Upper slopes on Cho Oyu

Who will stop the grey gentleman? The time-thieves who are wreaking havoc in German writer Michael Ende’s  novel “Momo” seem to have invaded the Himalayas. Western operators have noticed over the past few years that the chance to sell expeditions is the higher, the shorter the trips to Asia last. There are not too many employers who approve a two-month holiday application of an employee who wants to go to an eight-thousander expedition.

Saving acclimatization time

The US operator Alpenglow Expeditions has recognized the predicament potential eight-thousander aspirants are getting into and offer so-called “Rapid Ascent Expeditions”: members get used to thin air in hypoxic tents at home instead of time-consuming acclimatization on the mountain and don’t arrive at the foot of the mountain until it is prepared with fixed ropes. So Alpenglow melts down the duration of an Everest expedition to the Tibetan north side to 42 days. This fall’s Cho Oyu expedition of the US operator takes only 30 days.

On prepared slope

Hypoxia training at home

Adrian Ballinger, the head of Alpenglow, wants to prove that it works even much faster. The American, aged 40, has flown to Cho Oyu along with his partner in live, the 30-year-old professional climber Emily Harrington, to climb Cho Oyu. Within less than two weeks, the couple wants to be back in the US. Ballinger and Harrington have completed an intense hypoxia training at home at Lake Tahoe in California – and followed very closely the forecasts of the meteorologists for a good weather window on this mountain. Without the usual acclimatization rounds, they want to climb directly on the normal route, which is already prepared with fixed ropres, to the 8188-meter-high summit, as high as possible without additional oxygen. For the upper parts of the mountain, however, oxygen bottles should be available, which will have been deposited there before by the Sherpas of the Alpenglow commercial expedition. The couple is planning to ski down from the summit and to travel back afterwards to the United States as fast as possible.

End of deceleration

Time thieves (seen on a graffiti wall in the German town of Trier)

If Ballinger and Harrington will finish their “instant expedition” successfully, that will, of course, be best advertisement for Alpenglow’s Rapid Ascent Expeditions. But that’s what falls by the wayside: the deceleration during an expedition, the immersion in foreign countries and cultures, the encounters with the locals, with the other expedition members, and not least with himself, in short the actual expedition life. And the gray gentlemen rub their hands.

Mount Everest

Before the season, actually all agreed: Commercial climbing on Everest would hardly cope with another year with accidents and without summit successes. It turned out differently. More than 400 ascents via the Nepalese south side of Everest, more than 100 on the north side, five deaths in the summit area. Everything back to normal? Any problems to point out? I’ve asked some expedition operators, who were on Everest this spring. The first three have already replied: Phil Crampton, Adrian Ballinger and Russell Brice. There are some coincidences. But read for yourself!

Crampton: “Why not regulate the mountain like Chinese do?”

For Phil Crampton, born in UK, living in the US, it was the 14th and final season on Everest. He had announced in advance that his company Altitude Junkies would focus from 2017 on “less crowded” mountains like the eight-thousanders Makalu, Dhaulagiri and Kangchenjunga. Crampton himself has scaled Everest six times. This season, the Altitude Junkies team recorded 16 summit successes. Here is Phil’s balance:

Phil Crampton

“The Everest spring season was as normal as it could have been after the devastating 2014 and 2015 seasons. The mountain was not as crowded as usual this year but that still didn’t stop the bottlenecks on summit day from the crowds of climbers that were reported from May 19th. Expedition operators and the government are already talking in Kathmandu about the increased number of foreign climbers expected for the 2017 season as many people still have permits that will be honored from the previous two years. I continue to see climbers with inadequate high altitude experience on her flanks and most of these climbers are signed up with low budget less experienced operators. Everest climbers and their experience is not regulated by the government and it seems that anyone willing to pay the $11,000 permit fee is allowed to climb. Why not regulate the mountain like the Chinese government do requiring all Chinese nationals to have previously climbed an 8,000-meter peak before being issued a permit for the north side?”

