Irish team forced to abandon Everest bid
In a statement, founder of Irish Seven Summits, Paul Devaney, said it was “with a heavy heart and a great deal of disappointment” that the expedition was scrapped last Friday with the members airlifted from Everest Base Camp.
It was just one of a number of expeditions cancelled following the unprecedented decision by Sherpa guides to withdraw their services, effectively shutting off Everest to climbers.
That decision was taken following an avalanche on April 18 that left 16 people dead and three others seriously injured.
The tragedy — the worst ever on Mount Everest — turned the focus on the levels of compensation and high levels of risk for local Sherpas who facilitate the dreams of climbers from around the world.
The statement issued by Mr Devaney claimed “a minority of rebel Sherpa with an alternative agenda” had “successfully derailed” the climbing expeditions and that this group had been “taking full advantage of the grief, sorrow and apprehension felt by our Sherpa friends and families” as they struggled to come to terms with the loss of the 16 Sherpas earlier this month.
The statement painted a picture of a charged and fractious atmosphere amid the ice and rock of the Himalayas.
Tenzing Norgay, who with Edmund Hillary was the first to conquer Everest in 1953, is the most famous Sherpa. The community now extends to roughly 600 people with expert local knowledge and who are often the only earners in their families.
In helping groups to scale Everest, Sherpas can earn between €3,000 and €6,500 in a season — good money in the Nepalese economy, but arguably still inadequate compared to the risks undertaken. On April 18, the scale of the risk was made clear when a huge block of overhanging ice fell on a passage known as the Khumbu icefall.
The avalanche tore through a group of Sherpas who had been hauling equipment up the mountain for foreign clients. As the Sherpa community pulled the dead from the ice a debate about the future was being shaped.
On the one hand, there was a view that better death and injury benefits were needed from the Nepalese government, which takes in massive revenue from Everest climbs.
Yet on the other, the decision to withdraw their services, and thereby ending the 2014 climbing season early, has meant many Sherpas and their families will now not secure any earnings. As a Sherpa told AFP: “To choose not to climb is a critical decision for us. A cancelled season will be hardest on us.”
Mr Devaney said following the tragedy: “We sat and watched Sherpa meeting after Sherpa meeting taking place 50 metres from our tents with little understanding of what was being discussed, each meeting more vocal than the last.
“There was little evidence that the same level of engagement was going on between expedition owners and Sherpa leadership to regain control of the situation. We heard reports that in the aftermath of the avalanche, a group of rebel Sherpa was pushing their agenda to force Western expeditions off the mountain so that Sherpa can take control and flow more money down through the ranks.”
He referred to “threats and intimidation” and admitted while the “consequence to climbers pales in comparison to the loss suffered by the Sherpa families… the climbers have suffered and are angry”.
He bemoaned the lot of members of the team, from Australia, the US, and elsewhere, whose dreams are now on hold or over.
Yet the AFP news agency heard from Russell Brice, owner of expedition company HimEx: “Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn’t be climbing across an icefall like this one. We do because it’s Everest.”
The risks are ever-present, but the cost of taking on that risk on “the roof of the world” is now an issue of debate. That the Sherpas will be back climbing next year appears certain. As one member of the community put it to a news agency: “There is no other option.”
