Major avalanche on Everest 2012
A major avalanche has swept the western slopes of Mount Everest at the 28th of April. It injured at least one Sherpa guide and panicked hundreds of climbers trying to reach the world’s highest peak.
The avalanche swept the slopes late in the previous afternoon near the Camp 1 area, about 6,100 meters (20,000 feet) altitude. One Nepalese Sherpa guide was hit by the avalanche and was flown to a hospital in the capital, Katmandu. Namgyal Sherpa (Director of Mountain Consult and Helicopter Rescuer) performed around 16 flights together with Fishtail Air in the last two days…
More information to come soon!
Join our Everest Expedition 2012!
Join Mountain Consult’s upcoming Everest Expedition 2012. This expedition will be guided by Namgyal Sherpa, Mountain Consult owner and one of Nepal’s best Everest Guides, mountaineer and mountain manager who has summited and guided Everest expeditions already 9 times. Besides Everest, Namgyal has been operating high altitude expeditions within the Nepal and Tibetan Himalayas for more than 15 years. Namgyal is a very friendly, charismatic well connected Sherpa with excellent leadership skills and extensive mountaineering knowledge and experience. The expedition is Western led by at least one of Mountain Consults co-owners and high altitude climbers Armand Dirks or Eveline Wessels.
For spring 2012 Mountain Consult has put together another strong and experienced team of climbing Sherpa’s, all with extensive climbing experience on Everest and other 6000, 7000 and 8000 mountains in the Himalayas.
Start date: 1 April 2012 / End date: 5 June 2012 / Summit Pro package / Maximum members: 8 persons / Cost: € 20.000,00
What you need to know: it’s small, professional and environmental friendly
From the beginning we have pushed ourselves to organize our expeditions as environmentally friendly as possible. This means that we only operate in small teams that hardly impact the environment and cooperate as a family. We only use professional equipment used in a very friendly and relaxed base camp setup or high camps, designed to operate without leaving a trace.
The food…, my god!
Mountain Consult’s food menu’s are designed by Eveline Wessels herself, Mountain Consult’s own food scientist and almost professional cook! Eveline and our Sherpa expedition cooks have designed a wide variety of tasty and energetic meals that are well balanced, nutritious and healthy. In case you have special food wishes or demands, you are always able to discuss it with us so we can make arrangements for your specific wishes… It’s also good to know that we love real food! Nice, fresh, organic, local vegetables, fruits, cheeses and meat all from the clean and healthy Sherpa land. Off course we also need a few imported items, but even these are chosen for its quality of health and taste!
Keeping it clean, reducing our impact
The past is gone! While expeditions in the past just left their equipment and food behind in base camps or higher up the mountain, we make sure to bring everything down. No matter if it’s equipment, food, oxygen bottles or even our personal waste. Besides that, we also contribute our share of equipment, man power and money to establish the fixed ropes and to clean up the old ones. Another thing to minimize our impact is the use of solar equipment instead of generators. For us this all is just a very logical thing to do, as we really love to climb in a clean mountain area.
Less is more
Like we said, we only operate with small teams. We truly believe that ‘less is more’. When it concerns safety, overcrowding, atmosphere, personal attention, contact with local people, Sherpa crew and summit success, small groups definitely are in favor. Your chance to stand on the Everest summit in a pleasant way increases in a small team. Smaller teams are more flexible and because of that, better able to make use of the weather windows as they may open quickly and only for a short time. To get the most out of your expedition, we believe that everyone should be able to make a second summit attempt. That’s why we operate our Everest expeditions in 65 days time, we stock our camps with sufficient gas, food and spare equipment and off course enough oxygen, with buy back guarantee!
