Kami Rita Sherpa on top of Mount Everest for the 25th time

Kami Rita Sherpa (2nd from left) at this year's puja at Everest Base Camp.
Kami Rita Sherpa (2nd from left) at this year’s puja at Everest Base Camp.

“Middle age is not so bad,” says Kami Rita Sherpa. The record-breaking climber of Mount Everest has 51 years under his belt. Today at 6 pm local time he reached the highest point on earth at 8,849 meters for the 25th time (with bottled oxygen). Kami Rita led the twelve-member Sherpa team that fixed the ropes up to Everest summit. The first commercial teams are also expected there in a few days. It would not be surprising if Kami Rita would then immediately add his 26th Everest ascent. He already has five season double-packs on his account: in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2019.

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Maurizio Folini on heli-doping: “We need a new ethic”

Rescue helicopter on Everest

On Mount Everest, the first commercial teams have left for summit attempts. Among those who set out were the mountaineers of Bahrain’s Royal Guard. If everything goes as planned, Sheikh Mohamed Hamad Mohamed Al Khalifa and Co. are expected to reach the 8,849-meter-high summit next Tuesday. Before that, the rope-fixing team led by Everest record holder Kami Rita Sherpa is to secure the route up to the highest point.

During their successful expedition on the eight-thousander Manaslu last fall, some climbers of the team from Bahrain had – as reported – quite obviously let themselves be flown by helicopter from base camp to Camp 1. I had called this “heli-doping”. Helicopters are being used more and more frequently on Nepal’s eight-thousanders – and by no means only, as in earlier days, for rescue flights.

Maurizio Folini in the cockpit
Maurizio Folini in the cockpit

After articulating my gut feelings about some of the developments on the eight-thousanders following the events in mid-April on the 8,091-meter-high Annapurna, Maurizio Folini commented on my article: “We need absolutely to introduce ethics using the helicopter in Nepal. I’m the first pilot flying above 7,000 meter for rescue, I’m also part of the game but it is time to stop the commercial fake rescue (many…) and start a professional Himalayan rescue organization.”

Since 2011, Folini has been flying regularly in the Himalayas. In 2013, the Italian achieved the highest helicopter rescue of all time on Mount Everest, when he carried a Nepalese climber down from 7,800 meters on a long line. I contacted the 55-year-old:

Maurizio, you are one of the pioneers of rescue helicopter flights in the Himalayas. In your experience, how widespread is “heli-doping” in the meantime, i.e. climbers being flown directly to the high camps or from there afterwards in order to save themselves dangerous or even just annoying stages?

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Expeditions in Nepal: How normal is this season?

Mountaineers on Mount Everest
Mountaineers on Mount Everest

Dinner is served. The first summits of the spring season on Mount Everest and Dhaulagiri in western Nepal are expected this weekend. The weather promises to be stable, with little wind, so the chances are good. Many of the commercial teams have completed their acclimatization and are champing at the bit. All quite normal, isn’t it?

I admit, it’s hard for me to report on expeditions to Nepal’s eight-thousanders while completely ignoring the dramatic corona situation in the Himalayan state – as if the mountains were a giant bubble, sealed off from everything going on around it. Day after day, new highs in COVID-19 infections are currently being reported from Nepal. Today there were 8,970, half of them in the Kathmandu Valley. The country’s health system is completely overwhelmed. Many hospitals lack beds and oxygen. Patients have to be turned away.

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Soon summit attempt on Mount Everest? COVID-19 at Dhaulagiri

Tibetan north side of Mount Everest

While Nepal threatens to sink into corona chaos, the climbing season on Mount Everest continues as if nothing had happened. The ropes on the Nepalese south side of the mountain are fixed up to the South Col at nearly 8,000 meters. The wind continues to blow moderately, so the news of the first summit success is expected in the next few days – from the Sherpa team that secures the route with ropes to the highest point at 8,849 meters.

According to information from Tibet, the preparatory work on the north side of Everest is also as good as completed. The fixed ropes on the Northeast Ridge are up to a height of 8,300 meters, it is said. The Chinese authorities have closed Everest to foreign climbers this spring – as they did in 2020 – because of the corona pandemic. Only a Chinese expedition with 25 clients received a permit.

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Climbing season on Mount Everest on the brink?

Mount Everest

The corona situation in Nepal is escalating. Today, authorities in the Himalayan state registered 7,137 new Covid-19 infections, more than ever before in one day. Forty-three percent of the tests carried out were positive, another record since the pandemic began more than a year ago. The last doubts should now be dispelled: The current explosive spread of the coronavirus in neighboring India has spilled over into Nepal. The Nepalese Ministry of Health had already sounded the alarm on Friday. “The health system is not able to cope and a situation has already arisen in which hospital beds cannot be made available,” the ministry let it be known. Hospitals lack not only beds but also oxygen to ventilate the critically ill.

Domestic flights suspended from Tuesday

Lukla airfield, the gateway to the Everest region

Today, the government decided to suspend all domestic flights from 0 a.m. local time Tuesday until further notice.  International flights to and from states particularly hard hit by the pandemic – including India – are to be suspended at midnight next Wednesday.

The halt to domestic flights is particularly likely to affect climbers on Mount Everest and Nepal’s other high mountains. From Tuesday onwards, it will no longer be possible to take a helicopter from base camp to Kathmandu. It has not yet been announced whether rescue flights will also be affected by the suspension of air traffic.

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