We are now about a month\u00a0out for climbers to arrive in Nepal to begin Everest 2016 so these\u00a0are some general updates.<\/p>\n
The Icefall Doctors are planning to begin\u00a0setting the route through the Khumbu Icefall on March 7. There is some concern about the stability of the Icefall after last year’s\u00a0April 25th<\/sup> and May 12th<\/sup> earthquakes that damaged ladders and ropes along the route. However the route was established last autumn for Japanese climber\u00a0Nobukazu Kuriki’s unsuccessful attempt and the Doctors reported no serious issues. Note, <\/a> that the route is reset each season anyway as the ladders are removed around June 1 each year. As always, nothing is certain until they get onto the glacier and see for themselves what this year will hold. source<\/a><\/p>\n After a year of ‘study’, the Nepal government finally approved\u00a0extending all climbing permits from 2015 for two years. This will enable a climber to save their permit fee, $11,000 for Everest for example, and transfer\u00a0to another team if needed. It would have been better if they had approved it 6 months ago in order to spread out the 2015 climbers who want to return this year but waited for the decision to be made. Now 2017 might be extremely crowded. There were over 800 individual permits issued last year including 265 for Everest.\u00a0But in any event, all good for the climbing industry. source<\/a><\/p>\n After the earthquakes, many governments around the world placed travel warning for their citizens traveling to Nepal. One by one most\u00a0have been lifted and the United States, one of\u00a0the last, did so on February 29th. The impact of this has been some climbers and trekkers have\u00a0been unable to get travel insurance so this issue should be gone now. source<\/a><\/p>\n A bit of good news for the Nepali people and climbers\/trekkers arriving next month. The blockade is over and there is no more fuel rationing. There have been long lines and limited fuel for taxies and buses not mention slowing down air travel. \u00a0source<\/a><\/p>\n Similar to other years, China closes Tibet to visitors until March 30 fearing protests. This should have minimal impact on Everest climbers who usually arrive in early April. source<\/a><\/p>\n Finally, if you follow\u00a0Himalayan climbing you know Ms. Hawley. She\u00a0has been chronicling climbs in Nepal since 1963. The Nepal government honored her by\u00a0naming a 6182m peak, Peak Hawley. Ms. Hawley responds as anyone who knows her would expect:\u00a0\u201cI think it\u2019s a joke,\u201d Ms Hawley told The Independent from Kathmandu. \u201cThey should not name mountains after people.\u201d source<\/a><\/p>\n Climb On! We are now about a month\u00a0out for climbers to arrive in Nepal to begin Everest 2016 so these\u00a0are some general updates. Icefall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Everest 2016: General Updates: fFixing the Icefall, Permit Extensions, Border Closings and more #everest2016","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[7,460],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climbing-news","category-everest-2016-coverage"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/everest_2008_0703.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Permits<\/h3>\n
Travel Warnings Lifted<\/h3>\n
Blockade Ended<\/h3>\n
Tibet Border Closed<\/h3>\n
Ms. Elizabeth Hawley Honored<\/h3>\n
\nAlan
\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"