Climbing Everest at realistic costs
We understand that nobody wants to spend more money than necessary. Any Everest expedition is expensive, no matter how you organize it. There are very expensive and luxurious expeditions, there are very basic, cheaper expeditions. We believe that it’s all about the total climbing experience. The experience should be a safe one, well organized, guided by friendly and experienced people, good equipment and great food in family atmosphere. Off course, this has a certain price, but definitely not the highest! We pay decent salaries to our staff, but we try to keep things realistic as well. We’re not aiming at high profits ourselves, we aim at client satisfaction, at a positive Himalayan experience that will last forever! That’s more important to us than anything else. As climbers ourselves we know exactly how it is…
Everest Base Camp via Gokyo & Cho La
So now and then we publish a new trip! This trip is a great alternative for the normal route to the Everest Base Camp. As you know, Everest base camp is a very inspiring place. It is the starting point for the ascent to the world’s highest mountain. Many people gave their lives to get there, many of them started in this base camp. It is a place of natural power and an emotional and spiritual place of happiness, frustration and sadness. During this journey you trek through the Gokyo valley trek across the Cho La pass to the base camp of Mount Everest. This trek is more demanding than the normal route to Mount Everest, but also much more varied. You climb Gokyo Ri (5357m), visit the Gokyo Lakes, cross the Ngzumpa glacier and Cho La (5420m). After the ascent of Kala Pattar (5554m) and a visit to the Everest Bae Camp we’ll trek back to Lukla and Namche Bazar via the beautiful normal route. An adventurous and challenging variation on the normal route to Everest Base Camp. Highly recommended!
Have a look at our website: http://www.mountainconsult.com/programs/trekking/nepal-gokyo-chola-everest-basecamp-trek.asp
Climbing for Water’s Everest High Tea
Two years ago, Eveline Wessels and Armand Dirks decided to use their climbing expeditions to spread awareness about water problems in mountain areas and the areas downstream. During their last expedition to Lhotse they organized a real High Tea at the Everest South Col (8000m) as a special kickoff event for their 7 Summits for Water project. Mountain Consult is the logistic partner for this kickoff event and for Climbing for Water’s Everest Expedition in 2015 as part of their 7 summits quest. As soon as the expedition is finished we’ll publish some more information and pictures about this special event at our blog!
Indian Jogabyasa Bhoi summits Mount Everest 8848m
Jogabyasa Bhoi, at the right, summited Mount Everest at May 19th at 10.00AM. With this achievement he’s become one of the first Indian climbers of the state of Orissa who stands on the summit of the highest mountain of the world. Congratulations! More info to come soon…
United Paintings in place on summit Mount Everest
Unfortunately, we cannot offer you a witnessing picture of it, but… the United Paintings of American cartoonist Lurie have been put on Mount Everest Summit at 10.00AM at the 19th of May 2011! Congratulations to all who have been involved in this great achievement. More info to come asap.
United Paintings on their way to Everest summit
15 May 2011, the already famous art pieces of the American cartoonist Lurie are on their way to the Everest Summit. The art pieces with a weight of around 17kg are carried by three Sherpa’s led by Namgyal Sherpa who summited Everest already 8 times. The summit day is set on 19 May if the weather and the mountain allows it. More info to come soon…
DNA research at Mount Everest
Mountain Consult researches the present situation of dead bodies on Mount Everest. As there has been a lot of discussion about the number of dead bodies on its holy slopes, another question mark is: which body belongs to who? Mountain Consult was asked to make a map of the bodies on the mountain and if possible to bring down DNA samples… More information to come…
Everest Season 2011 has started!
As you may have guessed, yes, the Everest season has started and we’re already in the base camp to setup camps… We’ll be leaving from Kathmandu soon, too.
It’s a busy start of the year with several great treks, varying from Manaslu and the Annapurna’s to Mera Peak and Api. Then the weather is just great and it’s getting warmer quickly now. In short, it’s gonna be a great season! Join us! http://amplify.com/u/bwkf3
How dirty is Everest? The Everest Clean up Debate
A debate about dirty mountains is a good thing. And no, Everest is not the only mountain with rubbish in the world, the problem well spread.
