Ang Rita Sherpa with certificates of the Guinness Book of Records

Ang Rita Sherpa‘s Everest record could be one for eternity. The legendary climber from Nepal, who the locals reverently call “Snow Leopard”, is now 70 years old. No other climber has scaled the highest mountain on earth as often without bottled oxygen as Ang Rita did in the 1980s and 90s. “His record of nine will probably stand for a long time since current climbing Sherpas are required to use O2 by their companies,” Richard Salisbury from the “Himalayan Database” writes to me.

Not ten times

Tents on Everest South Col

Recently I had reported about the remarkable feat of the Pakistani climber Fazal Ali, who last summer had been the first to stand on the summit of K2, the second highest mountain in the world, without bottled oxygen for the third time. I remembered Ang Rita, the Everest record holder. I had in mind that he had climbed to the summit ten times without breathing mask. So it is written in newspaper and internet articles and in books, e.g. the Guinness Book of Records. He himself has always mentioned this number too. Strictly speaking, however, it is not correct, as I discovered during my research in the “Himalayan Database” and as Richard Salisbury confirmed to me.

Bottled oxygen while sleeping on the South Col

Ang Rita has indeed ascended ten times without bottled oxygen to the highest point on earth at 8,850 meters, but during his first successful ascent in May 1983 he used a breathing mask to sleep in Camp 4 both before and after the summit push. The US climber David Breashears pointed this out at the time. According to Breashears, he had been in the same tent with Ang Rita on the South Col in spring 1983 and they had shared a Y-connection from the same oxygen bottle.

Huge respect for Ang Rita

On the summit

Breashears, who scaled Everest five times with bottled oxygen during his career, stressed to the legendary Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley (1923-2018) that he did not want to diminish Ang Rita’s outstanding performance. After all, the Sherpa had climbed to the highest point without bottled oxygen on the summit day of 1983. “I can’t think of a stronger climbing companion or a Sherpa for whom I have more respect than Ang Rita,” Breashears wrote. On his following nine successful Everest climbs, the legendary Sherpa forewent bottled oxygen – also when sleeping at great heights.

19 summit successes on eight-thousanders

Ang Rita was born in 1948 in Yilajung, a small village in Khumbu in eastern Nepal. As a child he tended Yaks. At the age of 15, the Sherpa first worked as a porter on an expedition. Ang Rita scaled his first eight-thousander in 1979: Dhaulagiri. In total, he achieved 19 summit successes on eight-thousanders by the end of his climbing career in 1999: ten times on Everest, four times on Cho Oyu, three times on Dhaulagiri, once on Kangchenjunga and Makalu. He always did it completely without bottled – with one exception: during the aforementioned expedition in 1983.

Aerobic exercises at night at 8,600 meters

Admired and often honored

The “Snow Leopard” set Everest milestones. In 1984, he opened a new route variant via the South Buttress with the Slovaks Zoltan Demjan and Jozef Psotka. During the descent, Psotka fell to his death. On 22 December 1987, Ang Rita succeeded the first and so far only winter ascent of Everest without breathing mask. Along with the Korean Heo Young-ho, who used bottled oxygen, the Sherpa reached the highest point. In bad weather the two climbers were forced to bivouac at 8,600 meters. “We spent the whole night just below the summit,” Ang Rita recalled later, “doing aerobic exercises to keep our body active which is the only way to survive there.”

P.S.: Ang Rita’s two sons also scaled Everest several times – with bottled oxygen: Karsang Namgyal Sherpa (born in 1971) nine times, Chewang Dorje Sherpa (born in 1975) five times. Karsang died in 2012 at Everest Base Camp, apparently as a result of alcohol poisoning.

Upper slopes on Cho Oyu

The good news first: The finished spring season in the Himalayas has shown that coordinated rescue operations for climbers in serious trouble are also possible in Tibet. For example, the Chinese authorities even allowed the use of Nepalese rescue helicopters in the case of the Bulgarian Boyan Petrov, missing on the eight-thousander Shishapangma. At the same time, a team consisting of three Sherpas and three Chinese climbers, was searching for Boyan directly on the mountain’s slopes. Unfortunately in vain. But the cooperation between Nepalese and Tibetan rescuers could have set standards for the future. Also on the 8,188-meter high Cho Oyu, a three-person Chinese-Tibetan rescue team was deployed immediately after an emergency call. Now for the bad news: As with Petrov, there was no happy ending in this case too. And the world hasn’t heard about it either –till today.

