For the Sherpa people who live below Mt Everest, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/margins/songs-from-chomolungma">Chomolungma </a>means ‘mother god’. And as a young girl growing up below it, Lhakpa Sherpa gazed up at the mountain with awe and reverence.&nbsp; <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/pasang-lhamu-sherpa-the-film">Pasang Lhamu Sherpa</a> was the first Nepali woman to reach the summit in 1993, but she died on the way down. Lhakpa remembers the funeral in Kathmandu, and says she sensed Pasang Lhamu’s soul enter her at the cremation.&nbsp; Since then, Lhakpa holds the <a href="https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-ascents-of-mt-everest-by-a-woman#:~:text=At%20the%20age%20of%2048,at%206.15%20a.m.%20local%20time.">Guiness World Record</a> for having climbed Mt Everest ten times, the most by any woman anywhere, and breaking her own record several times. Lhakpa Sherpa seeks Chomolungma’s blessings and forgiveness before and after every climb. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">The rise and fall of Nims Purja</a>, Pradnya Pradhan “I respect the mountain like my mom,” she says in the new Netflix documentary Mountain Queen: Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa.&nbsp; The film is as much about Lhakpa’s skill and stamina as a high altitude climber, as about her courage to stand up to an abusive husband and the strength to raise three children as a single mother working in a Whole Foods Market in the US state of Connecticut. &nbsp; Directed by Lucy Walker who excels in documenting real life characters, the 104 minute film provides viewers with an intimate glimpse of Lhakpa’s home, conversations with her daughters, and some spectacular footage of her climbing in Everest’s Death Zone. Walker removes layer upon layer of Lhakpa’s life to introduce us to the real person that she is.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240910120952_549f2ebdc425038deb78854480449122da0890957389aa86b6a612bf91d33ec3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20240910120952_549f2ebdc425038deb78854480449122da0890957389aa86b6a612bf91d33ec3" data-rendition-name="original" width="450" height="630" loading="lazy" alt="Mountain Queen Lhakpa Sherpa NT2"> </figure>  As a girl Lhakpa was a headstrong girl, and says her mother used to call her “too tough, too tall and very, very bossy” – and that is exactly how she comes across in the film. But behind the toughness and cheerful smile, Lhakpa is a soft-hearted person who has been in search of love and healing all her life. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/on-screen-mountains">On-screen mountains</a>, Sahina Shrestha Lhakpa was a social misfit, but found her true calling in mountaineering. She started out as a porter carrying up to 100kg on her back -- double her body weight. She had to pretend to be a boy since women did not get jobs with expeditions back then. Then, she was promoted to be a kitchen boy, cooking for the climbers in base camps.&nbsp; She needed money to climb but nobody at the time was sponsoring a woman. A chance meeting with King Birendra and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala got her the sponsorship she needed in 2000 to lead an all-women Nepali Everest expedition. She reached the top for the first time, the only climber from her group to do so. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/streaming-the-himalaya-on-film">Streaming the Himalaya on film</a>, Pinki Sris Rana Her goal achieved, that should have been it. But Lhakpa was hopelessly hooked to the thrill of climbing. She met the Romanian-American mountaineer George Dijmarescu who encouraged her not to just be a porter, and join him in climbing Everest from the Tibet side.&nbsp; For the next several years the two became climbing partners, the ultimate power couple in Himalayan mountaineering. She emigrated to the United States and gave birth to daughters Sunny and Shiny. It was not long before Dijmarescu showed his true self, and Lahkpa was trapped in an abusive marriage in a foreign land. As a girl child in Nepal, she was never sent to school and had no other job except climbing. The fairytale had ended. She was featured in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/sports/lhakpa-sherpa-everest.html">New York Times</a> report, training for her 10th ascent of Mt Everest carrying boxes of vegetables and fruits at Whole Foods. In Mountain Queen, Walker directs a highly personalised profile of Nepal’s &nbsp;almost-forgotten mountaineering legend, digging up her troubles and triumphs with sensitivity and care. Walker does more than tell the story of perseverance and resilience that go hand-in-hand with climbing, she also tells the story of a matriarch who has to be strong for her family. &nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/why-we-climb-mountains">Why we climb mountains</a>, Damien Francois After her 10th Everest ascent, sponsors line up to fund an expedition to even more challenging K2, which Lhakpa climbed last year. Pasang Lhamu’s soul burns brightly in Lhakpa Sherpa, and she sums up her own journey: “I’ll give my life to the mountains, keep climbing until the day I die.” Mountain Queen: Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa Directed by Lucy Walker Netflix, 2024 104 minutes&nbsp;

