Nepal – and everyone who, like me, loves this Himalayan nation and its people – is still in shock following the catastrophic flooding along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers. According to the Nepalese government (as of 8:00 p.m. local time today), more than 350 bodies have been recovered so far. The number of people missing…
It was another dark day for Nepal. This morning around 9 a.m. local time, a devastating flash flood swept down the Bhotekoshi River and then along the Trishuli River in the border region between Nepal and China, sweeping away people, bridges, houses, roads, and vehicles. The full extent of the disaster is not yet clear….
“Yes its official. We got it from the Government of Nepal,” Daniel Mazur writes to me. The head of the expedition operator Summit Climb had announced on Facebook on 11 August: “Everest shocking news! No previous mountaineering experience required for Everest in 2027?!” I then had asked Dan whether the planned new rule – at…
The difficult conditions on Mount Everest have now even prompted the Nepalese government to take action. The Ministry of Tourism authorized the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal (EOAN) to “to mobilize skilled human resources available through its affiliated agencies” to assist the Icefall Doctors in their work on the lower sections of the routes on…
My “School Up” aid project in Nepal is entering its third phase. Thanks to your donations, we completed a new school in the village of Thulosirubari, northeast of Kathmandu, in 2019, and built another school in Rama, in the far west of Nepal, in 2024. Now, through my blog, I’m raising funds for a new…
The suspects’ names are new, but the scheme is not. Mountain guides persuade their clients to take a rescue helicopter ride due to a supposed emergency. The “patients” are transported to specific hospitals. The insurance companies bear the cost. The alleged rescue flights are sometimes billed multiple times, and doctors issue inflated bills. And the…
It was one of the many exciting alpinistic highlights of this fall season in the Himalayas. The two Austrians Lukas Waldner (24) and Benjamin Zörer (24) and the Italians Francois Cazzanelli (35) and Giuseppe Vidoni (31) succeeded in making the first ascent of Kimshung in Nepal in alpine style. The 6,781-meter-high mountain, also known as…
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…
“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…
Same old, same old – it’s like in the Hollywood movie “Groundhog Day”. Once again, the regional administration of the Everest region has launched an attempt to restrict helicopter traffic. The Khumbu Pasanglhamu Rural Municipality has announced that commercial helicopter flights will be prohibited in Sagarmatha National Park from 1 January 2025. Only rescue flights…
For many people in the mountain village of Thame in the Everest region, the zero hour struck on 16 August. As reported, large parts of the village were destroyed that day – by masses of water, debris and mud from two glacial lakes below Tesi Lapche La (also known as Tashi Lapcha). The 5,755-meter-high pass…
It took my breath away when I saw the pictures from Thame on the Internet today. The village lies at around 3800 metres in the Khumbu area, the region around Mount Everest. Masses of mud and water rolled through the village, which I visited in 2002 and 2019. According to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan…
