Helicopter starting from the airstrip Syangboche above Namche Bazaar

Time does not stand still, even in Khumbu. Two things have changed dramatically in the region around Mount Everest between my first visit in 2002 and my second last March. Firstly, the sanitary facilities – on average – have become much more modern and cleaner than 14 years ago. Secondly, the aircraft noise has increased significantly. On a clear day, helicopters are flying – as I felt, steadily – through the valley from Lukla to Namche Bazaar and also further up towards Everest Base Camp.

Cheaper than mules

“Meanwhile, a big part of material transport is done by helicopter,” Ang Dorjee Sherpa, owner of a lodge in Namche, told me. “That’s almost cheaper than the transportation by mules.” Not only material is transported, even people use helicopter transfer. When we sat on the terrace of the Everest View Hotel, above Namche Bazaar, drinking an (expensive) milk tea, we met a couple from the United States that virtually smelled of money. The two had just landed next to the hotel by helicopter along with their private pilot. “We flew over Everest Base Camp and Khumbu Icefall and afterwards even turned a round through the Gokyo valley”, both said enthusiastically. But you have not got a real feeling for these beautiful mountains, I thought.

More than 80 loads less cross the Icefall

Rescue helicopter above Khumbu Icefall (in 2014)

As the US blogger and mountaineer Alan Arnette – he wants to climb Lhotse this spring – reported from Everest Base Camp, the Nepalese government has allowed for the first time to fly climbing equipment by helicopter up to Camp 1 at about 6,000 meters: ropes, anchors and bottled oxygen. All in all, says Alan, it is more than 80 loads that have not to be carried by Sherpas through the Khumbu Icefall. Although it is a contribution to safety, the helicopter transport flights to high camp also mean another step of commercialization of Mount Everest.

Many cracks and deep holes

Even after the huge avalanche which had been triggered on the seven-thousander Pumori by the earthquake on 25 April 2015, had hit the Everest Base Camp and killed 19 people, the Nepalese government had agreed to material transport by helicopter to Camp 1. However, it had not happened, because the season had ended prematurely, as already in 2014 after the avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall with 16 dead Nepalese climbers.

The Icefall Doctors speak of very difficult conditions this spring, after the earthquake that hit Nepal on Monday exactly one year ago. “I have never seen so many cracks and deep holes on the path to the summit of Sagarmatha,” said Ang Kami Sherpa, head of the specialists who prepare and secure the route through the Icefall and further up. “It’s dangerous this year.” By their own account, the government has issued 289 Everest permits for foreign climbers this season. Many of them use their permits from 2014 or 2015, the validity of which had been extended by five respectively two years.

Everest Base Camp

A few climbers are incorrigible. „I wish it was all so simple, but I am afraid not. I still have expedition members who call me to say that they have not experienced any death, or any disadvantage and that it is my responsibility to continue climbing“, Russell Brice, head of the New Zealand expedition operator Himalayan Experience, wrote in his newsletter from Everest Base Camp on the Nepalese side of Mount Everest. On Friday, Brice had abandoned all Himex expeditions in Nepal: „Now having considered all facts, I can tell you that we will not be continuing any of our ascents in Nepal this season.“ Before he called off the climbs, Russ had to take a lot of criticism, because he had said that his team would stay in Base Camp for a few days and decide only then whether to stop or to continue the expedition. He now reported that he had a call from the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) that the „Icefall doctors“ would not return to restore the route through the Khumbu Icefall. „At the same time I even have some members who now want to climb by themselves. Thus I have decided that they are no longer part of my team. I will continue to look after my team and staff to the best of my ability under difficult conditions“, Brice wrote.

Arnette: A war zone

Base Camp after the avalanche from Pumori

These climbers should read what US climber and blogger Alan Arnette wrote after his return to Kathmandu about the avalanche that hit Everest Base Camp on 25 April: „Rocks flew into humans at supersonic speeds, they never had a chance. Doctors there to climb or serve were pressed into duty out of service or deep commitment. Everyone there was impacted from carrying corpses, picking up body parts, communicating with loved ones back home, greeting helicopters with climbers rescued from the Western Cwm – yes, it was horrific and not to be glorified, capitalized or minimized – it was a war zone and most there rose to the challenge and will be changed forever.“

Help from China

Meanwhile a first group of 160 Chinese police officers with heavy equipment crossed the Friendship Bridge and entered Nepal at Kodari to clear the heavenly damaged road to Kathmandu. A total of 500 officers together with 180 units of engineering machinery were detached, the Chinese official news agency Xinhua reported. Nepal had asked the neighboring country for support. According to the Nepalese government meanwhile more than 7,000 dead (among them 57 foreigners) and more than 14,000 injured persons have been registered, eight days after the devastating earthquake.