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.

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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.”

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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?

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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