Collecting garbage on Everest

Such big garbage bags have guaranteed not yet been brought down from Mount Everest. The Expedition Operator’s Association Nepal (EOA) has delivered canvas bags, capable of holding 80 kilograms, to Everest Base Camp. They are to be used in particular for transporting old tents and garbage, which have accumulated in Camp 2 at 6,400 meters due to the premature end of the climbing seasons in 2014 and 2015, down to the valley. 80-kg bags are, of course, too heavy to be shouldered by porters and carried through the Khumbu Icefall to Everest Base Camp.

Two dollars per kilo

For this purpose, the helicopters are to be used that are currently transporting equipment of the expedition teams for the upcoming spring season to Camp 2. On the return flight to Base Camp they are empty and therefore can take back the full garbage bags. The New Zealander Russell Brice, head of the expedition operator Himalayan Experience, said, he was paying his Sherpas two dollars per kilo of trash they bring on their way back from Camp 3 (7,300 meters) or Camp 4 (7,950 meters) down to Camp 2. The “Eco Everest Expedition” run by the operator Asian Trekking has once again committed itself to bring down “old garbage, in addition to our own”.

Comparatively low deposit

South side of Mount Everest

For many years, the mountaineers have been obliged to dig or burn their organic waste. Recyclable material such as plastic or glass must be returned to Kathmandu as well as empty oxygen bottles or batteries. Any expedition team that breaches the rules risks not getting back their garbage deposit of US $ 4000. It remains to be seen whether this small sum – compared to the overall turnover on Everest – can really deter polluters.

Glacier melt reveals old garbage

Of course, there is also old garbage on the mountain, from times when environmental protection was still a foreign word. In addition, the increasing glacier melt on Everest as a result of climate change reveals tents or oxygen bottles from the 1990s or even earlier which the mountaineers had once thoughtlessly disposed in crevasses.

Ang Tshering Sherpa

The numbers fill Ang Tshering Sherpa with confidence. “We hope that mountaineering in Nepal will revive very soon,” says the President of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) when we meet at the International Mountain Summit in Bressanone in South Tyrol. According to his words, expeditions to Nepalese mountains higher than 6,500 meters, which are managed by the government, have already achieved 87 percent compared with the time before the devastating earthquake in April 2015. Climbing on mountains lower than 6,500 meters, managed by the NMA, has even fully recovered. Trekking is between 40 and 50 percent again, depending on the region, the head of the NMA says: “We need to let the world know that the best way to help Nepal is by visiting. Each and every person who spends time in Nepal will help to revive the economy and rebuild the infrastructure.”

Less but true liaison officers

Mount Everest

As NMA president Ang Tshering has to work on several construction sites related to expeditions. For example, the case of an Indian couple that made headlines all over the world, because they had obtained their Everest certificates by fraud, faking the summit pictures of other climbers. “We need to monitor more strictly and seriously those climbers who are not good for climbers’ image,” says the 62-year-old. The Nepalese liaison officers are no big help. They usually take their money that the expedition teams have to pay, are not seen at the base camps, but confirm afterwards that team member have reached the summit. “We asked the government to send only one liaison officer per mountain, not 30 or 40 on Everest or other mountains,” says Ang Tshering.

Everest aspirants should be more experienced

Ang Tshering (2nd f.r.) with Reinhold Messner (l.)

But it is difficult to implement such reforms because “unfortunately the government is changing every six or eight months. You have to convince them. And when they are about to understand, they change again.” That is why the discussion about new mountaineering rules for Mount Everest is already lasting for such a long time, says the head of NMA, adding that the reform is urgently needed: “Everest is the highest mountain in the world and it is not easy to climb. Either they climb in the European Alpes or the Nepalese mountains or elsewhere abroad, they do need more experience.”

“Mountaineer only interested in price”

Like others, Ang Tshering sees the problem that especially new expedition operators from Nepal are attracting clients offering dumping prices: “They are picking up people who have not any knowledge about climbing, how to use the equipment. Such agencies are spoiling the tourism industry.” The NMA president is also head of Asian Trekking, one of the country’s leading expedition operators. “We must not compromise the safety conditions ot the other Nepalese operators who are well prepared, well organized and more experienced than the new companies who have no knowledge about expeditions”, says Ang Tshering Sherpa. “Climbers, however, are only looking at the price, they don’t look at the safety conditions. This is the problem.”

