"Is It Stupidity, Ignorance, or Greed?" — How Reckless Nepalese Guides Are Putting Clients' Lives at Risk

In Nepal last Sunday, an avalanche buried the base camp at the foot of the 7,126-meter Himlung. Fifteen local expedition workers have since been recovered dead, one remains missing. According to reports, they were buried more than four meters deep in snow. In the days before, a low-pressure system had brought heavy precipitation to the Himalayas.

At the end of July, an avalanche on Broad Peak in Pakistan killed ten people, including Nirmal Purja, the Nepalese record-breaking mountaineer. Heavy snowfall and strong winds at altitude had prompted numerous climbers to leave in the days before the event. The Nepalese expedition operators pushed on anyway.

These two events alone, in such a short space of time, demonstrate that avalanches are a serious danger on the world's highest mountains. What is far more troubling is how Nepalese expedition operators handle that danger. Their risk management often raises serious questions.

Nowhere was this more obvious than on Manaslu this autumn season. It could have been a record year on the world's eighth-highest mountain. The tourism ministry issued 493 permits for the 8,163-meter peak. An equal number of local climbing Sherpas were planning to ascend with foreign clients.

After an avalanche swept from Camp 4 to Camp 2 on September 17 — narrowly sparing Camp 3 — three days later a German-Indian climber and his Nepalese companion died in Camp 3 when another avalanche buried their tent. Five days later, heavy snowfall was forecast, with more than two meters of fresh snow predicted. Videos from base camp show tents collapsing under the enormous weight of snow.

Despite the deep snow, the persistently high avalanche danger, and the forecast for more snowfall, climbers continued to ascend Manaslu. An observer with extensive experience on eight-thousanders, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the situation as "completely absurd." There had been avalanches, two deaths, and the prospect of further snowfall. And yet the rope-fixing team was sent up the mountain because operators wanted to get clients to the summit before the even heavier precipitation arrived.

Tobias Pantel, an employee of the Himalayan Database, was on site and confirmed that climbers were still ascending. "A few from our team set off from base camp on Monday, September 21, to attempt the summit. But they realised at Camp 1 that it was pointless and came back the next day." Pantel himself left base camp on September 22. "The conditions I saw with my own eyes did not permit a serious summit attempt without bottled oxygen," he said.

On the phone, one expedition operator justified the ascent by saying they wanted to see whether there had also been that much snow above Camp 3. An explanation that raises further questions. On the descent from Camp 2 to Camp 1 on September 22, climbers were indeed caught in an avalanche. "Fortunately it was not a large avalanche, and none of us were injured," Chinese climber Zhang Chao told the Everest Chronicle.

It seems that in Nepal, the formation of avalanches remains a mystery, and risk management in the face of avalanche danger is, in the eyes of many, a matter of fate. The observer said: "I wonder what drives the expedition operators: is it stupidity, ignorance, or greed?"

How little knowledge and understanding of avalanches seems to exist was made clear by a post from Mingma Gyalje "Mingma G" Sherpa, the founder and managing director of Imagine Nepal, one of the largest Nepalese expedition operators. He, Mingma G, had feared nothing in the various disciplines of mountaineering, the post read. Avalanches were the only thing that had always scared him. Because in avalanches, skill, technique, and experience count for nothing. In the end, it was simply luck that nothing worse had happened.

At the Swiss Mountain Guide Association, such statements provoke head-shaking. "Luck is in no way a component of the criteria that professional mountain guides consider when assessing and anticipating avalanche hazards," says Pierre Mathey, managing director of the Swiss association and himself a mountain guide.

And Michael Lentrodt of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations, who served twelve years as president of the German Mountain Guide Association and is involved in guide training, says: "A certain residual risk always remains, but according to IFMGA standards, red lines were crossed on Manaslu that, under IFMGA risk management, should not have been crossed."

The problem, of which the majority of expedition participants are likely unaware, is that only a portion of local mountain guides in Nepal have completed training that meets international standards. According to the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, there are one hundred IFMGA-certified mountain guides in Nepal. Only last winter did an IFMGA delegation travel to the region to verify the quality of avalanche training. Their conclusion: most so-called guides have no avalanche training at all. They have worked their way up from simple porter to high-altitude porter and then to guide, looking after foreign guests.

Hillary Dawa Sherpa made headlines this spring. Without any prior experience, he was sent to Mount Everest with a foreign guest by the expedition operator who had hired him as a kitchen worker. Hillary Dawa Sherpa was alone on the mountain for six days. It seems like a miracle that he survived.

Nirmal Purja, the record-breaking mountaineer who served for many years in the Gurkha Brigade and later in a British Army special forces unit, was also not a trained mountain guide, although he led expeditions to the world's highest peaks. He cultivated a casual attitude toward avalanche danger. When cyclones brought strong winds and snowfall to Everest in May 2021, observers doubted anyone would reach the summit that season. Nirmal Purja and his entourage went anyway. When an avalanche swept over Camp 3, Purja was with his team in Camp 2. When the air pressure of an avalanche destroyed Camp 2, he was with his people in Camp 3.

In 2023, Nepalese expedition operators also ignored avalanche danger. Two American climbers, each hoping to become the first woman from her country to summit all fourteen eight-thousanders, and their Nepalese companions died in avalanches on Shishapangma. The two Nepalese, Nirmal Purja and Mingma G, already established expedition operators at the time, had their own race. Shishapangma was the last eight-thousander they had not climbed without bottled oxygen. Previously, during their record chase, they had climbed Cho Oyu in dangerous conditions.

Michael Lentrodt strongly advises clients to secure a commitment from their operator to use IFMGA guides. Whether that brings more safety is another question. Mingma G states on his company's website that he is a "mountain guide" with an IFMGA certificate. Why he nevertheless introduced luck as a central element in connection with avalanches remains unclear. Following the NZZ am Sonntag's research, the Federation of Mountain Guide Associations has announced it will examine the matter more closely.

For now, the families of the dead are left with grief, the industry with uncomfortable questions, and the mountains with the same unforgiving truth they have always held: in the high Himalaya, luck is not a strategy. And those who sell expeditions to the world's most dangerous peaks have a duty — moral, professional, and legal — to know the difference.

Written by Thomas Nussbaumer thomas.nussbaumer@alpineweekly.com