“His body is still there”

Atanas Skatov on Cho Oyu

The Bulgarian climber Atanas Skatov informed me that a South Korean member of his team died in Camp 1 on 15 May. Skatov had climbed Cho Oyu on 13 May without bottled oxygen – for the 40-year-old it was his sixth of the 14 eight-thousanders. Like him, the young Korean was a member of the team of the Nepalese expedition operator “Satori”, wrote Atanas. “I was the last person to talk with him on 14 May at 1 pm in Camp 2 at 7,150 meters.” At that time, the Korean was in good shape and said that he wanted to follow Skatov to Camp 1 later. According to Atanas, however, he did not arrive there. The team’s expedition cook then alerted the China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA). That same evening, three rescuers arrived and ascended to Camp 2 on 15 May. Skatov had already gone to the Tibetan city of Tingri at that time. “In the evening I was informed that the rescuers had found the Korean in Camp 2 and helped him to descend to Camp 1. That’s where he died. And his body is still there,” wrote Skatov.

Expedition operator confirms the reports

R.I.P.

A French climber largely confirmed this information to Billi Bierling from the chronicle “Himalayan Database”: the Korean had been “very unwell” and “apparently” had died in Camp 1 on 15 May. At that time, the German expedition leader Felix Berg of the operator “Summit Climb” was already on his return journey after his summit success (also without bottled oxygen). But his group had also met the Korean on the mountain. “When we came down from the summit, he turned around at about 7,850 meters,” Felix wrote to me. Later it was said that the Korean was still in Camp 2, two versions were circulating: He had run out of strength and had problems to descend. The other one, according to Felix, was: “He wants to make another summit attempt – without descent!” I have asked the expedition operator Satori several times for a comment and today finally got a reply: The 28-year-old Korean Park Shin-yong had passed away on Cho Oyu on 16 May, Rishi Bhandari, head of the company, wrote to me: “We are unable to save him because he was so weak and tired.”

Everest (l.) in the first daylight

Actually, it’s quite simple. An Everest summit success without bottled oxygen means that the climber did not use a breathing mask. And that’s exactly why the only two alleged climbs without bottled oxygen reported this spring season from the highest mountain on earth were indeed only summit successes, but nothing more! The German mountaineer and journalist Billi Bierling, head of the chronicle “Himalayan Database”, informed me today that on 24 May Tenjing Sherpa (often also called “Tenji”) had used bottled oxygen from the South Summit at 8,750 meters, 100 meters below the main summit. It had been windy, the 26-year-old had not wanted to risk frostbite, Billi said after the debriefing with Tenji and his British climbing partner Jon Griffith. The chronicler informed me that Lakpa Dendi Sherpa had used a breathing mask even above the South Col, at nearly 8,000 meters.

No correction

On the summit day, it had sounded completely different. Iswari Poudel, head of the Nepalese expedition operator “Himalayan Guides”, had told the newspaper “Himalayan Times” that both Tenjing and Lakpa Dendi Sherpa had not used bottled oxygen during their ascents. Was something misunderstood during radio communication? Hadn’t people talked about whether the climbers had used breathing masks? Or was a false report deliberately launched in order to make headlines? Anyhow, the information that Tenjing and Lakpa Dendi had climbed Everest without breathing mask spread worldwide. And neither the two climbers nor the expedition operator subsequently set it right. I find that not only unsportsmanlike, but also dishonest.

False report also from Makalu

Makalu

Unfortunately, it’s not unusual any more. So it was reported this week that the 69-year-old Polish climber Lech Flaczynski and his son Wojciech had reached the summit of the eight-thousander Makalu. According to Billi Bierling, however, only the son was at the top, but not the father. Later Lech had to be flown out by rescue helicopter because he was suffering from severe stomach pain.

There are more and more cases where primarily expedition operators bend the truth or withhold important details. I find this development worrying – and a pity. How about some honesty?

Update 8 p.m.: I have to correct myself in the sense that Tenji Sherpa posted on Instagram three days ago that he was using bottled oxygen above the South Summit. However, nothing of the same could be heard from the expedition operator.

Habeler (r.) and Messner (in 1975)

It was a real pioneering act – greater than its effect. Next Tuesday, 40 years ago, the South Tyrolean Reinhold Messner and the North Tyrolean Peter Habeler were the first people to reach the 8,850-meter-high summit of Mount Everest without bottled oxygen. They proved that it was possible. However, it did not become usual thereby. According to the climbing chronicle Himalayan Database, the highest mountain in the world has been scaled 8,219 times so far, but only 202 times without breathing mask. This corresponds to a share of 2.5 percent. Also this year it will hardly be higher.

“Are we still thinking clearly?”

South side of Mount Everest

There had been a lot of critics and skeptics in the run-up, Reinhold Messner once told me in an interview. That spurred him. “Basically, I just wanted to make an example then, to give it a try. I did not know how far I would come.” Even during their ascent on 8 May 1978, Habeler and he still doubted whether they would get out of this number without suffering any harm, said Messner: “At every break, we looked at each other: Are we still thinking clearly? Is it still responsible or not?” At minus 40 degrees Celsius, in a storm, they fought their way up. “In the final phase we reached the summit really more on our knees and hands than walking, otherwise we would have been blown off the ridge,” reported Messner.