Dawa Steven Sherpa

A 15-meter-high climbing wall in the middle of the tourist quarter Thamel in Kathmandu – who would have thought it? “The wall is the nursery for the sport of climbing in Nepal”, Dawa Steven Sherpa tells me. “All of the young ambitious Sherpa climbers have trained here.” I meet the 32-year-old in the office of “Asian Trekking”. Along with his father Ang Tshering Sherpa, Dawa Steven is managing the leading Nepalese expedition operator. I talk with him about this spring season on Everest – after the avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall in 2014 that killed 16 Nepalese climberes and the earthquake in 2015, that triggered an avalanche from the 7000er Pumori that hit Everest Base Camp killing 19 climbers.

Dawa Steven, Asian Trekking once again offers an Eco Everest Expedition this spring. Will it take place?

Yes, it will start from Kathmandu on 6 April. So far we have 14 foreign members and 21 Sherpas but this number will change by the end of the month.

Do you notice that there is a lower demand this year?

There is not a lower demand for Everest, but it’s the same people from 2015 and 2014 who are coming back. So the big question is: Will there be the same size of expeditions not this but next year?

Everest Southwest Face

We had two years with avalanche accidents and without summit successes from the South. What do you expect for this spring’s season?

It’s not possible to predict natural disasters. But from the mentality and the motivation, the climbers and the Sherpas as well as the operators feel that this has to be a good year, no matter what we have to get this done because three years in a row might cause permanent damage to the tourism industry, to the reputation of Everest and as a result also to the local and national economy. So the mentality is very much of determination that, whatever the case is this year, expeditions have to be successful. There is a lot of pressure on everybody this year.

Dawa Steven Sherpa: A lot of pressure this year

In the sense that it will decide about the future of climbing Everest from the Nepalese side?

I think already a lot of clients who have been in Nepal in the last two years decided that China will be safer for them. Many people feel that the north side has fewer dangers than the south side. But this is just an opinion. The Chinese side has its own challenges, for example more exposure to high altitude.

The government has extended the validity of the 2015 permits by two years. The decision came rather late – as usual?

As usual. There is no surprise there. In 2014, we were really concerned and stressed because the government took such an amount of time to make their decision on the Everest permits. This year we had this experience of 2014. I said to my clients: Don’t worry, the Nepalese government always does things at the last minute. It’s unlike in Europe or America. Things are not done in a timely way, they are only done if they have to be done.

What’s about the announced new rules for Everest climbing like age limits, no more permits for heavily disabled climbers and so on. When will they come?

They will not come, at least not now. I think it’s important to have criteria, selection processes for who should be on the mountain, not only for climbers, but also for operators, guides and Sherpas so that the mountain is climbed in a safe way. But these rules you mention, that was only a statement of the Tourism Minister in a public event, it had no legal backing, there was no documentation and a follow up on that. But the media picked it up and it did a lot of damage to Nepal’s reputation as a destination for climbers.

Dawa Steven Sherpa about new rules on Everest

In my personal opinion, it’s a wrong criterion to say that a disabled person is not allowed to climb. I think it is discrimination. I know many disabled climbers who are better climbers than I am. And there is again discrimination from an age perspective. Age is not a factor. You should not make minors climb, I understand that. Children should not be in a dangerous environment. But it’s wrong to say that a 60, 70 or 80-year-old is not capable, because it’s not up to us. There are people who are in their sixties who are fitter than I am. As long as a doctor says, this person is fine to go to the mountain, that should be a good legal basis for allowing him to climb.

But the Nepal Mountaineering Association is also demanding stricter rules for Everest. Do you think that it’s important to regulate it because maybe the wrong people are on the mountain?

There is definitely a need to regulate who goes to the mountain but at the same time we have to be very careful because it is an economic activity, many people depend on it for jobs. So to make it safer, the focus is always on the climbers. There should be better climbers. But in my personal experience I have also noticed that it is normally not the amateur but the expert climbers who get in trouble. They don’t know the mountain themselves, many of them are climbers from the Alps and the Andes, but don’t really know high altitude. They go with cheap companies and don’t take good Sherpa support. Unlike a rock climb or a small peak, Everest is an expedition. It needs skills from different backgrounds, in logistics, in guiding, in climbing of course. It has to be a combination of these skills that has to be good.

