Rescue flight on Everest

A committee is to get to the bottom of it. Since Friday, new guidelines for helicopter rescue have been in force in Nepal, with which the government wants to prevent insurance fraud with “fake rescue flights” in the future. A “Tourist Search and Rescue Committee” will monitor all rescue operations. The committee includes representatives of the ministries of home and of health as well as of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA), the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) and the tourist police. Helicopter companies, expedition and trekking agencies, hospitals and insurance companies are now obliged to provide all details of rescue flights and medical care as well as insurance invoices in a timely manner so that the committee can review them. In the event of irregularities, the committee is also responsible for punishing the black sheeps in the sector.

No more intermediaries

The government dropped its original plan to place the rescue operations completely in the hands of a police unit in the Ministry of Tourism. Now the expedition and trekking agencies have to take on their responsibility. They are to arrange everything necessary to rescue their clients in case of emergency. Only the patient and a helper or guide will be allowed to be flown by the rescue helicopter. Hospitals are to provide the agency concerned with a cost estimate for the treatment of the client. Intermediaries between insurance companies and tourism agencies are completely banned from the rescue service.

CAAN to cap costs for rescue flights

Return flight by helicopter

After last spring’s climbing season, massive insurance fraud with “fake rescue flights” had been uncovered. Guides are said to have urged climbers and trekking tourists even when they felt unwell to get on a rescue helicopter and be flown back to Kathmandu for treatment. These flights were then invoiced to the insurance companies – often at a completely overpriced rate. A commission of inquiry of the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism named eleven companies from the helicopter and trekking industry as well as four hospitals in Kathmandu that allegedly cheated insurance companies. But this is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

The commission found out that some mountain guides had also mixed baking soda into the food so that their clients got diarrhoea and were flown out by rescue helicopters. In addition, helicopters were packed with allegedly sick climbers and trekking tourists, afterwards the insurance companies should pay for several individual flights instead of one. According to the government more than 1,300 helicopter rescue flights were reported in the first five months of the year alone.

International insurance companies had threatened not to cover any more rescue flights in Nepal unless the government intervened. They demanded to cap the cost: to 4,000 dollars per flight. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal is now to set a cost ceiling, depending on flight hours, distance and rescue altitude.

Animal with four back legs

But is a committee really the smartest solution to get a grip on the problem? I am skeptical. Committees usually do not tend to work quickly and effectively – or as the British author John le Carré  wrote (in his spy novel “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”): “A committee is an animal with four back legs.”

Mount Everest

If it is about its own income, the Nepalese government can’t take a joke. According to the newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, the Ministry of Tourism has fined Nepalese expedition operator “Seven Summit Treks” 44,000 dollars for forging a permit for Mount Everest. In spring, the authority granted a permit to an expedition led by the Chinese Sun Yiguan and managed by “Seven Summit Treks” to climb the highest mountain on earth. The original document was issued for twelve member. Later a fake version appeared in which an Australian and a Chinese climber had been added.

Mingma Sherpa rejects guilt

Mingma Sherpa

Since a permit costs 11,000 dollars per expedition member, the government lost 22,000 dollars in revenue. The double amount has now been set as punishment. The Ministry of Tourism also called on the police to identify the fraudsters. They’re facing seven years in prison. Mingma Sherpa, head of “Seven Summit Treks”, denied all blame and assured that his company would help bring the guilty person to justice. A former employees was responsible for the fraud, said Mingma, pointing out that his company is Nepal’s largest expedition organizer and transfers a huge amount of money for climbing permits season after season. “We don’t even think about doing such acts.”

Rescue helicopter at Everest Base Camp

The air is getting thinner for those in Nepal who feather their beds with fake rescue flights. According to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, international insurance companies have set an ultimatum until 1 September to put an end to these illegal activities. Otherwise, they no longer want to cover the costs of helicopter rescue flights. The Nepalese government plans to set up a police unit in the Tourism Ministry that is to manage all rescues.

