – until Alex Txikon gave an interview about his winter plans to “explorersweb.com” a week ago. This time he wouldn’t go to Everest, said the 36-year-old Spaniard, who was one of the first winter ascenders of Nanga Parbat in 2016 and had tried in vain in the past two winters to climb Mount Everest without bottled oxygen. “Well, honestly, the perspective of having a commercial expedition on the mountain has put me off,” said Alex. “It’s the absolute solitude which makes winter Everest so unique and its climb so challenging so, with all respects, I’d rather look somewhere else for my next winter expedition.”

No answer yet

Arnold Coster

Txikon obviously referred to the announcement at the end of May, as he also spoke of five clients so far who were determined to participate in the commercial expedition. I tried to find out more. On the websites of “Seven Summit Treks” and “14 Peak Expedition” I searched in vain for references to the winter expedition. On the site of “Arnold Coster Expeditions” I found what I was looking for. “Join me on Everest this winter to climb Everest away from the crowds … a true adventure!,”is written there. However, the further information to which a link leads seems to have been taken from the invitation to a quite “normal” Everest expedition and contains no reference to the special challenges in winter. My questions to Mingma Sherpa, the head of “Seven Summit Treks”, and to Arnold Coster about the current status of the project have so far remained unanswered.

Last success 25 years ago

While Mount Everest has been climbed more than 9000 times to date, the so far 15 summit successes in the meteorological winter are rather modest. For weather researchers, the cold season begins on 1 December, while the calendar winter does not start until the winter solstice on 21 or 22 December.

Everest Southwest Face

29 Everest winter expeditions have so far been recorded in the “Himalayan Database”, 21 of them before 1990. In the winter of 1985 alone, four expeditions attempted the highest mountain on earth: three South Korean expeditions on different routes (normal route via the South Col, via the West Ridge and through the Southwest Face) and a Japanese team (via the Hornbein-Couloir). In total, only five winter expeditions were successful on Everest – most recently in 1993, when six members of a Japanese team climbed the Southwest Face to reach the highest point at 8,850 meters on 18 December.

The only one who scaled the highest mountain on earth in winter without bottled oxygen was Ang Rita Sherpa on 22 December 1987. The weather on that day was unusually good. The extreme cold in winter usually causes the air pressure in the summit region to drop even further. An ascent without a breathing mask is then at the absolute limit of what is possible.

Mount Everest

If it is about its own income, the Nepalese government can’t take a joke. According to the newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, the Ministry of Tourism has fined Nepalese expedition operator “Seven Summit Treks” 44,000 dollars for forging a permit for Mount Everest. In spring, the authority granted a permit to an expedition led by the Chinese Sun Yiguan and managed by “Seven Summit Treks” to climb the highest mountain on earth. The original document was issued for twelve member. Later a fake version appeared in which an Australian and a Chinese climber had been added.

Mingma Sherpa rejects guilt

Mingma Sherpa

Since a permit costs 11,000 dollars per expedition member, the government lost 22,000 dollars in revenue. The double amount has now been set as punishment. The Ministry of Tourism also called on the police to identify the fraudsters. They’re facing seven years in prison. Mingma Sherpa, head of “Seven Summit Treks”, denied all blame and assured that his company would help bring the guilty person to justice. A former employees was responsible for the fraud, said Mingma, pointing out that his company is Nepal’s largest expedition organizer and transfers a huge amount of money for climbing permits season after season. “We don’t even think about doing such acts.”

South side of Mount Everest

It would not have taken much more for the two women from Germany to shake hands on the roof of the world. Within 48 hours Ingrid Schittich at first, then Susanne Müller-Zantop reached the 8850-meter-high summit of Mount Everest last spring: Schittich on 15 May from the Tibetan north side, Müller-Zantop on 17 May from the Nepalese south side. They didn’t know about each other. Billi Bierling, head of the mountaineering chronicle “Himalayan Database”, first drew their attention to the fact that they had narrowly missed each other on Everest.

