Nepal issued even more Everest and Lhotse permits smashing the 2019 record. Now at 408 for Everest and 123 for Lhotse but the real headline is from a climber who left base camp :<\/p>\n
\nI have taken a helicopter out of EBC back to Kathmandu after 1 day. The Covid situation at EBC is a total shitstorm. I had no clue what I was flying into.<\/strong> It felt asinine to even be there. It was a heartbreaking decision but I\u2019m putting my health first. Covid at a high altitude does not sound like something I want to play with. \\Will hopefully fly home within the next couple of days and focus on K2 for June. There\u2019s just way too many people at EBC this year. Wishing all of the climbers there to be safe and successful but this girl is getting the hell out of dodge.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nI’m not sure she will make it to Pakistan as COVID is also exploding in Pakistan and many airlines are canceling flights to Pakistan. The summer season in the Karakorum is at significant risk. Of course, the virus is out of control in India and is hitting neighboring countries. Most likely, any country with frequent contact with India will be impacted.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nSeason Cancelled?<\/h3>\n
As I discuss in yesterday’s podcast<\/a>, I don’t see Nepal closing Everest even though they have implemented a limited lockdown in Nepal for another week. The issue is pride and saving face. After all, at one point the Nepal Prime Mister said that Nepal is a “COVID Free Country”. Now, Nepal is seeing a huge spike of 2,000 to 3,000 new cases each day.<\/p>\n
It will probably be left to the individual climbers like to evaluate the risk and make their decision. Guides have been sued recently for canceling expeditions for any reason, including their clients’ safety, so they are a bit shy.<\/p>\n
The best people can do is to isolate, eat their meals in their tents, stay separated, even on the fixed rope. With over 400 people (and getting fewer by the day) there, this will be difficult. Perhaps it’s time for some team meetings and truth talk.<\/p>\n
\nNepal Permit Update: Record<\/h3>\n
The permits for Everest surpassed the previous record of 382 foreign permits set in 2019. The Nepal Ministry of Tourism posted these foreign permit tally as of April 28.<\/p>\n
\n
- Everest: 408<\/strong> on 44 teams<\/li>\n
- Lhotse: 123 on 13 teams<\/li>\n
- Nuptse: 38 on 4 teams<\/li>\n
- Manaslu: 1 on 1 team (over)<\/li>\n
- Annapurna: 44 on 4 teams (Over)<\/li>\n
- Dhaulagiri: 33 on 5 teams<\/li>\n
- Pumori: 9 on 2 teams<\/li>\n
- Makalu: 20 on 2 teams<\/li>\n
- Ama Dablam: 27 on 2 teams<\/li>\n
- Tukuche: 1 on 1 team<\/li>\n
- Tilichho: 8 on 1 team<\/li>\n
- Tengkangpoche: 2 on 1 team<\/li>\n
- Baruntse: 12 on 1 team<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The Tibet side is closed to foreigners, but there are 40 Chinese nationals reported now at base camp.<\/p>\n
\nFollow Along<\/h2>\n
I am updating my annual team location table<\/a> and tracking climber’s blogs (see sidebar). If you have a team not listed, please let me know and I will add them if I can track them. If you prefer not to be mentioned, please contact<\/a> me. Here’s to a safe season for everyone on the Big Hill!<\/p>\n
Climb On!
\nAlan
\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n
\nThe Podcast on alanarnette.com<\/h2>\n
You can listen to #everest2021 podcasts<\/strong> on Spotify<\/a>, Apple Podcast<\/a>, Breaker<\/a>, Google Podcasts<\/a>, Pocket Casts<\/a>, RadioPublic<\/a>, Anchor<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, and more. Just search for “alan arnette” on your favorite podcast platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nepal issued even more Everest and Lhotse permits smashing the 2019 record. Now at 408 for Everest and 123 for Lhotse but the real headline is from\u00a0Gina Marie Han-Lee:<\/p>\n
I have taken a helicopter out of EBC back to Kathmandu after 1 day. The Covid situation at EBC is a total shitstorm. I had no clue what I was flying into. It felt asinine to even be there. It was a heartbreaking decision but I\u2019m putting my health first. Covid at a high altitude does not sound like something I want to play with. \\Will hopefully fly home within the next couple of days and focus on K2 for June. There\u2019s just way too many people at EBC this year. Wishing all of the climbers there to be safe and successful but this girl is getting the hell out of dodge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Everest 2021: \"The Covid situation at EBC is a total shitstorm. I had no clue what I was flying into.\"","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":[7,147,599,81,216],"tags":[432,448,603,439],"class_list":["post-39165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climbing-news","category-everest","category-everest-2021-coverage","category-everest-news","category-everest-popular-posts","tag-climbing-news","tag-everest","tag-everest-2021-coverage","tag-everest-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39165","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=39165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}