Not practicable

Lakpa Norbu Sherpa (r.) and Maurizio Folini

Lakpa Norbu Sherpa, who has been coordinating rescue on Mount Everest since 2003 as base camp manager of the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA), is sceptical. “Police officers are no specialists”, tells me the 37-year-old, who was trained as a helicopter rescuer in Switzerland in 2012. Similar comments are made by Maurizio Folini: “The solution is not practicable. The police have no idea how to save people in the mountains.” The 53-year-old helicopter pilot from Italy is a pioneer for rescue flights on the eight-thousanders in Nepal. Since 2011 Folini has been flying regularly on the highest mountains in the world, in 2013 he managed the highest longline helicopter rescue of all time when he brought down a Nepalese climber from 7,800 meter on Everest.

Tip of the iceberg

He repeatedly pointed out that many of the rescue flights declared in Nepal in recent years were in fact none at all, Maurizio says to me: “But as a pilot you have little influence there. Last spring I refused such flights. I only flew when I had real patients on board.” An investigation commission of the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism has meanwhile named eleven companies from the helicopter and trekking industry and four hospitals in Kathmandu that allegedly defrauded insurance companies. But this should only be the tip of the iceberg.

Baking soda mixed into food

Rescue flight on Everest

Mountain tourists are said to have been urged to get on the rescue helicopters even when they were slightly unwell. The Commission even reports of individual cases where local guides mixed baking soda as a laxative into food to provoke diarrhea and then persuaded their clients to return to Kathmandu on a rescue flight. Helicopters have been packed with several sick people, it said. However, the companies cashed it up with the insurance companies as several individual flights of the patients.

Three times higher invoice

Folini points out that most of the fake rescue flights start on the trekking routes, for example in Gorak Shep, the last settlement before Everest Base Camp, or in the Gokyo Valley, a popular trekking destination near the highest mountain on earth. “Trekking tourists or mountaineers are influenced by the agencies,” says Maurizio Folini. “The business is made by the agencies that invoice three times more than the real amount, 12,000 instead of 4,000 dollars per rescue.” According to Maurizio, some hospitals in Kathmandu also have “dirty fingers”. Many of the patients suffering from high altitude sickness who are now flown directly to the capital could just as easily be treated in the clinic in Lhukla, the gateway to the Everest region, he says.

Only half of the helicopters needed

Maurizio in the cockpit

According to the government commission, more than 1,300 helicopter rescues were reported in the first five months of 2018, causing insurance costs of more than 6.5 million dollars. “The biggest business for the helicopter companies is fake rescue,” says Folini. He suggests a kind of “filter” to get a grip on the problem: “We need a checkpoint like we already have in Everest Base Camp with the HRA. A doctor has to confirm that the helicopter transport is really necessary.” Maurizio believes that if the fake rescue flights were to disappear, half of the helicopters would be enough: “That would also be good for tourism in the Everest region. There’s too much flying now. You can hardly hike in the Khumbu without being disturbed by flight noise.”

Grievances also in the Alps

However, Folini warns against seeing the problem only through Western glasses. “Also in the Alps not everything is great,” says Maurizio, referring to prestigious mountains such as Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn, where much more people are climbing than on Everest and where, for example, the faeces problem is unsolved: “On Mont Blanc, the waste from the toilets often ends up on the glacier. And try to climb the Matterhorn without stepping into a pile!” Even in the Alps, not every helicopter flight is a “clean rescue”, says the experienced pilot, who has completed more than 14,000 flight hours since 1993. “Rescue is always business. How can we point a finger at a poor country like Nepal if we can’t solve our own problems at home?”

The spot formerly known as Hillary Step

I vow to stop writing about the Hillary Step after this blog post. Because where nothing is, nothing has to be reported. “It is 100 percent that Hillary step is gone,” Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, expedition leader of the Nepalese operator “Imagine”, writes to me. On 14 May, the 32-year-old had climbed to a point between the South Summit (at 8,750 meters) and the former Hillary Step (8,790 meters), where he had waited for hours for the return of his summit team and thus had plenty of time, to take a close look at the spot. On the Hillary Step, says Mingma, “no more debate is required further in future”. No matter what the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism is saying. Before this spring’s season, the authority had actually subpoenally obligated all climbers not to make any statement about the Hillary Step to the media.

