For me, it was one of the first mysteries of this spring climbing season in Nepal. Who is the lone climber who has appeared for weeks as the only summit aspirant for Manaslu on the permit lists of the Ministry of Tourism in Kathmandu? The mystery has been solved. At least as far as the…
This much is certain: finances will not be the issue for these Everest aspirants. The Gulf’s moneyed aristocracy will meet on Mount Everest this spring. In addition to Sheikh Mohamed Hamad Mohamed Al Khalifa from the royal family of Bahrain, another member of a filthy rich ruling family from the Middle East is among the…
At least a small glimmer of hope for Nepal in times of pandemic: In March, Nepalese authorities counted around 15,000 tourists entering the Himalayan state from abroad. That was almost twice as many as in February. In the first three months of the year, a total of about 33,000 tourists arrived. That’s about a quarter…
I wish you all and your loved ones Happy Easter – despite corona restrictions. And the “Picasso from the river Rhine” 😉 is confronting you with another easter riddle: Which mountain have I conjured onto the egg?
Will his next hit be called “I took a pill on Everest”? US singer Mike Posner has announced in a video (see below) that he wants to climb Mount Everest this spring. The 33-year-old let it be known that he had been preparing for his project for 18 months. The idea came to him when…
More than 20 years after his last summit success on an eight-thousander, Marc Batard is going to give it another try. For this spring, the 69-year-old has set his sights on climbing Annapurna – via the so called “Dutch Rib” in the North Face, without bottled oxygen. Batard and his team reached the village of…
The video circulating on social networks actually leaves no room for interpretation: A helicopter lands in Camp 1 at 5,700 meters on the eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal. On one side of the helicopter, a backpack is unloaded, which someone picks up; on the other side, a climber gets out and is greeted by another…
Slowly I am dizzy from the constant back and forth of the Nepalese government regarding the quarantine of incoming tourists. Therefore I formulate it cautiously: Apparently the Ministry of Tourism now seems to have agreed on a regulation, which could possibly last for a longer time. According to this regulation, people entering Nepal – provided…
If there is one thing the Nepalese government knows how to do, it is the backward roll. Apparently, the quarantine regulations for incoming tourists will not be relaxed for the time being. After a cabinet meeting last week, officials of the Ministry of Tourism had told press representatives in Kathmandu that guests from abroad who…
“It has been quite a long time staying home,” Pemba Sharwa Sherpa writes to me. “For a year, I couldn’t work because of the corona pandemic. It’s the same with all my friends here in Phortse. Most of all are getting ready to get back on Everest. Some have already left for Everest Base Camp…
Visitors from abroad who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and can also present a current negative corona test will no longer have to undergo a one-week hotel quarantine in Nepal. According to the Kathmandu Post newspaper, this was decided by the Nepalese government at yesterday’s cabinet meeting. In other words, even vaccinated climbers who…
“We feel really bad,” Vinayak Jay Malla writes to me, meaning himself and those about 60 Nepalese who, after a long training, have received an international mountain guide certificate. Despite their qualifications, they now have to apply for a mountain guide license from the Ministry of Tourism in Kathmandu, shortly before the start of the…
Actually, one could almost rename Dhaulagiri, the “white mountain”: to Soriagiri, “Soria’s mountain”. For the eleventh time now (as he himself says – according to Himalayan Database it is already the twelfth time since 1998) the Spaniard Carlos Soria is trying to scale the 8,167-meter-high Dhaulagiri in western Nepal. Taken together, Carlos has spent more…
What a clumsy attempt! The government of Nepal is trying to prevent unwanted pictures and videos of Mount Everest. In a list of rules for expeditions to the world’s highest mountain – typically enough only published in Nepali so far – climbers are forbidden to use their video cameras or smartphones to record other climbers…
A countdown is running on his homepage. With around three weeks to go, former American football player Mark Pattison will fly to Nepal to climb Mount Everest and Lhotse – with bottled oxygen. If he succeeds in reaching the highest peak on earth, the 59-year-old would be the second ex-professional of the National Football League…