As the highest mountain in the world, Everest will always get more attention than others. So Everest is chosen to be cleaned, more than others. Some expeditions just do it to get attention and funding to climb it, others really try to do something good. It’s easy to question all these initiatives, and perhaps, the money spend by climbers to climb a mountain, could be spend more wisely. But if we raise that question, then everything we do for our own entertainment can be questioned isn’t it? Where do we draw the line then?
I personally don’t think that it’s a good idea to say to climbers: “don’t climb anymore because you destroy the mountain”. I think it’s better to get a dialogue started about how the climbing community could minimize their impact and perhaps, spread awareness about even more important issues and raise money to support local problems. If a team of Everest climbers is able to get funding for this, then that might be a good thing. Even if personal interest get mixed up. Or does it makes some of us jealous because we spend so much private money on our own expeditions?
Anyway, there are many people trying to do something good. Perhaps the road to perfection is difficult and unclear, but at least there are some people trying to make the world a better place. Let’s not just drop a few firm and populist phrases here, it’s better to start a real dialogue! We all know the famous words of our favorite Asian philosopher: “every journey of a thousand miles, starts with a single step”. Let’s just do that and keep this dialogue going…
More info? See: http://www.muchbetteradventures.com/news/view/168/how-dirty-is-everest-the-everest-clean-up-debate
Press release Everest Cleaning Project 2010
A short summary of 2 months carrying down garbage by our Sherpa team during the Mt Everest clean up expedition last Spring…!
What’s upcoming…?
While most Everest summitters around the Globe are slowly getting back to their ‘normal’ life again, the organizers of the EEE cleaning expedition are still fulltime occupied with their successful expedition last spring. Coming Friday a press conference is scheduled to share their results, past and coming activities with us all.
In the mean time 60 pictures of the clean up activities have been selected which will be exhibited next month in one of Kathmandu’s major art galleries. Apart from that, Nepali artists and 1 French artist have started to blossom their creativity to make something extraordinary of the garbage that was brought back to Kathmandu. Their ‘rubbish art’ 
will be available to show from coming November. For those who are in Kathmandu this November, come and have a look…! (address details will follow)
Clean up Expedition in Dutch paper
Barely landed in Holland a Dutch newspaper called to write and publish an article about the cleaning expedition Namgyal has organized last spring.
For those who can read Dutch, have a nice read! For those who can’t, it also contains some of our pictures NRCNext_0610
Age limits for climbing Mt Everest
Recent summit attempts of teenagers have caused a lot of debate in the climbing community. In 2001, sixteen year old Temba Tseri Sherpa (Nepali boy) became the youngest climber to summit Everest, although he lost a few fingers and toes because of frostbite. Last spring (May 2010) the record was taken by Jordan Romero, who ascended World’s highest mountain at the age of 13!
As a response to the tendence of taking very young climbers above the Death Zone (plans were already there to bring a 11-year old next spring), the China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) has issued new regulations since 2 weeks for climbing Mt Everest. As from June 10th (2010), two age limits will be set to climb Everest from the north side: a minimum age of 18, and a max of 60. Exceptions can be made for climbers providing positive medical records but 16 will still be the absolute lowest limit according to CTMA.
The CTMA’s decision was welcomed by the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), who already set a minimum age of 16 after Temba’s summit push. In Nepal the maximum age to climb Everest is not restricted.
Pro or con? Let us know…
Garbage well delivered in Kathmandu
Some time has passed, so several updates to give you!
The second team indeed summited May 23rd, while sweeping many Kgs of mainly old rope, tents and oxygen cylinders. In total 1800kg has been brought down to the BC, apart from the 2 dead bodies which were brought to and picked up at camp 2.
Of this pile of garbage, 1000kg of disposable rubbish has been left in Namche where it will be processed. The remaining 800kg has been flown back to Kathmandu last week.
