Mount Everest

No more permits for solo climbers, blind and double amputees – following the argument of the Nepalese government, this makes the highest mountains in the world safer. A look at the facts shows that a sledgehammer is to be used to crack a nut. For example, let’s take a look at what’s happening on Mount Everest. The Himalayan Database (now freely accessible to all, thus also to the government of Nepal) has so far recorded 1967 expeditions to the highest mountain in the world. Of these, only six – say 0.3 percent – were classified as solo expeditions.

Only Marshall’s solo attempt in 1987 ended fatally

Reinhold Messner’s ascent in summer 1980 on the Tibetan north side was the first and only successful one so far. In summer 1986 and spring 1987, the Canadian Roger Gough Marshall tried in vain to climb through the North Facel. In the first attempt he made it to 7,710 meters – in the second to 7,850 meters; on the descent, he fell to death from 300 meters above the Central Rongbuk Glacier. In winter 1992, the Spaniard Fernando Garrido abandoned his solo attempt on the Nepalese south side at 7,750 meters.

In addition there are the two failed attempts of the Japanese Nobukazu Kuriki in fall 2016 (up to 7,400 meters on the North Face) and in spring 2017 (up to 7,300 meters) on the Tibetan north side. His other “solo” attempts on the south side and on the West Ridge are not listed as solo climbs, because he had ascended on the route through the Khumbu Icefall which had been prepared by the “Icefall doctors”, in some cases other members of his expedition had joined him up to Camp 2.

0.3 percent climbers with handicap

Kim Hong Bin who lost all his fingers is among the listed disabled climbers

The number of disabled mountaineers on Everest is statistically negligible too. According to the Himalayan Database, there were only 44 climbers with a handicap among the 13,952 registered Everest expedition members, this is 0.3 percent – all types of disabilities are grouped here, e.g. also Kuriki’s nine amputated fingers. 15 of the listed disabled mountaineers reached the summit at 8,850 meters. Two died: in 2006, the visually impaired German Thomas Weber (at 8,700 meters on the Northeast Ridge probably due to a stroke after he had returned just below the summit) and in 2014 Phur Temba Sherpa, whose disability is not specified in the database (he died in the avalanche incident in the Khumbu Icefall on 18 April 2014).

So if you add the deadly fall of solo climber Marshall, we have a maximum of three deaths from the “risk group” identified by the government of Nepal – which is about one percent of the total of 290 dead on Everest so far.

Double amputee sticks to his Everest plan

Hari Budha Magar wants to scale Everest

Hari Budha Magar is one of the mountaineers who, according to the new regulations, will not receive a permit this spring. The 38-year-old Nepalese lost both legs above his knees as a soldier of the British Gurkha Regiment during a bomb blast in Afghanistan in 2010. On Facebook, Hari described the decision of the government of Nepal as “discriminating”  and a “violation of human rights”. He is not willing to give up his plan. “I’ll look at all of the options,” said Budha Magar. “If I need to climb from Tibet I’ll do that, if I need to go to the courts I’ll do that.”

Hari received public backing by the US Ambassador in Nepal. “Ability not perceived ‘disability’ must guide rules on who can trek Mt. Everest,” Alaina B. Teplitz posted on Twitter. “Climbers like Hari Budha Magar shouldn’t be banned because of false assumptions about capabilities.”

Everest, Lhotse, Makalu (from l. to r.)

The time has come. According to reports of the newspapers “Kathmandu Post”  and “The Himalayan Times”, the government of Nepal has adopted some new rules for expeditions – “to improve the safety of the climbers”, as Tourism Secretary Maheswor Neupane said. The new rules apply to all mountains above 6,600 meters – these fall under the responsibility of the government – and will be in force already in the spring season 2018.

No more permits for double amputees and blind climbers

In future neither blind climbers nor double amputees are to receive permits for the highest mountains in the country. “Besides, we have also adopted a strict provision to check the medical certificate of the climbers to determine whether they are physically fit to climb the mountains,” Neupane said. It will be interesting how these checks will be operated.

Missing experience

Andy Holzer on the Rongbuk Glacier near Everest (in 2015)

In recent years, the Nepalese government has repeatedly said that it wanted to keep blind and physically disabled people away from Everest and other very high mountains. “I think very few climbers on Everest are prepared so exactly for their very special challenge Everest as the disabled adventurers with their personal teams are or need to be”, the blind Austrian climber Andy Holzer wrote to me already in 2015. “The real problem is more the climbers who put on their crampons for the first time on Everest and are quite surprised about it.” Last spring, Holzer scaled Everest in his third attempt: as the first blind man from the Tibetan north side.

No solo climbs anymore

Another now adopted amendment will probably also cause a heated debate. According to the new rules every mountaineer will be obliged to climb with a mountain guide. “From now on, foreign climbers will be banned from making a solo attempt on Mt Everest,” Tourism Secretary Neupane said. Supposedly, the government expects this provision to increase employment opportunities for Nepalese guides.

Not one bit safer

So much is certain: These rules will not make Everest or any other crowded eight-thousander one bit safer. Blind or physically handicapped mountaineers are only a tiny minority among the summit aspirants on Mount Everest, as well as those who want to climb the 8850-meter-high mountain solo. The much more important question of mountaineering skills does not seem to be taken into account in the new regulations. After all, in the first reports on the amended expedition rules there was no mention of new minimum requirements for all (!) Everest climbers – such as having climbed at least one seven-thousander or another eight-thousander before.

