[Climbers posted firsthand accounts
of being infected, but officials in Nepal, which relies on tourism revenue,
dismissed them as rumors.]
By Bhadra Sharma and Emily Schmall
At 17,590 feet, his symptoms
quickly worsened. The expedition company that had hired Mr. Sherpa to help a
Bahraini prince climb Everest had him airlifted to a hospital in the capital,
Kathmandu, where he tested positive for the coronavirus.
He spent a week at the hospital and
six days at home, and then was back at base camp. Experienced guides like him
from Nepal’s high-mountain-dwelling Sherpa community were in short supply
because of the pandemic, and the expedition company stood to lose thousands of
dollars if the prince’s climb were canceled.
So, with his body still fighting
the vestiges of the virus, Mr. Sherpa, 38, most likely became the first person
with Covid-19 to stand on Everest’s pinnacle when he led the prince and 15
others there at dawn on May 11. By the end of the climbing season early this
month, at least 59 infected people had been on the mountain, including five
others who reached the top, according to interviews with climbers and
expedition companies and the personal accounts of social media users.
“Were Sherpas and climbers
supermen?” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, a former president of the Nepal
Mountaineering Association. “This issue deserves in-depth research.”
But according to the Nepal
government, there was never any Covid-19 on Everest. Tourism officials
dismissed the accounts of climbers, calling one a pneumonia patient. Coughing, they added, is nothing new in
the dry mountain air.
Nepal’s tourism department, which
oversees Everest expeditions, maintained this position even as people were
being airlifted off the mountain and expeditions were being canceled — a rare
event because of the great expense and effort made to train, travel to Nepal
and try to summit Everest.
In April, a Norwegian climber,
Erlend Ness; a British climber, Steve Davis; and others wrote on social media
about having Covid-19 during their Everest expeditions.
“From 2 hospitals last 3 days.
Today I will have a PCR test. Hope to leave the hospital soon,” Mr. Ness wrote on Facebook, posting a photo of himself in a mask in
a hospital bed.
Nepal, one of the world’s poorest
countries, has been struggling with a dire
coronavirus outbreak and a shortage
of vaccines. Few Sherpas or other Nepalis had access to vaccines while the
climbing season was underway; even now, as the government pleads
with wealthy nations for doses, less than 3 percent of the population has
been fully inoculated.
Officials had strong incentives to
play down the Covid situation on Everest. Nepal closed its peaks in 2020
because of the pandemic, after bringing in more than $2 billion from climbing
and trekking in 2019. If the Covid-19 cases were publicized, it could tarnish
Nepal’s image as a tourist destination, and invite climbers whose expeditions
were canceled to demand extensions of their climbing permits.
Still, with this year’s climbing
season now over, more expedition agencies are acknowledging that Covid-19
infections were rampant in the crowded base camp, which drew a record 408
foreign climbers this year. The true number of cases could be far higher than
59, since expedition organizers, doctors and climbers themselves said they were
pressured to hide infections.
The Nepal government had made some
preparation to avoid infections on the mountain. It instituted testing, mask and
social-distancing requirements, stationed medical personnel at the Everest base
camp and had helicopters ready to swoop in and pick up infected climbers.
Expedition companies, which often
bring their own medical personnel, also packed antigen kits, testing members of
their groups regularly and isolating anyone who tested positive.
Given that all climbers had to test
negative before starting the trek to base camp, it is likely that most of those
with Covid-19 became infected while on the mountain, though it is possible that
some arrived with infections that were not initially detected.
There were compelling reasons for
expedition companies to proceed with climbs, even as the first coronavirus
cases were reported at base camp from the last week of April to the first week
of May.
They had laid out more than 60
percent of their budgets. The government of Nepal had received $4.6 million in
royalties. Sherpas and support staff were deployed. Ropes were soon to be fixed
in place. Food, cooking gas and other supplies had been hauled up by workers
and yaks to the makeshift city of colorful tents where climbers stay for 40
days, allowing their lungs to adjust to the altitude and waiting for a window
of clear weather to make the ascent.
Multiple Sherpas and expedition
companies interviewed by The New York Times said that at least three or four
people from each expedition group were eventually infected during their stay at
base camp.
Lukas Furtenbach of Furtenbach
Adventures, which canceled its expedition, sending climbers back to Kathmandu
before they could attempt to summit Everest, estimated that the tally was far
higher than The Times’s count.
His company’s expedition ended
after an American climber and three Sherpa guides were evacuated from base camp
to the capital, where they were hospitalized for Covid-19. Mr. Furtenbach has
written to Nepal’s tourism department requesting that the government extend his
climbers’ permits by two years.
Rudra Singh Tamang, the director
general of the tourism department, said he had no information about Mr.
Furtenbach’s appeal or those of other expedition agencies sent to his office to
extend climbing permits.
“We can’t just extend climbing
permits on basis of Covid rumors,” Mr. Tamang said.
“Whether their expeditions were
canceled because of Covid-19 or not, that should be examined,” he said.
With very few Sherpas having been
vaccinated when they arrived at base camp, dozens contracted Covid-19. Some
were airlifted out. Others isolated in their pup tents and climbed to higher
camps after recovering.
Phunuru Sherpa of International
Mountain Guides said 10 Sherpa guides on his team fell sick with Covid-19.
Of the more than 400 foreign
climbers attempting to scale Everest, almost half abandoned their expeditions,
either because of Covid-19 infections or because of a cyclone that caused
snowstorms in the Himalayas.
Scott Simper, a climber from Utah
who lives in New Zealand, reached Everest’s peak on May 11, according to his
wife, Anna Keeling, a mountain guide.
“He didn’t know he had Covid on the
mountain,” she said. Mr. Simper learned of his infection only after testing
positive days later in Kathmandu, where his expedition company quarantined him
at a hotel for 12 days. His wife said he was still recovering from the disease.
Mr. Ness, the Norwegian climber who
described his bout with Covid-19 on social media, was airlifted from base camp
to a hospital in Kathmandu. Doctors advised him not to return to the mountain,
so he flew home to Norway. The Everest expedition had taken three years to plan
and cost him $40,000, plus hospital fees in Nepal. He does not expect to get
any money back.
Mario Celinic of Croatia said he
tested positive at Everest base camp. He had trained for Everest for four
years, climbing some of the world’s other highest peaks. Suffering no symptoms,
he decided to proceed to the top.
“‘You have Covid and you must be
careful,’ this came into my mind, because Covid affects the lungs and that
would be difficult to breathe above 8,000 meters’ altitude,” he said.
“That mountain is like a beautiful
flower that will kill you anytime. It attracts you. You must come, you are
admired. And when you go up to 8,000 meters, you are completely helpless.
Whatever the mountain decides, that will be your fate,” Mr. Celinic said.