Oldest German women on Everest

Ingrid Schittich, in the background Mount Everest

Another thing Ingrid and Susanne have in common is that both mountaineers are already beyond the age of 60. Aged 63, Schittich is now the oldest German woman ever to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain, 61-year-old Müller-Zantop the second oldest. In any case the circle is rather exclusive. Before the spring season 2018, only nine other German women had scaled Everest – most of them much younger than Ingrid and Susanne. They are also expected to be at the top of the age pyramid of Everest female climbers across Europe (data for spring 2018 have not yet been published). The world’s oldest woman on Everest to date was the 73-year-old Japanese Tamae Watanabe in 2012.

Seven Summits completed

On the summit

She wanted to prove “that even at an advanced age you can still achieve high physical performance,” says Ingrid Schittich, who began to climb genuinely only at the age of 49. It was already her third attempt on the north side of Everest: In 2016 she had had to turn around at 7,000 meters, in 2017 at 7,650 meters. Both times she had felt bad. With her summit success this spring, the 63-year-old completed her collection of the “Seven Summits”, the highest mountains of all continents.

Deep satisfaction

“During the ascent I only thought of the effort. Thoughts came up like I’ll never do that again,” recalls the physician from Munich. “On the summit I was happy and felt a deep satisfaction that I had achieved my goal.” Ingrid really enjoyed the moment, because she and her four companions from the team of the Swiss expedition operator “Kobler & Partner” were en route on the Northeast Ridge “without traffic jams or obstruction by other climbers. Also on the summit we were alone.”

Poster for cosmetics on the summit

15 minutes on the top

Susanne Müller-Zantop had also dreamt to experience the moment on the highest point of the world this way. But things turned out very differently. “I was happy and undisturbed during my ascent, I only met a few people,” says the German entrepreneur, who lives in Zurich in Switzerland. “The summit was a shock, first I stared at a poster for Chinese women’s cosmetics. There was hardly any place, it was so crowded. My Sherpa pulled a Lama’s coat, sword and cap out of his backpack, quickly put everything on and filmed himself. I was disappointed, there was no opportunity for rest, enjoying the panorama or even devotion.” After a quarter of an hour Susanne fled from this “marketing platform,” as she calls it.

Fitter than before

Susanne Müller-Zantop

Like Ingrid Schittich, Müller-Zantop was a late comer in terms of high altitude. In 2016 she scaled Cho Oyu. “I didn’t discover the eight-thousander world until I was 60,” says Susanne. “Maybe I’m just ready for it now. I think I’m mentally super strong now, much stronger than before.” She also had no problems with her fitness on Everest. “I don’t think that you necessarily lose your strength while getting older. Maybe I am even physically stronger and fitter than before.”

Overcoming fears

The experiences on Everest are still having an effect on both climbers. “You find everything there: living legends, young guns, adventure addicts, record addicts, people who search for meaning and tourists like me,” says Susanne Müller-Zantop. “I take with me many pictures and the gratitude that I belong to the privileged ones who were allowed to stand on the highest point on earth. I also take along that I can deal even better with my fears than before. And I was really scared on the way.”

Everest Southwest Face

What did Nobukazu Kuriki really intend on Everest? This question has been bothering me ever since the 35-year-old Japanese climber was found dead on 21 May at an altitude of about 6,600 meters. Nobukazu had made a secret of his exact plan in the weeks before. He wanted to climb through the Southwest Fall, his office said after Kuriki’s death. Solo and without bottled oxygen, as he had claimed for himself? If Nobukazu had only fulfilled one of these two conditions, he would have already made Everest history.

Only one Southwest Face success without breathing mask

Nobukazu Kuriki (1982 -2018)

Since the first ascent by the British Doug Scott and Dougal Haston in fall 1975, only about 30 climbers have successfully climbed the Southwest Face – only once without bottled oxygen: Jozef Just was the only climber of a four-man Slovak team to reach the summit in fall 1988. During the descent he and his three other team mates died. There had never been a serious solo attempt on the steep and dangerous Southwest Face before Kurik’s entry into the wall. The Slovak Vladimir Strba had announced that he would tackled it solo in spring 2017, after he had had to turn back in the wall the year before with his compatriot Zoltan Pal at 7,200 meters. However, Strba then switched to the normal route. The 48-year-old died of high altitude sickness on the South Col after climbing up to the South Summit at 8,750 metres without breathing mask.