Gotta get down!

Peter Habeler today

For Peter Habeler, it was in his own words “a very emotional moment” when they finally stood on the roof of the world. However, he could not enjoy it. “I remember being scared,” Habeler said when I met him a few months ago. “I was very restless because I wanted to go down. I thought: Oops, how can I get down the Hillary Step, without belaying? We had noticed on the ascent that the snow was there in a bad condition. I feared a step could break off and I would fall into the depth. But somehow it worked.” After returning home, he was surprised by the huge media coverage, Habeler said: “It was a real hype.”

Tied mountain

Reinhold Messner

Even today, there is still an Everest media hype, only that it rarely has to do with ascents without bottled oxygen, but rather with the mass of climbers who tackle the highest of all mountains year after year. “If there are a thousand people in the base camp and 540 of them want to set off during a single good weather window, I feel uneasy about it,” said Habeler. “That’s not my way of climbing mountains.” The two former pioneers agree on this point. “Nowadays, I certainly wouldn’t climb Everest without bottled oxygen,” Reinhold Messner told me on the occasion of his 70th birthday in September 2014.  “At my age I don’t want to die in the mountains, after working for 65 years to do everything I can to not die there.  To head up Everest with two oxygen bottles and two Sherpas, one at the front and one at the back, is not my idea of fun.”

Miss Hawley in her home in Kathmandu (in 2016)

The legendary chronicler of Himalayan moutaineering has passed away. “I am very saddened to announce that after a short battle in hospital, Elizabeth Hawley has left us”, the German journalist and climber Billi Bierling informed. “Personally, I cannot put it into words how much this amazing woman has meant to me, how much she has taught me and how much I will miss her in my life.” Elizabeth Hawley was 94 years old when she died. Two years ago, she had handed over the work on her chronicle “Himalayan Database” to Billi.

Never on a high mountain

Miss Hawley had lived in Kathmandu since 1960. At the beginning the American worked for the news agency Reuters. “At that time mountaineering was becoming a very important part of a foreign correspondent’s job in Nepal”, Hawley recalled when I visited her at her home in the capital of Nepal in 2016. From Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first ascenders of Mount Everest, through to the clients of commercial expeditions – the chronicler had met them all. The highest mountain she herself ever climbed was only about 1,000 meters high, the old lady told me, “in Vermont in New England. It was just a walk. A mountain? No, it was like the hills around Kathmandu.” Nevertheless, again and again the American was able to unmask climbers as liars who previously had claimed to have scaled eight-thousanders or other high mountains in Nepal.

“Just a chronicler”

R.I.P.

This was the reason for getting nicknames like “Miss Marple of Kathmandu” or “Sherlock Holmes of the mountains”. “Actually I never heard any of them, you can keep them,” Miss Hawley told me: “There was a book and a documentary film about me called ‘keeper of the mountains’. I don’t know that I keep them. I am just a chronicler.”

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.”

More than 9,600 expeditions

Miss Hawley in her home in Kathmandu (in 2016)

It was Salisbury who in the 1990s convinced Elizabeth Hawley, the legendary chronicler of mountaineering in the Himalayas, that it would be a good idea to digitalize her archive. Since 2004 the Himalayan Database has been available electronically. Today it includes information on more than 9,600 expeditions to over 450 mountains in Nepal, more than 70,000 mountaineers are immortalized in the archive. For anyone who wants to delve deeper into mountaineering on the highest mountains in the world the database is a true treasure chest.

Register expeditions online!

Tobias Pantel, Billi Bierling, Jeevan Shrestha und Rodolphe Popier (from l. to r.)

“It is a great wealth of information – no matter if you just want to know how many people have been so far on Mount Everest or Annapurna I or if you want to plan a climbing route,” Billi Bierling wrote to me in October. “The Himalayan Database answers all these questions.” In 2016, the German mountaineer and journalist had replaced the legendary chronicler, who is now 94 years old, as head of the database.

On the occasion of today’s possibility to free download the archive, Billi and the other members of the Himalayan Database team – the Nepalese Jeevan Shrestha, the Frenchman Rodolphe Popier and the German Tobias Pantel – point out to the mountaineers that “collecting the data is impossible without your help”. So if you are planning an expedition in Nepal, please register online for the database. That’s not too much to ask for as a small return for an open treasure chest, is it?

Tobias Pantel, Billi Bierling, Jeevan Shrestha und Rodolphe Popier (from l. to r.)