Small stone out of Everest crown

Hillary Step in 2013

Mountains are changing – even faster and more clearly visible than before due to climate change. In case of the Hillary Step, however, it was probably the devastating earthquake in Nepal on 25 April 2015 that made the rock fall. Everest-experienced British expedition leader Tim Mosedale already pointed out in 2017 that the former rock climbing passage was now just a snowy slope, much easier to overcome than before. Mosedale substantiated his claim with pictures. Even then the Government of Nepal considered this a kind of a lèse-majeste, though in fact only a rather small stone had been broken out of Everest crown. Actually, the Ministry of Tourism should even be happy about this alleged mishap: A bottleneck less, which used to be a frequent source of traffic jams, which had a negative effect not only on safety, but also on Everest marketing.

Twelve meters of rock

The first ascenders of Evereste: Edmund Hillary (l.) and Tenzing Norgay

Sir Edmund Hillary is probably laughing in climbers’ heaven at the government’s ridiculous attempts to hush up what hundreds of mountaineers have seen with their own eyes: the twelve-meter high boulder, a real hurdle that Hillary once had had mastered first, no longer exists. On the first ascent in 1953, the New Zealander had taken heart and had climbed up through a thin crack between rock and ice. “It was then for the first time that I knew that we were going to get to the top,“ the Everest pioneer once said about this last key section that had been named after him. The New Zealander died in 2008 aged 88.

As many successes as never before

Sir Ed was critical of commercial climbing on Everest. “There are people who hardly understand mountaineering,“ the Everest pioneer told me when I interviewed him in 2000. “They do not care about the mountain. They have paid $ 65,000 and all they want is to set foot on the summit, go home and boast about it.” In the just finished 2018 spring season, ten years after Hillary’s death, reportedly a total of more than 700 climbers reached the 8,850 meter high summit ascending from the south and the north side of the mountain. Even if Billi Bierling and her staff working for the chronicle “Himalayan Database” have yet to confirm the information, the season will probably be the most successful in Everest history, as measured by the number of summit successes. And the third one without Hillary Step.

Puzzling ski permit

You would normally not come up with this. If you climb Mount Everest and at some point want to put on your skis, you need a special permit. The 20-year-old American Matt Moniz and his mentor, the 49-year-old Argentine Willie Benegas, had to experience this. Citing sources at the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism, the newspaper “Himalayan Times” reports that the two climbers are now threatened with being deprived of their permission to climb Everest and Lhotse this spring. However, everything had started so well. “After ten years dreaming about it, it happened! Managed to ski from Camp 3 (on) Everest (at) 7,200 meters to Camp 2 (at) 6.400m,” said Benegas. “Not much difficulty but definitely good eyes needed to read the terrain, catching an ice patch would be a bad thing to happen!”  Matt and Willie did not suspect that they had scated on their descent on thin bureaucratic ice.

No reason for a guilty conscience

Willie Benegas (l.) and Matt Moniz (r.)

Suddenly, they were faced with the Ministry of Tourism’s accusation that they had been skiing illegally because they only had a climbing permit for Everest and Lhotse but not the required “ski permit”. “We were not aware of the permit,” Moniz wrote on Twitter, announcing that they would promptly pay the $ 1,000 per man and a garbage fee of $ 500. The two climbers do not need to have a bad conscience. Their liaison officer was (o wonder!) not in the base camp. Other representatives of the ministry at the foot of Everest said nothing when Matt and Moniz set off with skies on their shoulders. The vast majority of foreign climbers may also have been completely unaware of the existence of such a ski permit. Finally, there is no mention of the need to obtain a separate permit for skiing in the “Tourism Act, 2035”, in which the government of Nepal has summarized the expedition rules.  Only in fall 2013, there was a similar case. At that time, the two Italian ski mountaineers Federico Colli and Edmond Joyeusaz got in trouble with the Nepali authorities on Lhotse because of an initially missing ski permit.

Stitznger: “Pure profiteering”

Luis Stitzinger on Manaslu (in 2012)

The Argentine Willie Benegas is an “old hand” in the Himalayas. For over 20 years, he has been organizing expeditions with his twin brother Damian. Willie has already scaled Everest eleven times. If even he did not know that ski permits exist at all, that says a lot. Also for the German ski mountaineer Luis Stitzinger, who has scaled seven eight-thousanders and in whose baggage his skis are never missing, the existence of such a special permit is completely new. “We have never been told anything like that,” the 49-year-old writes to me. “I think that’s pure profiteering. What should be so different about skiing?”

