Manaslu, “Mountain of the Spirit”

“Come back! So that Nepal can make a comeback.” So you could overwrite the appeals of those who are living from tourism in Nepal or have to do with it. The trekking and expedition operators from abroad send a signal that they want to realize most of their trips that they had planned for the post-monsoon season before the earthquake hit the country on 25 April. “The devastating earthquake has shaken the life in Nepal, but slowly life is returning to normality”, Dominik Mueller, head of German operator Amical alpin, wrote.

Manaslu expeditions take place

Neither the offered trekkings in the Khumbu region around Mount Everest were threatened nor those in the area around the eight-thousanders Annapurna, Dhaulagiri and Kangchenjunga, Dominik said. Massive damage was noticed at lodges on the way around Manaslu. But this trip would also be possible because Amical had not planned it as a lodge trekking but as a tent trekking. According to Dominik, the expedition to the 8163-meter-high Manaslu, the eighth highest mountain on earth, will be operated too. This also applies to New Zealand expedition organizer Himalayan Experience. “I am operating Manaslu as usual”, Russell Brice, head of Himex, wrote to me.

Ama Dablam

The US operator Alpenglow Expeditions offers his clients discounts for its fall expeditions to Nepal. For those who book by the end of June, the expedition to the seven-thousander Ama Dablam will be cheaper by ten percent, the expedition to the eight-thousander Makalu by five percent. “Mass cancellations of travel to Nepal will be devastating to the country’s destroyed economy”, it says on the Alpenglow website.

Problems in Langtang area

A delegation of the DAV Summit Club, that had travelled to Nepal to take an on-site look at the situation in the trekking areas, has meanwhile returned to Germany. “Trekking tourism in the Everest region can take place without stint from October”, the members of the Summit Club group said in a first report. The same applies to the Annapurna area where the earthquake damage should be repaired by October. There was almost no damage in the regions east of Everest and west of Annapurna, the Summit Club said: “However, the Manaslu region, the Langtang area and the neighboring Tsum Valley have been affected strongly. No trekkings are to take place in these regions in fall.”

Goodwill Ambassador

The new Nepalese Tourism Minister Kripa Sur Sherpa has nominated 14 well-known climbers from around the world as “Goodwill Ambassadors” who are to promote Nepal – including the South Tyrolean Reinhold Messner, the Japanese Junko Tabei (the first woman who scaled Everest), Peter Hillary and Jamling Tenzing Norgay (the sons of the men who made the first ascent of Everest) and Ralf Dujmovits (the first and so far only German climber who has scaled all 14 eight-thousanders).

P.S. Sorry, that I did not post more articles during the last days. (As a sports editor) I was too busy covering the FIFA crisis. Take a look at this video that was made by the German climber Jost Kobusch a few days ago in a village in Nepal: