83-year-old to scale Everest for 2nd time

83-year-old to scale Everest for 2nd time

If everything goes well with 83-year-old Min Bahadur Serchan, he will be retaining his title of the ‘oldest man’ on the top of Mount Everest in the Guinness World Record.

Sherchan_to_climb_Mt_EverestSerchan is heading to Lukla from Kathmandu on Democracy day this Friday, from where he will begin his expedition.

The octogenarian had scaled the 8,8848 metre mountain at the age of 76 in 2008, but his record was broken by Japanese national Yuichiro Miura, who climbed Everest at the age of 80 in 2013.

Since then, Serchan has been working hard to regain his lost title for the second time and is said to be determined to reach the peak once again.

“I am sure my work will encourage all the elderly people, excite the youths and serve as an inspiration for every Nepali to strive towards their goal,” Serchan told the Post. “My health is perfect and I am doing this with my own willpower. This should be a matter of pride to the country,” he added. He also thanked Nepal government for trusting him and granting the permission to scale the summit.

everest base camp

Serchan has been doing a lot of rehearsal to achieve this daunting task. At the age of 72, Serchan began his fitness preparations by walking on foot from Kathmandu to Pokhara (202 kilometres) in four days, he also walked from east to west Nepal (1,028 kilometres) in 20 days.

After a year, he trekked about 300 kilometres from the northern part of the country to the  south in nine days. He recently finished a walk from Kathmandu to Lumbini in 14 days.  Non-Resident Nepali Association, UK has sponsored his expenses for the expedition while Himalayan Guides Nepal has agreed to give him technical support.

Serchan who was born on June 20, 1931, Bhurung-9 in Myagdi, had served for five years in the Gorkha Regiment in Gorakhapur, India.

Source: Ekantipur

First IMAX filmmaker at Everest base camp

First IMAX filmmaker at Everest base camp

An accomplished filmmaker yesterday reached Mt Everest Base Camp to support icefall doctors in preparing the safest route to the world’s highest mountain.

everest_base_camp

According to Ang Dorjee Sherpa, Chairman, Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, American explorer David Breashears, arrived in Nepal on Friday.

SPCC has been assigned by the government to fix ladders and ropes in the treacherous icefall and manage the garbage deposited by climbers.

David Breashears

David Breashears

His research-based analysis of the mountain’s topography, weather patterns and impact of climate change will help construct a safe route.
Breashears, who has received four Emmy awards for achievement in cinematography, has also been providing icefall doctors technical support, he added.Breashears will also utilise the high-definition images of the icefall route, including a few images he captured last year when the deadliest avalanche struck the climbing route near Camp I, killing 16 mountaineering support staff and guides, said Sherpa, adding that his expertise would help fix the new route.

According to Ang Kami Sherpa, who leads a team of eight icefall doctors, heavy but unusual snowfall has been affecting their work. The team has planned to complete a route that passes from the middle of the icefall section in the next 10 to 12 days, he added. “Two-third section of the route has been constructed, but Breashears’ facilitation will be important to complete the remaining part of the treacherous route,” he added.

Breashears, who has scaled Everest five times, had transmitted the first live television pictures from the top of Mt Everest in 1983. He also became the first American to scale Mt Everest twice in 1985.

Breashears also co-directed and co-produced the first IMAX film shot on Mount Everest in 1996. Breashears’ best-selling memoir, High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places (Simon and Schuster), documents his life as a mountaineer and filmmaker.

Spring climbing season is on

  • Department of Tourism says more than 40 foreign teams likely to apply for permit to scale Everest
  • A 30-member Indian army team, a team of 15 British Gurkhas and Arunachalee Everester Anshu Jamsenpa, the only mother who scaled Everest twice in ten days in 2011, will also attempt to scale the world’s highest mountain this season
  • National Geographic adventurer Matt Moniz, 17, and Willie Benegas aim to summit Everest and attempt to ski the Lhotse Coulair, which has never been fully skied
  • Spanish mountaineer Kilian Jornet is attempting to set a speed record on Everest without using supplemental oxygen, while Kenton Cool, Rupert Jones-Warner and Ralf Dujmovits will attempt to create new records on Everest

Source: thehimalayantimes

Individual Everest permits also extended for 5 years

The government has made amendment to Mountaineering Regulations, allowing mountaineers, who took individual permits to climb Mt Everest in spring last year, to use the permit over the next five years.

Earlier, the government had extended validity of only group permits. But the decision had draw flak from mountaineers who said it was not possible for all members in the team to gather at the same time for the expedition. Minister of General Administration Lal Babu Pandit said that the cabinet has decided to allow individual climbers to use their climbing permits over the next five years.

everest_2008_1296

A total of 334 climbers of 32 expedition teams, including a Nepali team, had received permits to climb Mt Everest last year. The climbers, however, are required to pay US$ 1,000 to the Department of Tourism (DoT) based on the new royalty structure. The government reduced royalty fee for foreigners climbing Mt Everest from normal route, also known as the South East Ridge, to $11,000 per person from $25,000 per person with effect from January1, 2015.

All expedition teams called off their expedition after a deadly avalanche near Camp II of Mt Everest killed 16 Sherpa guides in April last year. “With the amendment in Mountaineering Regulations, we are hopeful that the number of mountaineers on Mt Everest will increase this year. We will see new climbers as well as those who had cancelled their trip last year,” Pushpa Raj Katuwal, chief of Mountaineering Section at DoT, told Republica.

According to Katuwal, the government has issued climbing permits to five teams so far. Meanwhile, DoT will send two liaison officers who will man the government’s contact office at the Everest Base Camp for the entire climbing season. The government has already prepared Terms of Reference (ToR) for the liaison officers.

“With this arrangement, we believe climbers will feel much safer. Also, they can get the required information in time,” he added. The liaison officers will provide weather updates, coordinate rescue operations in case of emergencies and settle disputes arising among climbing parties.

The government has changed climbing route slightly this year to avoid the where avalanche hit mountaineering workers last year. According to the department, climbers will have to deviate around 40 meters right of the regular trail which will extend the trip to Camp I by around two hours.

“In case the government reduces climbing permit fee in the next five years, we will refund the climbers accordingly,” Tulsi Prasad Gautam, director general of DoT, said.

Source: Republica

Google launches virtual tour of Everest

Google launches virtual tour of Everest

Google launched a virtual tour of Nepal’s Everest region today, allowing armchair tourists a rare glimpse of life in one of the toughest and most inaccessible places on earth.

The Street View project takes viewers into the heart of the Sagarmatha national park, home to the world’s highest mountain, where icy blue rivers run below snow-capped peaks, monks play traditional music and yak-herders navigate precipitous stone-strewn trails.

everest virtual tour

Armed with two single-lens tripod cameras and a 15-lens custom-built “Trekker” unit designed for backpacks, teams travelled on foot to capture more than 45,000 panoramic images of the remote villages inhabited by the ethnic Sherpa community in the eastern Himalayas. Google worked on the project with Kathmandu-based start-up Story Cycle and Nepali mountaineer Apa Sherpa, who scaled Mount Everest a record 21 times before he retired from climbing and set up an educational charity.

“Everyone in the world knows Mount Everest but very few people know how hard life is in these villages,” said Apa Sherpa, who was forced to drop out of school at 12 and work as a porter after his father died. “Thanks to Google Street View, everyone can see these villages and understand that people here need help. Hopefully we can then raise funds to build more schools and hospitals for them.”

Nepal’s Sherpa community, who have long laboured as guides and porters on mountaineering expeditions, hope the project will promote the region and raise funds to improve access to education, offering future generations a way out of the high-risk climbing industry. Visitors to the Google Street View website can scroll through a slideshow of 360-degree views created by digitally stitching together thousands of 75-megapixel photographs, or click on the online map to see images of individual sites.

“Googlers, Story Cycle employees and Apa Sherpa spent about 11 days on the move last March, using the tripod cameras and fisheye lenses to shoot inside monasteries, schools, clinics,” said Raleigh Seamster, programme manager for Google Earth Outreach.

Google held a digital mapping session in the Himalayan town of Namche, where around 50 locals chipped in with suggestions of places to add to the online map. Lodge-owner Tenzing Sherpa was among those who attended the session and said he hoped the initiative would attract more tourists. “These online maps are a good source of information for visitors and if more tourists come here, it will create more opportunities, better opportunities than working on the mountain,” he told AFP.

Mount_Everest

Apa Sherpa, now 55, first climbed the 8,848-metre high peak as a porter, and described the feat as “a dream that had never been mine”. “My dream is that one day, young kids in Nepal won’t have to risk working on the mountain as porters or guides, they will be able to get an education and build better lives for themselves,” Sherpa told AFP. Sixteen Nepali guides, including 14 members of the Sherpa community, died last April in an avalanche, marking the deadliest accident to hit the world’s highest peak.
“Sherpas die on the mountain every year — no one pays attention. This time it was the biggest disaster on Everest, so it hit the headlines, but we have lost many people over the years,” Sherpa said.

Since its launch in 2007, Google Street View has captured some of the world’s most far-flung and scenic destinations, including the Amazon forest, Antarctica and Canada’s Arctic tundra.

Oisin sets record in the Himalayas-Island Peak

Oisin sets record in the Himalayas-Island Peak

Wicklow native Oisin McDevitt has set a speed record for summiting Island Peak in the Himalayas at the grand old age of twelve!

Last year he became the youngest European to stand on top of two continents – Europe and Africa – after he summited both Kilimanjaro and Mt Elbrus.

Oisin currently lives in Jersey but is originally from Rathdrum. His latest challenge saw him tackle the Himalayas.

island-peak-climbing

Twelve-year-old Oisin McDevitt and his father Fergus.

Oisin travelled to Kathmandu with his father Fergus to climb Island Peak on the flanks of MT.Everest. At 6,200m this is the highest mountain the youngster has attempted.

In the early hours of Friday morning, he successfully reached the top after a gruelling climb and a very challenging technical ridge climb to the summit. They managed this in a mere four-and-a-half days from Lukla to the summit, setting speed records for the climb in an achievement that is totally unprecedented for adults, let alone a 12-year-old boy.

Severe cyclonic winds forecast for the weekend meant it was now or never for Oisin and Fergus, hence the speed at which they managed to reach the summit. In order to avoid the forecast, the pair pushed on at night rather than stopping at Island Base Camp overnight.

Source: www.independent.ie

Tourist arrival up in Ramechhap

Tourists heading to the Everest Base Camp through Ramechhap have doubled this year in comparison with last year.

Everest-KalaPatthar

According to Bikash Pandit, administrative assistant at Gauri Shankar Conservation Area Shivalaya-based tourism check post, the number of tourists heading to the Everest base camp from Dolakha’s Jiri via Chuchure, Gumdel and Bamti of Ramechhap has doubled this year.

“Every day about 40 tourists en-route to the base camp get themselves registered at the check post, which is double the number of tourists compared to last year,” said Pandit, adding, “There are times when even the mountaineers have used this route.”

Nara Bahadur Shrestha, who owns a hotel in Shivalaya, was upbeat about the increase in tourists using the route. “Since the route traversing through the sanctuary is an exciting one and lasts for seven to nine days, it’s appealing to the tourists,” said Shrestha. “Though the majority of tourists trekking on this route are French and German, there are nevertheless significant numbers of visitors from other countries like US, Canada, Spain, Japan, Korea, Belgium, India and China as well,” Shrestha added.

Source: Thehimalayantimes