Pinki Sris Rana

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Daughter of Chomolungma

“She’s gone” the choked voice of her daughter on the call from Auckland said it all. “Please can you tell her friends in Nepal?” As I caught my breath and gazed at the cloud-shrouded Annapurna peaks beyond the balcony, it dawned on me that a great lady had departed. Lady June Hillary died on 1 June 2024 surrounded by her daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren in the Auckland care home overlooking the green fields and leafy avenues of Cornwall Park. A tireless friend of Nepal, June was a supportive wife to Sir Edmund Hillary and played a significant role in his life and work. In her own right, she served for decades as Nepal Honorary Consul-General to New Zealand and was patron of the New Zealand Nepal Society, promoting cultural understanding and ensuring that Nepal's rich heritage and traditions were celebrated and appreciated in New Zealand. She chaired the Himalayan Trust New Zealand for several years after Sir Ed’s death, 16 years ago.&nbsp; Dinesh Khadka, the current Honorary Consul-General in Auckland wrote: “Lady Hillary was an exceptional individual whose contributions to Nepal and the Nepalese community in New Zealand were immeasurable." The Himalayan Trust New Zealand farewelled her on social media: "June was involved in the Himalayan Trust since its beginnings through her friendship with Ed and Louise. She had a deep fondness for the Himalaya and the people of Nepal.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240605070652_b1aee69338867a35c7b1045c01784d1a0ff5e398eea3038f5405601c6893d5cb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20240605070652_b1aee69338867a35c7b1045c01784d1a0ff5e398eea3038f5405601c6893d5cb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Lady June Hillary NT"> <figcaption>Photo courtesy of Susan Hayman</figcaption> </figure>  As lamps were lit and pujas planned throughout the mountains, Himalayan Trust Nepal posted: “Lady June Hillary made significant contributions to the humanitarian initiatives to support the people of Nepal throughout her life. She was a very good friend of the Sherpas. Her dedication and compassion touched countless lives and will continue to inspire us all.” Effortlessly stylish in her trademark navy and flowing scarfs, never a hair dared escape her elegant silver chignon, even on remote trekking trails. From their home in Remuera Auckland, she accompanied Sir Ed on his punishing schedule of global public appearances, event openings and Himalayan Trust appeals. Perhaps most of all she will be remembered for her dogged dedication to the wellbeing of Sir Edmund Hillary, a great man in both stature and accomplishments who had been felled by the double disaster of losing his wife Louise and youngest daughter Belinda in the Kathmandu plane crash in 1975.&nbsp; June is credited with lifting her husband out of the devastation and deep withdrawal that followed this tragedy, Sir Ed’s saviour, his "steadfast support system". &nbsp;“June enlivened Ed's last decades, or maybe even more accurately she kept him alive after the accident,“ wrote Australian filmmaker Michael Dillon, who spent many months with the Hillarys.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240605070656_449daafceb96e7b336baf2a75e5e445cb329e78c153b10372226afed37ec9d41.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20240605070656_449daafceb96e7b336baf2a75e5e445cb329e78c153b10372226afed37ec9d41" data-rendition-name="original" width="778" height="1128" loading="lazy" alt="Lady June Hillary NT"> <figcaption>Sir Ed and June Hillary, Richard Blum, Elizabeth Hawley at the consecration of Thyangboche monastery 1993.</figcaption> </figure>  Raised a catholic in post-war Wellington, June was first married to Peter Mulgrew with whom she had two daughters, Robyn and Susan. A close friend of Sir Ed, Peter was a dashing figure, a mountaineer and yachtsman, who had both feet amputated after a climbing accident on Makalu. The foursome were close friends, travelled together and helped during the early years of the Himalayan Trust. In 1979, Peter was killed in the Mount Erebus air disaster, a sightseeing flight lost over the Antarctic on which he was the celebrity commentator, ironically as a stand-in for Sir Ed. It was perhaps inevitable after these catastrophes that Sir Ed and June found strength and solace in each other. At Sir Ed’s side, June accompanied him to New Delhi during his four-year stint as New Zealand High Commissioner from 1985 – her unwed status regularised as his Official Companion. They only married after their return to New Zealand in 1989. It was during his frequent visits to Nepal as Ambassador that I first got to know June. I loved her caring tenacity, her feisty humour and especially her acerbic wit. June’s fierce and gallant commitment to Sir Ed’s best interests were not always well understood or appreciated, but we knew Sir Ed could not manage without her.&nbsp; Sir Ed was a towering figure, but Lady June was equally staunch at his side, discrete, always there, ever watchful. No stranger to controversy, newspaper reports of which she did not approve would be dismissed as “wrapping for tomorrow’s fish and chips” with an unhappy shrug. But as a grounded Kiwi, she deftly navigated the privilege and pitfalls of being married to a national hero and “the greatest New Zealander”. After a fundraising dinner in San Francisco, June twinkled: “Quite fun, being seated between Warren Beatty and HH the Dalai Lama.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240605070656_a52200f895b5fc8d7116243c1aabd64b5664abf3785236a961b5b56856218e27.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20240605070656_a52200f895b5fc8d7116243c1aabd64b5664abf3785236a961b5b56856218e27" data-rendition-name="original" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" alt="Lady June Hillary NT"> <figcaption>Sir Edmund Hillary and Lady June Hillary. Lady June deftly navigated the balance of public and private life with Sir Ed. Photo: LISA CHOEGYAL</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240605070656_f3f4d1e77fb4911ad911eefd18f78d02a9dc06d1838f3717fc0121952db86aef.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240605070656_f3f4d1e77fb4911ad911eefd18f78d02a9dc06d1838f3717fc0121952db86aef" data-rendition-name="original" width="1280" height="844" loading="lazy" alt="Lady June Hillary NT"> <figcaption>Lady June with Sir Edmund Hillary, King Charles III and Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand.</figcaption> </figure>  As Jim Edward’s guests at Tiger Tops they joined us to present Elephant Polo trophies and party at New Year’s Eve in Chitwan between diplomatic duties and philanthropic trips to the Khumbu. Together they opened Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge in 1998, and June returned to celebrate our 10-year anniversary. The 50 year anniversary of the first Sagarmatha summit, 29 May 2003, was a hot day in the splendid British Embassy residence gardens. Live broadcasts anchored by TVNZ presenter Mark Sainsbury linked the Sherpa dancing and celebrity interviews with events in New Zealand. Ang Dooly was there to celebrate and remember Mingma Norbu, Kanchha, Pertemba, Lhakpa Norbu, Ang Rita and many others. As the sun beat down and guests sipped drinks, June passed the phone to Sir Ed and he spoke to his son Peter on Everest. I suggested perhaps they would like a break and a shower. “We’re not like that” June laughed it off, always the trooper. “We’ll just carry on.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024060702060_ff8c84dd4383c443e7920bddb3aecf683ff41234a3001c92350426870fb65f0b.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2024060702060_ff8c84dd4383c443e7920bddb3aecf683ff41234a3001c92350426870fb65f0b" data-rendition-name="original" width="640" height="391" loading="lazy" alt="Lady June Hillary"> <figcaption>Lady June in Nepal in 1961.</figcaption> </figure>  At Sir Edmund Hillary’s state funeral in January 2008, a visibly shaken Lady June sat swathed in black beside Prime Minister Helen Clark as the service was broadcast around the world. The iconic image of her touching the casket in farewell was entirely spontaneous, she told me afterwards. June had thought Sir Ed was being discharged from hospital, “but instead, he died that morning.” It was a moment she frequently recalled. Forever linked with Sagarmatha and the Sherpas, Lady June’s death comes just days after the 71st anniversary of Sir Edmund's historic first summit of Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay, and a week before the centenary of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine’s disappearance high on the northern ridges of Everest in 1924.&nbsp; But Lady June Hillary deserves her own accolades and recognition, independent of the Burra Sahib. A “classic lady,” she is remembered as “wonderfully funny, with a tremendous sense of style” and her own special brand of purpose and destiny. It was an honour to have known her.&nbsp;

