Everest conquest fight for pride for civil servants

KATHMANDU, May 16: *After having spent almost 40 days on the lower slopes of Mt. Everest, having heard of three deaths attributed to altitude sickness and having been abandoned by six team members, a depleted all-civil-servant Mt. Everest expedition began its crawl towards the upper slopes of the world´s tallest peak on Sunday in what is now perhaps a fight for pride.



“Our team left Camp I (6,100 m) for Camp II (6,600 m) today,” said Tourism Ministry spokesman Laxman Bhattarai, who, at 55, was the eldest member of the expedition until he gave up.[break]



“The ones who are continuing the climb plan to stand on top of the mountain on May 18,” added Bhattarai who abandoned summit hope after catching cold and is currently stationed at the Base Camp coordinating the expedition. 



Of 15 civil servants who left Kathmandu on April 7, five quit the expedition due to illness. Team leader Lila Mani Poudel, who was appointed Home Secretary on Saturday, returned to Kathmandu on Sunday after being recalled by the government.



"Weather hasn´t been favorable this year,” Bhattarai complained over the phone from the Base Camp. “But our team plans to reach Camp III (7,200 m) on Monday, and Camp IV (7,926 m) on Tuesday and the top on Wednesday morning," he added.



Tilak Pandey, liaison officer of the Tourism Ministry´s Mountaineering Division, who is also posted at the Base Camp, said the remaining nine members of the expedition are dead set about scaling the mountain.



Whether the team of amateurs summits the mountain or not, its members have already bettered their personal climbing records by making it to Camp I. The best they had achieved before this was scaling the 5,500 meter Yala Peak in Langtang last year as part of their preparation for conquering the 8,848-meter. As for Mt Everest, none of the 15 civil servants, who flew to Lukla from Kathmandu in April with high spirits, had climbed farther up than the Everest Base Camp (5,360 m) before this spring.



The civil servants decided to attempt Mt Everest for three reasons: to understand climate change and the threat it poses to the Himalayas, to prove that Nepal´s civil servants are not adventure-averse idlers, and to challenge the stereotype that Nepalese climb the mountain only as porters and guides. The expedition is an all-Nepali one in that its members, support staff, and guides are all natives. The government has doled out Rs 30 million for the expedition.



Climbing conditions at Mt Everest have been harsh this season. Former Foreign Minister Shailendra Kumar Upadhyay, famed Japanese climber Takashi Ozaki and American climber Rick Hitch died at various altitudes, apparently, due to altitude sickness, in the first two weeks of May.



*Corrected

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