Rescue flight on Everest

A committee is to get to the bottom of it. Since Friday, new guidelines for helicopter rescue have been in force in Nepal, with which the government wants to prevent insurance fraud with “fake rescue flights” in the future. A “Tourist Search and Rescue Committee” will monitor all rescue operations. The committee includes representatives of the ministries of home and of health as well as of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA), the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) and the tourist police. Helicopter companies, expedition and trekking agencies, hospitals and insurance companies are now obliged to provide all details of rescue flights and medical care as well as insurance invoices in a timely manner so that the committee can review them. In the event of irregularities, the committee is also responsible for punishing the black sheeps in the sector.

No more intermediaries

The government dropped its original plan to place the rescue operations completely in the hands of a police unit in the Ministry of Tourism. Now the expedition and trekking agencies have to take on their responsibility. They are to arrange everything necessary to rescue their clients in case of emergency. Only the patient and a helper or guide will be allowed to be flown by the rescue helicopter. Hospitals are to provide the agency concerned with a cost estimate for the treatment of the client. Intermediaries between insurance companies and tourism agencies are completely banned from the rescue service.

CAAN to cap costs for rescue flights

Return flight by helicopter

After last spring’s climbing season, massive insurance fraud with “fake rescue flights” had been uncovered. Guides are said to have urged climbers and trekking tourists even when they felt unwell to get on a rescue helicopter and be flown back to Kathmandu for treatment. These flights were then invoiced to the insurance companies – often at a completely overpriced rate. A commission of inquiry of the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism named eleven companies from the helicopter and trekking industry as well as four hospitals in Kathmandu that allegedly cheated insurance companies. But this is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

The commission found out that some mountain guides had also mixed baking soda into the food so that their clients got diarrhoea and were flown out by rescue helicopters. In addition, helicopters were packed with allegedly sick climbers and trekking tourists, afterwards the insurance companies should pay for several individual flights instead of one. According to the government more than 1,300 helicopter rescue flights were reported in the first five months of the year alone.

International insurance companies had threatened not to cover any more rescue flights in Nepal unless the government intervened. They demanded to cap the cost: to 4,000 dollars per flight. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal is now to set a cost ceiling, depending on flight hours, distance and rescue altitude.

Animal with four back legs

But is a committee really the smartest solution to get a grip on the problem? I am skeptical. Committees usually do not tend to work quickly and effectively – or as the British author John le Carré  wrote (in his spy novel “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”): “A committee is an animal with four back legs.”

Rescue helicopter at Everest Base Camp

The air is getting thinner for those in Nepal who feather their beds with fake rescue flights. According to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, international insurance companies have set an ultimatum until 1 September to put an end to these illegal activities. Otherwise, they no longer want to cover the costs of helicopter rescue flights. The Nepalese government plans to set up a police unit in the Tourism Ministry that is to manage all rescues.

Not practicable

Lakpa Norbu Sherpa (r.) and Maurizio Folini

Lakpa Norbu Sherpa, who has been coordinating rescue on Mount Everest since 2003 as base camp manager of the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA), is sceptical. “Police officers are no specialists”, tells me the 37-year-old, who was trained as a helicopter rescuer in Switzerland in 2012. Similar comments are made by Maurizio Folini: “The solution is not practicable. The police have no idea how to save people in the mountains.” The 53-year-old helicopter pilot from Italy is a pioneer for rescue flights on the eight-thousanders in Nepal. Since 2011 Folini has been flying regularly on the highest mountains in the world, in 2013 he managed the highest longline helicopter rescue of all time when he brought down a Nepalese climber from 7,800 meter on Everest.

Tip of the iceberg

He repeatedly pointed out that many of the rescue flights declared in Nepal in recent years were in fact none at all, Maurizio says to me: “But as a pilot you have little influence there. Last spring I refused such flights. I only flew when I had real patients on board.” An investigation commission of the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism has meanwhile named eleven companies from the helicopter and trekking industry and four hospitals in Kathmandu that allegedly defrauded insurance companies. But this should only be the tip of the iceberg.

Baking soda mixed into food

Rescue flight on Everest

Mountain tourists are said to have been urged to get on the rescue helicopters even when they were slightly unwell. The Commission even reports of individual cases where local guides mixed baking soda as a laxative into food to provoke diarrhea and then persuaded their clients to return to Kathmandu on a rescue flight. Helicopters have been packed with several sick people, it said. However, the companies cashed it up with the insurance companies as several individual flights of the patients.