Lisa Choegyal

Lady June Hillary 1931 - 2024

Five-time Everest summiter and climate activist David Breashears died on 14 March at his home in Massachusetts in the United States, aged 68. Breashears shot the IMAX film Everest about the 1996 tragedy when eight climbers were killed, and also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z01ve9gV4y8" target="_blank">co-produced the movie Everest</a> in 2015 starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Josh Brolin about the 1996 deaths. While shooting another documentary in 2015, he had to be rescued by helicopter from Camp I when an avalanche triggered by the earthquake killed 19 people at Base Camp. <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z01ve9gV4y8?si=MvVVH0MERMdK_qia" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> Breashears specialised in repeat photography of old images of the Alps and the Himalaya to visually document the impact of climate breakdown, and through his group GlacierWorks took part in the multimedia <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/living-through-the-himalayan-thaw" target="_blank">Climate+Change exhibition</a> in Kathmandu in 2014. The exhibition had Breashear’s before and after photography of Himalayan glaciers, comparing pictures taken in 1921 by George Mallory of the Rongbuk Glacier on the north side of Mt Everest to show how much it had shrunk by 2009.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240316030312_6d5b0461ee77deda302ea6f97ed3da6ab23f94cfdc326c863a2a59c894139a2d.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240316030312_6d5b0461ee77deda302ea6f97ed3da6ab23f94cfdc326c863a2a59c894139a2d" data-rendition-name="original" width="998" height="976" loading="lazy" alt="david bearshears"> </figure>  Breashears was worried what the Himalaya would look like in 100 years, and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/interview/What-will,423" target="_blank">told Nepali Times in an interview</a> ten years ago: ‘Those of us who have climbed Everest for the past 33 years have seen the changes taking place under our own feet. Now our crampons scrape and scratch across hundreds of feet of exposed rock and the snow arête that Hillary climbed no longer exists. The route is entirely on rock.’&nbsp; Himalayan glaciers are <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/here-today-gone-tomorrow" target="_blank">retreating and shrinking</a> much faster than what was forecast ten years ago, and just as Breashears predicted garbage and bodies of dead climbers are being <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nepali-times-buzz/climbing,424" target="_blank">exposed by thawing ice</a> high on the mountains. In the spring climbing season, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMKRC7oZhpY&amp;t=51s" target="_blank">a river now runs through Everest Base Camp</a>. <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iMKRC7oZhpY?si=qi36WvBaA8Texx1U" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nepali-times-buzz/climate-change-exhibition-icimod,1248" target="_blank">Reviewing the Climate+Change</a> exhibition at the Nepal Art Council in 2014, Nepali Times wrote: ‘It was the top floor, with <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/page/living-through-the-himalayan-thaw" target="_blank">GlacierWorks</a>’ sweeping Himalayan vistas … which really brought home the reality of climate change in Nepal – a veritable Damocles’ Sword if there was one.’ In a brief statement to <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/everest/david-breashears-dies/" target="_blank">Outside Magazine</a>, Breashear’s family said: ‘It is with tremendous sadness that we share the news of David Breashears’ untimely passing. David was a beloved brother, uncle, father, friend, and colleague and a caring, impassioned advocate of adventure, exploration, and the health of our planet.’ The statement added: ‘What fulfilled him the most – where he’d want his legacy to lie – is his non-profit organization, GlacierWorks, which he founded in 2007 to highlight the Himalayan glaciers through art, science, and adventure. He used his climbing and photography experience to create unique records revealing the dramatic effects of climate change on the mountain range.’ Breashears once said in a Reddit interview: "Nepal is my favourite place on earth."

Climber-activist David Breashears, 68

In his short 35-year life, only 10 years of which he spent guiding Himalayan mountaineering expeditions, Tenjen Sherpa was known for his stamina and humility. Unlike most of Nepal’s famous Sherpa climbers, Tenjen was not from the Khumbu region below Mt Everest, but from the foothills of Mt Makalu, the world’s fifth highest mountain. He herded yaks and farmed potatoes on the steep terraces of the village of Walung, where he was born in 1988, the seventh of eight brothers. He never went to school, but attended a monastery and was therefore known by the nickname ‘Mantare Lama’, after the lucky number seven. Tenjen quickly mastered the methods of technical climbing at high altitude, and was much sought after by international expeditions to fix ropes to summits. For most Nepali climbing guides, this is a nameless and largely thankless job, while the foreigners they help to the summit get most of the attention and fame.&nbsp; But that did not bother Tenjen too much. He was not the complaining type, and the expeditions earned him money. But Tenjen also represented a new breed of Nepalis for whom climbing was not just a job, but an adventure he enjoyed and excelled at. Earlier this year, he completed climbs of 14 peaks above 8,000m in just 92 days helping Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila also accomplish the feat. They beat the previous 14-peak record set by Nepali-British climber Nims Purja for climbing the world’s highest peaks in the shortest time.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231121071136_b266a0133e4de4a95aaa824f53ad3ca0dd46386da7088ae76ee9cc5947d8ed5c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20231121071136_b266a0133e4de4a95aaa824f53ad3ca0dd46386da7088ae76ee9cc5947d8ed5c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="628" loading="lazy" alt="Tenjen and Harila"> </figure>  Perhaps even more remarkable than the record was the tale of Tenjen Sherpa’s struggle. He was married off when he was just 13. His father abandoned his family, and Tenjen had to help his mother take care of his siblings, as well as his wife and their own two sons.&nbsp; Financial hardship forced Tenjen to leave the village and seek his fortune elsewhere. Because he lacked schooling, there were only two options: migrate to India or work as a porter for climbing expeditions.&nbsp; Even as a child, Tenjen had seen expeditions to Makalu camp near his village and admired their climbing gear, flashy clothing and the money that some of his neighbours earned from being guides.&nbsp; Tenjen was inspired by the famous Sherpa guides he worked with, and was determined to become a high-altitude guide himself. He knew it was a risky job, but it paid well.&nbsp; Tenjen found a job with Seven Summit Treks, one of the new Nepali-run mountaineering outfitters that have been taking over the Himalayan climbing business from foreign companies in recent years. It is led by Mingma Sherpa, also from the Makalu region, and himself an accomplished mountaineer who has also climbed all 14 eight-thousanders.&nbsp; Mingma sent Tenjen with an expedition to Makalu in 2014, and despite having no prior experience at high altitude he reached the South Summit. Tenjen learnt fast to fix ropes, wear crampons, use bottled oxygen, and belay fellow climbers on steep sections.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231121071136_4b05955b11e8a5c3aa4d5fbdf06328a8589ecb3c10b8d97c264182fef9ae65e2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20231121071136_4b05955b11e8a5c3aa4d5fbdf06328a8589ecb3c10b8d97c264182fef9ae65e2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1948" height="2355" loading="lazy" alt="Tenjen Sherpa"> </figure>  In 2016, Tenjen was sent as part of a rope-fixing team to Mt Dhaulagiri and reached the top of the world’s seventh-highest mountain. Tenjen never looked back after that, successfully summiting every peak he attempted.&nbsp; By July 2023, he had climbed 35 of the world’s highest mountains, many of them multiple times. He had helped Harila become the first woman to summit all 14 eight-thousanders after climbing Cho Oyu in May this year. After the monsoon, he was on Mt Shishapangma in China, guiding the American climber Gina Marie Rzucidlo who was competing with compatriot Anna Gutu to become the first female American to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, both had completed 13 peaks and had only one left. Rzucidlo had hired Tenjen at the last moment although he was not with her expedition company because he had proven to be a fast climber with Harila. On 7 October, at around 12:30PM a slab of avalanche swept away Gutu and her guide Mingmar Sherpa at an altitude of 7,600 meters. A few hours later, Tenjen and Gina were also hit by an avalanche at 8,000m on the north face of Shishapangma. Their bodies were never found. For Tenjen’s family, this was an added tragedy. Two of his brothers, Norbu and Phurba who were also climbers, had died earlier. Phurba died on Everest in the spring 2023, while Norbu died during the Covid-19 pandemic. Three of his other brothers had died at an early age. Tenjen’s eldest brother is the only one remaining in Walung, farming the family terraces. The youngest brother, Pas Dawa also works as a climbing guide. “I don't know whether to continue this job or quit," Pas Dawa told us in Kathmandu during a break between expeditions. "We cannot take care of our families if we do not work on the mountains, but it is a job that we could never return from."