Much traffic on Everest (in 2012)

But amateur climbers are often very slow and responsible for traffic jams on the key points of the route.

Amateur climbers can be slow but so can expert climbers, because it’s not the technical difficulty of Everest that makes people slow, it’s the altitude. You could be a fantastic rock climber or a fantastic mountaineer in the Alps in Switzerland, but the moment you hit 8,000 meters your body doesn’t work in the same way. So to say that amateur climbers are the ones who slow people down is not necessarily true. But of course the logic is that if you are not technically skilled and you are affected by altitude you are definitely going to slow people down.

The second point is management on the mountain. Traffic jams happen when too many people are at the same place at the same time. That is because of bad management from the government side and bad coordination between the different teams. First we have to look to the weather reports. How many weather windows are we going to have in May, maybe five, four, maybe two. So people can split up accordingly. The second thing is: Weather windows last for two to sometimes five days. So people don’t have to go on the same day but can do it one day apart. It can be managed in that way. On a good summer day there are more people on Mont Blanc than on Everest in an entire year. There will be a point where we have to say that’s too many people. But in my opinion we haven’t reached that point. Let’s first manage these people there and the summits, then let’s talk about having quotas and so on.

Everest Base Camp

There were some western operators telling that they won’t offer Everest expeditions any more due to the competition with Nepalese operators that has turned into some kind of price war. Can you understand them?

Absolutely. But it’s not only competition from the Nepali but also from international operators. There are a lot of Nepali operators who are offering it much cheaper. In the past it used to be that Nepali companies did not have the skills to organize and lead expeditions. Now we do. Now we have Nepali climbers who are internationally certified guides. There are companies who are very capable, have the same infrastructure, assets and manpower as the western companies. Yet being local, their overheads are less and so they are able to offer a cheaper price. So the western operators are losing their clients who are looking for price to those companies. At the same time there are a lot of foreign climbers who get a lot of satisfaction and peace of mind by going with a company of their own country. In those cases, people are less concerned about prize and will then look for international operators who are more expensive but have a better reputation. So what you will see is that international operators who are sort of in the middle are losing out their cheap clients to the Nepali companies and the expensive clients to the more expensive international companies. That’s why they are not able to compete now.

Would you say that a new era is coming where only the Nepalese operators will manage expeditions on Everest?

There is a new era of Nepali operators coming, yes, but there is still a niche for the international competitors and only the best of them will survive. Eventually Nepali operators will overtake the western companies because they are getting better every year. It could be in the next five years or ten years. But it’s not to say that international operators are not important. What we see is that western companies who used to organize the expeditions themselves in Nepal are now sending their clients to Nepali operators. They do the marketing and the Nepali companies do the operations. Business keeps changing. If you can’t adept, you are not going to survive.

Dawa Steven Sherpa: New era of operating expedition

Some experts expect that there will be only high end expeditions on the one hand and discount expeditions on the other hand and nothing in between. Do you share this opinion?

I don’t think so. Everything is on a spectrum. When a professional climber comes to us and says, I only need one cook and a tent in Base Camp, everything else I will do myself, then I will organize this expedition accordingly. If I have a lawyer from Hongkong who has a lot of money to spend and he wants three Sherpas and everything to be done for him and he doesn’t want to carry a backpack, I also have a market for that. But most people fall in between. I think there will always be a spectrum. In the past, it used to be that Nepalese were at the bottom providing the cheapest expeditions. And in the middle and at the top were the western operators. Now the bottom and the middleground are taken by the Nepalese, and only the more expensive is provided by the Westerners. It’s only a matter of time before the Nepalese also take over the western operators’ market share.

What do you think about these luxury expeditions: Acclimatizing in oxygen tents in lower regions, flying by helicopter to Base Camp, only food from western countries, one client, one Sherpa and so on? Can you live with this kind of expeditions?

Absolutely. I think there is a place for everyone. When we talk about climbing philosophy, the big problem is that we are looking at it from a western perspective where climbing is a leisure, a philosophical exercise. People talk about the right and the wrong way to do climbing. But in Nepal climbing is an economic activity. Every climber provides jobs for Sherpas, cooks, porters, farmers. So it’s a completely different way that we see climbing. Why would Nepal want to sell mountaineering to foreigners if it is not going to benefit from it? So you have to be very careful. Sherpas are very quickly going to say: If we don’t get jobs on the mountain, why should these foreigners come here and climb on our holy mountains? When a westerner says, this is against the philosophy of mountaineering, it’s against the western philosophy, but is it also against the Nepali philosophy? Nobody ever asks that.  

