Don Bowie

He has just stayed there – to help. When the devastating earthquake hit Nepal on 25 April, the Canadian climber Don Bowie was in Base Camp at the foot of Annapurna. For ten years, Don is climbing on eight-thousanders. By now he has scaled three of them, all without supplementary oxygen: K 2 (in 2007), Gasherbrum I (2010) and Cho Oyu (2011). After the tremors, the 46-year-old decided spontaneously to cancel the expedition and to use his skills as high altitude climber and mountain rescuer to help the earthquake victims in remote villages of Nepal. Since then Don is almost non-stop on the road in the mountains of the Himalayan state. On the Internet, he is asking for donations to finance his relief campaign. I contacted Don Bowie in Nepal.

Don, where are you staying right now?

I am based out of Kathmandu but I am now working in many districts – Gorkha, Nuwakot, Rasuwa, Sindhulpachowk, Dhading, and Dolakha.

You were on Annapurna when the earthquake hit Nepal. How did you experience the quake?

We had all just come down the day before from our high camp. We were relaxing in Base Camp when the ground started to shake. The location of Annapurna Base Camp on the north side is situated below a very steep rock cliff that has a crown of huge seracs on top of it. It was a little foggy that day, so we didn’t have clear visibility, but we heard rocks starting to come down. The entire camp started to run away from the rock fall in case the rocks rolled into our camp.

Do you feel a special responsibility to help the people in Nepal because you are a climber who has spent so much time on expeditions?

I don’t think I was motivated because of the amount of time that I have spent in Nepal, but rather the motivation came from knowing that there was an entire nation below us that was hurting and we wanted to see if we could help in any small way. With my experience in search and rescue and other valuable skills within the climbing crew, we felt that we could no longer stay on Annapurna and continue to climb with our expedition. In addition to that, we had a production crew with us that could get the message and information out about the earthquake and what was needed.

Don in a remote area of Nepal

You have organized the transport of aid supplies to very remote areas of Nepal. What is most needed in these villages?

Having feet on the ground in each one of these villages and spending time with the people, you really understand what the needs are. Depending on the town, how hard it was hit, what the region was, how heavily affected their food stores were and how destroyed the homes were, each village and town has had different needs. We have tried to address those one by one, but the most prominent need, especially in the Gorkha region, is that these people are completely cut off and isolated due to landslides, so getting any food and supplies in before monsoon hits, which is starting this week, has been our primary goal.

Are there still villages without any help from outside since the 25 April earthquake?

There are still villages that I’ve been to recently that have had little to almost no aid. There have been small helicopters that have made it into the areas, but often times there has been really high mountain villages that don’t have adequate landing zones for even the small helicopters. So there are many communities that have not received very much aid and that is why we are organizing porters and mule trains to take aid into these areas. The challenge is, however, that we need to clear the trails on the way to make them safe so people can walk from village to village without being under the threat of landslides.

How do you experience the people in the remote villages? Are they traumatized, hopeless, angry?

The Nepali people are incredibly resilient. And our experience is that we come into these small towns to give aid to these people yet they offer us tea, a meal, and even places to sleep in their broken homes. They have been extremely gracious and really often times excited just to know that people were thinking of them and people from the outside world are willing to help them. We could see that they took some comfort in that.

Are you satisfied with the cooperation with the local authorities? What could run better?

Most of our experiences have been in Gorkha and we’ve only begun to expand out to other regions. However, in Gorkha, the local government has been incredibly supportive of any effort to work and coordinate alongside them. We have even been able to assign some teams to work alongside local authority and police. The government, especially in the Gorkha region where we’ve worked the most, has had an amazing and proactive role in bringing aid to these communities in a way that we have all been very impressed with.

Danger of landslides

Nepal has launched a campaign to invite people from abroad to visit the country – now more than ever. What do you think about it?

I think that there are really still some major concerns about safety in the regions that are predominantly tourist and trekking areas. I think that once the monsoon season arrives, many of these landslides will become even worse. So we are very concerned about that. I understand that restoring tourism to these areas is extremely important for local economies, and we are working very hard with many agencies – with the WFP (World Food Programme), the UN, and the local government to restore the trails and rehabilitate the village networks for road access. For now I believe that many of the regions are severely affected. Hhowever, there are regions in the east including the Annapurna circuit which appear to be almost completely intact. I think in the fall season, these relatively unscathed regions should be able to support tourism. Also if you look at the major tourist hubs such as Pokhara and even Thamel, you get a sense that these are safe areas. My team and myself have been living in these places for some time and feel quite confident that the infrastructure can support viable tourism for the fall season. However, other regions will be slow to follow because of the amount of damage and landslides.