Ballinger: “Trash on the mountain, inexperienced climbers”

Adrian Ballinger tried this spring along with his US compatriot Cory Richards to climb Everest from the north without oxygen. The world could follow their ascent in real time via Snapchat under the hashtag #everestnofilter. Adrian turned around at an altitude of about 8,500 meters when he noticed symptoms of altitude sickness. Cory reached the summit. Ballinger’s company Alpenglow Expeditions had a commercial team on Everest too. That’s what Adrian wrote to me:

Adrian Ballinger

“2016 was a great season for Alpenglow on Everest. 100 percent of our commercial team summited (four climbers, three Sherpa) in great conditions. The north side route was in great condition, and much safer than my experience of the south side the past eight seasons. The CTMA (China Tibet Mountaineering Association) rope-fixing was, for the most part, excellent. Issues on the mountain do exist and need addressed, primarily problems caused by low-budget operators without western guides. These problems included leaving trash and human waste on the mountain, accepting inexperienced climbers on teams, and utilizing other teams’ resources due to a lack of their own. None of these problems are insurmountable, but regulation and enforcement of commercial companies on the mountain is necessary.” 

Brice: “New Nepal operators with too little Sherpa stuff”

The New Zealander Russell Brice can also be satisfied with this spring’s season on the south side of Everest from his perspective as head of the operator Himalayan Experience. Six of his clients, including German Andreas Friedrich, reached the highest point. Russ has encouraged me to shorten his season record on the Himex website. That’s what I did:

Russell Brice

“After I saw so many people going to the summit on the 19th I was not surprised to see the events that unfolded later in the season happen. Like one news article headlines, it was back to “Business as Usual on Everest” but I really wonder if we never learn from our past mistakes! There are now many more new Nepal operators here, and we see that they have limited numbers of Sherpa staff, so often these teams are unable to offer any Sherpa support to get equipment up the hill or to actually fix ropes. It was a very democratic decision to have nine different teams being involved for summit rope fixing, but it was not efficient what so ever. It would have been better to have two or three companies involved with Sherpas who all know each other and who can work well together, and also who have one Sirdar or leader to follow the instructions from. This would mean that the rope fixing would be more efficient and subsequently would be done more quickly and therefore put the Sherpas in less danger.”

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:

David Goettler

More than 300 Everest dreams are gone. As many climbers returned home empty-handed after their expeditions had been cancelled after the avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall on Good Friday. One of them was David Goettler. The 35-year-old from the German town of Munich had wanted to climb the highest mountain in the world via the normal route on the Nepalese south side without bottled oxygen. Goettler was still acclimatizing when he heard the first still inconsistent reports about the avalanche. “Initially, I hoped that I might still be able to make an attempt”, David told me on the phone. Therefore, he first continued his acclimatization program. “But when I was on the summit of Island Peak (6000er in the Everest region) and wanted to sleep below the highest point, the news came that my expedition and all others would be cancelled.” He returned to Kathmandu.

“David, what made you abandon your project completely? You could have gone to the base camp and try to climb through the icefall by yourself.

Adrian Ballinger of the expedition operator Alpenglow, on whose permit I was listed, flew from Kathmandu to the base camp and spoke with his Sherpas. He also asked them if I could come. After having led his clients with bottled oxygen to the summit, Adrian intended to make an attempt without oxygen, together with me. But the Sherpas told him fairly clearly that there was a small but apparently very influential Sherpa group that threatened violence to anyone who would climb higher than the base camp. Also the base camp staff was threatened, e.g. our cook was told that his family would be hurt. I can never accept this and I do criticize it strongly.

That was just a small group. Most Sherpas were mourning. I can understand every single of them who says that he does not want to climb Everest this season. I do accept it and would never force anyone to fix ropes for me. But as a climber I still want to have the opportunity to consider the risks and then decide for myself whether I go or not. But after we had been told that there was no desire that anyone would climb, we ended our project too. This is an atmosphere in which I feel uncomfortable and in which I do not want to climb.

