Helicopter rescue flights to the Everest region resume

Helicopter flying in the Khumbu region
Helicopter in the Khumbu region near Pangboche

There has been movement in the dispute over the large number of helicopter flights in the region around Mount Everest. Following a crisis meeting between the conflicting parties at the headquarters of the Solukhumbu district administration at the end of last week, the Airlines Operators Association of Nepal (AOAN) announced that it would resume helicopter rescue flights in the Khumbu region.

At the beginning of January, the AOAN had suspended all helicopter flights to the Everest region. The association was responding to protests by local organizations that had erected poles with prayer flags at helicopter landing sites in the Khumbu. The locals wanted to support the move by the Khumbu Pasanglhamu Rural Municipality. The regional administration had banned commercial helicopter flights in the Sagarmatha National Park from 1 January and only allowed rescue flights by appointment.

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Winter expedition on Makalu also abandoned

Makalu
Makalu, the fifth highest mountain on earth

Four attempts, four times without summit success – Nepal’s eight-thousanders have once again shown their teeth this winter. After the winter expeditions on Mount Everest, Manaslu and Annapurna I had already come to an early end, the team from the commercial operator Makalu Adventure has now also abandoned its attempts to reach the summit of Makalu at 8,485 meters. The climbers are on their way back to Kathmandu, the company confirmed to me.

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International alpinism association UIAA warns against xenon use in high-altitude mountaineering – Furtenbach contradicts

Mount Everest
Nepalese south side of Mount Everest

In the debate about the planned use of the noble gas xenon with the aim of shortening the duration of Everest expeditions to one week, the international alpinism association UIAA has now also intervened. “According to current [scientific] literature, there is no evidence that breathing in xenon improves performance in the mountains, and inappropriate use can be dangerous,” reads a statement from the UIAA Medical Commission.

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Nepal tightens price screw for Mount Everest – from fall 2025

Mount Everest at sunrise
Mount Everest (l.)

The news comes as no surprise. A year and a half ago, the Nepalese government announced that it would be raising the price of a permit to climb Mount Everest by a good 36 percent from 2025: from 11,000 to 15,000 US dollars per climber from abroad. It is now official.

However, the new prices will not yet apply for the upcoming spring season on Mount Everest, but only from 1 September. The permit price for an Everest ascent in the fall will then rise from the previous 5,500 to 7,500 dollars per person, and in winter and during the monsoon season (June to August) from the previous 2,750 to 3,750 dollars, both of which also represent an increase of a good 36 percent.

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Trump renames Denali back to Mount McKinley

Aerial view of Denali
Aerial view of Denali

In view of some of Donald Trump’s truly worrying first steps – such as the USA’s withdrawal from the Paris climate protection agreement – this decree by the newly sworn-in 47th US President almost seems like a trifle. But it shows what kind of man Trump is.

Within 30 days, Denali, the highest mountain in North America, will once again be called Mount McKinley, named after the 25th President of the USA, William McKinley (1843-1901). “President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent,” said Trump adding that McKinley’s name simply belongs to this mountain.

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Winter expeditions on Manaslu and Annapurna abandoned

Manaslu
The 8,163-meter-high Manaslu in western Nepal (in 2007)

“Goodbye, dear Manaslu,” writes Simone Moro in his Instagram story today. “I can’t wait much more than some weeks and I don’t want to change my style to be welcome one day on your summit .” Two days ago, Simone had already announced that it was time to abandon the expedition: “The weather didn’t play in our favor and for the next two weeks on Manaslu there will be winds up to 150 km/h which makes it impossible for an alpine style summit push.”

The Italian had wanted to climb the eighth-highest mountain in the world together with the Nepalese Nima Rinji Sherpa and the Pole Oswald Rodrigo Peirera in one push, without bottled oxygen, without fixed high camps and without the support of high porters. So for the time being, the fact remains: never has an eight-thousander been summited in winter in alpine style.

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Xenon use on Everest short trip: “Trained doctor with appropriate equipment is absolutely essential”

Mount Everest
Mount Everest

And suddenly the mountaineering scene is discussing a noble gas that we all probably heard about in chemistry lessons at school. But most of us have forgotten all about it. Xenon is one of the rarest elements found on earth. Although it is in the air we breathe, the proportion of xenon is tiny: 87 billionths or 0.0000087 percent (I hope I didn’t make a mistake with the zeros).

If you want to extract xenon, this almost-nothing proportion has to be extracted from the air in a complex process. This makes the gas expensive. But it is also in demand. Xenon is used for light sources (such as car lamps), as a laser gas in the semiconductor industry, as a propulsion agent for satellites, in medicine as a high-tech anesthetic – and probably soon also in commercial eight-thousander mountaineering.

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With Xenon to Mount Everest and back in just one week?

Sunrise on Mount Everest
Sunrise on Mount Everest (in fall 2019)

Faster than the flash? Lukas Furtenbach is already calling one of his offers “Flash Expeditions”. For around 100,000 euros, the Austrian has been offering clients of his company Furtenbach Adventures the chance to climb Mount Everest in three weeks – with several weeks of hypoxia training at home, a helicopter shuttle to the mountain, two personal climbing sherpas for support and the use of bottled oxygen at a high flow rate. A conventional Everest expedition, which the company also has in its portfolio, lasts six weeks, others up to ten weeks. In the upcoming Everest spring season, Furtenbach now wants to do the whole thing in just one week. Can that work?