Interesting detail… May 29 the Hillary-Tenzing marathon has been held; all the way from BC to Namche. Several runners did show their valuable support to this clean up expedition by taking a special designed bag with them, loaded with 2 kg of ‘our’ garbage. Two of our Sherpas (Pasang C and Kurma) even joined these running heroes, showing that they are real athletes… They were actually the only two who had ‘ran’ from 8848m all the way to Namche ! So from here, we would like to thank all ‘garbage pickers’ for their prestige!
The coming weeks art students will make some interesting pieces and creatures of these materials and exhibit the result in a local gallery. We’ll keep you updated where you have to go!
Also, 100 pictures of the expedition and rubbish will be shown at an exhibition soon from now. The exact dates and location… you still get it from us.
First steps towards Everest BC
Stuck at the national airport for 30hours, we finally were able to fly to Lukla; the main start of expeditions and trekkings in the Khumbu/Everest region. Starting to feel very unlucky at that time, we now can say that we must have been very happy to actually have been able to fly, finally! All our possible flights were cancelled, some of them while boarding (how demotivating…) because of too much wind, cloudy weather, a nonfunctioning radar system and a broken antenna. Not a good thing if you ask me… !
, although it’s everything but a burden to have to be around here, mandatory! Besides learning to breath again, these weeks will be used to spread the word for the activities of the Climbing for Water Foundation (www.climbingforwater.org / http://climbingforwater.blogspot.com ).Some numbers for this Spring climbing season!
In total 547 persons (480 men and 67 women) have received permits to attempt 21 peaks above 5647m.
Among them:
- Adopted from the Kathmandu Post, April 8th 2010
First Sherpa team summited!
The first Sherpa team summited Mount Everest yesterday, 22 May 2010. Among the summiters was Namgyal Sherpa, project leader of the clean up expedition, setting his total at 8 times.
The second Sherpa team is heading to the summit today, after which both teams will go up again to retrieve an enormous quanitity of oxygen bottles and old ropes.
More details to come soon!
Bodies & garbage below 8000m
Climbing Mount Everest is a physical and mental game. Even when you’re able to cope with the daily physical challenges of climbing at extreme altitudes, you’re still depending on uncontrollable aspects as ‘weather’. As you might know, the summit of Mount Everest lies within the infamous Jet Stream, which is a constant hurricane wind force of around 118 Miles per hour at 4 – 6 miles above the earth. When the Jet Stream is blowing on Mount Everest’s summit, a long stream of ice crystals forms the characteristic white plume from the tip of the mountain. If you really wish to stand on the summit, you have to choose your moment very carefully, until the monsoon pushes the jet stream away. Lucky for us all, the weather window has existed on Everest with great consistently for many years. The length of this opportunity can vary, though. In some cases the duration is a about 2-4 days while in others years it can last a much preferred two weeks from mid to the end of May.
Now back to the expedition!
Weather forecasts have been predicting the weather window to open, which in fact was true, although it just lasted for two days somewhere around the 10th of May. A few ‘lucky’ or very wise climbers went for the summit and actually succeeded. In the mean time the Sherpas where still preparing camps up to the south col. They also made preparations to bring down some dead bodies. Well, especially this caused some very mixed feelings within expedition outfitters and members in the base camp. As the expedition organizers repeatedly put in the media that they planned to bring down the bodies of famous climbers like Scott Fisher and Rob Hall, even without agreement of the relatives, some people got a bit frustrated and nervous. Tension in base camp! In the end, the Sherpas only made preparations to bring down the Swiss climber Gianni Goltz who died on the mountain in 2009. In the mean time, the Russion climber Serguey Duganov died May, 7 2010 at 7800m during his descent of Lhotse. Again, the Sherpas were requested to bring down this body, which they did after negotiating with the expedition outfitter and the insurance company. As you can guess, it’s a risky and costly operation, which almost made some new victims during the operation. Finally, both bodies where brought down by a team of 8 and 10 Sherpas to camp 2, from where a special Fishtail helicopter is to pickup the bodies and bring them further down. A third body that was found near base camp was identified as a missing Sherpa who died in 2009. His remains have been brought down to Gorak Shep for his delayed funeral.
