Mount Everest

No mercy for Everest cheaters. According to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times” a three-member investigation commission recommended that the Nepalese government should withdraw the summit certificates of the Indian climbers Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod and forbid the couple to go to Nepal for mountaineering for at least ten years. It is seen as a formality that Tourism Ministery will nod the recommendation through.

Liaison officers not in Base Camp

Real (1,2) and fake (3,4) (© The Himalayan Times)

The commission considered it proven that the Rathods – as reported before – had manipulated the summit pictures of another Indian mountaineer with an image-editing program to prove their own summit success. The two Sherpas who had accompanied the Indian couple during the ascent, are also to be removed from the list of this year’s Everest summiters. In the course of the scandal it had been made public that 15 of 32 Nepalese liaison officers who had been deployed for last spring’s Everest expeditions had not even been at Base Camp which, however, had not prevented them from rubberstamping summit successes. But it’s not really surprising that every second liaison officer collected his pay but stayed absent from the expedition. This has been rather common practice in Nepal for years.

Negligent handling also in China

The lax handling of Everest summit certificates is by the way not a purely Nepalese phenomenon. In the high mountaineering scene the China Tibet Mountaineering Association has also the reputation of certifying summit successes too negligent. Maybe in the not too distant future the idea of ​​German mountaineer and Everest chronicler Billi Bierling will become reality that summit aspirants on the highest mountain on earth – like already now long-distance runners or participants of open cycling races – are equipped with electronic chips. But as is well known, chips can be hacked too.

Update 17 November: The Indian police has suspended Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod because of their Everest cheating. Both had been working for the police in the town of Pune.

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.