Three times higher invoice

Folini points out that most of the fake rescue flights start on the trekking routes, for example in Gorak Shep, the last settlement before Everest Base Camp, or in the Gokyo Valley, a popular trekking destination near the highest mountain on earth. “Trekking tourists or mountaineers are influenced by the agencies,” says Maurizio Folini. “The business is made by the agencies that invoice three times more than the real amount, 12,000 instead of 4,000 dollars per rescue.” According to Maurizio, some hospitals in Kathmandu also have “dirty fingers”. Many of the patients suffering from high altitude sickness who are now flown directly to the capital could just as easily be treated in the clinic in Lhukla, the gateway to the Everest region, he says.

Only half of the helicopters needed

Maurizio in the cockpit

According to the government commission, more than 1,300 helicopter rescues were reported in the first five months of 2018, causing insurance costs of more than 6.5 million dollars. “The biggest business for the helicopter companies is fake rescue,” says Folini. He suggests a kind of “filter” to get a grip on the problem: “We need a checkpoint like we already have in Everest Base Camp with the HRA. A doctor has to confirm that the helicopter transport is really necessary.” Maurizio believes that if the fake rescue flights were to disappear, half of the helicopters would be enough: “That would also be good for tourism in the Everest region. There’s too much flying now. You can hardly hike in the Khumbu without being disturbed by flight noise.”

Grievances also in the Alps

However, Folini warns against seeing the problem only through Western glasses. “Also in the Alps not everything is great,” says Maurizio, referring to prestigious mountains such as Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn, where much more people are climbing than on Everest and where, for example, the faeces problem is unsolved: “On Mont Blanc, the waste from the toilets often ends up on the glacier. And try to climb the Matterhorn without stepping into a pile!” Even in the Alps, not every helicopter flight is a “clean rescue”, says the experienced pilot, who has completed more than 14,000 flight hours since 1993. “Rescue is always business. How can we point a finger at a poor country like Nepal if we can’t solve our own problems at home?”

Mount Everest

No more permits for solo climbers, blind and double amputees – following the argument of the Nepalese government, this makes the highest mountains in the world safer. A look at the facts shows that a sledgehammer is to be used to crack a nut. For example, let’s take a look at what’s happening on Mount Everest. The Himalayan Database (now freely accessible to all, thus also to the government of Nepal) has so far recorded 1967 expeditions to the highest mountain in the world. Of these, only six – say 0.3 percent – were classified as solo expeditions.

Only Marshall’s solo attempt in 1987 ended fatally

Reinhold Messner’s ascent in summer 1980 on the Tibetan north side was the first and only successful one so far. In summer 1986 and spring 1987, the Canadian Roger Gough Marshall tried in vain to climb through the North Facel. In the first attempt he made it to 7,710 meters – in the second to 7,850 meters; on the descent, he fell to death from 300 meters above the Central Rongbuk Glacier. In winter 1992, the Spaniard Fernando Garrido abandoned his solo attempt on the Nepalese south side at 7,750 meters.

In addition there are the two failed attempts of the Japanese Nobukazu Kuriki in fall 2016 (up to 7,400 meters on the North Face) and in spring 2017 (up to 7,300 meters) on the Tibetan north side. His other “solo” attempts on the south side and on the West Ridge are not listed as solo climbs, because he had ascended on the route through the Khumbu Icefall which had been prepared by the “Icefall doctors”, in some cases other members of his expedition had joined him up to Camp 2.

0.3 percent climbers with handicap

Kim Hong Bin who lost all his fingers is among the listed disabled climbers

The number of disabled mountaineers on Everest is statistically negligible too. According to the Himalayan Database, there were only 44 climbers with a handicap among the 13,952 registered Everest expedition members, this is 0.3 percent – all types of disabilities are grouped here, e.g. also Kuriki’s nine amputated fingers. 15 of the listed disabled mountaineers reached the summit at 8,850 meters. Two died: in 2006, the visually impaired German Thomas Weber (at 8,700 meters on the Northeast Ridge probably due to a stroke after he had returned just below the summit) and in 2014 Phur Temba Sherpa, whose disability is not specified in the database (he died in the avalanche incident in the Khumbu Icefall on 18 April 2014).

So if you add the deadly fall of solo climber Marshall, we have a maximum of three deaths from the “risk group” identified by the government of Nepal – which is about one percent of the total of 290 dead on Everest so far.

Double amputee sticks to his Everest plan

Hari Budha Magar wants to scale Everest

Hari Budha Magar is one of the mountaineers who, according to the new regulations, will not receive a permit this spring. The 38-year-old Nepalese lost both legs above his knees as a soldier of the British Gurkha Regiment during a bomb blast in Afghanistan in 2010. On Facebook, Hari described the decision of the government of Nepal as “discriminating”  and a “violation of human rights”. He is not willing to give up his plan. “I’ll look at all of the options,” said Budha Magar. “If I need to climb from Tibet I’ll do that, if I need to go to the courts I’ll do that.”