Besides bringing down the bodies, the team has also decided to collect garbage below 8000m. About 600-800kg has been brought down to display in the base camp. Although this was not the goal of this expedition, it’s just incredible to see how much garbage has been left in the base camp and especially around camp 2. There’s enough garbage for cleaning expeditions for the coming 50 years!!! It’s just a big mess of old ropes, broken tents, tins, ladders, clothes, shoes, old food, wrappings, sun creams, gas cylinders, stoves, pans, human waste, etc, etc. Most of the garbage has been thrown in crevasses to get them out of sight, however, as more snow and ice is melting, the garbage simply appears again, creating a very sad sight of our expedition history.
Then what is happening right now?
Up till now, the weather has just not been good enough to climb to the summit and to bring down the garbage above 8000m. In fact there have been some fierce, short storms, destroying tents in base camp, camp 2 and camp 3, leaving some teams with even more work.
It seems that May 17 might offer a small and difficult opportunity, but it’s likely that most expeditions will wait for a longer window to open from 21th of May up to 26th of May. As a result, so many climbers at the same time may cause problems below and above the Hillary Step. Even more when old ropes have to be cut and brought down. Let’s see what happens…
Project Push
On week further since the last update, but project wise suddenly we’re much further.
It was badly needed though; several proceedings stopped or were canceled.
There have been negotiations with a TV channel, specifically focused on Everest news, to make an appealing documentary to broadcast the piece to at least 15 countries. Potentially very interesting of course for both parties… However the negotiations finally collapsed on (what’s new) money. During the project a lot of parties, organizations, NGOs and individuals were positive after being consulted to sponsor. Some became very inspired and excited to cooperate or even had approached the team themselves to get involved. However, when it comes to payments, it’s peoples nature to become less and less enthousiatic, like the exciting thrill is suddenly gone. We’ve seen and still experience this most of the time and start to get used to it. Nothing is final, up to the first paisas, unfortunately!
The coming 72hours will be very important for the breakthrough of this Clean up Expedition Project.
The project have been waiting for a very long time to get support from the Ministery of Tourism; a major prerequisit for the main sponsors to secure their support. Quite a struggle! Although always to be expected, it still surprising how much urge for power and individual visibility is involved, even in these kind of charity programs (or maybe better to say especially!). Anyway, although not completely confirmed, the Ministery has agreed to proceed in their support (yes, step by step, little by little; it tests your patience ).
Anyway, the main sponsors have now agreed to start their first payments these days. Excellent news, since many equipment and services for which deposits were paid, can now be finally collected/arranged and paid off. It enables the team to send the first 1000kg to Lukla already early this week.
At this moment we are waiting with 4 persons to fly to Lukla, to secure the first arrangements. Have been hanging around unsuccessfully at the national airport already the entire day yesterday, and continue hoping, reading, even more reading today. Hope to bring you the next news for a higher altitude!
Also upcoming is the press conference for this Clean up initiative. Already scheduled for weeks before, but now ready for the Big Bang… To be expected Tuesday; stay connected!
Everything packed for Everest!
I’ll give you some… 
Nepal against China…
Correct, it’s all about Mt Everest, laying at the border of Nepal and Tibet. And since Tibet has been ‘mastered’ by China… at the border of China as well. The discussion is all about the height of this giant, goddess and gold mine as well.
Quite simple; China is measuring the rock height, while Nepal is targeting at rock + snow height!
The question remains…. Who is right here…? You tell me… At least both countries now accepted eachothers measurements and vision. However, they still didn’t come to an agreement which height will be adopted by both of them. That will probably take another 10 years, or more !!!
– Adopted from the Kathmandu Post, April 8th 2010
Base camp blues…
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Eveline Wessels
