Climate change, crowding hit Mt Everest
First death of climbing season reported, while experts warn Khumbu glacier is retreating
As climbers begin to reach the summit of Mount Everest, some veterans are avoiding the Nepali side of the world’s highest peak because melting ice and crowds have made its famed Khumbu Icefall too dangerous.
Not far from the safety of the Everest Base Camp, the icefall is a climber’s first real test: a treacherous 700-metre stretch of ice with shifting crevasses that has claimed the lives of about a quarter of those who have died on the Nepali side of the mountain, including 16 Nepali guides in 2014.
A sherpa guide who went missing four days ago on Everest is presumed dead, Nepali officials said yesterday, the first feared fatality of the climbing season on the world’s highest mountain.
Lama Babu Sherpa reached the summit with a team of climbers and other guides on Monday, but became separated from the group as they descended and has not been seen since.
Several veteran climbers and well-respected Western climbing companies have moved their expeditions to the northern side of the mountain in Tibet in recent years, saying rising temperatures and inexperienced climbers have made the icefall more vulnerable.
Avalanche risk
Research by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development shows that the Khumbu glacier is retreating at an average of 20 metres per year, raising the risk of avalanche. A sharp increase in the number of “hobby climbers” aspiring to climb Everest and local companies catering to their comfort at cheaper cost than Western firms is adding to overcrowding woes.
“The risks are higher when 99 per cent of climbers are going up as tourists,” said Reinhold Messner, an Italian climber who was the first to ascend Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen.