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.

First glance on Everest (l.) and Lhotse

“I don’t have any ambitions to climb Mount Everest,” says Ang Dorjee Sherpa. “Too dangerous! Finally, I have a wife and three children.” However, the 47-year-old was a member of Everest expeditions twice. At the end of 1991, Ang Dorjee worked as “Mail Man” for a Japanese expedition who wanted to climb the mighty Southwest Face for the first time in winter. The Sherpa brought the news of the failure at 8,350 meters as “postal runner” into the valley. Two years later the Japanese were back again – and successfully: A total of six climbers reached the summit on a partially new route, the first team on 18 December 1993. The first ascent of the wall in (meteorological, not calendrical) winter was done. That time, Ang Dorjee did not play the postman, but worked as a cook for the Japanese.

Again and again, Japan

Ang Dorjee Sherpa

To date, the Sherpa has a special relationship with Japanese mountaineers. In the guest room of his “AD Friendship Lodge” in Namche Bazaar at 3440 meters photos are hanging on the wall showing Ang Dorjee with Junko Tabei, the first woman on the Everest, or even with Uchiro Miura, who was, aged 80, the oldest man ever to climb Everest. For several years Ang Dorjee also worked in summer for three months as a cook at a Japanese mountain lodge. And many of the trekking groups he is nowadays guiding through the impressive mountains of Nepal, are from Japan.

Accustomed to earthquakes

Bridge across Dudh Cosi

During the devastating earthquake on 25 April 2015, Ang Dorjee was in Kathmandu to make final preparations for a Japanese travel group. “The Japanese did not even want to leave after the quake. They were accustomed to shocks from their home. But I sent them home. Their safety was for me more important than the money.” In Namche Bazaar, fortunately there was hardly no damage, says Ang Dorjee. adding that in the region the two villages Thame and Khumjung were hit, “especially the houses that had been built in the traditional way.” His own Lodge got only a small crack in the back wall. “Nothing bad!”

Icefall Doctors are making good progress

Namche Bazaar

For this spring season, Ang Dorjee is somewhere between slightly skeptical and cautiously optimistic. “But in spring even more climbers from expeditions arrive than trekkers. For us, fall is almost more important because it’s the main trekking season.” The Sherpa expects for the climbers who will come to Namche in the next few weeks a good summit chance to reach the summit. “I heard that the Icefall Doctors have already made good progress in preparing the route,” says Ang Dorjee. When I ask him about the mood among the Sherpas – after two years of deadly avalanches and without summit successes on the Nepalese side of Everest – Ang Dorjee smiles: “No matter how bad it is, we Sherpas are very good at forgetting and restarting.”

Dangerous Khumbu Icefall

No matter how likely something seems to be, things may turn out quite differently. For many years, most climbers on the Nepalese side of Everest thought that the route through the Khumbu Icefall, which led – seen from below – along the left hand side directly below the West Shoulder, was safe. Until 18 April 2014 when a huge ice avalanche released and killed 16 Nepalis. The Sherpas revolted, the season was over before it had begun. This spring, the route is to be relocated further away from the West Shoulder, about 40 meters to the centre of the Icefall. Ang Dorjee Sherpa, president of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Commitee (SPCC), which is responsible for the route, said to the Himalayan Times, he expected that the clients need three to four hours more to reach Camp 1. Although the new route is not as risky as the old one, it is more difficult, says Ang Dorjee. Not all are convinced that this is the last word.

Really safe?

„The Everest Icefall ‘route change’ announced by Nepal is not a solution. It’s an excuse to maintain the status quo“, US expedition leader Adrian Ballinger wrote on Twitter. The head of the expedition operator Alpenglow decided, in response to last year’s events on the Nepalese side, to switch to the Tibetan north side of Everest. There he will meet, among others, Dominik Mueller, head of the German operator Amical alpin, who also will lead an expedition from the north side.

He is „very skeptical that, on the bottom line, this route is really so much safer,” Dominik replies when I ask him what he thinks about the new route on the Nepalese side. „They try with all means to declare the ascent as safe as possible.“

Back to the roots

Dominik Mueller

Mueller points out that even in past times the route had led via the centre of the Icefall. In this basin, the glacier is moving much faster and is therefore unpredictable, says Dominik. Because of the increasing glacier melt it had been decided to move the route more to the left side – for safety. „So back to the roots, without looking at the change of the glacier?“ Dominik expects a significant higher risk for the Icefall Doctors while they set up the route through the center of the Icefall. And they will have more work to maintain the way through the ice labyrinth during the season because the glacier moves faster in the centre. More material such as ladders and fixed ropes are needed, Mueller says: „This will make it more expensive, while simultaneously the number of climbers on the south side will decrease.“ Dominik believes that it will be difficult to master the balancing act to find the perfect route: „On the one hand as far as possible in the centre, far enough away from the West Shoulder. On the other hand as close as possible to the left side, where the flow rate of the glacier is lower. If it works, it would be a good and neccessary step to make the south side of Everest more attractive and safer again.“ Hard to say how likely that is.