Mount Everest (from Kala Pattar)

In 2013, some Sherpas attacked Ueli Steck and Simone Moro in Camp 2. Now a  small group threatened violence and exerted pressure. Violence has become a topic on Everest. Do you think that the Sherpas have to tackle this problem because there is obviously a split in their community?

They must solve the problem in any case. These threats and the readiness to use violence are poisoning the atmosphere. The Sherpas are shooting themselves in the foot, they will realize quickly what happens if no more expeditions come. Especially the Sherpas of this small violent group, who work for operators who do not insure their employees sufficiently, would be the first who lose their jobs. I do not know how they would react then.

Last year I got the feeling that most people expected that the Nepalese government should tackle the problem. That did obviously not work. What role can and should the government play at all? Is it not rather the responsibility of the climbing community to solve this problem by itself?

I come to Nepal and pay my permit to the government and not to the Sherpas. So I would hope that the government and the SPCC (Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, the management of the Everest National Park) forward this money to the Everest region, or at least that a greater part of it reaches the Khumbu. Each hydroelectric plant, each bridge, each school, each hospital in the Khumbu area is sponsored from Germany, Italy, the United States and other Western countries. I wonder, and I think the most Sherpas also do: Where exactly is the money from the permits for 300 and more climbers, $ 10,000 each? On the other hand, it should go without saying that each client opts for an expedition operator that treats its employees responsibly. If I had decided to take the lowest bidder, I could have saved about 5000 Euros. But I did not know this operator, I did not know which kind of insurance he had for his stuff and how he treated his employees.

The Sherpas  – the “Ice doctors”, the high altitude porters and the Climbing Sherpas –  are risking their necks in the Khumbu Icefall. Do you understand that they are asking to be paid better for their dangerous jobs?

Their work must be paid in a way that both sides agree. That’s where I am absolutely of the same opinion as the Sherpas. But they need to negotiate the payment before the work starts. Each Sherpa signs a contract with his agency, in which is written exactly how much the amount of insurance is in case of death, how many times he has to climb through the Khumbu Icefall and how much money he gets. If I work as a mountain guide in the Alps and accept a job at Mont Blanc, I also know that there is the slope of Tacul where several other guides have already been killed by avalanches. Nevertheless, I do it for a certain sum of money which I negotiate in the run-up. I know what to expect. Just the Sherpas do know what to expect in the Khumbu Icefall. I was there in three different years, and it always dangerous to the same extent. This year’s disaster was that there were so many climbers at the wrong time in the wrong place. But that could also have happened in all previous years. I also know that I might be killed at the slopes of Mount Tacul. But I cannot strike only because an avalanche has come down and say: Now I want twice as much money, because it’s twice as dangerous. The Sherpas who work on Everest are clever, not uneducated. They have been already there and will return again, because they know it is very well-paid work. If they want more money, it’s okay too. But they should negotiate it before.

North side of Mount Everest

For the first time since the start of commercial expeditions on Everest, a season has ended prematurely. Do you think that the big operators will now switch to the north side?

I very much doubt. In one year’s time much will be forgotten. I also do not know if it would be the better choice for commercial operators to go to the north side. There are disadvantages, too. The Chinese government can tell from one day to the next: The mountain is closed now because the Dalai Lama has visited any country. In addition, the possibility to rescue climbers who are in trouble are by far not as good as on the south side, where rescue flights by helicopter to camp 2 are usual. On the south side I also sleep at a lower height in the last camp. I really don’t know which is the lesser of the two evils for a commercial operator.

I hope that the Nepalese south side will work well again, in the sense that the Sherpas, the expedition operators and the individual climbers cooperate and respect each other so that everyone can climb, in all variants.

What about your ambitions on Everest?

I still want to try Everest, at least once. If it is really true that the permit remains valid for five years, I will certainly return to the south side.”