Maya Sherpa, Dawa Yangzum Sherpa, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita (from l. to r.)

The trio wants the triple. After having climbed Mount Everest and K 2, Maya Sherpa, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita and Dawa Yangzum Sherpa plan to scale next spring also the third-highest mountain in the world, the 8,586-meter-high Kangchenjunga in the east of Nepal. Via the normal route, with bottled oxygen. They climbed Everest still separately – Maya for the first time in 2006, Pasang Lhamu in 2007 and Dawa Yangzum in 2012 – but K 2 in Pakistan in 2014 for the first time together as a team. As early as in 2015 the trio wanted to climb Kangchenjunga. However, at that time the expedition did not come about for financial reasons. This time, too, there is still money left, Maya Sherpa, who is to lead the first Nepalese women’s expedition to Kangchenjunga, writes to me. The Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal (TAAN) has announced to provide financial support as well as Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, managing director of the expedition operator Seven Summit Treks, says Maya Sherpa. The Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) has not yet decided whether it will also participate in the costs. In addition, the three Sherpani try to get a free permit for their expedition by the government.

Adventurer of the year 2016

Kangchenjunga

It is sad to hear that these three mountaineers of Nepal have to scrape together the sponsorship money for their project so tediously. After all, the Sherpani trio has made a name for themselves not only in their home country but worldwide. For example, the readers of the renowned US magazine “National Geographic” voted Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita “Adventurer of the Year 2016”. The 32-year-old is currently guiding the members of a commercial expedition on Aconcagua, with an altitude of 6,972 meters the highest mountain in South America.

Working also as expedition manager

Maya Sherpa on Everest

In spring 2016, Maya Sherpa – on an expedition operated by her husband Arnold Coster – climbed Mount Everest for the third time. Maya also leads expeditions herself. “There are no other Nepali women who do this kind of job,” writes the 38-year-old. Last fall, Maya led a five-member group to the summit of the seven-thousander Himlung Himal, “without my husband,” as she stresses. “I just like to work on the mountain.” Nepalese women, says Maya, can also work as Climbing Sherpas as Dawa Yangzum has proved during her Everest ascent in 2012, when the now 26-year-old carried the oxygen bottles of the expedition up the mountain.

Inspiration for other women in Nepal

With their new joint Kangchenjunga project, the three Sherpani want to encourage their country women. “It’s a good example for other Nepali ladies that if we try it together we can do everything,” says expedition leader Maya Sherpa. “If we climb alone, only a few people see us. But if we climb together many people are looking at us. And then maybe some other young women will show their interest to do something like us.”

Piles of rubble where Langtang Village was

About 100 seconds were enough to transform Nepal from a dreamland to a nightmare country. The earthquake on 25 April left a trail of devastation. In some mountain regions the quake triggered avalanches of debris, mud, ice or snow that razed entire villages to the ground. According to the Nepalese government, about 500,000 houses were completely destroyed by the main earthquake and numerous aftershocks. The authorities registered to date more than 8,600 deaths. Five German tourists were among the victims, four others are still missing, a spokesman of the Foreign Office in Berlin confirmed to me today. Many dead, buried deep under piles of rubble, will probably never be recovered. What a tragedy.

More than one million jobs in tourism

“The world must go on”, said Ganga Sagar Pant, CEO of the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal (TAAN). “The tourism products are still there — mountains, flora and fauna, jungles, trails.”

On the Annapurna Circuit

In Nepal, one of the 20 poorest countries in the world, tourism is one of the main sources of income. More than one million jobs depend on it directly or indirectly. The German Foreign Office is currently advising against “non-essential traveling to Nepal as infrastructure and supplies are still overloaded as a result of the earthquake. This is especially true for trips to the Langtang Valley and to the area around Annapurna, which are persistently threatened by further landslides or avalanches.”