Dawa Steven Sherpa: Different kinds of climbing philosophies

Dawa Steven Sherpa

There is a jinx on it. Two spring seasons on Everest in a row remained without summit successes (I ignore those of the Wang Jing team in 2014 because they were flown by helicopter to the high camp). In 2014, all commercial expeditions were cancelled after an avalanche had killed 16 Nepalese climbers in Khumbu Icefall. This year, the devastating earthquake in Nepal triggered an avalanche from the seven-thousander Pumori hitting Everest Base Camp and killing 19 mountaineers and support staff. Once again the spring season ended before it had really begun. What does this mean for the Sherpa people?

I called Dawa Steven Sherpa. Along with his father Ang Tshering Sherpa, the president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), the 31-year-old is managing “Asian Trekking”, a Kathmandu-based leading operator for expeditions and trekkings in the Himalayas. Dawa Steven scaled Everest twice (in 2007 and 2008) and in addition the eight-thousanders Cho Oyu (2006) and Lhotse (2009). Under his expedition leadership more than 150 climbers have summited Everest. But Dawa Steven is also a tireless fighter for environmental and climate protection in the Himalayas. Furthermore he is leading “Resilient Homes”  , a project of the “Himalayan Climate Initiative” to help earthquake-affected communities to rebuild their houses and other buildings – one more reason to talk to him about the current situation in Nepal.

South side of Mount Everest

Dawa Steven, do you also notice in your company a low demand for trekking and expeditions this fall?

Yes, we definitely have less demand. We did not have cancellations from people who already booked before the earthquake. But we did notice that there are less bookings altogether. I think for the first time ever we don’t have an expedition. We had to cancel our two expeditions in Tibet because the Chinese did not give any climbing permits for this autumn. We tried to divert the expeditions from Cho Oyu and Shishapangma to Manaslu, but our clients were not interested.

What does this mean for Sherpa guides, cooks, kitchen aids, porters as well as for the owners of the lodges?

Of course that is not good news. We employ 62 Sherpas who depend on this work. If possible, we give them the opportunity to lead the treks in the Everest or Annapurna region. But of course it’s not the same level of income as they would get from mountaineering. That is not a good situation for anybody.

Rescue in Everest Base Camp

What is the mood like in the Sherpa community after two Everest spring seasons with deadly avalanches, earthquake and abandoned expeditions?

It’s not good, as you can imagine. Most of our Sherpas are ready to go climbing. We were lucky because both last year and this year none of my Sherpas and team members were affected by the avalanches. There were, thank God, no deaths and injuries in my team. But of course they saw other Sherpas and climbers being hurt and killed. A lot of Sherpas are a little bit nervous. Thankfully most of my Sherpas have a lot of experience. The older Sherpas are emotionally and psychologically strong. And that has a good effect on the younger Sherpas who have been for the first or second time on expedition and who are more nervous now about going to the mountains because all their experience has been so bad. No Sherpa comes to me and says: “I don’t want to climb any more.” But I definitely know that inside their families some Sherpas are receiving pressure from their wives, mothers and fathers telling them: “Don’t go climbing any more, just only lead trekking groups!”

How is the financial situation of the Sherpa families after these two bad spring seasons?

A lot of Sherpas have been hit very badly, because they not only lost a lot of their income. They also had to spend more money to rebuild their houses after the earthquake. Luckily we should say that Sherpas have a very strong culture of saving money. Many Sherpas have stored some money for times like this. From a financial point of view Sherpas are stronger than the rest of Nepal. They were able either to use their own money or to borrow it. People trust them because they have the income to pay it back later. In addition many Sherpas also received direct funding from previous clients who live in other countries. So Sherpas are lucky in that way because they have so much international support for them.

Since May, Nepal has a Tourism Minister who is a Sherpa. Do you now notice more awareness within the government for the needs of mountain people?

There is, of course, a better mood for us in the tourism industry because we have a Sherpa minister. But he is also challenged in many ways, because he is part of a political party which has its own agenda. He has to work with the bureaucracy which was used doing things in their own way such a long time. The minster has fast tracked a lot of things and he also understands a lot of the challenges that the tourism industry faces. So we are happy in that way, but on the other way we are also a little bit nervous now because there are talks again that very soon the prime minister and his cabinet is going to change. If the Tourism Minister will change, we will have to start at zero again.