Baumann visiting the family of avalanche victim Chhiring Sherpa

There was no climbing on Mount Everest on this Saturday. At the Base Camp at 5,300 meters, more than 300 western climbers and an equivalent number of Sherpas commemorated the 16 Nepalis who had been killed in the avalanche in Khumbu Icefall exactly one year ago. It was the worst avalanche disaster in the history of Everest. The German climber and physician Matthias Baumann had witnessed the tragedy at the Base Camp. Later he visited the families of the victims and launched a relief campaign for them. In March, the 43-year-old trauma surgeon from the city of Tuebingen traveled again to Nepal. He distributed money to the families of the victims and launched financial sponsorships to guarantee the education of the avalanche victims’ children.

Matthias, a year ago, you were at the Base Camp of Mount Everest, when the avalanche released in the Khumbu Icefall. You were among the doctors who first treated the injured climbers. Are you still thinking of what happened on 18 April 2014?

In recent days and of course especially today on the anniversary, I’ve been thinking of it again. I’m not traumatized because I am daily facing suffering in my job as a trauma surgeon. But it moves me emotionally, on the one hand because of my own passion for mountaineering, on the other hand because the avalanche victims were Sherpas, whom I do appreciate anyway.

You’ve collected a total of 100,000 Euros for the families of the avalanche victims and you were just now in Nepal to distribute the donated money. How are the families today?

My impression is that they have regained stability again, but not completely. When I visited them, most women of avalanche victims burst into tears. That was not the case last year – maybe because they were still in shock, maybe because they wanted to show strength in the presence of their children. This time it was much more emotional.

Meeting with Sherpa families in Kathmandu

The families lost their breadwinners. Do they make ends meet?

It’s difficult. As always in such a case in Nepal, other relatives have to help. Women in the mountain areas have almost no chance to make money. In Kathmandu, that works a bit better. The Nepalese government increased its emergency aid for the families from 400 to 5,000 US dollars and handed over the money. Some expedition operators which had employed the Sherpas who died in the avalanche, for instance Alpine Ascents International, gave money too. Therefore the families are not fully dependent on themselves. But I got the impression that they still do need help.

In Khumbu, I also donated money to a Sherpa family whose breadwinner died on Everest in 2012 [Namgyal Tshering Sherpa fell into a crevasse near Camp 1]. This family had received only the emergency aid which was usual then, means $ 400, nothing else. That was brutal. After all, last year’s avalanche disaster draw a little attention to the fate of the Sherpa families that lost relatives on Everest.

Did you feel that the atmosphere within the Sherpa community has changed due to the avalanche incident?

Definitely. There were these different groups among the Sherpas. We saw that in the attack against Simone Moro and Ueli Steck in 2013. And last year I experienced myself how aggressive a small group of Sherpas was, while the majority actually wanted to continue climbing. I got the impression that after the avalanche disaster Sherpas have moved closer together again. There was a small positive effect, even if not all the demands of the Sherpas have been met.

Everest Base Camp

Currently, again more than 300 foreign climbers are at the Base Camp on the Nepalese side of Everest. Is it business as usual?

I think, actually the number of climbers should be reduced. But this is a double-edged sword. On the other hand so many income opportunities for local people are connected with climbing on Everest. Therefore, there is largely business as usual again, except for the fact that the permits cost additional $ 1,000 each [The price for an Everest permit is now $ 11,000 per person, regardless of the number of expedition members] and that the additional revenue is to go into a relief fund. In addition, the route through the icefall was relocated to some extent. But everything else remains the same.

The Nepalese government has decided that the permits from 2014 remain valid to 2019. That goes for you, too. What’s about your plan to try Everest again?

Dreams do not disappear, nor does the passion for climbing. For me, it was not possible this year because I changed my job. I would have preferred the north side of Everest, because there are now so many German high altitude mountaineers. That would have interested me as a physician too, because many of them want to climb up without bottled oxygen. Honestly, I really would have liked to join them.

Matthias Baumann in the Khumbu Icefall

Would you return to Everest with a different feeling?

I always felt personally connected to the Sherpa people. But after the experience of 2014, I have even more respect for them and their performance. For me, they are the true heroes on Everest.

It seems to me that many other climbers on Everest don’t show this kind of respect.

I think so too. Many see the Sherpas only as unskilled workers. Instead many of them are better climbers than the majority of the western Everest aspirants. This makes it much more interesting when you’re out with them. I do respect the Sherpas at eye level, and they realize me doing it this way. They tell me a lot about their culture, and we have lots of fun together. This is a real enrichment for me. Sometimes respect is greater than money.

P.S. Matthias continues collecting donations for the families of Sherpas who died in the Himalayas.