Valery Rozov (1964-2017)

One of the world’s most famous base jumpers is dead. Russian media report that Valery Rozov was killed in a wingsuit flight from the 6,814-meter-high Ama Dablam near Mount Everest. The exact circumstances are not yet known. Valery was 52 years old. Rozov had made headlines worldwide with his jumps from Himalayan mountains in recent years.

Record jumps

In 2013, he jumped from an altitude of 7,220 meters on Changtse and landed on the Central Rongbuk Glacier at the foot of the North Face of Mount Everest. In fall 2016, Rozov improved his own record for the highest wingsuit flight ever: Valery ascended to a height of 7,700 meters on the eight-thousander Cho Oyu and jumped from there down to the valley (watch the video below). And he did many more spectacular base jumps, e.g. from the six-thousander Shivling in the Indian Himalaya in 2012 or from highest mountain in Africa, Kilimanjaro (5895 m), in 2015.

High fatality rate

R.I.P.

The sad list of fatalities after base jumps with the wingsuit now includes several hundred names. The most prominent victim from the extreme climbing scene was the American Dean Potter in 2015. Mountaineering legend Chris Bonington finds that there is hardly any difference in the kind of motivation of base jumpers and extreme climbers. “If you have the adrenaline junkies which we are and if you want to take that to the extreme and go out to the outer limits inevitably there is going to be a high casualty rate”, the meanwhile 83-year-old Briton told me in 2015. “And there is a high casualty rate amongst extreme climbers at altitude as there are amongst for instance base jumpers, wingsuit fliers and so on. I think it’s not people who have got a death wish. It’s something that people are turned on by the huge excitement, euphoria of taking your body and yourself to the absolute limit to achieve an objective.” Valery Rozov described it this way: “Each moment when your dream becomes reality is so special!”

Update 12 November: The Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times” reports that Rozov died after crashing into a cliff while he jumped from the mountain in a wingsuit.

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.

Lhakpa Thundu Sherpa (1970-2016)

Once again the earth trembled on Monday in the Khumbu region around Mount Everest. The tremors with an intensity of 5.4, with the epicenter 19 kilometers west of Namche Bazaar, normally would not have caused panic, because small to medium scale aftershocks are almost everyday routine in Nepal after the devastating earthquake on 25 April 2015: 475 tremors with an intensity of 4 or more have been registered since then. Major damage was not reported after Monday’s quake. But there was also sad news: Due to the tremors Lhakpa Thundu Sherpa lost his life while climbing the 6814-meter-high Ama Dablam.

Wrong time, wrong place

Ama Dablam

Thundu was on a summit push along with a British client, above Camp 3 at 6,300 meters, when the quake triggered a hail of ice chunks. The 46-year-old Sherpa was hit on the head and died of the injuries. The British survived and could be brought to safety in a rescue operation by helicopter. “Both of them were very unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time”, British expedition operator Tim Mosedale wrote on Facebook. Both climbers belonged to his expedition group: “Five minutes either way and it would have just been a close call.” The shapely Ama Dablam, one of the most beautiful mountains in the world, has been a popular destination for commercial expeditions for years.

Climber and watchmaker

Billi Bierling (l.) and Thundu Sherpa (r.) on top of Cho Oyu

Lhakpa Thundu Sherpa came from the village of Pangboche, located about 4,000 meter high, near Ama Dablam. He was a very experienced high altitude climber. Thundu summited Mount Everest nine times (8850 m) – in 2006, 2007 and 2010 even twice within a few days – , in addition Cho Oyu (8188 m) twice, Manaslu (8163 m) and Annapurna (8091 m) once. He was also highly familiar with Ama Dablam, which he had scaled seven times. But his life did not only take place in the mountains. At times, Thundu also worked as a watchmaker of a luxury brand in Kathmandu. “Thundu was a special person,” writes German mountaineer and journalist Billi Bierling, who had reached the summit of the eight-thousander Cho Oyu in Tibet on 1. October along with Thundu. “He was very empathetic and open, and he told me a lot about his family and his temporary work as watchmaker. Even then he wanted to get away from the dangerous work of Climbing Sherpa, but his passion for the mountains brought him back to his original work.”

Donation campaign for Thundu’s family

R.I.P.

She was shocked when the news of Thundu’s death reached her. “Without him,” says Billi, “I probably would not have reached the summit of Cho Oyu. Even though sadness is the predominant feeling at the moment, I am glad that I got to know Thundu and shared the special moment of my ascent with him (even though he sometimes blamed me for my slowness on the descent – rightly!). Thank you Thundu, I will never forget those special moments.” Thundu leaves behind his wife and two sons at the age of eight and 14 years. If you want to support his family, you can submit donations online very simply and unbureaucratically via Tim Mosedale’s aid project JustGiving. Just add the note “For Thundu”!