Tenjen Sherpa, a tribute

<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f129c7e80680e0af446jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner in Kathmandu this week. Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>At age 77, after having pushed the limits of what a human being can physically achieve, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3251#.Yck5sC8RqLc" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D3251%23.Yck5sC8RqLc&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640666337895000&amp;usg=AOvVaw37oxnuMsF1Cvg5h_XDEbr9">Reinhold Messner</a> looks back at a life lived at the edge of life and death, and turns philosophical about the art of mountaineering. Messner started climbing in the Dolomites when he was five. On his first Himalayan climb in 1970, he lost his brother and seven of his toes on Nanga Parbat. In 1978 he climbed the mountain again solo, and became the first person with Peter Habeler to <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/climbing-everests-last-three-hundred-meter-without-oxygen,1817" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/climbing-everests-last-three-hundred-meter-without-oxygen,1817&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640666337895000&amp;usg=AOvVaw35gc9hWKFSjo8YFFTMj48F">summit Mt Everest without bottled oxygen</a>. In 1980, he came back to Everest and solo-ed it too. He went on to climb all of the world’s fourteen 8,000m peaks in 1986. “We go to places we could die, but not die. Traditional mountaineering is the art of not dying,” says Messner, who has just got off a flight from Europe on yet another trip to Nepal that was delayed by the pandemic.People used to fear mountains, they did not approach dangerous places. It was only after the industrial revolution that early British climbers started exploring the Alps and ‘alpinism’ was born to <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3249#.Yckz1i8RqLc" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D3249%23.Yckz1i8RqLc&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640666337895000&amp;usg=AOvVaw16ilz_PNAQ-j-ZuMQ2HSR-">test the limits of human skill and endurance.</a>“Mountains are infinite in comparison to our lives,” the Tyrolean climber says. “Up on a mountain we are forced to contemplate eternity. Climbing is a useless activity, as absurd as life itself.” <figure><img width="1028" height="713" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f159c7e80680e0af447jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Messner has nothing but praise for Nirmal (Nims) Purja, the Nepali climber whose <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nims-purja-does-it/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nims-purja-does-it/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640666337895000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2kEvjlTRBQfHD1C_gZ1ifd">ascents of all 14 of the world’s eight-thousanders</a> within seven months was featured in a popular Netflix documentary this month.  “I needed 16 years to climb all 14 peaks without oxygen,” says Messner, repeating what he said in the Netflix film. “For this, I give Nirmal great respect, he did it in such a short time. And after this, he <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/all-nepali-winter-first-on-k2/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/all-nepali-winter-first-on-k2/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640666337895000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2fV04bVS-2V4FI6fHPcjLg">went back to K2</a> and became the first to climb it in winter. He is not just chatting, he is doing.” Messner worked with Purja to finish his latest book which is out in German, and defends the Nepali climber’s use of helicopters and oxygen for his climbs saying technology had made it possible to fly from one base camp to the other. And Purja’s team was also fixing ropes for others, carrying its own oxygen.  Messner is also glad that Nepalis are finally getting credit for helping western climbers attain the world’s highest peaks – starting with Gurkha porters on Nanga Parbat in 1895, and later with Sherpa guides. “Now, Sherpas and Gurkhas are no longer support staff, they organise expeditions around the world,” says Messner. “I am very happy that after 100 years the Sherpa have the economic possibility to organise their own expeditions.”https://youtu.be/EZBvVMaNYAIMessner then turns to his pet peeve: how <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3249#.Yckz1i8RqLc" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D3249%23.Yckz1i8RqLc&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640666337895000&amp;usg=AOvVaw16ilz_PNAQ-j-ZuMQ2HSR-">alpinism has turned into tourism</a> as hundreds of clients jumar up on fixed ropes to the top of Mt Everest. Indoor climbing walls in gyms also do not cut it for him.“Traditional mountaineering is the art of surviving where you can die, if you take away the possibility of danger, then it is not alpinism,” says Messner with messianic zeal during an interview in Kathmandu with Nepali Times. “Organising a safe infrastructure where someone takes you up and down a mountain is tourism.”Nepal’s economy has now come to be dependent on these large expeditions, aside from the revenue that Nepal collects every year from hefty climbing royalty. A switch to alpine style climbing would mean fewer jobs for expedition support staff.But Messner is a purist when it comes to mountaineering, and besides smaller lighter teams scaling peaks would be less damaging to the environment. He takes the message of pure alpine style climbing around the world through lectures, setting up a string of museums, as well as more films, including the latest semi-autobiographical White Out.   <figure><img width="3095" height="2098" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f179c7e80680e0af448jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Messner faced criticism for abandoning his brother on Nanga Parbat in 1970, but has often defended himself saying people at sea level should not be passing judgement about decisions of survival at 8,000m. He has made 31 expeditions in his lifetime to eight-thousand metre peaks, 18 of them successful. He dabbled in politics and was a member of the European Parliament for five years before deciding that he did not want to be a professional politician.During this visit to Nepal, Messner will inspect the new Sherpa Himal Museum that he helped build near Namche, adding to other mountain museums he has set up around the world. On Sunday, Messner and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3761#.Yck6ry8RqLc" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D3761%23.Yck6ry8RqLc&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640666337895000&amp;usg=AOvVaw39PivMRXCHqH8lSYi4itec">Karna Shakya</a> inaugurated a new high-rise wing of the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19686#.Yck63i8RqLc" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D19686%23.Yck63i8RqLc&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640666337895000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3edUbHwnR-WPHeH1NRWgk_">Kathmandu Guest House</a> in Thamel, where he has always stayed since his first visit.  <img width="1618" height="1869" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f1b9c7e80680e0af449jpeg.jpg" alt="">We ask Messner why he is so impressed with Nims Purja, when he has been scathing about the young German climber Jost Kolbach who is attempting Mt Everest solo in winter up the west ridge this season. “It is all PR. He has said he has only has 1% chance, if that is so he should stay in the Alps, do smaller things successfully, or climb the challenging six or seven thousanders first.”About this year’s controversy about climbers on the fore-summit of Manaslu, Messner says it is clear which is the true peak, and remembers bringing down a piton in 1972 from an earlier Japanese expedition to the 8,163m summit as proof. But it is less clear which is the true peak on long ridges like Annapurna I, he adds.Messner has also been ridiculed about his belief in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/sorting-through-history-for-the-yeti/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the yeti</a>. He clarified: “The yeti is logically a bear. It is a legend that is 1,000 years old that came with the migration of Sherpas, and describes a partly-white bear, and early British journalists 120 years ago  spread rumours about the snowman.”  Messner says <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-climate-crises-hit-everest-region/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the climate crisis</a> is changing monsoon patterns and the jet stream which is making climbing in the Himalaya more dangerous. He says the whole system is out of balance due to industrialisation, cars and fossil fuels and consumerism. Messner is now helping to give back to the people of the mountains around the world where has climbed all his life, rebuilding hospitals and schools, and supporting students. He says, “After climbing the mountains, I came later to also understand the people, and I am thankful that I can give back to this country with tourism promotion. I owe my climbing success to Nepal."