Everest Base Camp

What is the most important thing that has to be done to improve the situation in tourism?

The first thing that the government has to do is to address the needs of the climbers, especially the ones who came for Everest, to build up the confidence so that Nepal does not just take their money like the permits for 11,000 dollars. The impression should not be given to the climbers and the rest of the world that Nepal does not care about the tourists who come to Nepal. So Nepal has to be very quick and say: “We understand, there was a big earthquake and that you had to cancel your expedition on Everest. We will extend your permit for another three or five years and will not charge more money!” That is one way to gain some confidence back and a very simple thing that the government should do. The government of Nepal has had a real, real bad reputation last year after the avalanche for not addressing the situation seriously and it is running the danger of doing the same thing this year and again losing their reputation or making that reputation even worse.

Do you fear that many climbers will switch to the Tibetan north side?

I do not only fear, I know that many have switched. For example this year, I had three climbers who went to the north side who were on the south side last year. Other climbers, who had to cancel their expedition because of the 2014 avalanche and returned to Nepal this year, are now asking me to go to Tibet next year. And I also have new climbers who have expressed very clearly that they don’t want to come to the Nepalese side of Everest, they want to go to the Tibetan side.

But you still have requests for your expedition on the Nepalese south side?

I do have requests for the expeditions on the Nepali side. And I should say I have more requests on the south side than on the north side. But more people are now asking for the China side than before.

What do you think about the media hype about this fall’s Everest expedition of the Japanese climber Nobukazu Kuriki?

Nobukazu initially wanted to go to the Tibetan side, but due to fact that Tibet is closed now he decided to come to Nepal. I don’t know whether he came here specifically to promote tourism and climbing again. He wanted to climb Everest anyway. But it happens to be a very symbolic move in a time when most people are afraid to travel to Nepal. I appreciate that he has come back to climb.

What would you answer people who ask you whether it is safe to travel to Nepal now or next spring?

I would say: “It is safe” because I have been to the mountains myself and I am going back up again on the 14th this month. My friends are out there, we are doing a lot of relief work. So we know: It’s safe. I don’t fear any danger. Where there is danger, it is clearly marked out. The government will not allow going to dangerous areas, like for example in the Langtang region. But most of Nepal is safe.

What is your feeling: Are you optimistic that Nepal will come back to its feet again?

Yes, sooner or later, because the Nepali people have a very different attitude than I think most of the people in the world. They never expected the government to help. They built the houses, that were destroyed now, with their own hands and they will rebuild them with their own hands again. The government may come and help a little bit as well as some international organizations will do but the majority of houses throughout Nepal will be rebuilt by the people themselves.

The Nepali people are really pragmatic. They are always smiling, they look at the brighter side of any situation. In western world everything is planned and precise, in Nepal things don’t work this way. There people shrug their shoulders and say: “Ke garne!” That’s how it is, what to do? This “Ke garne!”-attitude has become quite important after the quake because people don’t sit there talking: “Everything that I built has now gone, bla, bla, bla.” They just say: “What to do? This is life. We carry on!”

On Cho Oyu (8,188 m) in Tibet

China is closing Tibet for climbers for the rest of this year. “That is correct”, Dawa Steven Sherpa from the Nepalese expedition operator Asian Trekking confirms to me by email. “The Chinese authorities have decided not to issue permits for climbing in the autumn season in fear of further seismic activity telling that the mountains may be in a dangerous condition. They will issue climbing permits from 2016.” Furthermore, says Dawa Steven, the road that connects Nepal and Tibet, is still closed as it is under repair after the earthquake. “That means that equipment and logistics for the expeditions would not be possible to be transported via Nepal.”

Xi comes

Shishapangma (8,027 m) in Tibet

The Swiss operator Kari Kobler has abandoned the expeditions to the eight-thousanders Cho Oyu and Shishapangma that he had initially scheduled for next fall. Apart from the earthquake damage on the road to Tibet Kari tells me another reason for China not to issue permits: “The Chinese president will visit Tibet in the first two weeks of September.” 50 years ago, in September 1965, China had declared the previously occupied Tibet an “Autonomous Region”. The Chinese government will celebrate itself with some events in Tibet, probably with a large contingent of security forces to nip potential protests by Tibetans in the bud – especially when President Xi Jingping shows up in person. Foreign eyewitnesses have already been undesirable on similar occasions in the past. This is probably the main reason for giving no permits to expeditions next fall, as the example of International Mountain Guides (IMG) shows. Due to the earthquake damage in Nepal, the US operator had planned to travel directly via the Tibetan capital Lhasa to Cho Oyu, but did not get a permit too, with reference to the jubilee events in Tibet.

