Nepal to secure Everest base camps during climbing season =

Kathmandu (dpa)- Nepal is to deploy soldiers and armed policemen at  Everest base camps to improve security before the start of the climbing season, authorities said on Friday.

The measure comes after an altercation last year between three European climbers and Sherpa guides.

“The new provision will come into force in April when the climbing season beings,” said Sharad Pradhan, spokesman of the Nepal Tourism Board. “It will include police, army officials and the armed police force and the tourism ministry officials.”

Nepal celebrated the 60th year of Everest’s opening to the world in 2013. The mountaineering season was marred last year by a brawl between climbers, who quarreled over rope-fixing.

Overcrowding on the slopes of Everest has also been a concern.

The government has cut climbing fees for individual climbers to reduce crowding. Cheaper group climbing permits have been a source of overcrowding.

More than 3,000 people have climbed the world’s highest mountain since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first climbed it in 1953.

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Nepali climber's Everest record equalled =

Published on May 23,2013
   Kathmandu (dpa) - Phurba Tashi Sherpa reached the summit of Mount Everest summit for the 21st time on Thursday, equalling the record set by Apa Sherpa.

   According to mountaineering officials, Phurba Tashi made two climbs this season to complete the feat.

   Last year, Apa, who goes by his first name, said he was retiring. However, he has since been back at the base camp, continuing his campaign of clearing garbage from the Everest region.
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Sherpa woman honoured for climbing Everest twice in one season =

Woman honoured for climbing Everest twice in one season =

   Kathmandu (dpa) - A Nepalese woman who climbed Mount Everest twice in the same season was recognized for her achievement by Guinness World Records in Kathmandu on Monday, the Nepal Mountaineering Association said.

   Chhurim Sherpa, 29, summited the world’s tallest mountain for the on May 12, 2011, and then repeated the feat a week later.

   Sherpa told a press conference she would continue to try to climb other mountains.

   The first successful ascent of Everest was in 1953. Several thousand climbers have summited the 8,848-metre mountain since then.
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Nepali mountaineer summits Everest three times in nine days =

   Kathmandu (dpa) - A Nepali mountaineer has set a new record by climbing Mount Everest three times in nine days, local media said Tuesday.

   Kame Sherpa, 51, reached the summit of the world's highest mountain three times in the month of May to set a new record, according to Kantipur Television.
   He summitted on May 19, 23 and 27, becoming the first to do so in a single season. The feat brought his total of successful Everest summit attempts to 14.

   Apa Sherpa, 52, has reached the summit 21 times. In May 2011, he said that he would no longer climb beyond the base camp.
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Hundreds stranded in Everest region

   Kathmandu (dpa)- Hundreds of tourists were stranded in Nepal's Everest region after flights could not take off due to bad weather, local media reported Sunday.

   More than 900 tourists were stranded for the last three days in Lukla Airport in the Everest region, according to the Kantipur news portal.

   Four hundred of the stranded tourists were foreigners, with the rest Nepalis.

   Helicopters used for rescue were grounded due to poor visibility.

   May has been a busy month for the Everest region with hundreds of climbers attempting to scale the world's highest mountain. The climbing season runs from late March to May.

   The number people climbing the mountain successfully in 2012 season reached 250, with 87 climbing the mountain on the last day of the season on Saturday. Four climbers were reported dead and two missing on the mountain at the close of the climbing season.
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Oldest Everest climber to attempt to break his own record

   Kathmandu (dpa) – The world's oldest climber of Mount Everest, 81-year old Min Bahadur Sherchan, has said he would attempt to break his own record, Nepal's national news agency RSS reported Tuesday.
   Serchan set the record when he was aged 77, beating the previous record held by Japan's Katsusuke Yanagisawa, who scaled Everest at the age of 71.
   “I want to break my own record of world's oldest person to climb the Mt Everest” Sherchan told a gathering of the Senior Citizen Foundation in Kathmandu.
   He said he would scale the world highest mountain later in 2012.
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Parahawking in Nepal helps vulture conservation