The Himalayan Database is something like the electronic “Bible of Expedition Mountaineering in Nepal”. For those who are dealing with the highest mountains in the world, there is simply no way around this extensive collection of data. Countless times I’ve asked for Billi Bierling when I wanted to check important details of ascents. The 50-year-old German journalist and climber has been working for the Himalayan Database since 2004. In 2016 she replaced the legendary chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, who is now 93 years old, as the head of the database. In the 1960s Miss Hawley had begun to file the expeditions in Nepal. Her archive was the base of the Himalayan Database, which has been available electronically since 2004. Till now a CD ROM had to be bought. This will change soon. Then the database will be available to everyone for free.

Huge collection of data

At the beginning of November the new version can be downloaded from the website himalayandatabase.com without charge, Bierling and Co. inform on Facebook. More than 450 mountains are listed in the Himalayan Database. More than 9,500 expeditions with about 70,000 members have been recorded so far, including routes, camps, specific incidents and details such as the question of whether the mountaineers used bottled oxygen. Billi and her team – the Nepalese Jeevan Shrestha, the Frenchman Rodolphe Popier and the German Tobias Pantel – regularly interview the expedition teams on their arrival in and departure from Kathmandu. Afterwards the American Richard Salisbury – he was the one who convinced Miss Hawley in the 1990s that it would be a good idea to digitalize her archive – adds the new data.

Hardly manageable

Miss Hawley (l.) und Billi Bierling

The amount has increased rapidly in the past 13 years since the first digital version. So many expeditions are now en route in Nepal, that it is hardly possible to cover them all. During the peak period, Billi Bierling is doing ten to fifteen interviews a day, which can last only ten minutes, but also up to two hours. Billi and her colleagues want to continue Miss Hawley’s work as long as possible. “We will have to see whether we still remain a database or in the future will possibly record only special ascents,” Billi told me a few months ago. Since last spring, climbers can also fill in their questionnaires online, e.g. via Facebook. With the upcoming free version, the Himalayan Database takes a further step into the future. I contacted Billi Bierling.

Billi, what do you expect from making the database available free of charge in the future?

The fact that the Himalayan Database is now available online for download makes it, of course, more available for many people. I think it will be now easier to communicate to the trekking agents, mountaineers as well as the expedition leaders what exactly we are doing. It is a great wealth of information – no matter if you just want to know how many people have been so far on Mount Everest or Annapurna I or if you want to plan a climbing route. The Himalayan Database answers all these questions. I also believe that so far some of the trekking agencies in Nepal actually don’t know what we are doing, and the fact that the database is now available online is a great opportunity for us to show them how they can use these data too.

How will you provide the financing of Himalayan Database?

We will continue to a great extent unpaid (the money they made with the CD ROM version was literally used for producing the data carrieres and the booklets). And the future of the Himalayan Database is still written in the stars. Our team, however, consists of people who want to – and hopefully will – continue the work of Miss Elizabeth Hawley with all their heart and soul. And if we have left a bit of money, they will get, of course, a small allowance. But we are still working by conviction.

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

It is the old road, but due to the increased traffic the (digital) emergency lane is used too. From now on,  expedition teams heading for Nepal can register with the Himalayan Database, the high mountaineering chronicle founded by the legendary Elizabeth Hawley,  also online before setting off, for example via Facebook. “We will continue to meet as many teams in Kathmandu as we can. However, it has become almost impossible in the last few years to interview everyone personally,” Billi Bierling explains the new procedure.

Last instance: Miss Hawley

Miss Hawley in her home in Kathmandu (in 2016)

The German climber and journalist is doing the interviews for the Himalayan Database, along with the Nepalese Jeevan Shrestha, the American Richard Salisbury and the French Rodolphe Popier. The now 93-year-old Miss Hawley has withdrawn. At the beginning of the 1960s the journalist from the USA had settled in Kathmandu and started documenting the mountaineering on the highest mountains in the world. With her blue VW beetle, built in 1963, she drove to the hotels and interviewed the expedition teams. Her chronicle became the benchmark of the scene: Only if Miss Hawley had confirmed a summit success, the expedition was really considered successful. The persistent inquiring journalist succeeded in convicting some cheaters.

Work more efficiently

Billi Bierling

Since the start of commercial climbing in the 1990s, however, the number of expedition members in Nepal has exploded. The times when Miss Hawley knew and could know almost every Himalayan climber personally are over. The online registration is designed to help the team “to work a bit more efficiently,” says Billi Bierling. “We do not intend to make the Himalayan Database impersonal.” For many climbers the interviews have become part of an expedition to Nepal, says the 49-year old. “Of course, I’m not Miss Hawley, and some people are disappointed when they don’t get to know the lady personally – what I can fully understand.”

