Mount Everest Archive - Page 2 of 7

16. May 202516. May 2025

50 years ago: Junko Tabei, the first woman on the summit of Mount Everest

Junko Tabei on the summit of Mount Everest — Junko Tabei ont the summit of Mount Everest in 1975

“I can’t understand why men make all this fuss about Everest – it’s only a mountain,” Jun k o Tabei once said. Fifty years ago today, on 16 May 1975 at 12.30 p.m. local time, the Japanese woman became the first woman to reach the highest point on earth at 8,849 meters. She was accompanied by Ang Tshering Sherpa (1949-2012), both using bottled oxygen. It was around two decades before commercial mountaineering on Mount Everest as we know it today took off.

“I did not want to climb a single step. Never again,” Junko later said about the moment she reached the summit with Ang Tshering. They stayed at the top for 50 minutes, then set off on their descent. Back home in Japan, Tabei was later celebrated as a hero, which she could do little with: “I’ve only done what I wanted.”

15. May 202516. May 2025

Death on the South Col of Mount Everest

Among the many summit success stories from Mount Everest today is the news of the first death of a foreign climber on the world’s highest mountain this spring season. The Nepalese expedition operator Snowy Horizon Treks announced that a 45-year-old client from the Philippines died last night on the South Col. The mountaineer had been preparing for his summit attempt when he passed away, it said. He was probably suffering from high altitude sickness.

14. May 202528. May 2025

Tashi Gyalzen Sherpa: Second of four planned Everest summit successes

Tashi Gyalzen Sherpa on the summit of Everest (on 9 May)

The summit wave on Mount Everest is rolling. Several dozen climbers from commercial expedition teams reached the highest point on earth at 8,849 meters today. Among those standing on the summit was Tashi Gyalzen Sherpa, according to Pemba Sherpa, owner of the Nepalese expedition operator 8K Expeditions. It was Tashi’s second summit success this spring. The Sherpa had already been part of 8K Expeditions’ seven-man rope-fixing team, which had made the first Everest ascent of the season on 9 May.

Tashi Gyalzen Sherpa has set himself the goal of scaling the highest peak on earth four times this spring (with bottled oxygen). Last year, Dawa Finjhok Sherpa, Climbing Sherpa of the operator Seven Summit Treks, summited Everest three times in eight days. Nepalese journalist Purnima Shrestha also reached the summit three times during the season as a client of a commercial team – with breathing mask and Sherpa support.

13. May 202514. May 2025

More summit successes on Mount Everest – death and rescue operation on Kangchenjunga

Fierce gusts of wind have caused a forced respite on Mount Everest and the other eight-thousanders in Nepal. This gives me the opportunity to summarise the events of the past three days.

After the rope-fixing team from the Nepalese expedition operator 8K Expeditions – as reported – achieved the first summit success of the spring on Mount Everest last Friday, around a dozen other mountaineers followed in their footsteps on Sunday – with bottled oxygen and Sherpa support – to reach the highest point on earth at 8,849 meters.

9. May 20259. May 2025

Everest ER – Emergency aid at Everest Base Camp

The semicircular, elongated Everest ER tent at base camp — The infirmary at Everest Base Camp

There are silent heroes on Mount Everest who are often forgotten. Like the Icefall Doctors, responsible for the route through the dangerous Khumbu Glacier. The rope-fixing team of Nepalese climbers who secure the route to the summit. The numerous Climbing Sherpas, without whose help most of the clients of the commercial expeditions would never reach the highest point at 8,849 meters. And then there are the rescue teams: the helicopter pilots who fly up to altitudes of 7,000 meters to bring climbers down to the valley on a long rescue line.

And the medical staff in the Everest ER at the base camp. ER stands for Emergency Room. An emergency room at 5,364 meters, where sick or injured mountaineers have been treated during the spring season since 2003. The infirmary at Everest Base Camp is organized and financed by the Himalayan Rescue Organization Nepal, a non-governmental organization founded more than 50 years ago.

The intensive care physician and anaesthetist Ashish Lohani is one of three doctors – alongside his Nepalese compatriot Suraz Shrestha and the South African Roy Harris, who lives in Scotland – who have been working in the Everest ER this spring season. All three are proven experts in high-altitude medicine. Since the beginning of April, Lohani and Co. have already treated more than 550 patients in their arched tent.

9. May 20259. May 2025

First summit success of the spring on Mount Everest

Mount Everest (before sunrise, seen from Gokyo Ri)

The job is done. Today at around 5 p.m. local time, the seven-member fixed rope team of the operator 8K Expeditions reached the summit of Mount Everest at 8,849 meters. Tsering Pemba Sherpa, Ashok Lama, Pem Nurbu Sherpa, Tashi Sherpa, Karma Gyaljen Sherpa, Tashi Gyalzen Sherpa and Pas Tenzi Sherpa secured the route to the highest point with ropes, the company announced. The route is now officially open on Everest.

8. May 20258. May 2025

Rope-fixing team on Lhotse summit – rescue from Everest South Summit

Sunrise over Mount Everest and Lhotse (r.) in fall 2019 — Sunrise over Mount Everest and Lhotse (r.) – in fall 2019

The first summit success of the spring season on Lhotse, the fourth highest peak in the world, is perfect. “Lhotse summit route is officially open,” announced Nepalese operator 8K Expeditions in its Instagram story. The five-member rope-fixing team – consisting of Pasang Tenje Sherpa, Migma Dorjee Sherpa, Lakpa Sherpa, Ming Dawa Sherpa and Pas Rinzi Sherpa – reached the highest point at 8,516 meters today at 5.40 pm, the company announced.

For this season, 8K Expeditions had been commissioned to secure the normal routes on Mount Everest and the neighboring Lhotse from Camp 2 (6,400 m) in the Western Cwm, the “Valley of Silence”, to the summits with ropes for all commercial teams. The Icefall Doctors are responsible for the route from base camp through the Khumbu Icefall up to Camp 2.

5. May 20252. October 2025

New route on the 7000er Kabru, death on Makalu, Everest rope-fixing team at South Col

The veterans are still rocking it at over 60. Italian couple Nives Meroi and Romano Benet, both aged 63, and 60-year-old Slovakian Peter Hamor opened a new route through the virgin West Face of the 7,412-meter-high Kabru on the border between Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim.

“No one had previously attempted to reach this peak from the western, Nepali side – the face had remained untouched until now,” Hamor’s home team announced on Facebook. Following their summit success on Sunday, the three climbers are back at base camp safe and sound. Initially, it didn’t look like they would succeed. The trio had to endure two weeks of bad weather with heavy snowfall and strong winds at base camp.

2. May 20252. May 2025

Waiting for the first summit success of the spring season on Mount Everest

View of Mount Everest (l.) and Lhotse (from Namche) — View of Mount Everest (l.) and Lhotse (in fall 2019)

It’s like an annual ritual. It is eagerly awaited how early in the spring season the rope-fixing teams reach the highest point of Mount Everest at 8,849 meters. A few days later, the commercial teams usually begin their run to the summit – always with the proviso that the weather cooperates.

So far this spring, the conditions on the highest mountain on earth have been rather difficult. But from this Saturday onwards, the weather is expected to be comparatively calm for the summit zone of Everest, with hardly any precipitation and relatively little wind.

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.

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).

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.