Nepal is considering relocation of the Everest base camp amid concerns over artificial rise in temperature at the first camp of the world’s highest peak.
The basecamp could be shifted to the foothill of Kala Patthar, slightly below the existing basecamp which lies along the Khumbu icefall.
“We are now initiating discussions with concerned stakeholders about relocating Everest base camp. This is to save Everest’s snow from rising temperatures,” Taranath Adhikari, director general of Nepal’s tourism department, told the Everest Chronicle.
The plan comes in the wake of a recommendation by a task force formed in April to suggest ways to organize expeditions in a better way and recommend moving the Everest base camp to another location as a measure to minimize human induced temperature increment on the base of the world’s highest peak.
The 7-member task force called Mountaineering Monitoring and Facilitation Committee headed by Adhikari was formed in April 2022 to monitor and facilitate the spring Everest expedition. Member-secretary Khimlal Gautam, chief Survey Officer of Survey Department, had led the field work on the ground in Khumbu. While the task force was primarily formed to suggest ways to better manage the expeditions, what they found alarming was the direct effect human activities were causing on rising the temperature of the snowy Everest base camp.
According to task force members, the base camp could be moved to an area between Gorakshep and Kala Patthar–foothills of Kala Patthar. Kala Patthar was the place where Nepal organized a historic cabinet meeting to raise global attention on the impact of climate change in the Himalayas in 2010. The new base camp would be on rocky land, like on the northern side of Mount Everest in Tibet– with capacity to host a much larger crowd than the existing basecamp.
The plan to shift base camp to safer and a more suitable area has long been on the agenda of policymakers but without much progress. Sherpa and climbers said that the Everest base camp has been rapidly losing its ice due to activities of around 1500 climbers who spent around two months at the area every year.
Lhakpa Sherpa, who this spring broke her own record for most successful female climber by scaling Everest for a record ten times, said that Khumbu icefall was becoming more dangerous due to global warming.
“The Khumbu glacier is looking scarier as ice is getting thinner,” said Sherpa.
Excerpts said that the use of LPG gas and kerosene for cooking was turning once icy surface into an arid land of rocks. The base camp, which serves as base camp for Lhotse, Nuptse and Everest, uses around 50 cylinders of 14.2 kg LP gas every day, and thousands of liters of kerosene every season, according to Khimlal Gautam, member-secretary of a government task force formed to suggest ways for better expeditions. He said the world’s highest peak including the base camp was losing snow due to increased human activities in the mountain.
“In 2013, the minimum temperature of the base camp was recorded as -27 degree celcius. In January 2022, the minimum temperature was recorded as -23 degree,” said Gautam.
Expedition agencies use ice as the main source of water for climbers and support staff climbing peaks in the Everest massive. In recent years, many trekkers camp at the base camp against the rules due to lack of oversight from the authorities.
“There are numerous other human activities which knowingly and unknowingly are aiding in the warming up of the base camp. If timely action is not taken to save it, our base camp will soon be without snow– similar to the base camp of Tibet side, China,” Gautam wrote in a piece published in the Everest Chronicle.
Everest’s highest glacier has lost 2,000 years of ice in 30 years, according to the findings from the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition.