Hari received public backing by the US Ambassador in Nepal. “Ability not perceived ‘disability’ must guide rules on who can trek Mt. Everest,” Alaina B. Teplitz posted on Twitter. “Climbers like Hari Budha Magar shouldn’t be banned because of false assumptions about capabilities.”

More than 9,600 expeditions

Miss Hawley in her home in Kathmandu (in 2016)

It was Salisbury who in the 1990s convinced Elizabeth Hawley, the legendary chronicler of mountaineering in the Himalayas, that it would be a good idea to digitalize her archive. Since 2004 the Himalayan Database has been available electronically. Today it includes information on more than 9,600 expeditions to over 450 mountains in Nepal, more than 70,000 mountaineers are immortalized in the archive. For anyone who wants to delve deeper into mountaineering on the highest mountains in the world the database is a true treasure chest.

Register expeditions online!

Tobias Pantel, Billi Bierling, Jeevan Shrestha und Rodolphe Popier (from l. to r.)

“It is a great wealth of information – no matter if you just want to know how many people have been so far on Mount Everest or Annapurna I or if you want to plan a climbing route,” Billi Bierling wrote to me in October. “The Himalayan Database answers all these questions.” In 2016, the German mountaineer and journalist had replaced the legendary chronicler, who is now 94 years old, as head of the database.

On the occasion of today’s possibility to free download the archive, Billi and the other members of the Himalayan Database team – the Nepalese Jeevan Shrestha, the Frenchman Rodolphe Popier and the German Tobias Pantel – point out to the mountaineers that “collecting the data is impossible without your help”. So if you are planning an expedition in Nepal, please register online for the database. That’s not too much to ask for as a small return for an open treasure chest, is it?

The surviving Taiwanese (l.) in a hospital in Kathmandu

Mountain rescuers in the Alps often complain about climbers or hikers, who overestimate their abilities, suddenly can not move neither forward nor back and have to be rescued from this precarious situation on the mountain. That’s what happened to a young couple from Taiwan, who were on a trekking tour in the mountains of Nepal, more precisely in Langtang, without a guide. The two had been missing for 47 days. Now rescuers found the 21-year-old man lying unconsciously in a cave at the foot of a rock, his 19-year-old girlfriend was dead. According to the Taiwanese she had died three days earlier.

At the end only water

The rescuers reported that the trekking tourists had got lost and descended a steep rocky slope because they hoped to reach a village in the valley on this way. However, a gorge with a waterfall cut off the path. They could not return because they were unable to climb the rock up again. First they had eaten their supplies of noodles and potatoes, the survivor said. When the food had been consumed, they only had drunk water.

Maggots and lice

The sight of the Taiwanese was not exactly appetizing. His right leg was infested with maggots, his head full of lice. The young man is said to have lost thirty kilos. The survivor’s father had traveled to Nepal after the couple had been reported missing, and had hired a helicopter to search for the two trekking tourists. In the Himalayan state it happens again and again that hikers are missing. In almost all previous cases, the trekkers were traveling alone and without local guides. This should actually give all hikers who travel to Nepal food for thought.

A mountain in Gokyo Valley

You can’t just set off. If you want to climb am mountain in Nepal you should check the rules beforehand, otherwise you might experience a nasty surprise. Like the three Spanish climbers, who recently opened new routes on two six-thousanders. They were under way without permits, now the authorities in Kathmandu are investigating the case. They are facing a stiff fine and a 10-year-ban from mountaineering in Nepal. My compassion for the Spaniards is limited. I find their justification (“We are not pirates, we have left our money in Nepal at all”) flimsy. If you follow this argumentation, you could bilk any national park fee worldwide. Nonetheless there have been some construction sites the Nepalese “mountain management” for a long time, which are allegedly worked on but whose status does not change.

Absent liaison officers

Ama Dablam

Thus, the now practiced system of liaison officers is very much in need of reform, not to say that it must be abolished. “When 15, 16 or perhaps 17 expeditions on the same mountain have all shelled out for an liaison officer and not one of them is present it just seems completely underhand and verging on fraudulent”, British expedition operator Tim Mosedale wrote on Facebook after his Ama Dablam expedition this fall. Not enough, his liaison officer asked for more money during the de-briefing, says Tim. Only when he threatened with a formal complaint, she signed the necessary forms. The expedition leader was particularly upset because, as reported, Lhakpa Thundu Sherpa had been killed by ice debris and another mountaineer, who also belonged to his team, had been injured. “Indeed even if the liaison officer had been present when we were dealing with the complex rescue and recovery operation last week she wouldn’t have been any help at all”, Mosedale wrote. For months, a proposal by the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) is on the table. “We asked the government to send only one liaison officer per mountain, not 30 or 40 on Everest or other mountains,” NMA President Ang Tshering Sherpa told me recently.