Information only on Nepali

Julius Seidenader

Julius Seidenader is among the few in the Himalayan scene who know about ski permits at all. The 26-year-old belongs to the founding members of the “Ski and Snowboarding Foundation Nepal”, which has set the goal of teaching young Nepali skiing, snowboarding and ski touring. According to Seidenader, ski permits are issued for groups of 20 people maximum and are valid for only ten days. For the first ten expedition members, the permit costs $ 1,000, and starting with the eleventh person, $ 100 each. Furthermore, an additional liaison officer must be hired. However, this information is only available in Nepali, not in English, says Julius. Against this background, it would be a scandal if Matt Moniz and Willie Benegas really lose their permits for Lhotse and Everest. It is already a farce.

Update 10 May: In a letter sent to the Tourism Ministry, 150 Climbing Sherpas have asked the government not to withdraw the permits for Benegas and Moniz. They pointed out the great merits of the Benegas brothers for Nepal. They had given many people from Nepal jobs and were involved in numerous rescue operations on Everest, it said.

South side of Mount Everest

The government of Nepal has to revise the controversial new mountaineering rules for Mount Everest and other mountains in the country higher than 6,500-meters. The country’s Supreme Court supported the position of several plaintiffs who found that the new rules were a discrimination against disabled people. Among other things, the government had decided at the end of December with immediate effect not to issue permits to double-amputee climbers and blind people. The complainants had stated inter alia that Nepal had signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and that the new rules clearly contradicted these rights. This opinion was followed by the five judges of the Supreme Court.

“Summited a bureaucratic Everest”

Hari Budha Magar wants to scale Everest

Hari Budha Magar was one of the mountaineers who, according to the new regulations, should not have received a permit this spring. The 38-year-old Nepalese, who had lost both legs above the knee as a soldier of the British Gurkha Regiment in a bomb blast in Afghanistan in 2010, actually wanted to climb Everest in 2018 from the south side. After the decision of the government, which he sharply criticized, he had initially suspended his plan. “Now, we have summited a bureaucratic Mt. Everest,” Hari wrote on Facebook after the decision of the Supreme Judge in Kathmandu. “Thank you Supreme Court, you are our hope to get justice. This is true example of Nepalese judiciary system, keep it up! I hope Department of Tourism will implement this Supreme Court order. Let’s climb real Mt Everest together!”

Part one of the new rules is tipped, part two continues for the time being. The government had also prohibited future solo climbs of the highest mountains. Nobody has so far filed a suit against this rule.

Three 8000ers at a glance: Mount Everest, Lhotse, Makalu (from l. to r.)

The much-discussed new rules for expeditions in Nepal are in effect. According to Dinesh Bhattarai, General Director of the Ministry of Tourism, the amendment of the mountaineering rules was published today in the government  gazette. “The Department of Tourism can now issue certificates to the Sherpa summiters,” Bhattarai told the newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, referring to the only new rule that in advance had been met with approval by all sides.

500 Sherpas can request certificates

After the spring season 2016, the coveted certificates were for the first time denied to local climbers. The reason given at that time: 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 and therefore did not receive any certificates. It was a slap in the face of the Sherpas, without whose support most climbers of commercial expeditions would never have a chance to scale an eight-thousander. About 500 Sherpas can now request their summit certificates, which mean more to them than just a piece of paper. The certificates are considered as proof of performance, as a kind of self-promotion.

Solos forbidden

From now on, also the controversial regulations are obviously in force: Neither blind climbers nor double amputees will receive permits for all mountains higher than 6,600 meters – these fall under the responsibility of the government . Solo ascents will be forbidden. Every mountaineer is obliged to climb with a guide.

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.

Hillary Step in 2017

The big boulder is gone. This is for sure. Tim Mosedale, a six-time Everest summiter from the UK, has added some pictures to Facebook to support his statement that the Hillary Step, the striking twelve-meter-high rock at 8,790 meters, no longer exists in its previous form. Tim’s pictures show: Where once a mighty boulder represented the last serious challenge before the summit, now only a few chunks are lying around. The British expedition leader had already claimed this in mid-May after his successful summit attempt: “It’s official. The Hillary Step is no more.”

