The highs and lows

“No part of the South Col route was feared more by the climbers than the Icefall... the mass of ice splinters into a jumble of huge tottering blocks called seracs, some as large as office buildings... each trip through the Icefall was like playing a round of Russian Roulette: sooner or later any given serac was going to fall over without warning” — John Krakauer in Into Thin Air

One sunny day in June 1922, George Mallory from the second British Everest expedition was leading a team of climbers and Sherpas up to the North Col of Everest. Around 600 feet below the Col, the slope suddenly gave way without any warning and within seconds seven Sherpas had lost their lives. None of the Britishers died in the avalanche. The expedition leader, Colonel Bruce, paid ₹250 each as compensation to the families of the dead.

On April 18, 2014, just after dawn, another avalanche swept down the west shoulder of Everest and entombed 13 Sherpas along with three climbers from the Tamang, Gurung and Khatri communities in the Khumbu icefall. Part of a team of ‘icefall doctors’, they were maintaining the route, a job which Outside magazine claimed was 12 times more dangerous than fighting in the Iraq war. This was the worst disaster in the history of the Everest. Compared to foreign clients who would possibly pass through the deadly icefall a few times, a Sherpa makes around 30 terrifying trips throughout the climbing season.

Two days later, after receiving news that the Nepal government would pay only $400 each to the families as funeral expenses, the Sherpas went on strike, en-masse. The irate men made a 13-point charter of demands, including increasing funeral expenses to $1,000 per family, $10,000 for disabled climbing Sherpas, doubling of insurance to $20,000 and a permanent relief fund for the injured from the Everest fees collected by the government.

The disparity in pay between the Western guides and the Sherpas has also been a bone of contention for the community. The Sherpas earn up to $6,000 or so for an Everest expedition, whereas a Western guide is paid three to four times more. Ed Viesturs, one of the few men to have climbed all the 14 peaks of over 8,000 metres, said, “They should be paid what they think they are worth, and if it means significantly increasing the cost per climber and less people go to Everest, maybe that’s not a bad thing.” There seems to be wisdom in Viesturs words considering most of the difficult jobs like maintaining the icefall route, fixing ropes, carrying heavy loads from camp to camp, rescue operations, usually at night, are done by Sherpas, who often climb in the rarefied ‘death zone’ without bottled oxygen.

After some of the demands were considered by the government, climbing teams were looking to return to the mountain, when a series of unsavoury events unfolded at the Base Camp. Certain militant Sherpa factions with possible political patronage threatened climbers and Sherpas planning to go back, even as the Nepalese Tourism Minister, Bhim Acharya, arrived at Base Camp, oxygen mask in hand, to assure them that the mountain was “officially open”. Tim Mosedale, who was a leading a small team at the time said, “a tale of intimidation, lies and deceit unfolded,” forcing many to head down to Kathmandu.

Sadly, the spring season of 2014 has now come to an end, shattering the ‘Everest dream’ of hundreds of climbers. But, more importantly, the safety of the South Col route seems to be in question 61 years after it was first conquered by Hillary and Tenzing.

Tim Rippel, who leads the well-known company Peak Freaks, commented after fresh avalanches hit the same Khumbu area where the men were killed, “What I’m seeing here is exactly why we no longer climb Ama Dablam and Pumori (neighbouring peaks). We no longer climb those mountains due to global warming, the ice is melting — the glue that holds them together.” Could climate change render Everest from the south unclimbable?

With the possibility that more climbing teams would try from the north side of the mountain in 2015, the multi-billion dollar Everest industry in Nepal seems threatened. The government has been raking in sky-high revenues from Everest every year. Hence permits to most commercial expeditions have been granted freely, resulting in overcrowding, including human jams on the Lhotse Face and a major bottleneck on the Hillary Step, compromising the safety of climbers and Sherpas. The obvious solution is to restrict the permits in a season and perhaps, raise the fees per team so Nepal wouldn’t lose revenue. But nature has its way of restoring equilibrium. Also, given the safety issues and the 2014 shutdown, one may well see fewer applications for South Col next year, notwithstanding China’s uncertain permit policy for attempts from the north side.

Expedition leaders have proposed that teams be allowed to airlift equipment and supplies to Camp One on the edge of the Western Cwm, so that frequent load ferrying through the Khumbu icefall can be avoided. There was also a proposal to install a ladder on Hillary Step to ease traffic jams in the ‘death zone’. It remains to be seen if these measures are introduced in the 2015 season, distasteful as they may seem to the purists.

But in this big, expensive circus on Everest, it is apparent that the true essence of mountaineering was lost years ago. Guided expeditions have created a new breed of climbers for whom reaching the summit is the ultimate goal at any cost. But the mountains have their own way of striking back.

Sujoy Das is a Kolkata-based photographer and founder of South Col Expeditions

COMMENT NOW