Incorrect coordinates, wrong names

Another major construction site is the opening of allegedly or really still unclimbed mountains in Nepal. In spring 2014, the government in Kathmandu had published a list of 104 “virgin” mountains, which were then opened for expeditions. It turned out that the given satellite coordinates were partially wrong or inaccurate. An assumed first ascent of a six-thousander in the Rolwaling Valley this autumn turned out to be a repeated ascent because the mountain had previously been listed under a different name.

No continuity

A Khumbu mountain near Lukla

In addition, there are still plenty of mountains in Nepal that have not yet been recorded on the official lists as possible destinations for mountaineers. If you discover such a nameless mountain and want to climb it for the first time, it becomes really difficult. The Ministry of Tourism has still no regular procedure for obtaining such a permit. What one person responsible has promised can be revoked by the next. There have already been such cases. And they will surely continue to occur, considering how often the government is changing in Nepal. The current cabinet is already the seventh since early 2011.
Against this background, the fact is hardly surprising that we still wait for the overdue reform of the expedition rules (which would then also apply to Mount Everest), laid down in the “Tourism Act”. Every year it is announced that consultation has begun. As a rule nothing follows – or the next change of government.

Simplify procedures

What could help? In a first step the bureaucratic burdens should be purged. I talked about the problem with an Austrian mountaineer who has often been on expedition. He, for example, proposed to “turn the logic”: Instead of a list of mountains in Nepal, which are allowed to be climbed, should be a “blacklist” of forbidden summits, he says. All others mountains would then be open for climbing, and the permits could be given – as now – with fees according to the altitude of the mountains. If uniform and lasting procedures are desired, it would also make sense to entrust the NMA with issuing all permits for expeditions in Nepal. So far the NMA is only responsible for expeditions on mountains with an altitude up to 6,600 meters. The higher peaks are managed by the Ministry of Tourism. With the described consequences.

Draining canal on Imja Tsho

It’s like handling a water butt. The amount of rainfall is not manageable. If you want to prevent the butt from overflowing, you must drain the water. According to this model, the water level of Imja Tsho has now been lowered by a total of 3.40 meters over a period of two months. The glacial lake in the Everest region, which is almost 150 meters deep in some places, has steadily expanded over the last few years as a result of climate change, and has become a threat to the downstream villages, especially the nearby located Chukhung and Dingboche. A bursting of the natural dam at an altitude of about 5,000 meters could have devastating consequences. Soldiers from the Nepalese army were involved in the construction work for the canal, via which a total of four billion liters of water were drained. According to the government in Kathmandu, “an estimated 96,562 people, including tourists” – for this exact estimate Nepal earns an entry in the Guinness Book of Records – are expected to benefit from the project, which cost about three million US dollars and was funded by the United Nations. Daene McKinney, professor of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, was on site and has replied to my questions.

Professor McKinney, you were involved in the Imja Lake lowering project in the Everest region. How dangerous did you assess the situation before starting to drain the water?

Imja Tsho, seen from space

We have been researching this question of the risk of Imja Lake for a number of years now. This work has involved field observations and measurements, community consultations and detailed computer modeling.  Our most recent publication on this, Rounce et al. (2016), notes that the risk of the lake is “moderate”. This categorization is based on both the current status of “low” hazard of the lake and future hazard status of “very high” due to the continued expansion of the lake that will result in the possibility of avalanches falling into the lake in the future (but not at the present time).

Do you think the situation is now under control?

The recent lowering of the lake by 3-3.5 m has certainly reduced hydrostatic pressure from the lake on the terminal moraine to some extent and this helps. However, the lake continues to expand and in the future, the situation will become a problem. In addition, the small lakes that make up the outlet channel of the lake continue to deteriorate and coalesce into the main body of the lake due to the ice-cored nature of the moraine.  This will act to increase pressure on the moraine and increase the risk to some extent.

Daene McKinney on the lakeside of Imja Tsho

The Nepalese government talked about a “milestone adaption work not only for Nepal but across globally”. It was a pilot project. How realistic is it to transfer the Imja model to other potentially dangerous glacier lakes?

The construction experience of Imja is of great value to the region, demonstrating the ability to perform such work at high altitude remote locations.  However, the design criteria for lowering the lake (lower the lake at least 3 m) were arbitrarily selected with no scientific or engineering basis.  This was similar to the situation at Tsho Rolpa (in the Rolwaling Valley), the only other lake that has been lowered n Nepal.  It is hoped that when considering the design of lake lowering systems for other lakes in Nepal, e.g.  Thulagi Lake (located near the eight-thousander Manaslu), that a more systematic and scientific method will be used to decide of the “safe” lake level.

