Destinations known | As Everest prepares to reopen for autumn climbing season, is Nepal putting cash before caution?

This year has been a quiet one for Mount Everest. In March, Nepal’s Tourism Minister, Yogesh Bhattarai, announced that all expeditions to the nation’s Himalayan peaks, including those to Everest, would be suspended for the spring climbing season – typically its busiest, which normally runs from March to May – because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Nepal had just one confirm­ed case of Covid-19 at the time and the precautionary closure was welcomed by mountain guides. “While cancelling a climb is never an out­come we want, this time, it’s the responsible thing to do,” said Adrian Ballinger, of Alpenglow Expeditions, in a statement. “A Covid-19 outbreak at base camp would be dangerous and potentially devastating.”

But now, with more than 21,000 recorded cases of the virus and 65 deaths, the country is preparing to reopen its mountains for the autumn climbing season, from September to November. “We have reopened mountain­eering and will issue climbing permits,” Mira Acharya, who works for the tourism department, told Reuters recently.

Although such a reopening is arguably premature, the reasons behind it are obvious – the country’s economy needs income from tourism to keep it ticking over, and much of that money comes from mountaineering.

According to a Financial Times article published in May 2019, “Each climber supports at least six to eight people – guides, porters, travel agents, hotels and tea-shop owners – for at least a quarter of the year.” And, as Reuters reported on July 30, “The absence of climb­ing in the popular April-May season caused Nepal millions of dollars in losses. Hund­reds of foreign travellers and some 200,000 Sherpas, guides and porters were hit.”