Climbing Everest? Come back later, it’s peak time
WAITING patiently in single file, exhausted and within touching distance of their goal, hundreds of climbers this week became stuck for hours in a human traffic jam near the summit of the world’s highest peak.
Mount Everest recorded what is thought to have been one of its busiest days on Wednesday, as 200 to 300 mountaineers used a window of good weather to push for the summit.
The combination of clear conditions and Everest’s increasingly congested slopes combined to leave them stuck in a tailback for hours at high altitude. Photographs of the scene showed a solid line of climbers waiting for their turn to reach the 8,848m (29,030ft) peak. The congestion was blamed for two climbers dying after a lengthy wait at more than 8,000m.
The situation led Ben Fogle, the TV presenter and adventurer who climbed the mountain last year and is UN patron of the wilderness, to say: “Nepal and Tibet/china need to limit the number of climbers with a London Marathon-style lottery for climbing permits.”
Donald Lynn Cash, 55, an American, and Anjali Kulkarni, also 55, died while descending after reaching the top on Wednesday.
Thupden Sherpa, manager of Mrs Kulkarni’s expedition agency, told The Kathmandu Post she died of “exhaustion”.
“Anjali and her husband were forced to wait for hours to reach the summit as there was a long queue,” he said. The couple reached the summit, but had become exhausted in the process.
The deaths came a day after officials claimed the problem had been eased by setting up a timetable for climbers. Above 8,000m is known as the Death Zone due to low oxygen levels.
‘Nepal and Tibet/china need to limit the number of climbers with a London Marathonstyle lottery for permits’