It is to be expected, that climate change will cause more glacial lakes in the Himalayas or aggravate the situation at already existing lakes. Do you think the problem can be handled?

Definitely, more lakes are appearing and expanding every year in the Himalayas and this will continue for the foreseeable future. Some of these will turn out to pose risk to downstream communities and infrastructure. The level of risk posed by these lakes must be assessed (something that we are working on now) and acceptable risk levels must be determined to protect downstream people and assets. In cases where the risk is too high, new lake safety systems must be properly designed and implemented.

Ang Tshering Sherpa

The numbers fill Ang Tshering Sherpa with confidence. “We hope that mountaineering in Nepal will revive very soon,” says the President of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) when we meet at the International Mountain Summit in Bressanone in South Tyrol. According to his words, expeditions to Nepalese mountains higher than 6,500 meters, which are managed by the government, have already achieved 87 percent compared with the time before the devastating earthquake in April 2015. Climbing on mountains lower than 6,500 meters, managed by the NMA, has even fully recovered. Trekking is between 40 and 50 percent again, depending on the region, the head of the NMA says: “We need to let the world know that the best way to help Nepal is by visiting. Each and every person who spends time in Nepal will help to revive the economy and rebuild the infrastructure.”

Less but true liaison officers

Mount Everest

As NMA president Ang Tshering has to work on several construction sites related to expeditions. For example, the case of an Indian couple that made headlines all over the world, because they had obtained their Everest certificates by fraud, faking the summit pictures of other climbers. “We need to monitor more strictly and seriously those climbers who are not good for climbers’ image,” says the 62-year-old. The Nepalese liaison officers are no big help. They usually take their money that the expedition teams have to pay, are not seen at the base camps, but confirm afterwards that team member have reached the summit. “We asked the government to send only one liaison officer per mountain, not 30 or 40 on Everest or other mountains,” says Ang Tshering.

Everest aspirants should be more experienced

Ang Tshering (2nd f.r.) with Reinhold Messner (l.)

But it is difficult to implement such reforms because “unfortunately the government is changing every six or eight months. You have to convince them. And when they are about to understand, they change again.” That is why the discussion about new mountaineering rules for Mount Everest is already lasting for such a long time, says the head of NMA, adding that the reform is urgently needed: “Everest is the highest mountain in the world and it is not easy to climb. Either they climb in the European Alpes or the Nepalese mountains or elsewhere abroad, they do need more experience.”

“Mountaineer only interested in price”

Like others, Ang Tshering sees the problem that especially new expedition operators from Nepal are attracting clients offering dumping prices: “They are picking up people who have not any knowledge about climbing, how to use the equipment. Such agencies are spoiling the tourism industry.” The NMA president is also head of Asian Trekking, one of the country’s leading expedition operators. “We must not compromise the safety conditions ot the other Nepalese operators who are well prepared, well organized and more experienced than the new companies who have no knowledge about expeditions”, says Ang Tshering Sherpa. “Climbers, however, are only looking at the price, they don’t look at the safety conditions. This is the problem.”

Dorjee Lama Sherpa

A landslide in the trekking area around the eight-thousander Manaslu has killed three Nepalese and a Spanish tourist yesterday, the authorities said. Six other members of the trekking group were seriously injured in the accident in Gorkha District. Among the dead is Dorjee Lama Sherpa, a well-known mountaineer in Nepal. The 35-year-old was the President of the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association (NNMGA).

Eight times on Everest

Dorjee Lama was born and raised in the village of Bhakanje in Solukhumbu which lies around 30 kilometers as the crow flies southwest of Lhukla, the gateway to the Everest region. Aged 13, he started his career in the tourism business as a porter. Later the Sherpa worked as a trekking guide, then as a mountain guide. Dorjee Lama climbed Mount Everest eight times from the Nepalese south side as well as from the Tibetan north side. In addition he reached the 8188-meter-high summit of Cho Oyu several times. A successful ascent on the eight-thousander Makalu was also noticed in his mountain tour book.

R.I.P.

Dorjee Lama was considered an extremely experienced mountain guide. The Sherpa had a certificate of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA) and trained compatriots as mountain guides in Nepal. “I’m extremely passionate about environmental protection of the fragile Himalayan Mountains and resource conservation”, he once wrote about himself. Dorjee Lama Sherpa leaves behind his wife and three children. He will be missed.

Ski course in Nepal

Certainly they won’t be the most elegant skiers on Mera Peak, but motivation and enthusiasm will surely not be missing. Six Nepalese mountain guides have set out to ski down the 6476-meter-high “trekking peak” in Nepal in September. They will be accompanied by two ski instructors from Europe, German Julius Seidenader and Austrian Michael Moik. What’s remarkable: The Nepalese have been for the very first time on skis only last February. “I am confident that they will be able to ski down along with us,” says Julius.