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Helicopter dispute in the Everest region: “The whole Khumbu is united”

Blockade of a helipad in the Everest Valley
Blockade of a helipad in the Everest Valley

“Enough is enough,” Mingma Sherpa, chairman of the Namche Youth Group, tells me. “We locals have never spoken out against helicopter companies in general. But we are against the unnecessary helicopter flights. Last year alone, there were about 6,000 flights from Lukla (the gateway to the Everest region) to the Khumbu Valley. That’s too many for Sagarmatha National Park.”

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Jost Kobusch ends winter expedition on Mount Everest

Jost Kobusch in the Khumbu region
Jost Kobusch in the Khumbu, the Region in Nepal around Mount Everest

The premature end to his winter expedition on the highest mountain on earth does not come as a complete surprise to me. Even after Jost Kobusch‘s first push of the season on his route – he reached an altitude of around 7,500 meters on the West Ridge on 27 December and thus already achieved the goal he had set himself for his third Everest winter expedition – the 32-year-old German mountaineer reacted rather cautiously to my question as to whether he would climb up again.

Survived earthquake physically unscathed

Jost finally set off again at the beginning of last week and was surprised by the effects of the strong earthquake in Tibet while climbing to Lho La, a pass that connects the Nepalese Everest Valley with the Tibetan side, in his tent at 5,700 meters. He survived the tremors physically unscathed. But after his return to his “base camp” in the “Pyramid”, an Italian research station and lodge located at around 5,000 meters, Kobusch seemed even more indecisive.

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Eight-thousander winter expeditions in Nepal: Waiting for the chance

Manaslu (l.) and Pinnacle East (r.)
Manaslu (l.) and Pinnacle East (r.)

Winter expeditions on eight-thousanders are no walk in the park. In addition to the extreme physical challenges due to the extreme cold of sometimes minus 30 degrees Celsius or even lower and the usually low air pressure, the weather is also unpredictable: there is the threat of heavy snowfall, which leads to an increased risk of avalanches, and stormy gusts, sometimes up to hurricane force, which can literally sweep a mountaineer off the mountain. The number of real summit opportunities with acceptable conditions on the mountain is small. And so winter mountaineers often have to exercise patience.

Moro: “Like a game of chess with wind and elements”

On the 8,167-meter-high Manaslu in western Nepal the Italian Simone Moro, the Nepalese Nima Rinji Sherpa and the Pole Oswald Rodrigo Perreira climbed to the base camp at around 4,800 meters today. “It will be a chess game with the wind and elements, hoping to find a window of good conditions,” Simone wrote on Instagram before setting off.

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Jost Kobusch experienced earthquake in tent on Everest: “Everything shook”

Jost Kobusch - on the West Shoulder of Mount Everest on 27 December
Jost Kobusch – on the West Shoulder of Mount Everest on 27 December

Jost Kobusch was surprised on Mount Everest by the effects of today’s strong earthquake in Tibet in his tent at an altitude of around 5,700 meters. “At first I thought a serac (block of glacial ice) had gone off next to me,” the 32-year-old German mountaineer tells me on the phone. “Then I realized that everything was shaking.”

Kobusch had spent the night about halfway up on the way to Lho La. The pass connects the Everest Valley on the Nepalese south side with Tibet. This is where the West Ridge begins, over which Jost wants to climb Mount Everest in winter. After reaching an altitude of around 7,500 meters on his planned route on 27 December, this time he climbed “without any expectations”, says Kobusch. “I just wanted to feel what was possible. I had everything I needed to possibly climb higher.”

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Strong earthquake in Tibet near Mount Everest

Approach to Mount Everest (center) through the Tibetan region of Tingri (in 2005)
Approach to Mount Everest (center) through the Tibetan region of Tingri (in 2005)

The border region between Tibet and Nepal not far from Mount Everest was shaken by a strong earthquake today. According to Chinese reports, it reached a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter scale, while the US earthquake observatory measured a magnitude of 7.1.

Chinese state media reported at least around 120 dead and hundreds injured on the Tibetan side. The epicenter was in the county of Tingri, around 80 kilometers north of Everest.

Tingri is the gateway for many mountaineers and trekking tourists making their way to the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest – or to the north side of the eight-thousander Cho Oyu.

In the Khumbu, the region on the Nepalese south side of Everest, the earth also shook. No major damage has been reported from there so far. The earth tremors were also felt in the capital Kathmandu, as well as in the neighboring countries of Bhutan and India.

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Jost Kobusch after Everest attempt: “It would have been too dangerous to climb any higher”

Jost Kobusch on the West Shoulder of Mount Everest
Jost Kobusch on the West Shoulder of Mount Everest

Jost Kobusch kept a cool head on Mount Everest. On his first push this winter, the 32-year-old German climber reached an altitude of 7,537 meters on the West Ridge. The altimeter on his watch showed this value on 27 December. His GPS tracker measured the highest altitude at 7,488 meters. On another model, the figure was 7,553 meters. Such differences are not unusual for altimeters.

In any case, Jost climbed around 200 meters higher than during his most successful attempt to date in the winter of 2019/2020, when he turned back on the West Shoulder. This time, he sniffed into the upper part of the West Ridge. I asked Jost via WhatsApp if he hadn’t been tempted to pitch his tent there and climb further up.

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