[Sadly, events on the south (Nepalese) side of Mount Everest this season suggest that while the risks inherent in climbing the mountain have never been greater, a majority of Everest climbers are increasingly estranged from the decision-making process. Two intersecting trends are to blame: the rising number of people attempting the mountain, and the cumulative effects of global warming, which is slowly yet steadily drying out the Himalayas, resulting in rockfalls, avalanches and sérac collapses.]
By Freddie Wilkinson
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| Mt. Sagaramatha. Image Gurinder Osan/Associated Press |
Sadly, events on the south (Nepalese) side of
The sheer number of people courting Everest — this season,
approximately 750 foreign climbers and local Sherpas, from 32 expeditions — has
created a system whereby the entire climbing route is institutionally
maintained. Approximately six miles of rope is strung up the mountain each
April, secured by hundreds of snow pickets and ice screws. Sections of aluminum
ladder are employed to span crevasses too wide to safely step across.
The principal organization responsible for this artificial
trail is the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, a professional cadre of
climbing Sherpas known as the icefall doctors. Although important decisions are
generally made by rough consensus among expedition leaders, and often guides
and volunteers will help with maintaining the route, a vast majority of
climbers simply start at the bottom of the mountain and go where the ropes lead
them.
The classic route from the south, as pioneered by the
British in 1953, follows the Western Cwm, a natural valley, and is exposed to
falling hazards for much of the way. Climbers must contend with two notorious
risks: the Khumbu Icefall and the Lhotse Face.
This season, hampered by dry conditions, the mountain has
been dangerously alive. Last week, rock fall on the Lhotse Face resulted in a
half-dozen serious injuries, and one very near miss was reported when a titanic
avalanche ripped between camps 1 and 2, thundering completely across the valley
and obliterating the trail. “At certain times during the day there are more
than 50 people on this path,” the writer Mark Jenkins wrote recently in a dispatch from
the mountain for
National Geographic’s Web site.
Climbers speak of two kinds of hazards: objective and
subjective. The subjective risks are those you can potentially control through
skill and experience. The objective ones are events like avalanches and icefall
that don’t care who you are, only that you are in the wrong place at the wrong
time. Rarely has so much of the latter been stacked up against so little of the
former. Although there were a few complaints whispered through base camp that
perhaps a safer route was possible through the icefall, more to the center of
the formation, and the lines on the Lhotse Face were moved farther to the side
in response to intense rockfall that was strafing the normal line, most
climbers seemed to accept these dangers as unavoidable.
In the end, mountaineers have one final option at their
disposal. They can choose not to be there in the first place.
Last weekend, Russell Brice, owner and operator of
Himalayan Experience, one of the largest and most respected operations on the
mountain, told his combined team of more than 60 clients, guides and climbing
Sherpa staff members that he was canceling the rest of their season. On his Web
site, Mr. Brice was
succinct: “I had long
and serious talks with the Sherpas, the icefall doctors and my guides, and we
have made the decision to cancel the expedition. We can no longer take the
responsibility of sending you, the guides and the Sherpas through the dangerous
icefall and up the rockfall-ridden Lhotse Face.”
Everest summit season, traditionally stretching from the
second week of May to the beginning of June, is upon us. The world will
probably soon hear of great triumphs on the peak, and there is equal capacity
for great calamity. May the shrewdest and most independent decision of the
season not go unnoticed.
@ The New York Times
[They have claimed that the massive ice fell about the height of 6,500 m from Annapurna IV (7525m) and blocked the gorge of Seti River due to which the newly formed river lake outburst and caused the devastated flood.]
KATHMANDU: A well known
environmentalist and renowned mountaineer Mr Ken Noguchi, the famous journalist
Mr Jun Hiraga from Japan claimed after the research and investigation into the
devastating Seti River flood area that climate change effects was to blame for
the flood.
The team including the two
Nepalese Sirdar Minga Norbu Sherpa and Mingma Adhikari visited the flood
affected area through helicopter for the investigation.
They have claimed that the
massive ice fell about the height of 6,500 m from Annapurna IV (7525m) and
blocked the gorge of Seti River due to which the newly formed river lake
outburst and caused the devastated flood.
The team has claimed there was no
possibility of melting snow in such the massive form though the rising
temperature due to climate change would cause gradual melting of the snow
pieces.
LANDSLIDE LOSSES IN NEPAL
[At the request of a few people, the graph below shows the data for the period 1980 to 2010 inclusive. The solid black line shows the numbers of recorded deaths due to landslides in Nepal
By Dave Petley
For the last decade I have
maintained a database of landslides that cause loss of life in Nepal Bhutan Asia in Petley (2010).
At the request of a few people, the graph below shows the
data for the period 1980 to 2010 inclusive. The solid black line shows the
numbers of recorded deaths due to landslides in Nepal
The graph also shows one other
dataset. This is, in grey, the average monthly precipitation for central Nepal
There are several things to note here. First, all
three datasets show a rising trend with time, though all show considerable
inter-annual variability. The last few years have been noticeably worse
than this before 2000. The period around 2002 was particularly bad – this
is discussed in the paper above. It is interesting to note that average
monthly summer precipitation (rainfall) is also apparently increasing in
central Nepal
Almost all the annual rainfall in Central Nepal
falls in the summer monsoon, which runs June to September in Nepal