Adolescent folly

These Nepalese mountain guides have already gained their first skiing experience at an “almost six-thousander”. After their three-week ski training near the village Naa at 4,200 meters in Rolwaling in February, they ascended the 5,925-meter-high Ramdung Go with touring skis and skied from the summit to the valley. “They did a good job,” told me Julius, who had mounted the ski course along with some Nepalese friends. “It was certainly a bit of adolescent folly to ski down their first 6000er after only three weeks training. But they managed it without broken bones and all reached the valley unhurt.”

Totally motivated

Julius Seidenader

The 24-year-old is one of the founding members of the “Ski and Snowboarding Foundation Nepal”, which has set the goal of teaching young Nepali skiing, snowboarding and ski touring. “I’m not a crazy European who enforces his ideas on Nepali people,” Julius makes clear. “It was a Nepalese idea and it will be implemented there. The guys are totally motivated.” His Nepalese friend Utsav Pathak, who is studying tourism in Kathmandu, had told him his idea, says Seidenader: “We wanted to work with young people and to teach also girls skiing and snowboarding what has happened never before in Nepal.” So last February in Rolwaling, about 30 young Nepali were standing for the very first time on skis, under the guidance of five ski instructors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, in rather bad snow conditions. “The first ski school in Nepal and the highest in the world,” the initiators of the project cheered. The equipment, 25 pairs of used skis and four snowboards, had been donated.

Nepali people want to work as ski guides

The young people involved in the project dream of opening up a new branch of tourism for Nepal. “We don’t want ski alpinism as we have here in Europe with ski lifts and snow cannons,” says Julius, who comes from Munich and is now studying in Vienna. “We are striving for sustainable tourism and focus on ski touring.” Their long-term goal is to train Nepali people as ski instructors and also to offer skiing skills to local mountain guides. “Nepali people find it cool if they, in the long term, get the opportunity to work as ski guides,” says Seidenader.

There are already trekking agencies who offer ski expeditions in Nepal, for example on Mera Peak. But they are not led by local but by foreign mountain guides with ski experience. There are many options for ski touring in Nepal, for instance in Dolpo in the far west of the country, but there still lacks the necessary infrastructure, says Julius. “We need the ability to sit still and be patient” – and they need money: The “Ski and Snowboarding Foundation Nepal” has launched a crowdfunding for their project on the Internet.

Before Julius will return to Nepal in September, he will make a stopover in Dubai. The head of the local skiing hall contacted him: “He said there were already Nepalese ski instructors: in his skiing hall. And they would like to work in a ski school in Nepal for a few weeks per year. For free!”

Mount Everest

There are things that simply cannot be understood. Like the recent decision of the Nepalese Tourism Ministry. According to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, the Ministry refused to issue the compulsory summit certificates to all Climbing Sherpas who scaled Mount Everest this spring season.

No expedition members

The authority refers to the “Mountaineering Expedition Regulation” which took effect in 2002. It says that every member of a successful expedition team is entitled to get a summit certificate. Within the meaning of the law Climbing Sherpas who fix ropes on the route or support clients up to the summit were no expedition members and therefore did not receive any certificates, said Laxman Sharma, Director in the Ministry of Tourism, to the “Himalayan Times”. This spring on Everest, more than 250 Sherpas had reached the highest point at 8,850 meters. They are now to be left empty-handed as well as the Climbing Sherpas on all other mountains of Nepal which are higher than 6,500 meters.

Second-class climbers?

It is the first time that Sherpas are denied the summit certificates, although the law is already 14 years old. It’s beyond me what the Government is intending. They set a bad signal. It’s a slap in the face of the Sherpas. Do those responsible in Kathmandu consider them as second-class climbers? Do they want to punish the Sherpas for earning money on Everest? In this case, the Ministry should no longer issue summit certificates to western mountain guides too.

Miss Hawley in her home in Kathmandu

When I saw the Beetle, I knew I was right. I knew the street, but had no house number, only a rough description of where Miss Hawley is living in Kathmandu. But there it stood in the courtyard: the light blue VW Beetle, built in 1963. “The car is right, of course. Those Beetles are just incredible durable,” says the legendary chronicler of Himalayan mountaineering. For decades, the US-American has driven with the light blue car in front of the hotels in Kathmandu to interview climbers about their expeditions in the Himalayas. However, the 92-year-old is no longer driving her Beetle by herself, she has a driver. “I can’t drive a car with a walker”, says Elizabeth Hawley and grins. Since she broke her hip, she is not quite as mobile as before.

