At Mount Everest base camp: three weeks amidst the mountains

The sounds of hammering, banging and general noise from outside conjure up the image of a huge construction site. The season has only just started. Rest tents, known as ‘doms’, sleeping tents, cooking tents, communications tents and toilet tents are being constructed by the sherpas. They’re working flat out, using pickaxes, axes, spades and shovels to break up the ice.

My tent, measuring 2 metres by 2 metres, is located right at the end of the 1.5-kilometre Everest base camp, right by the Khumbu ice fall – and at 5,364 metres of altitude in a sparse, elevated mountain region home to nothing but stones, snow and wind. At this height, people only have half the usual oxygen partial pressure we need. Even when we’re at rest, our body takes twice as many breaths as at sea level.

I climb up to the Pumori viewpoint. From up here, the base camp looks like a town made from colourful Lego blocks. It reminds me of a gold seam: hard, hard work, and all for a little lump of gold. And all for the peak of the world’s highest mountain. But you don’t need to go looking for the gold here on Everest: it offers itself up to you. In colourful trekking clothes. Coughing. Pained by headaches. So, the gold? It’s actually all the mountaineers. People from all kinds of countries, with all kinds of jobs and from all kinds of families.

However, they all share the same goal: the Nepalese call it Sagarmatha, goddess of the skies. The Tibetans call it Chomolungma, mother goddess of the earth. The Western world calls it Mount Everest (8,848 metres above sea level).

A mountain under siege

For Nepalese residents in the province of Khumbu, the mountaineers are simply their most important source of income. They set up this pop-up town here year in, year out: at the end of April or in early May, when the weather conditions for a summit attempt are ideal, around 2,000 people are housed in this gravel wasteland. From sherpas to kitchen staff, porters and mountaineers: they besiege the mountain and wait for good weather.

Loud music suddenly begins to blare one evening. The Nepalese New Year’s Day is being celebrated, and the year 2075 is being ushered in. One of the doms is full to bursting, with colourful lights flashing through the plastic windows. There’s a New Year’s cake. Beer, coke, sprite, and if you want, you can have home-brew, too. People dance as if they’re in a club. Relaxed. Pressed together. Gasping for air, in down-padded clothing. And, of course, there are countless mobiles, cameras and Go-Pros: the party is going live around the world via Instagram.

The next evening, 9:35 pm. Outside, carabiners and crampons are clinking away. There’s hardly a word spoken, everyone’s conserving their breath. Silently, small packages with biscuits, hot tea and toilet paper are passed around. Every sherpa is given a radio. A smoking altar made from boulders is circled three times. The holy fire, a last plea to the mountain to be merciful. Then, the icefall doctors set off to prepare the paths. A little later, you see a string of lights, like an illuminated ant trail, on the Khumbu glacier.

Overheated?

From electric lighting to carpets, heaters, showers, hifi equipment, WiFi, cinemas: electricity outages are a rarity in base camp. Every nationality cooks in their own way. Sophisticated coffee machines are available for demanding palates and colourful plastic flowers for the eyes. The base camp offers more in the way of creature comforts than most hotels in Kathmandu. As the infrastructure is improved, the ascent rates are improving, too. In spring 2022, 673 people made it to the top, including 60 women. Seven of them even did it without any extra oxygen. An aspiring Everest-climber needs to pay between USD 40,000 and USD 120,000 to make their dream come true. In exchange, they get to push themselves to their very limits.

Comfort levels at the base camp are, however, rising in step with the risks: the Khumbu glacier is melting. The Mount Everest base camp is melting. They need to relocate. By 2024, the base camp needs to be constructed 200 to 400 metres lower, where ice isn’t present the whole year round. 4,000 litres of urine are emitted here every day. There’s kerosene and gas in vast quantities for cooking. Everest is overheating.

For Nepal, it’s not just the base camp at stake. In 2019, tourism brought more than USD 2 billion into the country, one of Asia’s poorest nations, and created jobs for a million people, from porters through to pilots. The COVID-19 pandemic destroyed all that, with at least 800,000 people in the tourism industry losing their livelihood.

My time’s up. I silently turn my back on the base camp. In a few weeks, there won’t be a single soul here. Due to the monsoon. The rain washes the people away and gives the mountain back to the goddess. Until next spring. After all, there’s nowhere easier to scale a 8,000-metre mountain today than Everest.