Barmasse, Steck, Tenji Sherpa and Goettler (from l. to r.)

What a high-caliber training group! The Swiss Ueli Steck, the Nepalese Tenji Sherpa, the German David Goettler and the Italian Hervé Barmasse have been preparing themselves for their expeditions in spring in the village of Chukhung in the Everest region for ten days. Steck and Tenji Sherpa plan to traverse Mount Everest and Lhotse. No one has yet managed to do this without bottled oxygen. Goettler and Barmasse want to open a new route via the Shishapangma South Face in Tibet. In the course of the training, mountain running was at the focus. “I ran three times from Chukhung (4,730 meters) to Island Peak (6,180 meters),” writes Ueli. He had climbed and run a total of about 12,000 vertical meters over a distance of around 150 kilometers. “My body and my soul feel great,” says Steck. “I really enjoy being here in Nepal with such good friends. Just climb and run and nothing else.”

“Personal experiment”

Ueli (l.) and Tenji on the summit of Island Peak

Currently, the four climbers are continuing their training program in the area around Namche Bazaar, the 3,440-meter-high main village of the Khumbu region. They will then return to Europe for four weeks. An unusual form of preparation. “It is a personal experiment of us all,” answers David Goettler to my concerns that acclimatization effect could get lost in the meantime. “At home we want to sleep as often as possible as high as possible or to climb.  We are almost sure that it will lead to a faster acclimatization when we’ll return for our actual expeditions in April. We’ll see whether the plan works out.”

Hervé’s dream

Training for Shishapangma South Face

In spring 2016, David and Ueli had been stopped by bad weather in their attempt to open a new route via the Shishapangma South Face. “The South Face really fascinated me, and I just want to go back there,” writes Goettler. “Hopefully we will have better weather this year!” Due to his Everest-Lhotse project, Steck was not available as climbing partner this time, so David has teamed up with Hervé Barmasse. The 39-year-old is a very experienced climber who has made headlines in recent years especially with new routes on his home mountain, the Matterhorn. Hervé has also succeeded spectacular first ascents in the Karakoram and in Patagonia. Barmasse had two major surgeries last year. “He is back in the game,” writes David about the Italian, who has so far never stood on top of an eight-thousander. “It remains my dream to climb my first eight-thousander on a new route,” Hervé had told me in November 2012. This may not have changed.

Trekking in Khumbu

Safety is primarily a feeling. Often we don’t even realize the lurking objective danger. And if we do, then usually only if we have no other option than facing the danger. A week ago I have returned from my trekking in Khumbu, the region around Mount Everest. Eleven months have passed since the devastating earthquake in Nepal. I think that my senses were quite sharpened because it was an objective of my journey to inform myself about the consequences of the quake. I can send all the people who want to travel to the region for trekking or climbing on their way with my experience: I felt perfectly safe in Khumbu.

Memories of civil war

Namche Bazaar, in the background Kongde Ri

This was not the case during my first visit to Everest region 14 years ago. In 2002, there was a night-time curfew in Namche Bazaar starting at 5 p.m. because of the civil war with the Maoists. The soldiers of the local military station were nervous, I heard shots. It was only when we reached Tengboche monastery at 3,860 meters, that my former mountain guide Gowa Lama said: “Now we are safe. The Maoists have not penetrated higher so far.” The civil war in Nepal has been over since 2006. Ten years later we were able to hike through the impressive mountains of the Himalayas without need to think about charges to pay to rebels or about getting caught in the crossfire.

Most of the debris cleared

Stupa in front of the Hillary School in Khumjung

The earthquake on 25 April 2015 has left marks also in Khumbu, but the area got off rather lightly compared for instance with the particularly hard-hit Sindhupalchowk District. Here and there some stupas (tombs of Buddhist lamas who according to religion were reborn) with deep cracks still witness the earthquake. But most of the debris has been cleared. In many places, new buildings have already replaced the collapsed houses, which had been mostly traditional Sherpa buildings. The trekking trails are well maintained, virtually no traces of the earthquake can be seen there.

Depending on tourism

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

Maybe I also felt so safe in Khumbu because there was much less talk about the earthquake. People in the Everest region seem to have come to terms with last year’s natural disaster and ticked it off. Probably because they were affected not that bad. The consequences of the earthquake were more indirectly: The tourism market collapsed because foreigners were worried about their safety. My impression in Khumbu: These concerns are groundless. You can travel there without worrying. The mountain guides, porters, farmers, lodge owners and shopkeepers, who heavily depend on income from tourism, will thank you: with great hospitality and an honest smile.