More braggarts

Miss Hawley has been living in Kathmandu since 1960. Since then, she has collected more than 4000 expeditions in her chronicle “Himalayan Database”. At the beginning she worked for the news agency Reuters. “At that time mountaineering was becoming a very important part of a foreign correspondent’s job in Nepal”, Hawley recalls. From Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first ascenders of Mount Everest, through to the clients of commercial expeditions – the chronicler has met all types of climbers. I should like her to tell whether there is more fibbing among today’s climbers. “Has the percentage of liars per expedition that gone up? I don’t think so,” says Miss Hawley. “Maybe the commercial climbers rather brag about it.”

Kind of fishy

The highest mountain she ever climbed was only about 1,000 meters high, tells the old lady, “in Vermont in New England. It was just a walk. A mountain? No, it was like the hills around Kathmandu.” Nevertheless, again and again the American was able to unmask climbers as liars who previously had claimed to have scaled eight-thousanders or other high mountains in Nepal. She checked it with the other teams who were on the mountains, other got tangled up in contradictions: “Some of them sounded really a kind of fishy. But I’m sure I missed a lot.”

On the back of a Sherpa

North side of Everest

Miss Hawley depicts the “interesting” case of the Japanese climber Tomiyasu Ishikawa, who ascended Everest from the north side in 2002. The 65-year-old was then “the oldest to reach the summit but had he really climbed it? How many realized the distinction,” Miss Hawley asks. The Japanese became tired in the summit area. “He got to the summit on the back of a Sherpa.” She considers an age limit for old Everest climbers – as it was announced by the Nepalese government in 2015 – for needless but pleads for stricter rules for young people: “Certainly young kids should not be climbing mountains, certainly not Everest. They are not strong and developed enough, physically and mentally.”

Held on the table

Miss Hawley is eagerly awaiting the upcoming spring season. “I’m quite curious about what happens this year,” she says. “I think probably the numbers will not be very great partly because people are afraid of earthquakes. We still have aftershocks occasionally.” She experienced the devastating quake on 25 April 2015 in her home. “I sat at a table, just held on. You wait until it’s over and carry on.” Like many people in Nepal, Miss Hawley speaks of an even stronger earthquake that could hit the country in the near future. “I hope I am near my strong table again,” says the 92-year-old, laughing.

Her successor

Billi Bierling

Step by step she wants to hand over her work on Himalayan Database to her German assistant Billi Bierling. “Maybe she knows it, maybe she doesn’t. We work very well together. She is good, she is crazy, she is fast,” says Elizabeth Hawley who can not even imagine retiring completely. “It depends on how it works out. I’ll probably criticize her. Well, I hope I don’t.”

Without airs and graces

Recently, the Nepalese government has dubbed a six-thousander “Peak Hawley”. “No mountain should be named after any individual and certainly not for me,” Miss Hawley plays it down. She should take it as an honor, I reply. “Okay, but It’s a funny kind of honor”, Hawley says, giggling. She also can not base anything on nicknames. I mention “Mama Himalaya”, “Miss Marple of Kathmandu” or “Sherlock Holmes of the mountains”. Miss Hawley grins: “Actually I never heard any of them, you can keep them. There was a book and a documentary film about me called ‘keeper of the mountains’. I don’t know that I keep them. I am just a chronicler.”

Dawa Gyaljen Sherpa

He is one of the Sherpas who stay well clear of Mount Everest this year. “I simply haven’t got the time,” says Dawa Sherpa Gyaljen, when I meet him in a cafe in Kathmandu during my visit Nepal. The 29-year-old is working for a trekking operator. “Maybe I’ll get the chance in 2017 again. I have been asked if I would lead an Everest team next year. Let’s see whether I can take as much vacation.” The Sherpa, who was born in the Khumbu region in a small village west of Namche Bazaar, has reached the highest point on earth already four times: in 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The upcoming spring season could set the course for the future, Dawa believes.

Used to aftershocks

“If also this year accidents happen like in 2014 or last year, maybe people get scared,” Dawa expects. “But if the expeditions are successful, the number of climbers for sure will go up in 2017 and 2018.” Dawa says, that he is happy, that many foreigners are willing to travel to Nepal again to boost the economy of the country that was hit so hard by the earthquake. In his own words, Dawa is now hardly thinking about the earthquake on 25 April 2015, not least because of the more than 400 aftershocks measuring 4.0 or more: “Sometimes I don`t even feel earthquakes of 4.5 or 5 because I got used to. It’s a bit normal for me now. We survived a very dangerous situation, now I feel safe. But there are still rumors that a bigger quake will come again.”