Government speaks of misconception

Hillary Step in 2009

Mosedale had to accept some criticism, especially from Nepal, where he was accused of spreading “fake news”. The Nepali government made even an official statement. They had asked the “Icefall Doctors”, the highly specialized Sherpas on Everest, wrote the Ministry of Tourism in a press release: “The report furnished by the Icefall Doctors confirms that the Hillary Step is still intact and is covered with snow. The misconception may have appeared as a new route to the summit is constructed which is some five meters right to the original route.”

The last-mentioned was right, says Mosedale, “but it was to the right because the Hillary Step wasn’t there and we ascended a snow ridge instead.” The Briton receives backing from other climbers who were on the summit this spring, such as the US expedition leader Garrett Madison. “It’s pretty obvious that the boulder fell off and has been replaced by snow, Madison told the magazine “Outside”. “You can see some of the rocks below it that were there before, but the gigantic boulder is missing now.”

Result of the 2015 earthquake?

Hillary Step in 2017 (close-up)

This made the ascent easier during this spring’s season, with a lot of snow in the summit area. The consequences of the change in terrain during dry years with little snow, in which there is no broad snow ridge, remain to be seen.

Already in 2016, climbers had reported that the Hillary Step looked different compared with the time before the devastating earthquake in Nepal two years ago. It is quite possible that the big boulder has become loose and fallen down during the quake. Summit aspirants staying in the Western Cwm on 25 April 2015 had watched stonefall from Everest and Lhotse.

Last key section before the summit

Hillary Step in 2013

The Hillary Step is more than just a piece of mountain, it is a myth. Climbing experts classify the rock only somewhere between the first and second degree of difficulty according to the scale of the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA). But at this extreme altitude, where oxygen is pressed into the lungs with only one-third of the pressure compared to sea level, even this climbing, which might be laughed at in the Alps, becomes a real challenge. It was not without reason that over years traffic jams formed on Hillary Step, because many clients of commercial expeditions were just overstrained. On the first ascent in 1953, the New Zealander Edmund Hillary had taken heart and had climbed up through a thin crack between rock and ice. “It was then for the first time that I knew that we were going to get to the top, “ the Everest pioneer once said about the last key section that had been named after him. The New Zealander died in 2008 aged 88.

Wrath of the gods

South side of Mount Everest

Mountains are exposed to seismic activities as well as the climate and thus can change. Rockfall occurs all over the world. Thus Mount Cook, the highest mountain of New Zealand, lost considerably height in 1991, when rock and ice broke down from the summit. So why shouldn’t it happen on Mount Everest? The Sherpas call the highest of all mountains Chomolungma, “Goddess Mother of the World”. Natural events such as rock fall or avalanches are regarded in their faith as a sign that people have incurred the wrath of the gods. Perhaps that explains why many people in Nepal don’t want to accept that the Hillary Step does not look like it was before.

A mountain in Gokyo Valley

You can’t just set off. If you want to climb am mountain in Nepal you should check the rules beforehand, otherwise you might experience a nasty surprise. Like the three Spanish climbers, who recently opened new routes on two six-thousanders. They were under way without permits, now the authorities in Kathmandu are investigating the case. They are facing a stiff fine and a 10-year-ban from mountaineering in Nepal. My compassion for the Spaniards is limited. I find their justification (“We are not pirates, we have left our money in Nepal at all”) flimsy. If you follow this argumentation, you could bilk any national park fee worldwide. Nonetheless there have been some construction sites the Nepalese “mountain management” for a long time, which are allegedly worked on but whose status does not change.

