[At least 11 people died trying to reach the summit of the world’s tallest mountain this year, the deadliest climbing season for the peak in four years. One factor contributing to this year’s toll appears to have been crowding as scores of people attempted to ascend in a short window of good weather, producing delays that extended the time climbers spent at deadly altitudes.]
By Ankit Adhikari and Joanna Slater
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Dozens
of climbers line up to stand at the summit of Mount Everest. (Handout /
@nimsdai
Project Possible/AFP/Getty Images)
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KATHMANDU,
Nepal — Chatur Tamang was on
his way to the roof of the world when he hit a traffic jam.
Ahead of him, on the final ascent to Mount
Everest, he saw more than 100 people bunched together on the narrow ridge that
leads to the summit — a place so high that it is known as the “death zone,”
where the human body has trouble functioning.
Some of those descending from the summit
pleaded desperately with those ascending to clear a way for them to pass since
they had run out of oxygen. “That sent chills down my spine,” said Tamang, 45,
a mountaineering guide who lives in Russia. He fears that if no action is
taken, the crowds next year could be worse, with potentially fatal
consequences.
At
least 11 people died trying to reach the summit of the world’s tallest mountain
this year, the deadliest climbing season for the peak in four years. One factor
contributing to this year’s toll appears to have been crowding as scores of
people attempted to ascend in a short window of good weather, producing delays
that extended the time climbers spent at deadly altitudes.
Now officials in Nepal are reviewing whether
to change the way access to Everest works. Some experts say that the government
should extend the climbing season in May or implement certain requirements for
climbers, a number of whom lack experience or sign on with companies offering
bargain-priced expeditions.
Nirmal Purja, an accomplished climber who is
attempting to summit 14 peaks worldwide within seven months, was on his way
down from the summit at Everest when he decided to stop and photograph the
scene behind him. It was unusually cold, he said, and extraordinarily crowded.
“I’ve seen traffic, but not this crazy,” said
Purja, who has summited Everest four times. Purja is among those who believe
that the solution is to lengthen the traditional climbing season at Everest to
spread out the climbers attempting to reach the summit.
The Nepali government granted 381 permits to
climb the mountain this year, a record. At least double that number of people
were on the mountain, since the figure does not include guides. Because of the
crowds, some climbers took longer than normal to make their way up the
mountain. One of them was Nihal Bhagwan, a 27-year old Indian man who died of
dehydration, exhaustion and high-altitude sickness, said Keshav Paudel of Peak
Promotions, the expedition company guiding Bhagwan’s trip.
Bhagwan spent two days each at two
intermediary points on the climb, said Paudel, though he should have spent only
one at each place. Already weak when he climbed to the summit, Bhagwan became
totally depleted while descending, said Paudel, who attributed his death both
to the traffic and extreme exhaustion. Others who died this year while climbing
from the Nepali side included two other Indians, two Britons, two Irish
citizens and two Americans — Don Cash of Utah and Christopher Kulish, a
62-year-old attorney from Boulder, Colo., who died Monday. Two others died
while attempting the Tibetan route, according to Reuters news agency.
Some
involved in the trekking business said what had unfolded on Everest this year
was not abnormal and was a reminder of the deadly stakes involved. “If you are
setting out on an Everest expedition, it is no less than heading for a war,”
said Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks. Climbing Everest is like “attaining
the highest pilgrimage,” he continued, and sometimes delays are unavoidable.
“It is just like waiting for your turn outside a temple.”
Others saw the traffic as an indication of
how climbing Everest has become a commodity, drawing inexperienced
thrill-seekers and polluting the mountain with garbage. Seeing the
“anxiety-inducing conga line in the death zone,” it is “not only dread you
sense, but hubris, too,” Peter Beaumont
wrote in the Guardian. Climbing the world’s tallest peak “has become a trophy
experience.”
But Nepali officials are reluctant to curb
the number of climbers, who are also an important source of revenue for the
country.
“The government cannot just say no to the
tourists who come to ask for permits,” said Meera Acharya, director at the
Department of Tourism with responsibility for mountaineering. “Personally, I
feel that it is not as much about the number of permits as what kind of
climbers we are issuing the permits to.” After this year’s expeditions
conclude, Acharya said, officials would analyze the data and determine how to
move forward.
“The mountain is for every human being,” said
Purja, the climber attempting to summit 14 of the world’s highest peaks. But it
has “to be managed properly.”
Slater reported from New Delhi.
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