Kunda Dixit

What next for Reinhold Messner?

<figure><img width="1598" height="1138" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be6e29c7e80680e0877cajpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Most Nepal-holics know the names of Toni Hagen, Edmund Hillary, Boris, Father Moran, Liz Hawley and Jimmy Roberts ... all notable foreigners who, with love and dedication, have unselfishly contributed to the development and betterment of Nepal. But the general public may not have heard of <a style="font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9296#.X842ay8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D9296%23.X842ay8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607438385491000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEENjM1t1dILqYeUvakqHGCKVkQ5A">Doug Scott</a> who, like Herman Buhl, Walter Bonatti and Reinhold Messner, was a mountaineering legend in his own lifetime. He now joins the list of 'great givers to Nepal'. He made numerous first and ground-breaking ascents in the UK, big wall climbs on Baffin Island and in the US, plus explorations like the pioneering 1965 trip to the Tibesti mountains in northern Chad. In the Himalaya and Karakoram, he added 30 first ascents during 40 expeditions. He was the champion of purist <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10379#.X842WC8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D10379%23.X842WC8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607438385492000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGMKd3QCl886RBhqnrGBFDqemeOIg">Alpine style climbing</a> -- using no Sherpa support, no fixed ropes, no oxygen ... climbing or attempting virtually only unclimbed mountains, or new routes on established peaks.Doug (Keith) Scott was born in 1940 and died at home in UK on Monday 7 December. He was harder and bolder than those who had gone before him on epic climbs of Everest, Kangchenjunga, Shivling, Nanga Parbat, The Ogre (where he broke both ankles and had to crawl for days to reach Base Camp). The list of climbs is longer than a Welsh railway station's name, and led to numerous honours and titles. None of which he sought, but his favourite was the Piolet d'Or Lifetime Achievement, the Oscar of Mountaineering. The style and  boldness of his climbs were praised for being nothing short of ‘visionary’.His most legendary climb was the first ascent of the Southwest Face of Mt Everest in 1975, not the ‘tourist route’ up the South Col, but hugely technical face of the world’s highest mountain. He did use oxygen on this climb, but his cylinder ran out as he and Dougal Haston reached the higher point on earth. The sun was going down, so they spent the night just under the summit: no oxygen, no tent, no mats, no sleeping bags, no stove - and descended safely the next day.   <figure><img width="2000" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be6e69c7e80680e0877cbjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Dougal Haston during the first ascent of the southwest face of Mt Everest in 1975. Photo: Doug Scott</figcaption></figure>After Everest, many other peaks followed: the difficult southwest face of Xixapangma, Shivling (East Pillar) in India, Kussum Kanguru (North Summit) in Khumbu, Nuptse (North Face), and Kangchenjunga North Ridge in 1979 with Joe Tasker and Pete Boardman. The Kangchenjunga climb ranks among the great climbs in the Himalaya -- it was the first time one of the highest three mountains in the world was climbed Alipine Style without bottled oxygen. Doug Scott kept coming back to Nepal, not just to climb, but for his charity work with <a href="https://www.canepal.org.uk/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.canepal.org.uk/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607438385492000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFHWhnQWX5fIu5hl4wWcVWiC0kdoQ">CAN (Community Action Nepal)</a> a non-profit that has tried to raise the living standard of the people of the Himalaya from Pakistan to Nepal.In a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/how-to-restore-the-lure-of-everest/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/how-to-restore-the-lure-of-everest/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607438385492000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEwxs_krOaUgYa16JjmNUeVKMnchQ">column for Nepali Times last year</a>, he wrote: ‘I have been lured to Nepal many times, as much by the Himalayan landscape as to be with the mountain people. It is the people more than the mountains who bring visitors back to Nepal.’That column followed the infamous images of a ‘traffic jam’ on Everest, and Doug had his solution for it: to limit climbers and only allow those who had summited at least one 7,000m peak in Nepal. It looks like the Nepal government took his advice, and issued just such a directive in the pre-pandemic 2020 spring season. <img width="1362" height="764" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be6e89c7e80680e0877ccjpeg.jpg" alt="">Doug raised finances and installed 17 fresh water pipes in Askole (the last village before K2), so reducing infant mortality there by half. Today, CAN has 60 health posts in Nepal, with the aim to build seven more. Once done they will serve thousands of isolated villages with basic health care. Add education, porter and local community support and CAN is an inspirational force in mountain community development.  A friend said that Doug Scott was “the world’s most enthusiastic fund raiser.”  Another friend noted: “You meet Doug, you shake hands, he talks CAN, and you automatically contribute. I bought one of his £10 posters, and paid £200! Just because it was Doug.'A month or so before he passed Doug instigated 'Climb Everest' -- where people could climb their stairs at home, and raise funds for CAN. He himself donned his original Everest SW Face climbing gear (pictured above), and (probably against doctors wishes) climbed his own stairs for the last time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxCbkMr2SmY&amp;feature=emb_logoReinhold Messner and many other climbers followed his example, and raised thousands of pounds for CAN's work in Nepal. Doug passed away at his home in the Lake District at age 79, with his family around him. Heartfelt condolences to family and friends from the world of mountaineering.  <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/31-Nepali-children-lost-their-fathers,2184" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/31-Nepali-children-lost-their-fathers,2184&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607438385492000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHwy1QdN5stPAfdbXNF0nS7zP9rkQ">David Durkan </a> is a traveller, mountaineer and author of the book, Penguins on Everest. <a href="mailto:durkandavid@gmail.com">durkandavid@gmail.com</a>

