March 2025 - Adventure Mountain

27. March 20256. April 2025

Summit success on 6000er Sharphu IV in eastern Nepal – first ascent or not?

The spring climbing season in Nepal has only just begun when the first summit success is already being reported. The commercial Nepalese expedition operator Xtreme Climbers has announced that a four-person team has made the first ascent of the 6,433-meter-high Sharphu IV not far from the eight-thousander Kangchenjunga in eastern Nepal.

The guides Lhakpa Chhiri Sherpa and Ngada Sherpa as well as the Nepalese Purnima Shrestha and the Chilean Hernan Leal had reached the highest point at 3 p.m. local time on Tuesday, it said.

Lhakpa Chhiri (Sonam) Sherpa, born in 1974 in the village of Pangboche in the Khumbu, is very experienced. He has scaled Mount Everest twelve times. Purnima Shrestha made headlines in spring 2024 when she reached the summit of Everest three times in 13 days – with bottled oxygen and Sherpa assistance.

25. March 202526. March 2025

Helicopter dispute in the Everest region: Business beats environmental protection in the Khumbu

Mingma Sherpa and his companions in the fight against the many helicopter flights in the Everest region feel let down. “Sadly, none of the politicians have talked about our movement,” writes the chairman of the Namche Youth Group, which had campaigned for an end to the many purely tourist flights in the Khumbu region, to me. “We honestly have no voice.”

Earlier this year, locals in the Khumbu had put up poles with prayer flags on the helipads all the way up to Gorak Shep, the last settlement before Everest Base Camp. As a result, the helicopter companies temporarily suspended all flights to the Everest region.

After a crisis meeting of all parties to the conflict at the end of January, at least the rescue flights were resumed. And the parties involved had expressed confidence that a solution would also be found to the controversial issue of purely commercial helicopter flights. Since then, there has been silence.

21. March 202521. March 2025

World Day for Glaciers: Alarming signals also on Mount Everest

Glacier with water at Kokodak Dome in China — Glaciers are melting

The world is increasingly becoming a glacier graveyard. In a study published at the end of February, scientists from 35 research teams determined that glaciers worldwide have lost an average of 273 billion tons of ice per year since 2000. An “alarming increase” has been recorded over the last ten years.

Michael Zemp, one of the co-leaders of the study, categorized the figure. “The 273 billion tonnes of ice lost annually amounts to what the entire global population consumes in 30 years, assuming three litres per person and day,” said the glaciologist from Switzerland.

The dramatic state of the glaciers can be observed worldwide. For example in the Alps, which scientists predict will be largely free of glaciers by 2100. Or in the polar regions, where temperatures are rising even faster than the global average and where the supposedly “eternal ice” is melting away like an ice ball in a waffle on a hot summer’s day. And also the region around Mount Everest, the highest mountain on earth, is no exception.

9. March 20259. March 2025

Icefall Doctors on the way to Everest Base Camp

It is the classic annual starting signal for the spring season when the so-called Icefall Doctors make their way to the 5,364-meter- high base camp at the foot of Mount Everest. Today, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) announced that the eleven-member team set off from the Khumbu main village of Namche Bazaar.

4. March 20254. March 2025

China reopens Everest region

This spring’s expeditions on the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest can now formally begin. According to the state news agency Xinhua, the Chinese-Tibetan authorities allowed tourists into the Everest region for the first time last weekend. The region had been closed to visitors after the strong earthquake on 7 January.

Experts, who had been taking measurements for more than a month, have now declared the region safe again. No unusual ice falls, avalanches or geological changes had been observed by the end of February, said Ma Weiqiang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.