Dal Bhat

The fact that this news pops up every year is almost as certain as the lentils in the Nepalese national dish Dal Bhat: The government in Kathmandu wants to change the mountaineering rules on Mount Everest. The emphasis is on “wants to”. In the end, there is always nothing more than this statement of intent, because the proposed amendment gets stuck in any department – or the current government is replaced by a new one. The Ministry of Tourism is now announcing for the umpteenth time that the rules for granting Everest permits will be tightened.

Déjà-vu

Erik Weihenmayer, who in 2001 was the first blind climber on Everest

The Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times” reports that “people with complete blindness and double amputation” should no longer be allowed to climb the highest mountain in the world – nor “those proven medically unfit for climbing“, whatever that means. These reform proposals were already on the table in 2015 and in 2016 and fizzled.

Summit certificates again for Sherpas?

South side of Mount Everest

New age limits for Everest summit aspirants are reportedly not planned. So it would remain the ban for under 16-year-olds. For seniors, there would be no restrictions – unless they are “proven medically unfit for climbing”? After all, it is allegedly to be established in the “Mountaineering Expedition Regulation”, which is in force since 2002, that in the future, every Sherpa who reaches the summit will receive a summit certificate of the government. These certificates were denied for the first time in 2016, because, as it was said then, within the meaning of the law Climbing Sherpas who fix ropes on the route or support clients up to the summit were no expedition members.

According to the “Himalayan Times”, the amendment now has still to pass a finance and infrastructure committee (why?) before the cabinet (supposedly) wants to take the final call. My recommendation: Wait and eat calmly Dal Bhat! The next announcement is certain to come.

Got stuck and disappeared

Exacty! In September 2015, Tourism Minister Kripasur Sherpa (who meanwhile has been replaced) had already brought fairly accurately these amendments into play. Like almost all Everest reform proposals of previous years this one also got stuck somewhere on the long and arduous journey through the governmental authorities and disappeared. And this year’s Everest spring season began without new rules.

Dawa Steven Sherpa

“Every time new bureaucrats come in they bring their own interpretation of policies and introduce new rules: almost always new restrictions. It’s how they feel empowered and that they are leaving their mark”, Dawa Steven Sherpa, managing director of the Nepalese expedition operator “Asian Trekking”, writes to me. “And as usual the rule will be rolled back and a compromise will be reached. The sad thing is that there is a way to do all this through engaging in dialog with the stakeholders and come to the inevitable compromise without making international headlines and without making the Nepal Government look backwards and foolish.”

No more solos?

South side of Mount Everest

According to the “new” draft, helicopter flights above Base Camp are to be allowed only for transport of climbing equipment and rescue. The latter has always been so; the former had been admitted by the government for the first time this spring.
But what does the proposed rule mean that every Everest climber must be accompanied by a mountain guide? Will it be valid only for members of commercial expedition or really fpr all climbers? In this case solo climbs like Reinhold Messner’s legendary one on the north side of Everest during the monsoon in 1980 would be excluded forever on the south side of the mountain.

Peculiar irony
Oh, and the government wants to enshrine that Sherpa summiters also receive an Everest certificate. What a peculiar irony! Until this year exactly this was common practice – until the Tourism Ministry suddenly stated that Sherpas according to the rules were no regular expedition members and therefore had no claim to get summit certificates. And now they try to make us believe that certificates for Sherpas are something new? Honestly, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. This “mosquito bite” is really itching.

P.S.: Now I’ll leave for a short trip to the sea. In the middle of next week I’ll be back for you.

Tourism Minister Kripasur Sherpa

The Nepalese government apparently wants to make sure that Mount Everest is taken seriously again. Speaking at an event in Kathmandu on the occasion of the World Tourism Day on Sunday, Tourism Minister Kripasur Sherpa said that new age limits and other more stringent conditions on granting permits for Everest expeditions were in preparation. It is considered to allow only climbers aged between 18 and 75 to climb the highest mountain on earth.

Summiters between 13 and 80

The current regulation is “that the permit shall not be provided to that person who is under the age of 16”. And there is no limit yet for old climbers. The youngest climber ever who scaled Everest was the American Jordan Romero aged 13 years and ten months in 2010, the oldest the Japanese Yuichiro Miura aged 80 years and seven months in 2013. Recently, the family of the now eleven-year-old American Tyler Armstrong had announced that he would try to climb Everest next spring.

“Climbing Everest is not a joke”

South side of Mount Everest

On Sunday, Kripasur Sherpa referred to potential restrictions for disabled climbers too. “We won’t issue permits to individuals with serious disabilities who cannot go to Everest on their own”, said the Minister. Tourism Department chief Govinda Karki spoke it out even more clearly. “We don’t think we should issue permits to people who cannot see or walk or who don’t have arms”, Karki told the news agency AFP. “Climbing Everest is not a joke. It is not a matter of discrimination. How can you climb without legs? Someone will have to carry you up.” Disabled climbers may not like these words. There have been several mountaineers who have already scaled Everest despite blindness or with arm or leg prostheses.

At least once on 6,500 meters

The government is also determined to ban very inexperienced climbers from Everest. Anyone should have reached an altitude of at least 6,500 meters before trying to climb Everest, Karki said.
There have already been announcements of stricter rules for permits in recent years, but in the end nothing happened. So, let’s wait and see.