Dal Bhat

The fact that this news pops up every year is almost as certain as the lentils in the Nepalese national dish Dal Bhat: The government in Kathmandu wants to change the mountaineering rules on Mount Everest. The emphasis is on “wants to”. In the end, there is always nothing more than this statement of intent, because the proposed amendment gets stuck in any department – or the current government is replaced by a new one. The Ministry of Tourism is now announcing for the umpteenth time that the rules for granting Everest permits will be tightened.

Déjà-vu

Erik Weihenmayer, who in 2001 was the first blind climber on Everest

The Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times” reports that “people with complete blindness and double amputation” should no longer be allowed to climb the highest mountain in the world – nor “those proven medically unfit for climbing“, whatever that means. These reform proposals were already on the table in 2015 and in 2016 and fizzled.

Summit certificates again for Sherpas?

South side of Mount Everest

New age limits for Everest summit aspirants are reportedly not planned. So it would remain the ban for under 16-year-olds. For seniors, there would be no restrictions – unless they are “proven medically unfit for climbing”? After all, it is allegedly to be established in the “Mountaineering Expedition Regulation”, which is in force since 2002, that in the future, every Sherpa who reaches the summit will receive a summit certificate of the government. These certificates were denied for the first time in 2016, because, as it was said then, 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.

According to the “Himalayan Times”, the amendment now has still to pass a finance and infrastructure committee (why?) before the cabinet (supposedly) wants to take the final call. My recommendation: Wait and eat calmly Dal Bhat! The next announcement is certain to come.

Got stuck and disappeared

Exacty! In September 2015, Tourism Minister Kripasur Sherpa (who meanwhile has been replaced) had already brought fairly accurately these amendments into play. Like almost all Everest reform proposals of previous years this one also got stuck somewhere on the long and arduous journey through the governmental authorities and disappeared. And this year’s Everest spring season began without new rules.

Dawa Steven Sherpa

“Every time new bureaucrats come in they bring their own interpretation of policies and introduce new rules: almost always new restrictions. It’s how they feel empowered and that they are leaving their mark”, Dawa Steven Sherpa, managing director of the Nepalese expedition operator “Asian Trekking”, writes to me. “And as usual the rule will be rolled back and a compromise will be reached. The sad thing is that there is a way to do all this through engaging in dialog with the stakeholders and come to the inevitable compromise without making international headlines and without making the Nepal Government look backwards and foolish.”

No more solos?

South side of Mount Everest

According to the “new” draft, helicopter flights above Base Camp are to be allowed only for transport of climbing equipment and rescue. The latter has always been so; the former had been admitted by the government for the first time this spring.
But what does the proposed rule mean that every Everest climber must be accompanied by a mountain guide? Will it be valid only for members of commercial expedition or really fpr all climbers? In this case solo climbs like Reinhold Messner’s legendary one on the north side of Everest during the monsoon in 1980 would be excluded forever on the south side of the mountain.

Peculiar irony
Oh, and the government wants to enshrine that Sherpa summiters also receive an Everest certificate. What a peculiar irony! Until this year exactly this was common practice – until the Tourism Ministry suddenly stated that Sherpas according to the rules were no regular expedition members and therefore had no claim to get summit certificates. And now they try to make us believe that certificates for Sherpas are something new? Honestly, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. This “mosquito bite” is really itching.

P.S.: Now I’ll leave for a short trip to the sea. In the middle of next week I’ll be back for you.

Tourism Minister Kripasur Sherpa

The Nepalese government apparently wants to make sure that Mount Everest is taken seriously again. Speaking at an event in Kathmandu on the occasion of the World Tourism Day on Sunday, Tourism Minister Kripasur Sherpa said that new age limits and other more stringent conditions on granting permits for Everest expeditions were in preparation. It is considered to allow only climbers aged between 18 and 75 to climb the highest mountain on earth.

Summiters between 13 and 80

The current regulation is “that the permit shall not be provided to that person who is under the age of 16”. And there is no limit yet for old climbers. The youngest climber ever who scaled Everest was the American Jordan Romero aged 13 years and ten months in 2010, the oldest the Japanese Yuichiro Miura aged 80 years and seven months in 2013. Recently, the family of the now eleven-year-old American Tyler Armstrong had announced that he would try to climb Everest next spring.

“Climbing Everest is not a joke”

South side of Mount Everest

On Sunday, Kripasur Sherpa referred to potential restrictions for disabled climbers too. “We won’t issue permits to individuals with serious disabilities who cannot go to Everest on their own”, said the Minister. Tourism Department chief Govinda Karki spoke it out even more clearly. “We don’t think we should issue permits to people who cannot see or walk or who don’t have arms”, Karki told the news agency AFP. “Climbing Everest is not a joke. It is not a matter of discrimination. How can you climb without legs? Someone will have to carry you up.” Disabled climbers may not like these words. There have been several mountaineers who have already scaled Everest despite blindness or with arm or leg prostheses.

At least once on 6,500 meters

The government is also determined to ban very inexperienced climbers from Everest. Anyone should have reached an altitude of at least 6,500 meters before trying to climb Everest, Karki said.
There have already been announcements of stricter rules for permits in recent years, but in the end nothing happened. So, let’s wait and see.