Stefan Nestler, Autor bei Adventure Mountain

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.

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.

28. February 202528. February 2025

When the snow on Mount Everest disappears in winter

The Nepalese south side of Mount Everest (in 2002)

Be prepared for bare ice in the Western Cwm and on the Lhotse flank – and for wide crevasses! That’s what you could say to mountaineers who want to try to climb Mount Everest this spring.

“The lack of snow, as I reported last winter as well, will lead to crevasses being less filled/more open and more bare ice slopes,” Mauri Pelto writes to me. “This can be altered by late winter/early spring storms, but that is not to be expected.” In the 2024 Everest spring season, the scientist had already pointed out a lot of bare ice and firn slopes in the Western Cwm and in the Lhotse flank and thus an increased risk of falling rocks. The Khumbu Glacier is currently in a similar condition (see image below).

29. January 202529. January 2025

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.

28. January 202528. January 2025

Winter expedition on Makalu also abandoned

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.

24. January 202525. January 2025

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

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.

22. January 202524. January 2025

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.