No referees or detectives

Real (1,2) and fake (3,4) (© The Himalayan Times)

After the expeditions, the four interviewers continue to question as many climbers as possible. Everyone they miss has the opportunity to complete a questionnaire at a later date. Does this not reduce the chance to expose liars? “The number of cheaters is still very small compared to the people who are honest,” replies Billi Bierling. “And it does not mean that we will expose all cheaters, even if we meet them personally.” Thus the Everest fraud of the Indian couple in spring 2016 was initially not noticed despite the interview with the climbers. “If the actual owners of the faked summit pictures had not pointed out, this lie would probably have landed in the Database,” Billi admits. “We’re working on trust, as we are neither referees nor detectives – I would never presume. We will, of course, do our best to keep Miss Hawley’s Himalayan Database as good and precise as possible. But if someone really wants to lie to us, he will do. If we are lucky, other climbers who were at the same time on the mountain tell us about the fraud.”

Billi in Tibet

Anyone who has been on expedtion in Nepal more than once should have met her. Billi Bierling has been working as an assistent to Elizabeth Hawley, the legendary chronicler of mountaineering in the Himalayas, for many years. The meanwhile 92-year-old American is regarding Billi as her successor as leader of the Himalayan Database. What many people don’t know: the 49-year-old German does not only visit arriving and departing expedition members in the hotels of Kathmandu to interview them for the chronicle but is an ambitious high altitude mountaineer herself. She has climbed four eight-thousanders so far: in 2009 Mount Everest, in 2011 Lhotse and Manaslu (she reached this summit without bottled oxygen) and in 2014 Makalu. This fall she is tackling the 8188-meter-high Cho Oyu in Tibet. “I have chosen Cho Oyu for this year because I was here eleven years ago and reached just Camp 2 (at 7,200 meters). It was my first eight-thousander, and at that time I was convinced that I am not strong enough for such high mountains“, Billi writes to me. “Now I’m here again, and I really hope that the sixth highest mountain on earth will accept me this time. And like on Manaslu, I would like to reach the summit without supplemental oxygen.”

Billi, Cho Oyu might be your fifth eight-thousander. In preparation for expedition you did hundreds of kilometers mountain running. How high do you estimate your chance of success?

The Nepalese side of Cho Oyu

I believe that I benefit especially from my participation in the “Zugspitz Ultratrail” (the race around the Zugspitze, Germanys highest mountain covers a distance of about 100 kilometres and a total of more then 5,000 meters difference in altitude; last summer Billi finished the Ultratrail in 23:36.57 hours). During the training for this event I ran hundreds of kilometers in the mountains and I’m benefiting from that now. I feel very well acclimatized, and even after four days on the mountain, I still feel strong.

How are the conditions on Cho Oyu?

There is quite a lot of snow on the mountain, but it is very will consolidated. Until now I have been only at about 6,800 meters, above the ice wall, and until there the conditions were good. In the next days an Austrian colleague and I want to climb to Camp 2 and spend two nights up there. After that our acclimatization would be complete.

Billi Bierling

Besides Manaslu, Cho Oyu is the most requested eight-thousander this fall. Has the Base Camp the dimension of Everest BC?

It’s interesting, because in the last ten years Manaslu and Cho Oyu have got very commercialized. Both mountains are offered by commercial operators in preparation for Everest. Until ten years ago, most aspirants climbed Cho Oyu without breathing mask, now the majority is using supplemental oxygen. I estimate the number of climbers here at 250 to 300. A large Tibetan-Chinese expedition alone consists of about 150 people. For this reason it is good that I am here, because usually these expeditions slip through our fingers for the Himalayan Database.

Mount Everest

The truth will out. According to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, the Nepalese Tourism Ministry has initiated sanctions on the Indian couple that – as reported before – has obviously submitted faked summit pictures to get their Everest certificates. Most likely these certificates will be canceled and the cheat climbers might be banned from mountaineering in Nepal for up to ten years. “Department of Tourism will also take necessary action against the Liaison Officer, Climbing Sherpas and expedition organizing company,” DoT director Sudarshan Prasad Dhakal told the “Himalayan Times”. The two Sherpas who had supported Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod on Everest were still “out of reach”, said the operator Makalu Adventure blaming the Sherpas for the goof-up.

The staff of Himalayan Database, the mountaineering chronicle of legendary Elizabeth Hawley, is also checking the case. I’ve contacted Billi Bierling. The 49-year-old German journalist and climber is the designated successor of Miss Hawley, aged 92.

Billi, you and your colleagues from the Himalayan Database have also obviously been deceived by the Indian couple when you interviewed them. What’s about the much-trumpeted climbers’ honor?