Alternative destination Manaslu

Manaslu (8,163 m) in Nepal

“Due to the current political fragility of Tibet we are unable to obtain guaranteed access for expeditions”, also the New Zealand operator Himalayan Experience informs. Himex has replaced the expedition to Cho Oyu by one to Manaslu in Nepal. The eighth highest mountain in the world is a popular alternative destination in case that China is closing the borders to Tibet. Already in fall 2012, many operators had offered expeditions to Manaslu instead of the cancelled one to the Tibetan eight-thousanders. The base camp at the foot of the “Mountain of the Spirit” might become crowded. Teams of many western operators (including the German operator Amical alpin) will set off to Manaslu in the upcoming post-monsoon period. Despite the earthquake with nearly 9,000 registered deaths and more than 22,000 injured, the Nepalese authorities have no doubt to issue permits for eight-thousander expeditions.

Update: Dan Mazur from the operator Summit Climb has informed me that they also have moved all their Cho Oyu and Shishapangma teams for this fall to Manaslu: “We were informed by our contact at the CTMA that because of the magnitude 8.1 devastating earthquake, the authoritative geologists in China surveyed the mountains. They decided that it is unsuitable to climb this year.”

Ang Tshering Sherpa

Ang Tshering’s biography can be assumed to be symbolic of the success story of the Sherpas in the past six decades. He was born in 1953, half a year after the first ascent of Mount Everest. In his home village Khumjung, on 3780 metres near the highest mountain of the world, Ang Tshering attended the school that was founded by Sir Edmund Hillary. The English skills which he had aquired there enabled him to work as a porter and interpreter for expeditions. In 1982 Ang Tshering founded „Asian Trekking”, today one of the leading agencies for expeditions and trekkings in Nepal. He married a Belgian woman, his son Dawa Steven studied in Scotland. Ang Tshering was and is not only a successful businessman with best worldwide contacts but has always been engaging for mountaineers. Since 1990 he is a member of the executive board of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, for nine years he was the president of the organization. In addition the 59-year-old Nepalese is the Immediate Past President of the Union of Asian Alpine Associations (UAAA) and Honorary Member of the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA). „Everest has put Nepal on the map as an ultimate (adventure) tourism destination”, Ang Tshering wrote to me after I had asked him for his thoughts about Everest on occasion of the 60-year-jubilee of the first ascent.

Threatened by the effects of climate change

As a young man

„Everest is regarded as a Goddess Mother of the Universe in Sherpa folklore. She is the guardian in who’s shadow sherpa children grow up. We think of Everest as massive, solid, unchanging, strong, lofty and unable to be hurt.” But according to Ang Tshering the truth is that only few people know that Everest is one of the most endangered places on earth due to the effects of climate change. „There are over 3000 glaciers in the high Himalaya and in the last 50 years, almost as many glacial lakes have formed.” This urgent message has been less immediately noticed at lower altitudes, Ang Tshering says.

Eco Everest expeditions

Garbage collecting on Everest

Since 2008 Ang Tshering and his son Dawa Steven organize the so called „Eco Everest expeditions” of Asian Trekking. The goal is that the mountaineers do not only reach the summit but also carry down garbage from the slopes of Everest on their way back. „It is the entire world’s responsibility to help conserve the mountain and its surroundings from environmental degradation. We need to respect and protect Mother Nature’s treasures”, Ang Tshering writes. (You find his full statements on the two Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.)

Only with Mother Nature’s blessing

On occasion of the diamond jubilee of the first ascent Ang Tshering wishes Mount Everest, that it „continues to keep inspiring people to explore their boundaries and push their limits, all the while realizing that only with Mother Nature’s blessing do we reach the top.” He himself has not stood on top of the world. In 1977 Ang Tshering Sherpa reached the South Col on nearly 8000 metres. But weather turned bad and he couldn’t reach the summit.