How sick was Kuriki really?

Against this background alone, Kuriki’s chances of success had to be rated as extremely low – even if he had been in top form. However the Japanese wasn’t. After arriving at base camp, he suffered from severe cough and fever. Two days before he died, Kuriki said he still had a slight cough, adding that it was almost gone. Kuriki entered the wall and pitched up his tent at 7,400 meters. There he assured by radio that he would be careful. He must have gotten worse at night. The next morning, his team informed that Kuriki was ill and was therefore descending. After that, there was no sign of life from him. Members of the camera crew, who were to film his ascent from the slopes of Nuptse, searched for him and finally found Nobukazu. “Considering condition of his body, it can be assumed that he probably slipped 100 to 200 meters,“ Kuriki’s office said.

Having set the bar even higher than lower

Kuriki at 6,800 m in the Everest North Face in fall 2016

Did Kuriki really believe that he could master the Southwest Face? The Japanese climber Ken Noguchi told the newspaper “Asahi Shimbun” that he doesn’t think so: “It seems to me that at some point, his goal was no longer about stepping foot on the summit but exposing himself to the toughest conditions imaginable and sharing that with people.” Also on his seven previous attempts on Everest, six of them in fall, Kuriki often seemed to overestimate his abilities. In 2012, he suffered severe frostbite during an attempt via the West Ridge. Nine of his ten fingers had to be amputated. Nevertheless, he returned to Everest, first to the normal route on the south side, where he was alone in 2015, then to the North Face, finally to the Southwest Face. Instead of setting the bar lower, Kuriki even increased his ambitions.

Unrealistic goals

“He would have had a good chance of ascent without oxygen if only he had taken the Southeast Ridge (the normal route),” said Yasuhiro Hanatani, a climber and friend of Nobukazu, “but that would have meant not doing it solo.” Obviously Kuriki was also under pressure. A Japanese friend of mine told me that the local media had lost interest in the 35-year-old over time because he always made big plans that realistically did not promise success. Maybe Nobukazu Kuriki finally overtightened the screw – which often ends deadly on the highest mountains on earth.

Garbage in Everest high camp

“Damn it! What a mess,” I cursed this morning as I rode my bike to work after the sunny weekend. “Are these peoples’ brains turned off?” The path was paved with plastic cups, fast food packaging, barbecue trays and shards of broken beer bottles. It looked similar, albeit with other, sometimes even less appetizing ingredients, after this spring season in the high camps on Mount Everest. Even bags with faeces were lying around. The Mexican climber David Liano Gonzalez documented this mess with pictures. “I’ve been a part of ‚Eco Everest Expeditions‘ for ten years. We have brought down more than ten tons of trash. I carry down my own poop on special bags,” the 38-year-old, who scaled the highest mountain on earth for the seventh time this year, writes to me. “I try to leave the mountain cleaner than I found it. But with so many people, no oversight and no mountain ethics, the problem is out of control.”

No respect

David Liano on top of Everest this spring

Most summit aspirants don’t even care about Everest, says David: “They only climb Everest to get a photo at the summit and post it on social media. That’s it. No respect. For them it’s irrelevant if the mountain is a garbage dump or if they litter it while they are there.” The Mexican is stunned that even Sherpas pollute the high camps: “This is a sacred mountain for the Sherpa and they litter it as much or more than foreigners. It’s shocking. Disappointing.”

Better pay for carrying down lightweight waste

A change of mind among climbers is urgently needed, says Liano. “This takes a generation. But change of mind definitely needs to be started.” The goal is to stop the pollution in the Everest high camps and remove the garbage that is already there, says David, adding, that it is a good start to pay the Sherpas per kilogram of garbage they bring down: “However, people tend to carry down mostly heavy stuff, but all the ripped tents and tarps will stay up there forever because they don’t weigh too much. No incentive. So pay much more per kilogram if the trash brought down is only cloth!”

