Nepalese climbers prepare for risky mission
in face of criticism as death toll on mountain reaches 10 this season
By Michael Safi
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Mount
Everest, centre. More than 380 climbers have reached the summit from
the
south side this season, and at least 120 from the Tibet side.
Photograph:
Tashi Sherpa/AP
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Nepalese climbers are preparing for a risky
mission to retrieve the body of an Indian national who died on Mount Everest at
the weekend, as another rescue team discovered four more bodies on the
mountain.
Ravi Kumar, who was 27, reached Everest’s
summit on Saturday afternoon but died hours later after descending to about
8,400 metres (27,560ft). He was one of four people who died on the mountain at
the weekend, including American doctor Roland Yearwood and Australian climber
Francesco Marchetti.
A further four climbers were discovered dead
in their tents on Wednesday at camp four, at a height of about 7,950 metres, by
a team dispatched to retrieve the body of a Slovakian climber who died on the
mountain on Sunday. Local media said two of the dead were foreign climbers and
two were Nepalese guides.
It was unclear on Wednesday whether the
bodies were from a recent expedition or one whose members had gone missing
during last year’s season and were presumed to have died.
“We tried to check each and every expedition
team [currently on the mountain] but no one has said their members are
missing,” said Gyanendra Shrestha, a Nepalese tourism ministry official.
Kumar’s body was spotted on Monday deep
inside a 200-metre crevasse well into the “death zone”, where oxygen levels
plummet and the risk of altitude sickness is high. Other retrieval missions are
searching for bodies thought to be along known climbing routes.
The chair of the Nepal Mountaineering
Association, Ang Tshering Sherpa, criticised the mission to recover Kumar’s
body. “It’s not just risky, it’s a most dangerous act to try to bring a frozen
dead body from such a dangerous zone,” he said.
Kumar’s body may have accumulated enough ice
to weigh about 130kg, he said, and ferrying such a heavy load at an extreme
height was putting other climbers’ lives at risk.
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“It would have been a different thing if
[Kumar] was alive,” he said. “We should be mindful and not be taking the
decision to get the body from such a danger zone. The family should understand
that.”
The agency that organised Kumar’s climb and
is conducting his retrieval told the Guardian it was undertaking the mission
reluctantly. “It’s too dangerous to recover a body from such a difficult
place,” said Chowang Sherpa, the managing director of Arun Treks.
“There are many bodies of those killed in the
past several years buried in the route of Everest that we haven’t been able to
dig out. This one is more difficult. It’s not on the proper route. It’s in a
steep place.”
He said the mission was being undertaken
under great pressure, including from the Indian embassy in Kathmandu. “The
family has put pressure on us to anyhow bring the body. The family has used
sources like the Indian embassy, which is putting pressure on us,” he said.
“We have been saying that it’s too dangerous
to go to such a difficult place, and we had discussions with the Indian
embassy, but they told us the same.”
Asked why his company did not refuse the
request, he said: “It would not be logical and would show our weakness. So we
are trying at least once, adopting all safety measures and by carrying all gear
that is needed.”
A spokesman for India’s external affairs
ministry confirmed the Indian embassy in Kathmandu had been in touch with the
Sherpa team but said there was “no question of any pressure”.
“How the Sherpas extricate the mortal remains
[of Kumar] is purely their professional call,” the spokesman said.
The spate of deaths this season has fuelled
complaints that standards among climbers and their Nepalese guides are
slipping, leading to preventable deaths.
A veteran mountaineering commentator, Alan
Arnette, said winds near the peak had been extremely strong in recent days, but
it appeared the latest four deaths had been the result of toxic fumes from camping
stoves used inside the climbers’ tent.
“This is not just sad, it is totally
irresponsible – to die from carbon monoxide poisoning is to break a basic rule
of camping,” he wrote on his blog.
“The foreigners paid the ‘guides’ to take
care of them. While I promote self-sufficiency, and will suggest the ‘climbers’
should have also known better, these so-called Sherpa ‘guides’ clearly did not
do their job.”
This year, a record 373 permits were issued
to foreign climbers to reach the summit of Everest from the Nepal side, with a
further 136 granted permission to ascend the north face in Tibet.
The British mountaineer Tim Mosedale said at
the time the combination of potential overcrowding and inexperienced climbers
was a “toxic mix”. He repeated the phrase in a Facebook post on Monday,
criticising the proliferation of cut-price climbing companies in recent years.
Sherpa and Indian-owned climbing firms can
charge $18,000 (£14,000) to guide climbers up Everest, compared with western
companies such as Mosedale’s, which charges $45,000.
“Over the years there has been a huge
dilution in the cumulative experience of staff while at the same time there has
been a net increase in inexperienced or poor expedition providers,” said
Mosedale, who has reached Everest’s summit six times.
“When you combine this with a decline in the
amount of experience of the clients who are accepted on board it’s a worrying
equation.”
More than 380 climbers have reached Everest’s
summit from the south side this season, and at least 120 from the Tibet side.
Last year, five people died trying to climb the mountain and 640 people reached
the summit.
Additional reporting by Ishwar Rauniyar in
Kathmandu