Billi Bierling

Well, sadly I think something has changed in the Himalaya climbing world. Ascents used to be something special and a great achievement, however with commercialization, the hunt for sponsors and the desire to do something special (just climbing Mount Everest no longer seems enough) I have the feeling that the number of people not being 100 percent honest has increased.
Miss Hawley, Jeevan Shrestha (who interviewed the Indian couple) and myself still base our work on trust and even though I still believe that the vast majority of climbers is honest, there have been some cases of doubt. Once we find out about it we do more investigating and if the climber still insists that he/she has reached the summit we credit them but with a note that the climb is not recognized or disputed.

In “normal” Everest seasons several hundred people scale the highest mountain on earth. Is it actually still possible to examine every reported summit success intensively?

As Miss Hawley is no longer working and in the last spring season it was only Jeevan and myself who were meeting teams, it has almost become impossible to spend enough time with one single expedition to check everything they say. As I said before, I still trust that most people are honest but for the rest we may have to come up with a new system. In our day and age, everyone seems to have a tracking device which we could follow or look at everyone’s summit pics but as we have just found out this also no longer works.

Maybe we would have to implant a chip in every climber which will then beep once on the summit just like during races. But where would that lead to? I still prefer trusting them!

Real (1,2) and fake (3,4) (© The Himalayan Times)

These days there are much debate on the estimated number of Everest certificates obtained by fraud. Do we have to live with the fact that there are such wrongdoers throughout sports, thus also in mountaineering?

Yes, it is sad and as Miss Hawley has always emphasized we are not judges or detectives – we are simply reporters who record the data for the Himalayan database. If we now have to doubt everyone’s ascent and investigate whether the climbers are actually telling the truth I truly think that Miss Hawley’s spirit of starting the database is outdated. Even though she was always tough with her questions, she usually did not judge and unless the evidence was clearly against the statement of the climber (like in the Indian case) then she discredited the climbers’ summit.

So our future will definitely be a tough one and at that very moment I don’t know how it will look. But unless the evidence is obvious, who are we to judge whether someone was up there or not unless we are in the mountain with them? And I think it will take another two lifetimes for the Himalayan database to station a person on the summits of all expedition peaks to tick off the summiteers. So I truly hope that my gut feeling is right and despite this outrageous story of the Indian couple most climbers will remain honest and tell the truth!

Miss Hawley in her home in Kathmandu

When I saw the Beetle, I knew I was right. I knew the street, but had no house number, only a rough description of where Miss Hawley is living in Kathmandu. But there it stood in the courtyard: the light blue VW Beetle, built in 1963. “The car is right, of course. Those Beetles are just incredible durable,” says the legendary chronicler of Himalayan mountaineering. For decades, the US-American has driven with the light blue car in front of the hotels in Kathmandu to interview climbers about their expeditions in the Himalayas. However, the 92-year-old is no longer driving her Beetle by herself, she has a driver. “I can’t drive a car with a walker”, says Elizabeth Hawley and grins. Since she broke her hip, she is not quite as mobile as before.

More braggarts

Miss Hawley has been living in Kathmandu since 1960. Since then, she has collected more than 4000 expeditions in her chronicle “Himalayan Database”. At the beginning she worked for the news agency Reuters. “At that time mountaineering was becoming a very important part of a foreign correspondent’s job in Nepal”, Hawley recalls. From Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first ascenders of Mount Everest, through to the clients of commercial expeditions – the chronicler has met all types of climbers. I should like her to tell whether there is more fibbing among today’s climbers. “Has the percentage of liars per expedition that gone up? I don’t think so,” says Miss Hawley. “Maybe the commercial climbers rather brag about it.”

Kind of fishy

The highest mountain she ever climbed was only about 1,000 meters high, tells the old lady, “in Vermont in New England. It was just a walk. A mountain? No, it was like the hills around Kathmandu.” Nevertheless, again and again the American was able to unmask climbers as liars who previously had claimed to have scaled eight-thousanders or other high mountains in Nepal. She checked it with the other teams who were on the mountains, other got tangled up in contradictions: “Some of them sounded really a kind of fishy. But I’m sure I missed a lot.”

On the back of a Sherpa

North side of Everest

Miss Hawley depicts the “interesting” case of the Japanese climber Tomiyasu Ishikawa, who ascended Everest from the north side in 2002. The 65-year-old was then “the oldest to reach the summit but had he really climbed it? How many realized the distinction,” Miss Hawley asks. The Japanese became tired in the summit area. “He got to the summit on the back of a Sherpa.” She considers an age limit for old Everest climbers – as it was announced by the Nepalese government in 2015 – for needless but pleads for stricter rules for young people: “Certainly young kids should not be climbing mountains, certainly not Everest. They are not strong and developed enough, physically and mentally.”