Lifetime ban

The Mexican climber is also demanding tough punishments on the polluters among the Sherpas and foreign members of the commercial groups. Lifelong bans for participation in expeditions are conceivable, suggests Liano. Operators could lose their license. “Encourage people to take photos of litterers! We should also get NGOs involved in supervising that current regulations are followed and enforced.”

Issue fewer permits

Finally, David thinks that it is crucial to limit the number of Everest summit aspirants in order to cope with the waste problem in the high camps. “I’ve always believed that mountains should be available to all. Now I’ve changed my mind for Everest,” says Liano. “The number of climbers needs to be controlled. If this is a problem for Nepal because income is being cut, then double the permit fees if necessary!”

Thomas Lämmle on top of Lhotse

Having scaled the fifth and fourth highest mountain on earth, without bottled oxygen and a High-Altitude Sherpa by his side – the spring season in Nepal went like clockwork for the German climber Thomas Lämmle. The 52-year-old from the town of Waldburg in Baden-Württemberg summited the 8,485-meter-high Makalu on 13 May. Only eight days later, on 21 May, Thomas stood on top of the 8,516-meter-high Lhotse, in the immediate vicinity of Mount Everest. Lämmle has now scaled seven eight-thousanders after Cho Oyu (in 2003), Gasherbrum II (in 2005 and 2013), Manaslu (in 2008), Shishapangma (in 2013) and Mount Everest (in 2016). I asked him about his experiences.

Thomas, last year your four summit attempts on Makalu failed due to bad weather. How have you been during your successful summit bid this spring?

Everything carried by himself

Last year’s failure was virtually the prerequisite for success this year. Last year I started four times from Makalu La (7,500 m) towards the summit. I had to do the trail-breaking by myself during all four summit pushes and was mostly alone en route. The biggest problem was the changing weather and snowfall, which hindered the ascent. Despite all the capricious weather, I reached an altitude of 8,250 meters. However, I realized that with the 2017 tactic, Makalu could not be climbed alone and without oxygen.

The Advanced Base Camp (ABC) is located at 5,700 meters, too high for real regeneration. The way from Camp 3 to the summit is too long. Moreover, you reach the Camp too late to prepare properly for the summit. This is only possible from Camp 4. Based on my experiences from 2017 and my knowledge from 25 years of research in high altitude physiology, I prepared a detailed ascent plan for Makalu. And it worked!

View to the main summit of Makalu

Already in March, I trained and pre-acclimatized on Kilimanjaro. On 10 April, I arrived in Nepal. On 23 April, I reached the ABC on Makalu for the first time. After setting up Camp 2 (6,600 m) and Camp 3 (7,500 m) in the following days and staying overnight in Camp 3 on 3 May, I descended to 4,400 meters for regeneration, to a yak-alp in Langmale. There I waited until (the Austrian meteorologist) Karl Gabl informed me about a good weather window: Summit day should be on 12 May, but with stormy days ahead, he said.

On 7 May, I set off for my ascent and finally reached Camp 3 on Makalu La on 10 May. Unfortunately Karl had made a mistake of one day, so that I was stuck in the storm for three days. In the afternoon of 12 May, however, the storm calmed down and I was able to move my tent to Camp 4 (7,600 m).

On top of Makalu

The following night, I set off at 1 am for the summit bid. I was the only climber on Makalu La at that time. Because of the storm, no one had been able to climb up to the pass. A beautiful, windless day lay before me. Unfortunately there were no fixed ropes above Camp 4 at first, which I could follow. So I used my last year’s GPS track and after some searching I reached the fixed ropes in the steep terrain towards the summit. At 3 pm, after 14 hours of ascent, I reached the main summit with the prayer flags. Five hours later I was back in Camp 4. On the descent, I met numerous Sherpas with clients who were all using bottled oxygen.

Eight days after that success, you stood on top of Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain on earth. Was that rather easy compared to Makalu or did you have to toil the same way?

