April 2025 - Adventure Mountain

30. April 202530. April 2025

Nepal plans stricter rules for Mount Everest

The Nepalese government wants to kill two birds with one stone. Firstly, to silence the critics who have been calling for decades for inexperienced mountaineers to be banned from climbing Mount Everest. On the other hand, to make additional money. The responsible Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has now introduced a draft law to replace the Tourism Act, which has been in force since 1978 and has been amended time and again. It also contains the rules for mountaineering in Nepal.

The most exciting planned innovation: Everest aspirants are only to receive a climbing permit for the highest mountain on earth if they have an official summit certificate issued by the Department of Tourism for a Nepalese mountain at least 7,000 meters high.

20. April 202519. April 2025

Happy Easter!

I wish you all and your loved ones happy and peaceful Easter days. And the “Picasso of the Rhine” 😉 has once again put you an Easter riddle. Which mountain I have conjured on the egg?

15. April 202515. April 2025

Anja Blacha after summit success on Annapurna I: “I was very lucky”

No woman from Germany has stood on as many eight-thousanders as Anja Blacha. The 34-year-old has a good chance of becoming the first German woman to scale all 14 eight-thousanders. After her success on Annapurna I on 7 April, she is now only three short of the 14 highest mountains in the world: Lhotse (8,516 m) and Dhaulagiri (8,167 m) in Nepal and Shishapangma (8,027 m) in Tibet.

Anja climbs in commercial teams via the normal routes. She has summited ten of her eleven eight-thousanders without bottled oxygen. Blacha only used a breathing mask on her two Everest successes – in 2017 on the Tibetan north side and in 2021 on the Nepalese south side of the mountian. In the winter of 2019/2020, she reached the South Pole on skis after pulling her sled almost 1,400 kilometers from the coast of Antarctica – alone and without outside support.

Anja Blacha answered my three questions in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu:

Anja, first of all, congratulations on your eleventh eight-thousander. The conditions on Annapurna were extremely challenging and dangerous this spring. How did you fare on your ascent?

11. April 202511. April 2025

Annapurna: Mourning for Ngima Tashi Sherpa and Rima Rinje Sherpa

Ngima Tashi Sherpa (l.) and Rima Rinje Sherpa (r.)

It doesn’t help to turn a blind eye. Ngima Tashi Sherpa and Rima Rinje Sherpa almost certainly did not survive the avalanche accident on Monday on the eight-thousander Annapurna I in western Nepal. Four days later, the chances of finding them alive are close to zero.

10. April 202510. April 2025

Summit success on Makalu, Icefall Doctors complete route, eleventh 8000er for Anja Blacha

Makalu in first daylight, from Gokyo Ri (in 2016) — Makalu (seen from Gokyo Ri)

On Makalu, the fifth highest mountain on earth, the ropes are now fixed up to the highest point at 8,485 meters. According to Nepal’s largest expedition operator Seven Summit Treks, the eight-man rope-fixing team reached the summit today together with a Nepalese client.

The team was led by the experienced Lakpa Sherpa, who is not called Makalu Lakpa for nothing. It was his eighth time on this summit. In 2022, he made headlines when he scaled Makalu three times in 16 days. The Nepalese Ministry of Tourism has issued 40 climbing permits for Makalu this spring so far (as of 9 April).

7. April 20257. April 2025

Two missing after avalanche on Annapurna

In the midst of the summit success reports from the eight-thousander Annapurna I, news of an avalanche accident broke. Above Camp 2 (5,600 meters), a “huge avalanche” broke loose, as Chhang Dawa Sherpa, expedition leader of the operator Seven Summit Treks, reported on Instagram. “We suffered a terrible disaster. While ferrying oxygen cylinders for the summit push, two of our Climbing Sherpas, Ngima Tashi and Rima Rinje, were swept away.”

6. April 20256. April 2025

Summit success reported on Annapurna I

Annapurna massif — Northwestern view of Annapurna (the main summit on the left)

The first summit success of the spring season on Nepal’s eight-thousanders is achieved. The expedition operator Imagine Nepal announced that the Nepalese mountaineers Dipan Gurung and Phinjo Dorjee Sherpa, together with their Chinese client Zhao Yiyi, had reached the 8,091-meter-high summit of Annapurna I in western Nepal today. According to the company, it was not an easy summit success.