Impossible to forget

Rescue helicopter above Khumbu Icefall (in 2014)

Sherpas are determined to make this year’s Everest season a successful one. “Finally, it is also about protecting their jobs in the future,” says Dawa Gyaljen. “It’ not actually pressure, but a kind of challenge. I think they will push hard to get to the summit this year.” In spring 2014, the young Sherpa was among the first who reached the accident site in the Khumbu Icefall after the avalanche and who started the recovery of the injured and dead. 16 Nepali climbers were killed, three of them remained missing. I ask Dawa if he could climb through the icefall easily after that experience. “I think you cannot escape this. When we pass this place, we even feel like that there is some blood or somebody is still in the crevasse.”

Better trained

Dawa on Lobuche Peak

Dawa Gyaljen finds that Everest aspirants of today on average are better climbers than those in past years. “There are only a few who still don’t know how to put on their crampons,” says the 29-year-old, adding that also the Sherpas are now much better trained because they went through the practical trainings offered by the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) twice a year. The Sherpas are always responsible for their clients, says Dawa: “If some bad thing happens, the Sherpas are blamed for it because they didn’t take care of their clients. There are rumors about unskilled Sherpas who abandoned their clients half way on the mountain.” However, the trained and skilled Sherpa guides never left their clients alone, says Dawa: “But if the clients insist on climbing further up against the advice of their Sherpas, then they have to bear the responsibility for their own.”

Mount Everest, Lhotse, Makalu (from l. to r.)

Perfect timing. Just when we reach the 5380-meter-high summit of Gokyo Ri, the clouds around the top of Mount Everest, Lhotse and Makalu turn orange. „The mountains are burning“, our guide Dipak Giri says. Step by step the first sunlight also meets the other summits around us: the eight-thousander Cho Oyu, the six-thousanders Cholatse, Kantega, Thamserku and in the distance Gaurishankar. A 360-degree panorama which is without equal. We were the only ones, who set off from Gokyo at 4,770 meters at 4 a.m. to admire this unique spectacle. Now we are sitting below the prayer flags and hardly believe our eyes.

Champions League of memories

Cho Oyu in the first sunlight

Those, who don’t believe in God, here they could possibly find their faith. This moment is so beautiful, nothing less than magic. Almost too good to be true. You try to absorb this moment and put it into a virtual plastic bag, so that you can pack it out anytime. Unfortunately this rarely works out. But without doubt this sunrise belongs to the Champions League of my memories. I am just grateful.

Phurba Tashi in front of his lodge

Phurba Tashi is a man of few words. The 45-year-old replies friendly but shortly. “This year, I will definitely not climb Mount Everest”, Phurba tells me when we sit down for a few minutes on a bench in front of his “Tashi Friendship Lodge” in the village of Khumjung. Actually, he has no time to talk to me because his family has gathered for a religious ceremony to commemorate Phurba’s parents who both died in the past six months. Some Buddhist monks have come to his Lodge. “The death of my parents is also the reason why I renounce the ascent this time,” says Phurba.

Only at Base Camp

High winds on Everest (today)

He has reached the highest point on earth already 21 times. Together with Apa Sherpa (who has long since ended his mountain career), Phurba Tashi is holding the record for the most Everest ascents ever. Aged 28, he was on top for the first time, in 2013 for the last time to date. In some seasons Phurba ascended Everest double or even triple. This spring, he will stay at Base Camp to coordinate the work of the Climbing Sherpas – for the New Zealand expedition operator Himalayan Experience. “I have already worked for Russell Brice, head of Himex, on 30 to 40 expeditions,” says Phurba, adding that this spring the team consists of only six clients.

Black year does not apply to climbers

Earthquake damage: Stupa in Khumjung

“I think that there will be summit successes this season,” says Phurba. “This winter we had little snow. And the Icefall Doctors do a good job.” The Buddhist lamas predicted a bad year for the Sherpas, but that does not apply to climbers, Phurba continues: “Maybe I try to ascend again in 2017 – if everything fits together.” I want to know whether he is itching to be the exclusive Everest record holder. “No, the record means nothing to me,” Phurba replies. “It is much more important to come down healthy again. Finally, I have a wife and five children, I have to feed them.” Then Phurba Tashi says goodbye. He has to return to his family. When a short time later one of the monks comes to fresh air, I ask him if the predicted black year for the Sherpas really does not apply to climbers. The monk laughs and says: “Everything is good. They are welcome to climb up.”

Coconut with hair

The Yeti skull

In Khumjung, I also marvelled the famous “Yeti skull”. It is stored in a safe in the Gompa, the small monastery of the village. For 250 rupees (about 2.50 euros) an old employee of the Gompa, who powers the keys, opens the safe for a moment. And there it is, next a few butter lamps: the supposed skull of the alleged Himalayan monster – and looks rather like a coconut with hair.

P.S.: Maybe I won’t send any reports for a few days. I want to trek to the 5380-meter-high Gokyo Ri to enjoy the magnificent panorama – if the weather is good. Then, of course, I will show you some nice pictures.