First glance on Everest (l.) and Lhotse

“I don’t have any ambitions to climb Mount Everest,” says Ang Dorjee Sherpa. “Too dangerous! Finally, I have a wife and three children.” However, the 47-year-old was a member of Everest expeditions twice. At the end of 1991, Ang Dorjee worked as “Mail Man” for a Japanese expedition who wanted to climb the mighty Southwest Face for the first time in winter. The Sherpa brought the news of the failure at 8,350 meters as “postal runner” into the valley. Two years later the Japanese were back again – and successfully: A total of six climbers reached the summit on a partially new route, the first team on 18 December 1993. The first ascent of the wall in (meteorological, not calendrical) winter was done. That time, Ang Dorjee did not play the postman, but worked as a cook for the Japanese.

Again and again, Japan

Ang Dorjee Sherpa

To date, the Sherpa has a special relationship with Japanese mountaineers. In the guest room of his “AD Friendship Lodge” in Namche Bazaar at 3440 meters photos are hanging on the wall showing Ang Dorjee with Junko Tabei, the first woman on the Everest, or even with Uchiro Miura, who was, aged 80, the oldest man ever to climb Everest. For several years Ang Dorjee also worked in summer for three months as a cook at a Japanese mountain lodge. And many of the trekking groups he is nowadays guiding through the impressive mountains of Nepal, are from Japan.

Accustomed to earthquakes

Bridge across Dudh Cosi

During the devastating earthquake on 25 April 2015, Ang Dorjee was in Kathmandu to make final preparations for a Japanese travel group. “The Japanese did not even want to leave after the quake. They were accustomed to shocks from their home. But I sent them home. Their safety was for me more important than the money.” In Namche Bazaar, fortunately there was hardly no damage, says Ang Dorjee. adding that in the region the two villages Thame and Khumjung were hit, “especially the houses that had been built in the traditional way.” His own Lodge got only a small crack in the back wall. “Nothing bad!”

Icefall Doctors are making good progress

Namche Bazaar

For this spring season, Ang Dorjee is somewhere between slightly skeptical and cautiously optimistic. “But in spring even more climbers from expeditions arrive than trekkers. For us, fall is almost more important because it’s the main trekking season.” The Sherpa expects for the climbers who will come to Namche in the next few weeks a good summit chance to reach the summit. “I heard that the Icefall Doctors have already made good progress in preparing the route,” says Ang Dorjee. When I ask him about the mood among the Sherpas – after two years of deadly avalanches and without summit successes on the Nepalese side of Everest – Ang Dorjee smiles: “No matter how bad it is, we Sherpas are very good at forgetting and restarting.”

Epicenter of the new quake (© USGS)

Nepal does not come to rest. Two and a half weeks after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 8,000 people, the country was hit by another strong quake today. The tremors reached a magnitude of 7.3 on the Richter scale (for comparison: the earthquake on April 25 had a magnitude of 7.8). According to the US Geological Survey and the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam  the epicenter of the earthquake was located in the Dolakha District, 76 kilometers northeast of the capital Kathmandu. Quite exactly there is Bigu Gompa, one of the largest Buddhist nunneries in Nepal. The nuns had just started to rebuild those parts of the monastery which had been destroyed by the quake two weeks. The Rolwaling Valley is also not far away from the epicenter. The valley is very popular with trekkers who want to see the most famous mountain in the region, the 7134- meter-high Gauri Shankar. The Everest region is near too: Namche Bazaar, the main village of the Khumbu region, is only about 60 kilometers from the epicenter.

Landslides and rock fall

Landslides near Namche

From there and other parts of the country, new landslides and rock fall were reported. Many houses collapsed. As with the first quake, it will still take some time before the full extent of the damage is clear. The number of the new victims is still rising. The government said five hours after the quake that more than 40 people lost their lives and over 1,100 were injured. Most deaths were registered in Dolakha followed by Sindhupalchowk, the district that had been hit worst by the first quake. There were fatalities in the capital Kathmandu too. Residents fled their homes in panic when the earth began to shake again. After the new strong earthquake, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recalled that Nepal urgently needs further support. So far, only 13 percent of requirement was funded, OCHA said.

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