Absent liaison officers

Ama Dablam

Thus, the now practiced system of liaison officers is very much in need of reform, not to say that it must be abolished. “When 15, 16 or perhaps 17 expeditions on the same mountain have all shelled out for an liaison officer and not one of them is present it just seems completely underhand and verging on fraudulent”, British expedition operator Tim Mosedale wrote on Facebook after his Ama Dablam expedition this fall. Not enough, his liaison officer asked for more money during the de-briefing, says Tim. Only when he threatened with a formal complaint, she signed the necessary forms. The expedition leader was particularly upset because, as reported, Lhakpa Thundu Sherpa had been killed by ice debris and another mountaineer, who also belonged to his team, had been injured. “Indeed even if the liaison officer had been present when we were dealing with the complex rescue and recovery operation last week she wouldn’t have been any help at all”, Mosedale wrote. For months, a proposal by the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) is on the table. “We asked the government to send only one liaison officer per mountain, not 30 or 40 on Everest or other mountains,” NMA President Ang Tshering Sherpa told me recently.

Incorrect coordinates, wrong names

Another major construction site is the opening of allegedly or really still unclimbed mountains in Nepal. In spring 2014, the government in Kathmandu had published a list of 104 “virgin” mountains, which were then opened for expeditions. It turned out that the given satellite coordinates were partially wrong or inaccurate. An assumed first ascent of a six-thousander in the Rolwaling Valley this autumn turned out to be a repeated ascent because the mountain had previously been listed under a different name.

No continuity

A Khumbu mountain near Lukla

In addition, there are still plenty of mountains in Nepal that have not yet been recorded on the official lists as possible destinations for mountaineers. If you discover such a nameless mountain and want to climb it for the first time, it becomes really difficult. The Ministry of Tourism has still no regular procedure for obtaining such a permit. What one person responsible has promised can be revoked by the next. There have already been such cases. And they will surely continue to occur, considering how often the government is changing in Nepal. The current cabinet is already the seventh since early 2011.
Against this background, the fact is hardly surprising that we still wait for the overdue reform of the expedition rules (which would then also apply to Mount Everest), laid down in the “Tourism Act”. Every year it is announced that consultation has begun. As a rule nothing follows – or the next change of government.

Simplify procedures

What could help? In a first step the bureaucratic burdens should be purged. I talked about the problem with an Austrian mountaineer who has often been on expedition. He, for example, proposed to “turn the logic”: Instead of a list of mountains in Nepal, which are allowed to be climbed, should be a “blacklist” of forbidden summits, he says. All others mountains would then be open for climbing, and the permits could be given – as now – with fees according to the altitude of the mountains. If uniform and lasting procedures are desired, it would also make sense to entrust the NMA with issuing all permits for expeditions in Nepal. So far the NMA is only responsible for expeditions on mountains with an altitude up to 6,600 meters. The higher peaks are managed by the Ministry of Tourism. With the described consequences.

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.

Mount Everest

There are things that simply cannot be understood. Like the recent decision of the Nepalese Tourism Ministry. According to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, the Ministry refused to issue the compulsory summit certificates to all Climbing Sherpas who scaled Mount Everest this spring season.

No expedition members

The authority refers to the “Mountaineering Expedition Regulation” which took effect in 2002. It says that every member of a successful expedition team is entitled to get a summit certificate. 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 and therefore did not receive any certificates, said Laxman Sharma, Director in the Ministry of Tourism, to the “Himalayan Times”. This spring on Everest, more than 250 Sherpas had reached the highest point at 8,850 meters. They are now to be left empty-handed as well as the Climbing Sherpas on all other mountains of Nepal which are higher than 6,500 meters.

Second-class climbers?

It is the first time that Sherpas are denied the summit certificates, although the law is already 14 years old. It’s beyond me what the Government is intending. They set a bad signal. It’s a slap in the face of the Sherpas. Do those responsible in Kathmandu consider them as second-class climbers? Do they want to punish the Sherpas for earning money on Everest? In this case, the Ministry should no longer issue summit certificates to western mountain guides too.

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!

Submitted summit picture of Tarakeshwari Rathod

Did they fudge on Everest? Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod were celebrated in their home country for being the first Indian couple who, on 23 May, had summited Mount Everest. Now there is considerable doubt that the two 30-year-olds really reached the highest point. The summit picture of Tarakeshwari Rathod that the two Indians submitted to the Nepalese Tourism Ministry to receive their Everest certificated, obviously turned out to be a forgery. Apparently by using an image editing software, the face of the Indian woman was copied to the summit picture of her compatriot Satyarup Siddhanta.

“So so so amazing!”