Doug Scott: a giant among giants

<figure><img width="1598" height="1138" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191112/636bedec4b0ad905ca02ef13jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Most Nepal-holics know the names of Toni Hagen, Edmund Hillary, Boris, Father Moran, Liz Hawley and Jimmy Roberts ... all notable foreigners who, with love and dedication, have unselfishly contributed to the development and betterment of Nepal. But the general public may not have heard of <a style="font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9296#.X842ay8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D9296%23.X842ay8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607438385491000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEENjM1t1dILqYeUvakqHGCKVkQ5A">Doug Scott</a> who, like Herman Buhl, Walter Bonatti and Reinhold Messner, was a mountaineering legend in his own lifetime. He now joins the list of 'great givers to Nepal'. He made numerous first and ground-breaking ascents in the UK, big wall climbs on Baffin Island and in the US, plus explorations like the pioneering 1965 trip to the Tibesti mountains in northern Chad. In the Himalaya and Karakoram, he added 30 first ascents during 40 expeditions. He was the champion of purist <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10379#.X842WC8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D10379%23.X842WC8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607438385492000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGMKd3QCl886RBhqnrGBFDqemeOIg">Alpine style climbing</a> -- using no Sherpa support, no fixed ropes, no oxygen ... climbing or attempting virtually only unclimbed mountains, or new routes on established peaks.Doug (Keith) Scott was born in 1940 and died at home in UK on Monday 7 December. He was harder and bolder than those who had gone before him on epic climbs of Everest, Kangchenjunga, Shivling, Nanga Parbat, The Ogre (where he broke both ankles and had to crawl for days to reach Base Camp). The list of climbs is longer than a Welsh railway station's name, and led to numerous honours and titles. None of which he sought, but his favourite was the Piolet d'Or Lifetime Achievement, the Oscar of Mountaineering. The style and  boldness of his climbs were praised for being nothing short of ‘visionary’.His most legendary climb was the first ascent of the Southwest Face of Mt Everest in 1975, not the ‘tourist route’ up the South Col, but hugely technical face of the world’s highest mountain. He did use oxygen on this climb, but his cylinder ran out as he and Dougal Haston reached the higher point on earth. The sun was going down, so they spent the night just under the summit: no oxygen, no tent, no mats, no sleeping bags, no stove - and descended safely the next day.   <figure><img width="2000" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191112/636bedef4b0ad905ca02ef14jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Dougal Haston during the first ascent of the southwest face of Mt Everest in 1975. Photo: Doug Scott</figcaption></figure>After Everest, many other peaks followed: the difficult southwest face of Xixapangma, Shivling (East Pillar) in India, Kussum Kanguru (North Summit) in Khumbu, Nuptse (North Face), and Kangchenjunga North Ridge in 1979 with Joe Tasker and Pete Boardman. The Kangchenjunga climb ranks among the great climbs in the Himalaya -- it was the first time one of the highest three mountains in the world was climbed Alipine Style without bottled oxygen. Doug Scott kept coming back to Nepal, not just to climb, but for his charity work with <a href="https://www.canepal.org.uk/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.canepal.org.uk/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607438385492000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFHWhnQWX5fIu5hl4wWcVWiC0kdoQ">CAN (Community Action Nepal)</a> a non-profit that has tried to raise the living standard of the people of the Himalaya from Pakistan to Nepal.In a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/how-to-restore-the-lure-of-everest/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/how-to-restore-the-lure-of-everest/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607438385492000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEwxs_krOaUgYa16JjmNUeVKMnchQ">column for Nepali Times last year</a>, he wrote: ‘I have been lured to Nepal many times, as much by the Himalayan landscape as to be with the mountain people. It is the people more than the mountains who bring visitors back to Nepal.’That column followed the infamous images of a ‘traffic jam’ on Everest, and Doug had his solution for it: to limit climbers and only allow those who had summited at least one 7,000m peak in Nepal. It looks like the Nepal government took his advice, and issued just such a directive in the pre-pandemic 2020 spring season. <img width="1362" height="764" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191112/636bedf24b0ad905ca02ef15jpeg.jpg" alt="">Doug raised finances and installed 17 fresh water pipes in Askole (the last village before K2), so reducing infant mortality there by half. Today, CAN has 60 health posts in Nepal, with the aim to build seven more. Once done they will serve thousands of isolated villages with basic health care. Add education, porter and local community support and CAN is an inspirational force in mountain community development.  A friend said that Doug Scott was “the world’s most enthusiastic fund raiser.”  Another friend noted: “You meet Doug, you shake hands, he talks CAN, and you automatically contribute. I bought one of his £10 posters, and paid £200! Just because it was Doug.'A month or so before he passed Doug instigated 'Climb Everest' -- where people could climb their stairs at home, and raise funds for CAN. He himself donned his original Everest SW Face climbing gear (pictured above), and (probably against doctors wishes) climbed his own stairs for the last time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxCbkMr2SmY&amp;feature=emb_logoReinhold Messner and many other climbers followed his example, and raised thousands of pounds for CAN's work in Nepal. Doug passed away at his home in the Lake District at age 79, with his family around him. Heartfelt condolences to family and friends from the world of mountaineering.  <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/31-Nepali-children-lost-their-fathers,2184" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/31-Nepali-children-lost-their-fathers,2184&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607438385492000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHwy1QdN5stPAfdbXNF0nS7zP9rkQ">David Durkan </a> is a traveller, mountaineer and author of the book, Penguins on Everest. <a href="mailto:durkandavid@gmail.com">durkandavid@gmail.com</a>

<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6759c7e80680e031486jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Pic: Gopen Rai</figcaption></figure>Kami Rita Sherpa (pictured above) broke the previous record by climbing Mt Everest for the 22nd time this week.“The country needs the record, but not the man who makes the record,” Kami Rita Sherpa said on 28 March in Kathmandu before he set off to climb Mt Everest.True to his word, the 48-year-old from Thame village of Solukhumbu summitted the world’s highest mountain for the 22nd time on the morning of 16 May. And as the person who has climbed Mt Everest the most number of times, he has made international headlines.Kami Rita is a guide at Seven Summit Treks, and had started climbing from Camp 5 with nine Chinese climbers on Tuesday night, and reached the top on Wednesday morning. Before this, Appa Sherpa and Phurba Tasi Sherpa had jointly held the world record, with an impressive 21 times each on top of Everest. Appa and Phurba Tasi have repeatedly said that they will probably not climb again.Kami Rita is a humble man, and often said he was not hungry for fame. “Many Sherpas have made records. Ang Rita Sherpa made a world record by climbing Everest 10 times without oxygen. But what is the point of such records?” he asks.However, Ang Chhiring Sherpa, former president of Nepal Mountaineers Association, says Kami Rita has made Nepal proud and he should be recognised.“Now it is the country’s responsibility to figure out how to appreciate such a person,” said Ang Chirring Sherpa.Kami Rita started mountaineering in 1992, and first summitted Mt Everest in 1998 as a guide. In 2009, 2010, and 2013, he climbed Mt Everest three times in a single season. His brother Lhakpa Rita Sherpa has also climbed Mt Everest 17 times.Kami Rita, who had studied up to Grade 4 in Thame Primary School, lives in a rented apartment at Bouddha. His son studies in Class 12 while his daughter has just completed high school.Worried about the safety of Sherpas who work in mountaineering, Kami Rita does not want his children to follow his footsteps. He says: “The government only cares about royalty from the mountains, it does not care about our future. We have to support our family from what we earn every season. Who will take care of our family if something happens to us?”He says there may soon be no Sherpas willing to guide alpinists up the mountains. Meanwhile, Kami Rita continues to climb. His friends encourage him to get to the top for the 30th time. But he says: “I think I will make it 25 times.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/new-records-oxygen-failure-on-everest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New records, oxygen failure on Everest</a>

