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 surviving Taiwanese (l.) in a hospital in Kathmandu

Mountain rescuers in the Alps often complain about climbers or hikers, who overestimate their abilities, suddenly can not move neither forward nor back and have to be rescued from this precarious situation on the mountain. That’s what happened to a young couple from Taiwan, who were on a trekking tour in the mountains of Nepal, more precisely in Langtang, without a guide. The two had been missing for 47 days. Now rescuers found the 21-year-old man lying unconsciously in a cave at the foot of a rock, his 19-year-old girlfriend was dead. According to the Taiwanese she had died three days earlier.

At the end only water

The rescuers reported that the trekking tourists had got lost and descended a steep rocky slope because they hoped to reach a village in the valley on this way. However, a gorge with a waterfall cut off the path. They could not return because they were unable to climb the rock up again. First they had eaten their supplies of noodles and potatoes, the survivor said. When the food had been consumed, they only had drunk water.

Maggots and lice

The sight of the Taiwanese was not exactly appetizing. His right leg was infested with maggots, his head full of lice. The young man is said to have lost thirty kilos. The survivor’s father had traveled to Nepal after the couple had been reported missing, and had hired a helicopter to search for the two trekking tourists. In the Himalayan state it happens again and again that hikers are missing. In almost all previous cases, the trekkers were traveling alone and without local guides. This should actually give all hikers who travel to Nepal food for thought.

Enthusiasm for Japanese climber Kuriki

The despair in Nepal must be great. There is no other explanation for the fact that the government in Kathmandu called a press conference these days only to hand out a permit for an expedition. Japanese climber Nobukazu Kuriki received the written permission to climb Mount Everest this fall from the hands of Tourism Minister Kripasur Sherpa. “Kuriki is climbing at a time when there is confusion in the world about the safety in Nepal after the earthquake”, the Minister said. “This will be an example for other visitors to come to Nepal which is safe for mountain climbing.” The 33-year-old Japanese climber sang the same tune: “The main purpose of my climb is to spread the message that Nepal is safe for climbers and trekkers even after the earthquake.”

Kuriki – as reported – wants to climb Everest from the Nepal side, after the Chinese authorities gave all expeditions to Tibet the cold shoulder. Today Kuriki flew from Kathmandu to the Khumbu region for acclimatization. In 2012, in his last attempt to climb Everest in fall, the Japanese had suffered severe frostbite. Nine fingers had to be amputated. Like then, Kuriki again plans to climb solo and without bottled oxygen, this time on the normal route. The “Icefall Doctors” will prepare for him the route through the Khumbu Icefall.

A handful of expeditions

On Everest Base Camp Trek

The PR offensive of the Nepalese government is neither to express a special admiration for Kuriki because of his prior Everest adventures nor to give him major support for an outstanding sporting goal. In fact, the government fears a slump in tourism market by 50 percent this fall season in consequence of the devastating earthquake on 25 April. The authorities in Kathmandu issued not much more than a handful of permits for fall expeditions. That alone would not be so dramatic, but the demand for trekking trips in Nepal, the main source of income in the post-monsoon period, was poor too.

Light at the end of the tunnel

German operators confirm to me this trend. Amical alpin recorded for the upcoming fall season a drop in bookings for trekking trips to Nepal by about 30 percent and for expeditions by 50 percent. The DAV Summit Club also estimates the market slump for Nepal to be about 50 percent. However, both agencies see light at the end of the tunnel. “For several weeks now, we can say that the demand for traveling to Nepal, especially to the Annapurna and Everest region, is increasing again”, Marcus Herrmann, product manager at DAV Summit Club, writes to me. “We expect a significant recovery of the market for spring 2016.” Amical also registered new bookings for Nepal since early August and is cautiously optimistic for next spring season. The recovery of the tourism market would be really desirable for the troubled country and its people who were hit by the disaster. In this case the government in Kathmandu might no longer be forced to organize press conferences for the handing over of permits.

Trekking the Annapurna Circuit

A characteristic of our time is that nobody has time – or does not take his time. That affects mountain tourism too. For years, German operators note a decreasing interest in expeditions that take 50 or even 60 days. Simultaneously, more climbers tend to book trips for which they need only 30 leave days. In other words, expeditions to 7000ers are booming, those to 8000ers are ailing. Apparently, the trend “the shorter, the better” also applies to trekking. Experts in Nepal have called to change with the times by offering shorter treks. They said that an increasing number of trekking tourists in Nepal were coming from China and Southeast Asian countries – and those trekkers simply had not time for a three-week trip on the Annapurna circuit or to trek to Everest base camp.

The Chinese are coming

The Chinese seem to have discovered Nepal as a holiday destination. According to data published by the government in Kathmandu, in 2013 for the first time more than 100,000 people from China travelled to Nepal: Within one year the number increased from nearly 72,000 to more than 113,000. About 90 percent of them came for the first time, 70 percent to spend their holidays in Nepal. But following the data from Kathmandu, the Chinese have not yet got enthusiastic about mountain tourism in Nepal. Only 5,388 of them stated in their visa applications that mountaineering or trekking was the purpose of their visit. Regarding this point, China was only in seventh place of the nations ranking, that was led by Germany (9,352), France (8,807) and UK (8,775). But especially young Chinese were being attracted towards soft adventure activities in Nepal like trekking and paragliding, said one of the largest Nepalese operators handling Chinese tourists.

Everest highway

By jeep to Manang on the Annapurna Circuit

Many Nepalese agencies have already attuned to the new clients with low-time budget. In addition to the classic routes they offer short trips like an “Instant Everest”, an only eight-day-trek in the Khumbu region.

One of the reasons why those shorter trips are possible is that in the most visited areas , such as the Annapurna region, more and more roads are built – at least suitable for jeeps.  Environmental protection is not always taken into consideration. But with those new roads, the starting point of new shorter trekking routes can be reached quickly.

In August, the Nepalese government announced that a kind of “Everest highway” would be built: Using this planned 100-km-road from Jiri to Surkhe village, tourists could reach the area around the highest mountain in the world more easily. Surkhe is only about two hours’ walk from Lukla. At present, this traditional starting point for trekkings in the Khumbu region is almost always reached by plane – because a trek takes up rather a lot of time.  And hardly anyone has time.