Summit picture of Satyarup Siddhanta

Siddhanta had reached the summit on 21 May. The 33-year-old accused the Rathod couple of having manipulated another of his pictures to document that both had reached the summit. The two climbers on this photos were he himself and Malya Mukherjee, Siddhanta wrote on Facebook: “This is so so so amazing! They took my pics and photoshopped their image of summit. And got certificates too. Where is mountaineering going?”

No complaints

Mount Everest

Gyanendra Shrestha from Nepal Tourism Ministry told the newspaper “The Himalayan Times” that the Everest certificates had been issued to the Rathod couple on 10 June after verifying the documents and summit photos. The official acknowledged that it was difficult to see whether summit pictures were manipulated or not. But the department had not received any complaints against these climbers. The Nepalese Operators Makalu Adventure Treks, who had organized the expedition of the Indian couple, indicated that nothing was wrong with the photos. In addition, they said, the Sherpas Furba and Fursemba, who had assisted the Indians to summit, had also claimed that they had been on the top on 23 May.

Again Pune

The police of the western Indian city of Pune, for which both Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod have been working for the past ten years, has announced an investigation. The couple declined to comment on the allegations. They said, they had submitted all details to the authorities, including the certificates of the Nepalese Tourism Ministry.

Even after the 2012 Everest season, there had been allegations that summit photos had been forged. At the time, were accused: two climbers from Pune. Those who blackened them: climbers belonging to another group from Pune. Back then, the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism, after having examined the allegations, saw no reason to refuse the summit certificiates.

Expensive rescue

“I am not in the government to wait and see”, Ananda Prasad Pokharel said in early November after his appointment as the new Nepalese Tourism Minister. “I am here to change.” However, one of his first initiatives concerning mountain tourism doesn’t testify his farsightedness but looks more like a crazy idea. Pokharel’s ministry plans to reduce the insurances for Nepalese staff on expeditions – by up to 60 percent on mountains that are lower than 6,500 meters. Thus mountain tourism should be stimulated again, it said. The visitor numbers in Nepal had slumped dramatically after the devastating earthquake in April and also because of the still existing blockade of the border with India.
Even many Nepalis shake their heads about the government’s plan. “As an owner of the agency Dreamers Destination Trek, I prefer reduction in every kind of insurance. It is good for my company and it is good for my clients”, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa writes to me. “But being myself a climber and born in a climber’s family, I wish an increment of insurances in favor of climbers.”

Barely able to make ends meet

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa

The 29-year-old, who has already climbed seven eight-thousanders and recently made headlines by solo climbing the difficult West Face of 6685-meter-high Chobutse for the first time, describes his father’s fate: He had been a top climber at his young age, but in 1983 on Everest, he had lost eight fingers due to frostbite. Afterwards his father had never been given the opportunity to participate in big expeditions and to earn good money. He had been barely able to make ends meet. “Those people who make rules should better take these points into consideration.”

“This is nothing at present time”

Mingma on Chobutse

Mingma considers the insurances, which are paid in case of death to the families of the victims, to be much too low: for expeditions on mountains higher than 6,500 meters, 15,000 US dollars for high altitude porters and mountain guides and $ 8,000 for Base Camp staff. “This is nothing at present time”, says Mingma. He argues to raise not only these insurances but also those for helicopter rescue, rather than reducing it. $ 10,000 on high mountains are by far not enough to cover the costs incurred in case of an accident, he says. A rescue flight above 7,000 meters will cost significantly more than $ 15,000. During his descent on Chobutse, Mingma himself had got in trouble and been flown out by helicopter: “My rescue charge war $ 15,400. I hardly get $ 10,000 from the insurance company, the remaining amount I have to pay out of my own pocket.”

2016 will decide the future

There are significantly more effective means to boost tourism in Nepal than cutting insurances, says Mingma. So the government should “provide a stable political situation”. In addition they should extend the 2015 climbing permits for further two to three years: “There are some climbers who were in Nepal for climbing Everest and Lhotse in 2014 and 2015. They have spent lots of money and must be frustrated and hopeless because of those two bad years.”
The Tourism Ministry should focus on showing that Nepal is a safe travel destination in every respect, says Mingma. “If the year 2016 goes well, the upcoming years will be good by itself.”