“I can do it 25 times”

<h2>Art of Freedom is a brilliant portrait of one of the purest alpinists of our time</h2> <figure><img width="768" height="432" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6699c7e80680e031482jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Pic: Mateusz Skwarczek Agencja Gazeta</figcaption></figure>There was the rattle of pans and the hiss of a kerosene stove from the kitchen tent. Poking my head out of the sleeping bag, I saw the huge hulk of Makalu silhouetted against the dawn sky. It had snowed all night, the moon and some of the stars were still out. There in the semi-darkness, Voytek Kurtyka was hanging by one hand from a truck-sized boulder.It was the spring climbing season in 1981, and we were camped out on a moraine by the Barun during the march-in to Base Camp. Kurtyka was planning an alpine style ascent of Makalu’s unclimbed west face with his climbing partner Alex MacIntyre. The weather was bad and the face was impossible. The two returned in autumn, but they were defeated by a 500m rock overhang near the summit. Another Polish climber Jurek Kukucka made it to the top solo a few days later.Bernadette McDonald, the Canadian author of ten mountaineering books, chronicles the Makalu expeditions and other climbs by one of the greatest alpinists of all time, Poland’s Voytek Kurtyka, in her new book, Art of Freedom. Even though they were mountaineers of the same generation from the same country, Kukucka and Kurtyka’s approaches to climbing could not be more different.McDonald writes about how Makalu presaged the difference: ‘Jurek was focused on summits, and Voytek was obsessed with style.’ <img width="640" height="960" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d66c9c7e80680e031483jpeg.jpg" alt="">Kurtyka was a driven man, completely consumed by his climbing and an ardent opponent of militaristic expedition-style climbing of Himalayan peaks. Attaining the summit was not so important for the reclusive Kurtyka, what was important was how a climber got there.A year after Makalu, Reinhold Messner invited Kurtyka to join him on Cho Oyu. But when he got to Base Camp, Kurtyka found out the climb was ‘not going to be alpine style, but siege style’ with high altitude porters, ropes and fixed camps. Kurtyka tells McDonald he likes to climb ‘unleashed’. We read about the climber’s dislike for mountaineers who write in a ‘pretentious or self-aggrandizing style’. He adds: ‘I now see clearly that climbing is an Art. I also see that advertising is a poison, while self-advertising is the oldest disease in the human soul.’Read also<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/the-nepali-chronicles,2195" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Nepal Chronicles</a>, Kunda DixitIn the week when the assembly line jumar mass-conquests of Mt Everest is reaching its annual climax, these lines have special relevance. Art of Freedom takes us back to the purity of climbing that Kurtyka believed in like a religion – a style in which humans meet mountains one-on-one.Kurtyka’s approach to climbing is low-key, humble and almost Buddhist, a complete antithesis to the chest-thumbing, record-breaking race that it has become, especially on Everest. Naturally, Kurtyka is vehement about over-regulation by governments intent on turning climbing into an industrial enterprise. He is proud of his many illegal climbs.He tells McDonald: ‘Being illegal is part of a creative life. Restrictions are mostly imposed by the brutes of the world and they turn our lives into slavery. They ruin the sense of freedom. I am not a natural born hater, but sometimes I find it is my duty, I hate every kind of rule.’Read Also<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19191#.WvvqCLh-jjE" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mountains in Large Format,</a> Kanak Mani DixitAfter returning to Kathmandu from Makalu in 1981, Voytek and Alex would go bar-hopping in Thamel and come home after curfew. Because they did not want to wake up my parents, the two would climb up the drain pipes to the second floor ‘apline style’ with the dogs howling at the intruders.Kurtyka would have taken a dim view of the outrageous reaction by Nepal’s tourism ‘authorities’ to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/outside-in/shooting-ourselves-in-the-foot/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Willie Begenas and Matt Moniz skiing from Camp 3 to Camp 2 last week</a>. Or the new ‘rule’ decreed by the governors of mountaineering in Kathmandu to ban double amputees from climbing (since rescinded).The danger is always there, and Kurtyka is one of the few who lived to tell the tale of alpine style climbing of the big peaks. Kukucka died on Lhotse South Face, and MacIntyre on Annapurna South Face. In the book, Kurtyka tells McDonald why he thinks he survived: a combination of luck, an instinctive alertness to danger signals, or even ‘some idealistic notion of a reciprocal love between the mountain and him’.Bernadette Mcdonald’s book takes us into the soul of a spiritual climber who sees in mountaineering a manifestation of nature in its purest form, a creative drive he calls ‘Crea’. Art of Freedom is a brilliant portrait of one of the cleanest climbers of our time.Art of Freedom: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka  by Bernadette McDonald Rocky Mountain Books, 2017 326 pages Hardcover $32

