Appa Joins Eco Everest Expedition at Khumbu

THT Online
Kathmandu, May 14

Record-holder climber Appa Sherpa has joined the Eco Everest Expedition at the Khumbu region and is likely to accompany the team to the top of the world. "Appa did not have any plan to scale Mt Everest this season but when he heard of the Eco Everest Expedition and its objective of highlighting the threats posed by Glacier Lake Outburst Flooding (GLOF) and creating awareness about the importance of environmental conservation of mountain ecosystems among the locals in the Sagarmatha area, he said he would join the team and their cause," Ang Chhering Sherpa, the chairman of Asian Trekking Pvt Ltd, which is managing the expedition, told this daily.

Appa reached Khumbu region to support the team with their Dig Tsho Field Expedition mission that started on April 6. Appa lost his property in the flooding resulted by Dig Tsho glacier burst in 1985 and is sentimentally attached to the expedition.

"But I cannot say right now whether Appa, who has already scaled Mt Everest 17 times, has also decided to climb up to the summit," Ang Chhering said. Ang Chhering`s son Dawa Stevan Sherpa is leading the 62-day Eco Expedition with renowned international mountaineers, including Japanese climber Ken Noguchi. In addition to this expedition with a cause, there are some 300 others scaling their way to the top of the world. The government had until May 9 restricted any expedition from scaling Mt Everest to facilitate Chinese plan to take the Olympic relay torch atop the Everest.

Most of the summitters are now between Camp II at 6,500 metres and Camp III at 7,200 metres.
Ang Chhering also said all climbers would have to reach the summit by May 27 because weather after that might not be favourable for climbers. Quoting his son, who is now near South Col, Ang Chhering said the weather was now clear and the first team may reach the top on May 17.

Ramesh KC, an officer at Tourism Promotion Division, said 32 teams with seven to 12 members each had received the government permission to climb Everest this year.
Among others, 77-year-old Min Bahadur Sherchan is likely to set a record of being the oldest man on Mt Everest and 10 Nepali women are venturing for the first inclusive Nepali women`s expedition.

Sherpa in bid to conquer Everest for 18th time
KATHMANDU (AFP) — A Sherpa aiming to conquer Everest for the 18th time and septuagenarians battling for the title of oldest climber to reach the summit are lining up their record bids as the main climbing season opens.
Nepal this week lifted a climbing ban imposed to prevent pro-Tibet protests on the roof of the world as the Chinese Olympic torch was carried up the northern approach to the mountain from Tibet.

The main season for climbing the world`s highest peak is expected to open towards the end of this month and hundreds of mountaineers, support staff and paying clients from 32 expeditions are now acclimatising for the final push. "Now because of climate change, the season is shifting later and later. This year we expect the good weather window might open around the third week of May," said Ang Tsering Sherpa, chairman of the Nepal Mountaineering Association and an expedition organiser.

With a breathtaking 17 summits of the 8,848-metre (29,028-foot) peak already under his belt, Apa Sherpa looks likely to get to the top again, said chairman Ang Tsering.

"I think Apa has a good chance. He is physically very, very fit and as long as the weather permits, he will break his own record," he said.
Last year, retired Japanese school teacher Katsusuke Yanagisawa -- 71 years and two months old when he reached the summit -- became the oldest man to conquer the peak. This year two men are trying to beat the record.

His countryman, 75-year-old adventurer Yuichiro Miura is currently at base camp struggling with acclimatisation -- a process of making short trips up and down the lower reaches of the mountain to prepare climbers for the "death zone" above 8,000 metres, where there is just a third of the oxygen present at sea level. "I was tired all day yesterday," Miura wrote on his expedition website Friday. "But then I remembered it was the same situation as when I was 70 years old, but I feel even more tired now than when I was here when I was 70," said Miura, who won international fame in 1970 when he became the first person to ski down the South Col of Mount Everest, using a parachute as a brake.

Despite his previous Himalayan exploits -- which also include clinching the record for the world`s oldest person atop Everest in 2003 -- Miura is up against stiff competition in 77-year-old Nepalese Min Bahadur Sherchan.
Sherchan is a former British Gurkha -- soldiers who have been part of the British army for nearly 200 years -- and was a government mountaineering liaison officer with years of experience of high peaks.

"When I last spoke with him he said he is feeling in very good condition," Ramjindaji Gurung, coordinator of Sherchan`s Senior Citizen Mount Everest Expedition, told AFP.
"He has been going up and down between camps one and two to acclimatise and will be making a start for the summit in the next few days," Gurung said. Last year 557 people -- 254 via Nepal and 303 via Tibet -- reached the highest point on earth, which was a record.
This year the only expedition allowed on the approach through Tibet so far has been the Olympic torch team, so the number is expected to be significantly lower.