South side of Mount Everest

The workers were the first. Today nine Sherpas reached the summit of Mount Everest, as first climbers this spring, said Ang Tshering Sherpa, President of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA). The Sherpas belonged to a team including members of several expedition operators, which fixed ropes up to the highest point at 8,850 meters. It was the first summit success on the Nepalese side of Everest since 2013.

Two seasons ended prematurely

I deliberately ignore the alleged success of Chinese Wang Jing and her Sherpa team on 23 May 2014. She had been flown by helicopter to Camp 2. That spring, the season had ended prematurely, after an avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall had killed 16 Nepalese climbers. In 2015 a huge avalanche which was triggered from the nearby seven-thousander Pumori by the devastating 25 April earthquake had hit Everest Base Camp and killed 19 people. After that all expeditions had departed.

Way is paved

After the Sherpas have now prepared the normal route on the south side up to the summit, the way for the members of the commercial expeditions is paved. Several teams want to take the very the first good weather window for a summit attempt. It is due to open from Saturday to Monday.

Wang Jing with her certificate

As if nothing had happened. The Chinese climber Wang Jing has received her Everest certificate from the hands of Nepalese government officials in Kathmandu. Thus it is certified that the 41-year-old has scaled the highest mountain in the world on 23 May – officially and above all with no ifs and buts. Strange.

Amused

The Nepalese newspaper “The Himalayan Times” reports that Wang claimed in her application to the Tourism Ministry that she had been flown by helicopter to Camp 2 on 10 May but had descended to the Base Camp and again ascended after a two day rest. In other words: She would have climbed the whole route to the top. According to the newspaper an “Icefall Doctor” laughed about Wang’s claim and said that after the avalanche on 18 April, which had killed 16 Nepalese climbers, definitely no one had climbed through the Icefall. A member of Wang’s support team, who does not want to be named, also denied that the Chinese had descended to the Base Camp.

Commission recommends: Only rescue flights

The government does not seem to worry about that. “It isn’t time to go by due procedures, as Wang’s summit was considered special in a time of crisis and uncertainty”, said Joint Secretary Madhu Sudan Burlakoti at the ceremony in Kathmandu. No word about the investigation report of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) about the use of helicopters on Everest. The commission recommends a strict rule to ban rampant use of helicopters above  Base Camp, urging the authorities to permit such flights only for rescue missions – and not to transport material or even climbers to the high camps.

How much helicopter should be allowed on Everest?l

The spring season on Mount Everest is over, but not the discussion about what happened at the highest mountain in the world. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has set up a committee to clarify whether, when and how often helicopters were used to airlift team members of the Chinese female climber Wang Jing and the Brazilian-American Cleo Weidlich to Camp 2 at 6400 meters. On 23 May, Wang was the first person who reached the summit of Mount Everest this spring, just before the first successes from the north side were reported. Weidlich originally planned to climb Lhotse, but in her own words she made no real attempt to reach the summit.

Pilot confirmed passenger transport to Camp 2

According to the newspaper Himalayan Times the Italian pilot Maurizio Folini has confirmed that he has flown Wang Jing from Base Camp to Camp 2 on 10 May and also picked her up again there by helicopter on 25 May. After returning to Kathmandu the Chinese woman reportedly claimed that she never used a helicopter to reach Camp 2. Only two Sherpas had been flown up, she said. “This would seem to be a distinction without a difference since they were helping her ascent”, the legendary chronicler of Himalayan mountaineering, Elizabeth Hawley, writes to me. So far only rescue flights were allowed higher than Base Camp. This spring the Nepalese government had only made an exception to let fly out material from Camp 2 after the premature end of all expeditions.

Good idea

Miura after his return to Base Camp by helicopter

I had written to Elizabeth Hawley because I hesitate to call Wang Jing’s summit success a complete ascent of Everest and wanted to know how the 90-year-old U.S. chronicler deals with this climb in her “Himalayan Database”. “You have raised a good point about climbers using helicopters to fly over dangerous terrain in their ascents”, answered Miss Hawley. “We at the Database think we need to add a new category of caveats perhaps called aviation-assisted climbs. That category would also include Yuichiro Miura’s climb of Everest in spring 2013, when he flew out of Camp II to Base Camp to avoid the Icefall. And Cleo Weidlich’s attempt on Lhotse this spring.” I think, it’s a good idea. After the action of the 80-year-old Japanese Miura who had set a new age record last year, I had already asked in my blog how much helicopter should be allowed on Everest. After the avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall on 18 April which killed 16 Nepalese climbers this question could be more urgent than ever.

Update 8 June: Wang Jing meanwhile admitted that she had used a helicopter on Everest. “The Sherpas have great mental pressure and they were reluctant to step into that place”, Wang said in an interview of China News Service. “I knew our decision could discount the climbing efforts. However, I would like to accept the losses for the sake of safety.”