Government: Major destinations “safe and intact”

The government in Kathmandu has launched a campaign to avoid that tourism will collapse completely. In view of the next fall season, the Tourism Ministry “used its resources to assess the conditions of major tourism products of Nepal”. They were “safe and intact”, the Ministry informed. That included the most popular trekking routes like the Annapurna Circuit and the Everest trek. “We encourage all tourists to visit Nepal and through this to help Nepalese people who are in trouble in this devastation.”

Most routes are passable

Living in ruins

“We tend to be more discriminating, we assess each single region and route”, Manfred Haeupl, head of German trekking and expedition operator “Hauser Exkursionen” wrote to me. “You can not just say: Nepal is safe and intact – the damage is too great. However, some reports are exaggerated. The degree of damage at the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Nepal reportedly varied from 25 to 70 percent. Which report should we trust?” Dominik Mueller, head of the German operator Amical alpin, refers to information from Nepal, according to which only two of the 35 most popular trekking routes were impassable after the quake. One of them was in the particularly hard-hit area of Langtang, Dominik told me. He was not yet quite sure which was the other route: “I’m still waiting for a reply from Nepal.” Two leading representatives of the German operator DAV Summit Club are staying in Nepal in order to get an idea of the earthquake damage. In early June, Summit Club would inform its customers, Christoph Schnurr, director of product management, wrote to me.

So far, few cancellations

The heads of Hauser and Amical assume that they will be able to realize most of the planned treks they offered for next fall – if not too many customers cancel their bookings. Just now there is no such trend. “We have only a few cancellations. Many are still waiting how the situation develops in the region they want to travel to”, Manfred Haeupl, the owner of Hauser, wrote. There were also new bookings with explicit reference of the customers that they wanted to prove their solidarity with Nepal, said Manfred, adding however, that most customers would not book before summer. “In recent days, our office has got more and more requests”, said Dominik Mueller, head of Amical. “There are divided opinions. Some say that they don’t want to spend their holidays in a country where people suffer. Others – and this is the greater part – want to travel to Nepal in any case, next fall and in the future too. I personally think that the best way to help Nepal is by realizing the planned trips in fall. Doing this, you give the people in Nepal a new task and new hope. And last but not least you directly pay the man on the street.”

My heart is in Nepal

Although a few teams still stay at the Base Camp on the Nepalese side of Mount Everest, the spring climbing season in Nepal seems to be de facto as good as finished. Whether on Everest or the eight-thousanders Makalu, Annapurna and Dhaulagiri, the majority of climbers have packed up and made their way back. In Tibet, where the Chinese authorities forbade any further mountain activities on the eight-thousanders, the expedition leaders are organizing the return home of their climbers via Lhasa and Beijing instead of the otherwise usual way back via Kathmandu. The departure by land to Nepal is currently not possible.

The road via the border town of Kodari will potentially be impassible for years, Dominik Mueller reported. The expedition leader and head of the German operator Amical alpin, has ensured that his members return via Lhasa. Ralf Dujmovits and the Canadian Nancy Hansen who had already stayed at Advanced Base Camp at 6,400 meters, meanwhile also returned to „Chinese Base Camp“ at 5,150 meters.

More than 6,200 dead in Nepal

According to the Nepalese Association of Trekking Agencies (TAAN), about 450 injured were rescued from different parts of the country yesterday. 29 helicopters were in use, more than 100 flights were made. Hundreds of trekking tourists and climbers in Khumbu, Langtang and Annapurna region are still waiting for an opportunity to return to Kathmandu. The Nepalese government has shifted commercial flights to nighttime to make sure that the capital’s airport is not congested during daytime for rescue flights. Furthermore, many regions are cut off. More than 6,200 dead and about 14,000 injured have been registered, the number of victims is rising every hour. Hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed or damaged. The Nepalese government has created a website where all the information about the earthquake (including rescue operations, missing persons, number of victims) are bundled.

P. S. I will be now two days offline. On Sunday I’ll be back.