Manaslu, “Mountain of the Spirit”

The 8,136-meter-high Manaslu is probably the only mountain in Nepal, where currently almost everything is as usual in fall. “We have about 15 expeditions here, many of them small teams”, Dominik Mueller tells me by satellite phone from the about 4,800-meter-high Manaslu Base Camp in western Nepal. “All in all we have probably 120 to 130 summit aspirants.” Dominik is leading an expedition of his German operator Amical alpin, along with the mountain guide Rainer Pircher. The other members are ten clients, three Climbing Sherpas, a cook and four kitchen helpers. The Base Camp is not too crowded, says Dominik. “We have found a very nice place for our tents.” On Wednesday, the puja will be held, the traditional Buddhist ceremony to get the gods’ blessings for the climbers. Some expeditions – such as the group of Himalayan Experience that is led by the New Zealander Russell Brice – have been on the mountain for a while already.

Neither better nor worse

Dominik Mueller

“The route is already secured with fixed ropes as far as up to the plateau (on about 7,400 meters) “, says Dominik. “There was a long period of fine weather. Accordingly, there is very little snow.” Three steep steps in the icefall above Camp 1, which are ten to 15 meters high each, could become the key points of the route. Yesterday there were 30 centimeters of fresh snow. “The conditions on Manaslu are neither better nor worse than in previous years”, the 44-year-old resumes. Before reaching the Base Camp, Mueller had been hiking with his group first on the Annapurna side, had crossed the Larkya La, a 5,135-meter high mountain pass, and reached Samagaon, a village located at an altitude of 3,500 meters at the foot of Manaslu.

Even closer together

“On our way, we have seen virtually no earthquake damage”, says Dominik, “only one or two minor rockfalls, but it was not clear whether they were triggered by the earthquake or the monsoon.” Heavier damage was reported from the other side of Samagaon, in the region below the village. “The residents have already begun to rebuild. I have the feeling that the earthquake has brought them even closer together.”

Up to 70 percent fewer tourists

During the trek to Manaslu

Neither in the capital Kathmandu nor during the trek, he and his teammates felt aftershocks, says Dominik: “I feel absolutely safe. There was a very peaceful and positive atmosphere everywhere. We were extremely well received. The Nepalese people are happy about every trekking tourist and expedition climber who comes to Nepal.” The tourism market has obviously slumped much more than officially announced. “The government estimates that the number of tourists has declined by 50 percent. But the representatives of the Nepalese agencies who I met, spoke of up to 70 percent”, says the head of Amical alpin. “When we were hiking on the Manaslu Circuit, we met only seven other trekking tourists. This is as good as nothing, compared with previous years.”

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.”

South side of Mount Everest

Maybe it will turn out to be not quite as bad as it looked first. A report of the Himalayan Times about the Everest permits has upset many mountaineers worldwide – including myself. The report said that the extension of last spring’s Everest permits by five years would apply strictly to groups not to individual climbers. Means: If even one member of an expedition would scale the mountain, permits of the other group members would be cancelled. After the avalanche accident in the Khumbu Icefall last April that had killed 16 Nepalese climbers and led to the premature end of the spring season, the government had announced that the 318 departed climbers could use their permits even within the next five years.

“It is next to impossible to regroup the same climbers for new expedition, as they reside in different parts of the world”, the Himalayan Times quoted Dambar Parajuli, president of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal (EOA). “It’s a time to facilitate climbers rather than creating hurdles in the name of regulation.” Reportedly the members of an expedition operated by Himalayan Experience had already lost their Everest permits because Chinese climber Wang Jing, who used the group permit, had reached the summit on 23 May, after she had been flown to Camp 2 by helicopter.

Brice: Wait and See

I asked the New Zealander Russell Brice, owner of Himex, for a statement about the permit topic. “I had a meeting with the EOA yesterday and apparently all the new ministers in the Ministry are in verbal agreement for the five year individual permit”, Russ writes to me. “At the moment the document concerning this is at the Legal Department, from there it goes to the Finance Department and then to Congress. So there are still a few parts to the process to be considered before we will know the definite outcome.”