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Every year, on average 5 or 6 climbers die on Everest during the commercial climbing season, which runs between April and May. But this year, the death toll on the world’s highest peak has already reached 10, raising concerns about lack of safety.
Taking middle-aged tourists, amateurs to death-zone level mountaineering, up the world’s most spectacularly gigantic mountain (Everest), when some clients were already spitting up blood and exhibiting other signs of major stress, was more than a little foolhardy.
It was day two of our 18 day trek to Everest’s Base Camp when in the afternoon our head guide Lhakpa Nurbu Sherpa sombrely reported to me that 16 Sherpas had been killed in an avalanche on the mountain.
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Climbing season on Mount Everest was due to enter its busiest time of year: the May “weather window”. But all has come to a halt on the world’s highest mountain following the worst-ever accident – an avalanche that took the lives of 16 Sherpas.