Held on the table

Miss Hawley is eagerly awaiting the upcoming spring season. “I’m quite curious about what happens this year,” she says. “I think probably the numbers will not be very great partly because people are afraid of earthquakes. We still have aftershocks occasionally.” She experienced the devastating quake on 25 April 2015 in her home. “I sat at a table, just held on. You wait until it’s over and carry on.” Like many people in Nepal, Miss Hawley speaks of an even stronger earthquake that could hit the country in the near future. “I hope I am near my strong table again,” says the 92-year-old, laughing.

Her successor

Billi Bierling

Step by step she wants to hand over her work on Himalayan Database to her German assistant Billi Bierling. “Maybe she knows it, maybe she doesn’t. We work very well together. She is good, she is crazy, she is fast,” says Elizabeth Hawley who can not even imagine retiring completely. “It depends on how it works out. I’ll probably criticize her. Well, I hope I don’t.”

Without airs and graces

Recently, the Nepalese government has dubbed a six-thousander “Peak Hawley”. “No mountain should be named after any individual and certainly not for me,” Miss Hawley plays it down. She should take it as an honor, I reply. “Okay, but It’s a funny kind of honor”, Hawley says, giggling. She also can not base anything on nicknames. I mention “Mama Himalaya”, “Miss Marple of Kathmandu” or “Sherlock Holmes of the mountains”. Miss Hawley grins: “Actually I never heard any of them, you can keep them. There was a book and a documentary film about me called ‘keeper of the mountains’. I don’t know that I keep them. I am just a chronicler.”

Summit of Nanga Parbat

She arrived like out of nowhere. Suddenly these days, Cleonice Pacheco, called “Cleo” Weidlich was standing with her Sherpa team at Base Camp on the Rupal side – to the surprise of most observers. The Brazilian-born US citizen had even made no secret of the fact that she also wanted to try this year to scale Nanga Parbat for the first in winter. But hardly anyone, including myself, had taken notice. And the few who had noticed it might have thought that the 52-year-old had given up her plan. Finally, she appeared in Base Camp only at a relatively late stage, when the Polish “Nanga Dream” team was already preparing to leave after their failed attempt.

Three Sherpas to break the trail

Obviously Cleo Weidlich had made a pre-acclimatization in Nepal. She is accompanied by three Sherpas. At my request, the expedition organizer Adventure Tours Pakistan told me the names of the other team members. The 45-year-old Pema Tshiring Sherpa, the 33-year-old Temba Bhote and the 30 year old Dawa Sherpa Sangay, all from Sankhuwasaba District in eastern Nepal, will support Weidlich. On the one hand, they may benefit from the work of the “Nanga Dream” climbers, who had already prepared the Schell route up to an altitude of about 7,300 meters (expedition leader Marek Klonowski contradicted reports that Pavel Dunaj and he had reached a height of 7,500 meters). On the other hand the Sherpas may have to start from scratch doing the trail-breaking due to continuing snowfall during this week.

Partially disputed

Cleo on top of Kangchenjunga in 2011

Cleo Weidlich’s reputation in the climbing scene is not exactly the best. In the past, the 52-year-old sometimes took liberties with truth. At times, Cleo claimed to have scaled ten of the 14 eight-thousanders, later she backpedaled to eight. But only six of her summit successes are confirmed: Cho Oyu (in 2009), Gasherbrum I (2010), Mount Everest (2010), Manaslu (2010), Kangchenjunga (2011) and Dhaulagiri (2012). Her claimed ascent of Annapurna in spring 2012 is still listed as “disputed” in the “Himalayan Database” of Elizabeth Hawley, the legendary chronicler of high altitude mountaineering in Nepal. In autumn 2012, Weidlich also claimed to have climbed Makalu. In this case too, she missed to prove the summit success. Her statements to Miss Hawley were so contradictory that Cleo’s alleged ascent was not even listed in the category “disputed”.

By helicopter to high camp

In spring 2014, Cleo made worldwide headlines, when she was flown – as well as the Chinese Wang Jing – by helicopter from Everest Base Camp to Camp 2 at 6,400 meters from where she wanted to climb the 8516-meter-high Lhotse. At this time, almost all commercial expeditions had left Everest prematurely. This was due to the avalanche in Khumbu Icefall which had killed 16 Nepali climbers on 18 April 2014. It had led to fierce debate on the safety of local high altitude porters. After the departure of almost all teams, the government had granted an exemption to fly to high camp in order to bring down expedition equipment. Normally, helicopter flights on Everest are only permitted for rescue.
After having been flown to Camp 2, Wang Jing and her Sherpa team reached the summit of Mount Everest on 23 May. Cleo Weidlich later said that she had not even seriously tried to climb Lhotse.

