Icefall doctors refuse to repair Everest route
Climbing the Mount Everest from the Nepal side is as good as over this season with the Sherpas deciding against repairing the route damaged by an avalanche triggered by the April 25 earthquake.
On Tuesday, the group responsible for maintaining the route till Camp II (6,500 m) advised the government and other stakeholders not to take further risks by continuing climbing this season.
“The risk of setting a route in this current situation can’t be taken,” the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) stated in a release after conducting a survey at the Everest Base Camp and Khumbu Icefall.
This will be the second consec- utive season climbing has been affected on the world’s highest peak. Last year’s spring climbing was abandoned after 16 Sherpa guides died in an avalanche.
Eighteen people, including four climbers and two trekkers from US, China, Japan, Australia and 14 Sherpa guides, had died when an avalanche triggered by the quake hit the base camp. The avalanche had damaged the camp as well as the approach route to the peak of the Everest.
The Icefall doctors, Sherpas who maintain the route and put up ropes and ladders for climbers, carried a survey after the avalanche and concluded it would take at least two weeks to repair the route.
“Given the narrow window of time before rising temperatures and early monsoon weather conditions make Everest climbing impossible, it seems unlikely that the route can be set in time to enable summits,” the release said.
Lack of resources to set the route following damage to a section of the base camp in the avalanche, paucity of personnel and time needed to carry out the task are reasons the SPCC gives for inability to repair the route.
However, the Nepal government has decided not to officially call off climbing this season.