By Pratibha Tuladhar, dpa
   Pokhara, Nepal (dpa) - It is a busy time in the hills of Sarangkot, on the outskirts of Pokhara in central Nepal, as paragliders gather with their colourful wings, spotting the hills in blue, orange, red and all the other colours of the rainbow.
   Kevin, a 6-year-old Egyptian vulture, is getting ready to fly with the paragliders. Perched on the fist of his keeper, he ruffles his feathers, preparing to join the men and women taking off, sometimes smoothly, sometimes clumsily from the hilltop. It's a short sprint before they jump off the cliff, Kevin joining them.
   With a yellow hooked beak and pink head covered by spiky white feathers, Kevin is about 70 centimetres tall and is one of the birds who navigate for paragliders in Pokhara. He and his fellow Egyptian vulture Bob, 4, seek out thermals that keep the paragliders airborne.
   "We rescued Kevin from the forest, when he was a chick, as he had fallen off the nest and injured himself," explains Scott Mason, the 40-year-old British bird conservationist, who invented the sport of parahawking.
   "We raised him and trained him."
   "The birds have a natural instinct for finding thermals and they have better eyesight, so it's easier for paragliders to just follow the bird," says Damodar Parajuli, a Nepali parahawker.
   The gliders make their landing, guided by the bird.
   Mason, originally a graphic designer and a bird trainer, arrived in Nepal a decade ago to do a paragliding flight. As a bird trainer, he was overwhelmed with the different species of birds found in Nepal.
   But he was also struck by how the number of vultures in Nepal, Pakistan and India was fast declining due to the use of diclofenac, a drug used on livestock, which is fatal for the birds of prey when they feed on animal carcasses.
   "On leaving, I was presented with an option to stay and train two black kites to fly with paragliders by a friend who owned a paragliding company."
   Mason thought it was a good opportunity to use the birds of prey as ambassadors to promote the issue of conservation and stayed in the South Asian country. In 2001, he conducted the first parahawking flight, using one of the black kites.
   "What started as an experiment turned into a labour of love," he says.
   The extreme adventure comes with an underlying objective of bird conservation. The money raised from the parahawking goes to running a rescue facility for birds, Himalayan Raptor Rescue, which takes care of injured birds before returning them to the wild.
   "Part of the money goes to vulture restaurants," Mason says.
   Conservationists decided to start feeding centres for the birds - known as vulture restaurants - to protect them from carrion contaminated with diclofenac residue.
   The government banned diclofenac in 2006 for veterinary use. But it is still available on the market for human use, and farmers get it and administer it to animals.
   As the vultures soar alongside, the paragliders hold out lumps of meat between their index finger and thumbs for the birds to take.
   "It's a different thing to have a bird fly and take food off your hand," says Robert Dan from Alaska in the United States.
   When the birds aren't flying, the trainers exercise them.
   "We don't fly them during the moulting period because we don't want to compromise on the quality of their feathers," says Taylor Guastella, a bird trainer from the US. They also avoid flying them when the birds are breeding.
   It was only after a film on parahawking made by Mason and a friend earned international recognition that they decided to start in-tandem commercial flights.
   What started at the cost of 1,000 Nepali rupees (12.9 dollars) in 2006, now costs 14,000. The two birds, Bob and Kevin, each do a daily flight from September to March. They live in the garden of a resort hotel run by Mason, with other black kites, Sapana - the first paragliding bird, now 11 years old - Goggles, Brad, and two recently rescued chicks.
   "You can't pat and pet a bird like you do with dogs and cats," says Mason. "But it's a spiritual feeling to be in the air, see their expressions, observe their behaviour and pass the passion on to the passengers."
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Two Nepalis named Adventurers of the Year by National Geographic

   Kathmandu (dpa) – The National Geographic Society has named two Nepalis in its Aventurers of the Year awards, for travelling from the top of Everest to the Bay of Bengal, media reports said Wednesday.

   Sano Babu Sunuwar, 28, and Lakpa Tsheri Sherpa,37, won the People’s Choice category for their trip, dubbed the Ultimate Descent Summit to Sea, thanks to 72,000 votes by members of the public, the Kathmandu Post daily reported.

   The duo climbed Mount Everest in April, and then paraglided down to the basecamp. Then they bicycled to the nearest river and kayaked across the Nepali border into India and paddled the Ganges River all the way to the Indian Ocean.

   With no corporate support or media backing, and a limited budget, the pair borrowed gear for the trip, and said they were robbed by villagers, lived on berries at one time and often slept in their kayaks.
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British woman beats own world record running down Mt Everest

   Kathmandu (dpa) - A British woman completed a run from Mt Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu in 23 hours and 25 minutes, bettering her own world record by more than two days, local media reported Saturday.

   Elizabeth Hawker, 35, completed the run Friday, stopping for only eight hours at a mountain village to shelter from rain and nurse a chest infection.

   “The first night, I had planned to run straight through,” the Republica daily quoted Hawker saying. “But it started raining, and was very cold.

   “I had to take shelter for eight hours in Bupsa village to keep from getting soaked and getting sick.” She said she did not sleep.

   In 2007, Hawker completed the distance in three days, two hours and 39 minutes.

   The endurance runner had come to Nepal to run the 1,600-kilometer Great Himalaya Trail across the foothills.

   But after losing her equipment, she changed plans and joined a 200-kilometre, nine-day Everest Sky Race, from Dolakha to Ama Dablam base camp.

   Immediately after that race, she decided to run from Everest Base Camp to Nepal's capital.

   Mt Everest, the world’s tallest mountain at 8,848 metres, attracts hundreds of trekkers from around the world each year.
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