tourism
First climbers of the season reach Mount Everest summit
View from the plane of the Himalayas with Mount Everest – it doesn’t get any higher. photo
© Sina Schuldt/dpa
Nine Sherpas have already made it to the top. Hundreds of climbers want to follow you. Not a very cheap pleasure for the tourists.
The first climbers of this season scaled Mount Everest from the Nepalese side. On Saturday at 1:52 p.m., nine Sherpas arrived on the summit of the world’s highest mountain, a spokesman for the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism said in the capital Kathmandu. The group had stretched fixed ropes, which served as support for subsequent groups when climbing, it said. Sherpas are a Himalayan ethnic group whose members often work as mountain guides and porters for mountaineers from abroad.
A record number of people aim to climb Mount Everest this spring season. A total of 467 people have received permission to climb from the Nepalese south side, according to the Ministry of Tourism. Most of them come from China and the USA, including Germans. In principle, an ascent is possible both from Nepal and from China. However, since 2019, China has not issued such permits to foreign tourists.
Standing on the border between Nepal and Chinese-administered Tibet, Everest is the highest mountain in the world at 8,848 meters. Hundreds of people try to climb the summit every year. In Nepal, a permit for this costs the equivalent of around 10,000 euros, and the entire expedition between 40,000 and 100,000 euros. Climbers die again and again on Everest.