Nirmal 'Nims' Purja MBE haș claimed two more incredible world records after the intrepid mountaineer became the first person to summit three peaks higher than 8,000m – Everest, Kanchenjunga, and Lhotse - in just under nine days and do the Everest to Lhotse traverse in 26 hours - both without supplementary oxygen. The Nepal-born naturalised British climber is well known for summitting all 14 of the world's 8,000m peaks in seven months and he also made history on January 16, 2021, when the former Gurkha and British Special Forces operative and his team became the first mountaineers to summit K2 in winter. After receiving worldwide acclaim for those feats, Purja embarked on a new adventure in early May with his Elite Exped team as they tackled the Himalayan peaks of Everest, Lhotse...
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travel articles and news about Nepal
Russian climber Pavel Kostrikin died at Camp I of Mount Everest, the first reported death of a foreigner on the world's highest peak in the current climbing season that began in March, a Nepali official said on Sunday. Kostrikin, 55, died at the camp, which is located at an altitude of around 5,360 metres (17,585 feet) during a rotation on the 8,848-metre (29,031 feet) mountain on Saturday, said Bhishma Kumar Bhattarai, an official of Nepal's Department of Tourism. "The Russian climber fell sick at Camp II and died after being brought to the Camp I," Bhattarai told Reuters without giving further details. Camp II on the normal southeast ridge route on Everest is located at a height of around 6,400 metres (20,997 feet). Hiking officials said the body of Kostrikin would be br...
Read MoreNepal is putting a 21st-century spin on a tourism sector dominated by activities unchanged for generations as it looks to boost a vital part of an economy decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic and soaring import bills. As part of broader plans to lure more tourists to the home of eight of the world's 14 highest peaks, authorities are promoting bungee jumping, paragliding and sky diving on top of traditional trekking and climbing, said Taranath Adhikari, director general at the Department of Tourism. A foreign tourist takes pictures in front of the Nyatapola Temple in Bhaktapur, Nepal, April 24, 2022. REUTERS/Monika Deupala "We are adding new tourism infrastructure and investment in hotels is (also) rising," he told Reuters in the capital Kathmandu. The country has additionally ca...
Read MoreEverest glacier is losing decades worth of ice every year Melting and sublimation on Mount Everest’s highest glacier due to human-induced climate change have reached the point that several decades of accumulation are being lost annually now that ice has been exposed, according to a University of Maine-led international research team that analyzed data from the world’s highest ice core and highest automatic weather stations. The extreme sensitivity of the high-altitude Himalayan ice masses in rapid retreat forewarns of quickly emerging impacts that could range from increased incidence of avalanches and decreased capacity of the glacier stored water on which more than 1 billion people depend to provide melt for drinking water and irrigation. South Col Glacier ice core (8220 m) (red...
Read MoreClimbers returning from Mount Everest and other Himalayan peaks are struggling to find a return flight back home after Nepal banned most air travel to contain a surge in COVID-19 cases, mountaineering operators and hikers said on Wednesday. Most regular international flights are closed through June as a deadly second wave of the coronavirus hit the Himalayan nation tucked between China and India. Nepal issued 742 permits – 408 of those to climbers aspiring to make it to the top of the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest – in the April-May climbing season. And hundreds of climbers are now returning from the mountains before the onset of annual monsoon rains. Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, a senior official at Kathmandu-based private firm Seven Summit Treks, said climbers were finding it ...
Read MoreA retired attorney from Chicago who became the oldest American to scale Mount Everest, and a Hong Kong teacher who is now the fastest female climber of the world's highest peak, on Sunday returned safely from the mountain where climbing teams have been struggling with bad weather and a coronavirus outbreak. Arthur Muir, 75, scaled the peak earlier this month, beating the record by another American, Bill Burke, at age 67. Tsang Yin-hung, 45, of Hong Kong scaled the summit from the base camp in 25 hours and 50 minutes, and became the fastest female climber. The record 10 hours and 56 minutes is held by a Sherpa guide, Lakpa Gelu. A climbing accident in 2019, when he hurt his ankle falling off a ladder, did not deter Muir from attempting to scale the peak again. The retired lawyer, ...
Read MoreA Nepali government official said on Monday that many foreign climbers were continuing their attempts to summit Mount Everest despite reports of a COVID-19 outbreak at the base camp of the world's tallest peak. In April, a Norwegian climber was evacuated from the base camp of the 8,848.86 metres (29,031.69 feet) mountain and flown to Kathmandu where he tested positive for COVID-19. He has since returned home. Lukas Furtenbach of the Austrian Furtenbach Adventures company, evacuated his team from the mountain this month saying there was a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases at the base camp. A group of climbers just before the Everest summit May 23, 2021. Photo: @danielmazur/Twitter "So far we have about one hundred confirmed cases in Everest base camp, confirmed by doctors, by hospit...
Read More38 climbers reach summit on Tuesday as Nepal battles second COVID-19 wave Foreigners climbed Mount Everest for the first time since Nepal’s government reopened the mountain after it was shut last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite recent coronavirus cases at its base camp. Thirty-eight climbers including ten Bahraini and two British mountaineers climbed the world's highest mountain on Tuesday, according to hiking companies. FILE PHOTO: Light illuminates Mount Everest, during sunset in Solukhumbu District also known as the Everest region. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar It comes as a few climbers were evacuated from the Everest base camp in April after they fell sick with COVID-19 symptoms as Nepal battles a devastating second wave of coronaviurs infections. "Twelve foreign...
Read MoreHundreds of climbers are set to return to Mount Everest for the first time next month under strict conditions, government officials and mountaineers said, as the world’s tallest peak reopens after a year closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. More than 300 foreign climbers were likely to attempt to scale the 8,849-metre (29,031-feet) mountain in the peak climbing season beginning in April, tourism department official Mira Acharya said, compared with a record 381 climbers who attempted the famed summit in the same period in 2019. FILE PHOTO: Light illuminates Mount Everest, during sunset in Solukhumbu District also known as the Everest region. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar “This is ... despite the one-week quarantine requirement and certificate showing the climber had tested negative ...
Read MoreOver the 12 years that Baburam Giri has worked as a hotel cook in the village of Dhampus - a major tourist draw with its views of the towering Annapurna mountain range - winters have become less snowy. “The snowfall we had five years ago was more than 2 feet deep - but we didn’t have significant snowfall after that,” lamented Giri, standing at his stove at the Hotel Yama Sakura. With hotels across the world feeling the financial pain of travel restrictions to curb the coronavirus pandemic, Giri said his central Nepal community was relying mainly on Nepali tourists, who come every year drawn by the wintry weather. But this year, the bare ground means few visitors. “Many domestic and local tourists come to this area to play in the snow whenever there is snowfall,” Giri told ...
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