The fact that two experienced climbers died near the summit of Everest last week is sad but unsurprising. As Alan Arnette pointed out, expeditions on the Nepal side of the mountain alone have been averaging almost four deaths a year since the turn of the century. But the situation this year is a little more fraught, with a severe wave of coronavirus ripping through Nepal and a worsening outbreak at Everest Base Camp.
Authorities in Nepal were quick to dismiss any link between the deaths and the virus. “Reaching to that height is impossible if someone is infected with the COVID,” the director general of Nepal’s tourism department, Rudra Singh Tamang, told the
The mountaineers ready and waiting to climb Everest, despite the dangers
After Nepal tentatively reopened its borders to trekkers, the first case of Covid-19 reached Everest Base Camp last week
Covid adds another complication to scaling Everest, but climbers remain undeterred
Credit: Getty
On the face of things, trekking in Nepal should be an ideal activity for the Covid age. It’s outdoors, in the open air. It takes place in a remote wilderness. And if you avoid the main trails and trek outside of the peak pre-winter trekking season, it’s possible to put whole valleys between yourself and the nearest human being.
Ueli Steck ascending Annapurna in the Himalayan mountains.
In 1990, Slovenian mountaineer Tomo Äesen claimed to have scaled the south face of Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world. It was declared the greatest feat ever seen in Himalayan mountaineering, but he warned that he had no photos to prove it. Soon afterward, however, he provided some snapshots â stolen from fellow climbers who had tried to conquer this slope years earlier.
In 2015, French researcher Rodolphe Popier managed to reveal a second lie by the Slovenian: photos taken with a telephoto lens by a friend of Äesenâs were not shot at base camp on the south face of Lhotse but elsewhere.
Shashwat Pant
April 4, 2021
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Bierling with Hawley at her apartment. Photo: Karin Steinbach
It is that time of the year for Billi Bierling, the managing director of the Himalayan Database. With Nepal’s mountaineering season commencing, Bierling and her small team have a lot on their plate. Meeting climbers before their expedition, talking to agencies and finding out who is coming to climb what mountain in the Himalayas is an everyday affair for Bierling.
She joined the institute in 2004 because she has a love for the mountains, but little did she know that the Himalayan Database, which she joined help the late Elizabeth Hawley, would become such a major part of her life.