Annapurna I

Dead and gone. Why only are single deaths of Sherpa climbers in the Himalayas swept under the carpet so quickly? Almost as if it was just a work accident. According to the motto: It’s sad, but unfortunately it sometimes happens. The most recent example was the accident on the eight-thousander Annapurna four weeks ago. In the days that followed, many obits of the 36-year-old Finn Samuli Mansikka were published. For sure, he had deserved each of them. Samuli was not only an excellent climber – Annapurna was his tenth eight-thousander, eight of which he climbed without bottled oxygen – but, according to all reports of his mates, a cool guy, always up for fun or ready for party. However, we learned next to nothing about the other climber who died. It was 35-year-old Pemba Sherpa, was said in a few reports. Allegedly he was born near the eight-thousander Makalu and was called “Technical Pemba” due to his technical climbing skills. About what Pemba had previously done as a mountaineer, the information diverged widely. I was not content with this confusion.

Common name

The research proved difficult. In expedition reports Sherpas are often passed over in total silence. Not uncommonly their names are missing completely, almost as if they were only numbers, not flesh and blood people. Is it because the authors are embarrassed about having used the support of Sherpas? Or is it due to the fact that Sherpa names are confusingly similar or quite frequently identical? In Nepal many Sherpas bear the Tibetan name “Pemba”. Actually it only means that this man first saw the light of day on a Saturday.

Billi Bierling

I made a request to the Kathmandu based expedition operator Dreamers Destination for whom Pemba Sherpa had worked – however, as it turned out later, for the first time. My questions remained unanswered as well as those to the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA). Fortunately I could ask Billi Bierling for assistance, a German mountaineer and journalist, living in Kathmandu. She is working for the Himalayan Database, the chronicle of the legendary American Elizabeth Hawley. Thus she has always a finger on the pulse of mountaineering in the Himalayas. At first Billi was groping in the dark too. Almost everyone she asked for the Sherpa who had died on Annapurna seemed to mean another Pemba. The information about his age, his origins and achievements as a high altitude mountaineer diverged topsy-turvy. The data that she received didn’t fit to any Pemba Sherpa in the Himalayan Database.

Four times on top of Everest

Billi was sticking to her guns. After about two weeks, she succeeded in lifting the fog. To her research, Pemba Sherpa who died on Annapurna is listed in the archive of Miss Hawley as Pema Tshering. He was born on 16 June 1970 at upper Walung in the Makalu-Barun National Park. Until 2014, Pem(b)a made twelve ascents to the summits of eight-thousanders: Four times Mount Everest (in 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2013), three times Dhaulagiri (in 2005, 2009, 2012), twice Kangchenjunga (in 2009, 2011), twice Annapurna (in 2010, 2012) and once Lhotse in (2008).

With Oh Eun-Sun and Cleo Weidlich

It is striking that he often accompanied female climbers to the summits of eight-thousanders: three times each the South Korean Oh Eun-Sun and the US-Brazilian Cleo Weidlich. In 2010 “Miss Oh” war the first woman to complete her 8,000er collection, though her success on Kangchenjunga in 2009 is listed in the Himalayan Database as “disputed” to this day. Unlike another member of her five-strong Sherpa team, Pemba stated that Oh Eun-Sun and he had really reached the top of the third highest mountain in the world. A year later, Pemba also joined the Korean on her way up to the summit of Annapurna, her last eight-thousander. In 2014, he accompanied Cleo Weidlich, with whom he had previously reached the summits of Annapurna, Dhaulagiri and Kangchenjunga, in her attempt on Lhotse. The expedition made headlines around the world because Cleo (like the Chinese Wang Jing) flow to the high camp above the Khumbu Icefall by helicopter.

Amateurish? Not hardly!

Pemba’s 13th eight-thousander ascent, his third on Annapurna, was fatal for him. We will probably never know what exactly happened to him and Samuli Mansikka during the descent. Their bodies were discovered in a crevasse at 7,200 meters. It seems to me too hasty to accuse the Sherpa and the Finn of “amateurish behavior” and “carelessness”, as an expedition member did after the accident. Like Samuli, Pemba was a very experienced high altitude mountaineer, anything but an amateur. Pem(b)a Tshering Sherpa was 44 years old. He leaves behind a wife and a four-year-old daughter.

Update: It looks as if we were wrong. Mingma Sherpa, owner of Dreamers Destination, told me the Sherpa who died on Annapurna was Pemba Sherpa from Sankhuwasava: “He has climbed Annapurna in 2009,2010,2012 and 2015, Kangchenjunga from India, Dhaulagiri in 2012, Makalu in 2011. He was on K2 in 2009 and 2014. I met him on K2 last year and I was surprised by his work because he alone made all the way from Camp 2 to Camp 4 on the Senchen Route. He was a really experienced and technical climber so named technical Pemba.”