Descent from Makalu

On 16 May, I reached Everest Base Camp. I was shocked by the crowds and the helicopter noise. I just wanted to get away. I descended to Lobuche (4,900 m) to regenerate in a lodge. Actually I wanted to stand on top of Lhotse on 23 May. However, Karl Gabl predicted heavy snowfall after 22 May and advised me to wait for this precipitation period and only then to start a summit attempt. I was uncomfortable with this thought, perhaps the snowfall was already the harbinger of the monsoon. So I choose a “slap bang” action to reach the summit before 22 May.

View down from Camp 4 on Lhotse

On the morning of 18 May, I returned to Everest Base Camp, packed my things and entered the Khumbu Icefall at 3 am the following night. Twelve hours later I reached Camp 3 in the Lhotse Face, where I spent the next night. On 20 May I ascended to Camp 4 at 7,700 meters. From there I started at 11.30 pm towards the summit. Shortly behind the tents the fixed ropes started, which led me to the Lhotse Couloir. I had been warned several times of this couloir, which is only two meters wide in some places. The danger of being hit there by stones or ice is immense. However not on 21 May – the Lhotse Couloir was filled up with hard snow along its entire length. There was no rope team in front of me, so I could climb up the couloir comfortably and relaxed. I had a very macabre meeting just below the summit: The mummified corpse of a Russian climber is sitting there, over which you have to climb. At 8.30 am, I reached the top of the summit cornice. It was windless and I had a wonderful view over Makalu to Kangchenjunga. Afterwards I was able to abseil down the fixed ropes very quickly and already two hours later I stood in front of my tent in Camp 4.

Lhotse Couloir (seen from Everest)

Two eight-thousanders within a week without bottled oxygen – that demands a lot from the body and the psyche. What does it look like inside you after your return to Germany?

It may sound astonishing, but with my acclimatization tactics and the breathing technique I developed, Makalu was easy to climb this year. Due to the ascent from 4,400 meters and the following fast descent, my performance loss was relatively low. So I went to Lhotse very well acclimatized and hardly weakened. There the conditions were extremely good: a stable high pressure area with correspondingly high oxygen partial pressure, plus super conditions in the Lhotse Couloir. The ascent of Lhotse felt very easy and very relaxed. If I had had the money for an Everest permit, I probably would have climbed Everest as well. Of course, I am very happy to have scaled two relatively challenging eight-thousanders “by fair means” – my number six and seven.

Anything but appetizing pictures from the Everest high camps have rekindled the debate on the waste problem on the eight-thousanders. How did you experience the situation?

Unlike Everest, there is no “waste concept” for Makalu. At the end of the season, the ABC on Makalu is like a burning landfill site: all the waste is collected, poured with kerosene and lit. The ABC looks like that. Waste from the high camps is not transported away and is usually sunk into crevasses. However, there is far less climbing activity on Makalu than on Everest, so pollution is limited and concentrated in relatively small areas.

Garbage in Everest high camp

Things are a little different on Everest and Lhotse. There we have about 2,000 clients and Sherpas in the high season. Waste management works quite well in Base Camp and Camps 1 and 2 – where no oxygen has to be used to move around or transport waste. Especially the South Col (Camp 4), on the other hand, resembles a large garbage dump at the end of the season, because there oxygen would be required to remove the garbage. Of course, these costs are avoided. The National Park administration doesn’t check it at that high altitude. It looks a bit better in Camp 3, even though most of the rubbish is not removed, but disappears into crevasses.

For me personally, a far bigger problem than the garbage on the South Col is the helicopter noise in the whole Solu Khumbu. On sunny days, Everest Base Camp is like a major airport. Every five to ten minutes a helicopter takes off or lands. The noise is sometimes unbearable and doesn’t even fit into Everest National Park. According to a helicopter pilot, there are now 38 helicopters in Nepal, which are mainly used in Solu Khumbu for tourist flights and so-called “rescue flights”. A nice example of this was the members of a Chinese expedition who flew from Base Camp to their hotel in Kathmandu because of bad weather prospects. One week later, after a better weather forecast, they flew back and climbed the mountain with personal Sherpa and bottled oxygen above Camp 2.