Scaling Mount Everest is always dangerous, but expedition organizers have said that a combination of extreme weather, corner-cutting on safety, and inexperienced and “impatient” foreign climbers has resulted in one of the peak’s deadliest mountaineering seasons.
As the last search-and-rescue teams hang up their boots, and the tent city at base camp packs up for the year, expert climbers said several of the 17 people killed or missing and presumed dead this season could have avoided disaster.
“This season was very bad overall,” said Imagine Nepal Trek and Expedition organizer Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, whose team was responsible for opening the route to the summit.
Photo: AFP
“The main reason is that the weather was extremely cold ... but there was also carelessness,” he said.
Higher death numbers were recorded in past seasons, but those tolls included several killed in single large-scale disasters.
In 2014, 16 Nepalese guides were killed by an avalanche, with climbing closed for the rest of the season.
The deadliest season was in 2015, when at least 18 people died in an earthquake that also killed about 9,000 people across Nepal.
This season, 12 people died and five others went missing.
Ten of them were foreigners, the highest such toll on record, as well as seven Nepalese: guides, mountain workers and a climber.
About five climbers die each year on the oxygen-starved paths to the 8,849m icy peak.
Some have said too many foreign mountaineers are ill-prepared for what remains a major test of body and soul.
Nepal issued a record 478 permits for foreign clients this season, with about 600 climbers and guides reaching the top, prompting some to suggest there is a need to cut numbers.
The guides said the mountain was the coldest they have ever experienced, with freezing temperatures far lower than usual adding to the danger.
“It should already have been warm, around minus-28°C,” Mingma Gyalje Sherpa said. “This year it was even down to minus-40°C.”
Climate change is dramatically altering weather patterns and causing extreme fluctuations in temperature, but scientists caution against linking individual events directly to global heating without evidence.
Three of Mingma Gyalje Sherpa’s route-opening team — Dawa Tseri, Pemba Tenzing and Lakpa Rita Sherpa — died after falling off ropes at Camp 2 when a serac ice block fell and buried them in the Khumbu icefall.
As the season progressed, more climbers died or were reported missing in the icy heights.
Several others suffered frostbite and infections related to high-altitude pulmonary edema, when liquid accumulates in air spaces of the lungs.
The freezing weather and high winds meant many Nepalese guides and porters suffered frostbite early in the season, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa said.
That had a knock-on effect, especially for equipping higher-altitude camps.
“It meant that Camp 4 was not prepared enough and not all supplies reached there ... but clients were impatient and climbing began,” he said.
“I think some of the casualties could have been prevented if all the supplies were there,” he added.
The rapid growth of the climbing industry has created fierce competition among companies for business, raising fears that some are cutting corners on safety.
Austria-based Furtenbach Adventures founder Lukas Furtenbach said that a majority of the deaths could have been avoided “with mandatory safety standards.”
“These accidents do all have a similar pattern,” Furtenbach said.
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