Top of Everest (from the Northeast Ridge)

The first climbers came from the south. On Friday evening local time, the Chinese Wang Jing and five Sherpas reached the summit of Mount Everest via the Nepalese normal route. However, I hesitate to call it a complete ascent. The team had been flown by helicopter to Camp 2 at 6400 meters after the “Ice doctors” had stopped to maintain the route through the Khumbu Icefall. After the avalanche disaster on 18 April – as reported – all commercial expeditions on the Nepalese side of the mountain had been cancelled.

Today the first summit successes were also reported from the Tibetan north side. A team of 15 climbers of the Russian expedition organizer “7SummitsClub” reached the highest point at 8850 meters during snowfall and wind. The German climber Ralf Dujmovits had to struggle with these difficult weather conditions  too when he ascended from Camp 2 at 7700 meters to Camp 3 at 8300 meters.

Really exhausted

“In the morning it was very windy, then it began to snow”, Ralf tells me by satellite phone from his small tent. He is speaking slowly, the thin air takes its toll. He was fine all the way up to Camp 3, says Ralf: “I was hoping to find a platform for my tent up here at 8300 meters, but unfortunately it wasn’t like that. I had to prepare a platform before I could pitch my tent. Thus I have lost much energy and right now I am really exhausted.” Dujmovits, who is climbing without bottled oxygen, does not want to leave for the summit with the first  mountaineers late on Saturday night. “This is too tricky, because it is still too cold. Probably I will start at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., but it depends on the wind.” So keep your fingers crossed!

Hungarian Klein turned around

Another climber who had tried to scale Mount Everest without oxygen mask  has aborted his summit attempt. The Hungarian David Klein turned around on the northeast ridge, at an altitude of about 8600 meters, near the First Step. He was too late. The Romanian Horia Colibaseanu and the Slovak Peter Hámor, also without bottled oxygen, had previously stopped their ascent at 7600 meters.

Wang Jing

Is there still some climbing possible on the Nepalese side of Mount Everest? The “Himalayan Times” reported that the Chinese female climber Wang Jing was ​​with seven Sherpas on the way to base camp. The 40-year-old wanted to climb the highest mountain on earth. Wang was already once on the summit of Everest, on 22 May 2010, becoming the first Chinese woman who climbed the mountain from the south side. In her home country she is a star. Wang has written a book about her mountaineering and is leading an outdoor outfitter in Beijing.  Everest is part of her “Project 7+2”. She wants to scale the “Seven Summits”, the highest peaks of all continents, in record time and in addition reach the North and the South Pole.

She has already four of the “Seven Summits”

Since 2011, this record is held by the former Welsh rugby player and adventurer Richard David Parks who completed his project in six months and eleven days. So Wang Jing has not much time. Earlier this year she was at the South Pole and reached the summits of Mount Vinson (Antarctica), Aconcagua (South America), Mount Kosciusko (Australia) , the Carstensz Pyramid (Oceania) and Mount Elbrus (Europe). A spokesman of the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism reiterated that Mount Everest and Lhotse were not officially closed, even if all the big operators had canceled their expeditions after the avalanche disaster on Good Friday.

By helicopter to Camp 2

Cleo Weidlich

These words are grist to the mill of Cleo Weidlich. The 51-year-old, who was born in Brazil and lives in the USA, wants to climb Lhotse. In her words, it would be her ninth 8000er (some of her climbs are disputed), she scaled Everest in 2010. A year later, she made ​​headlines worldwide when she had to be rescued because she had got snow-blind and hurt during the descent from Kangchenjunga.

According to the Himalayan Times, Weidlich was flown by helicopter from the village of Gorak Shep at 5200 meters to Camp 2 at 6500 meters. So far, only rescue flights on Everest were allowed. But after the avalanche the government had been clement and had allowed the expedition teams to bring down their material from the Camps above the Khumbu Icefall by helicopter. Supposedly, Wang Jing was meanwhile also flown to Camp 2. The normal routes to Lhotse and Everest are identical up to an altitude of about 7500 meters.

Harsh words

In the past week Cleo Weidlich had complained several times vehemently about the “Icefall doctors” via Facebook. She accused them of sabotaging her and described them as “Everest mafia”. Not just a sign of tact. “Anyone who climbs Everest in this 2014 Spring season is not a climber, is a beast of ego and arrogant”, writes Dawa Steven Sherpa, leader of the “Eco Everest Expeditions”. “How can you fit in the brotherhood of climber’s community if you don’t respect those who perished in order to take you on top of the mountain?”

P.S. It remains to be seen whether ascents of Everest and Lhotse from Camp 2 can count as full summit successes. A case for Elizabeth Hawley, the 90-year-old legendary Himalayan chronicler in Kathmandu.

Update 12 May: The New Zealand expedition organizer Russell Brice reports that he has contacted the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism to make clear that he has nothing to do with Wang Jing’s flight to Camp 2. The Chinese originally ran on the permit of his “Himalayan Experience” expedition. Also Murari Sharma of “Summit Climb”, who had got the permit for Cleo Weidlich, is reported to be annoyed. The organizers fear that the Everest permits of their other clients could expire or that they could face other sanctions because Wang and Weidlich have defied the announced end of the expeditions.