Voytek Kurtyka unleashed

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d65d9c7e80680e03147djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="699" height="699"/><figcaption>Willie's climbing partner Matt Moniz with skis on the Western Cwm of Mount Everest. Pic: Willie Benegas</figcaption></figure>Khumbu -- Never let the facts get in the way of a good story is a line which sure also lives in Nepal. So, I am not consulting actual facts for this report. It is  too difficult. My facts are as I see them and that makes them my facts. If feelings are hurt, these are the facts regardless of the cause.On Sunday a team of Nepali guides topped out on Mt Everest while fixing the route, securing it for others to follow. These men take the greatest risks, in the lead and are a great credit to their profession and to Nepal. A Chinese double amputee and 13 other climbers summitted Monday morning.Before we heard this good news there was the report that Willie Benegas was to be recalled from the mountain, fined and banned from Nepal. His crime was skiing the short distance from Camp 3 to Camp 2 on Mt Everest last week.I consider Willie and his brother Damien to be friends and, like myself, mountain professionals. I have known the brothers for well over a decade and have climbed with them. I met with my partner Dawa Steven in Asian Trekking before they left for the mountain this season. The brothers come to see what is new in the world of high altitude oxygen and give us their feedback from the previous season. They were the only people to do this and they do it to make Everest better and safer. Over the years I have trusted them to test new innovations because I trust their opinions, experience and passion.I first climbed on Mt Everest in 1988, and have led teams many times since then. I had never heard that you need a permit to ski on Everest, nor has anyone else I know. It just does not make sense. Skiing on any mountain is a perfectly accepted norm up and down, as accepted as wearing crampons.Skiing a crime? Seriously? It is clear that Willie also was unaware of his crime, and crime it must be if he is facing deportation. He posted the event on social media and told people he intended to do it. It is pretty difficult to smuggle a set of skis up a mountain. Surely his Liaison Officer would have seen this and made him aware?Lets take a quick look at the permits. First he bought a Nepal visa, then an Everest climbing permit of $11000, then a National Park permit in order to get to the place that he has bought an $11000 permit to get to. If he wants to make a video he needs to get a filming permit.So what else can the government do to make extra cash? We could then charge him a camping permit, taking photos permit, talking to media permit (this exists) wearing boots permit, using ropes permit?Do you know how this looks from the outside in, it looks like a very nasty, cheap, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/for-a-few-dollars-more/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">money grubbing</a> venture by the government. Willie immediately offered to pay the permit. No, not allowed. He was summoned to Kathmandu where he went at great personal expense by helicopter. We then hear that he is to be deported.Willie’s expedition was an attempt by <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/two-mountaineers-are-trying-recreate-nasa-s-twin-study-mount-everest" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA</a> to replicate its experiment with twins in orbit, by tracking the physiological functions of the climbers’ twin brothers at sea level.The mountain community are enraged. Willie is possibly the most respected western professional in the industry. The guides and local people remember what the government cannot. Willie and his brother did great work during and after the 2015 earthquake. They have brought countless people and therefore money to the industry and Nepal. Now lets punish him, perhaps ruin his livelihood. For skiing!Yes, a crime has been committed and people should be punished, but was not Willie who committed it. The real crime here is the damage done to the industry and the name of Nepal. This bad press has of course reached every part of the world, and people are truly incensed.As the greater, true crime goes unpunished, Willie has already been punished before being found guilty. He lost vital time on the mountain needed for his acclimatisation and the costs of helicopters.Stop Press. This just in. There is no permit to ski on Everest. There exists a ‘heli ski permit’ where you exit a helicopter with the express intent to ski, but this is not possible on Everest as the only helicopters allowed at this height are for rescue and need a permit.All this damage for nothing when it could have been avoided, not made any press as Willie would actually have paid for a permit that did not exist. So the fine and the money grubbing efforts are all in vain.By the way, where was the paid-for Liaison Officer while all of this was happening. Just asking, in case he was not there where he was meant to be, where he was paid to be by Willie?If this was the case, then we have someone who we could punish, who really did commit a crime.Ted Atkins is a former RAF Chief Engineering Officer and works on mountaineering oxygen systems. He contributes this Outside In column for Nepali Times.

Shooting ourselves in the foot

Nepal’s only international aviation gateway, at Kathmandu airport, will cut night-time operation hours to allow construction of taxiways, and airlines have been told to curtail flights. This is expected to lead to more than normal chaos during the height of peak autumn and spring tourist seasons at an airport that is congested even at the best of times. The airport will close from 10PM to 8AM from 8 November-31 March 2025. The taxiways will now connect to the thresholds at both ends of the runway, making the airport more efficient in handling higher frequencies of landings and takeoffs. The parallel taxiway extension will allow international flights to land every 4 minutes instead of the current every 7 minutes. At present planes have to wait to land until a plane taking off backtracks along the runway.&nbsp; Kathmandu is Nepal’s only airport with international operations, and it has only one runway that is only one way in from the south over the mountains. With the taxiway improvement, the airport will be able to handle 42 aircraft landings and takeoffs per hour — double the current capacity.&nbsp; The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has been trying to entice international airlines to also start flying to and from the other two international airports at Pokhara and Bhairawa (Lumbini) by slashing landing and handling charges. But so far only Nepal Airlines operates a weekly flight to Bhairawa from Kuala Lumpur.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241018161016_046569e53d1d66cd445cc66c697c0ef724810aec9f54bdf827481e3cd6b80c32.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241018161016_046569e53d1d66cd445cc66c697c0ef724810aec9f54bdf827481e3cd6b80c32" data-rendition-name="original" width="2356" height="1134" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu airport expansion"> <figcaption>Kathmandu Airport Expansion plan with extension of taxiways to the thresholds of runways 02 and 20 that will limit airport operations from 8 November 2024 - 31 March 2025. Areas in blue are existing structures, including the international terminal which in future will be the domestic airport, and the new international terminal near the north end of the runway,</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241018121028_6e17cc2ee87c1b02d78cb54905825b7aa15299b7a00f5eddb01a59579ab85c1a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241018121028_6e17cc2ee87c1b02d78cb54905825b7aa15299b7a00f5eddb01a59579ab85c1a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1353" height="1328" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu airport NT"> </figure>  CAAN has reportedly told international airlines to cut their flight frequency to Kathmandu citing the shorter operation hours and has told budget airlines to shift some of their flights to Pokhara or Bhairawa, or face cuts. Many airlines currently operate regular flights to and from Kathmandu between 10PM and 8AM: Air Arabia to Sharjah, Fly Dubai to Dubai, Jazeera Airways to Kuwait, Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, Singapore Airlines, several Nepal Airlines flights, and one of four daily flights by Qatar Airways to Doha. Jazeera Airways, FlyDubai, and Thai AirAsia have applied and got permission from CAAN to begin regular flights to Bhairawa’s Gautam Buddha International Airport. Starting 9 November, FlyDubai will start making a stopover in Bhairawa before flying on to Kathmandu. Immigration, customs and security are all fully functional in Bhairawa. In Kathmandu, the next phase of the airport upgrade includes converting the current international terminal for domestic operations, the construction of a new international terminal where the domestic departure area is now, as well as moving the hangars and the Nepal Army Air Wing to the eastern side of the runway. The apron area will also double its parking space for widebody jets. This is part of a Airport Capacity Enhancement Project that was initially funded through a $80 million loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the entire masterplan is expected to cost $800 million. This project is the latest upgrade to Nepal’s only international airport since it saw its first flight in 1949. The current international and domestic terminals are too small to handle the current annual traffic volume of 8.5 million passengers a year that is growing at 20% a year.

Kathmandu airport to cut flight hours

As Kathmandu becomes more congested and polluted, and with remote online work becoming the norm, many professional Nepalis are planning to retire in Pokhara, or move there.&nbsp; With its stunning mountain panorama, balmy winters and proximity to a profusion of wilderness areas, builders are responding to this demand with new townhouses, housing development and apartments. One such block of flats is the 10-storey <a href="https://sungavaapartment.com/">Sungava Apartment</a> located at Phulbari above the Seti River, near the point where it flows into and under Pokhara. The imposing structure near Manipal Hospital is almost complete, and on a recent visit the site was strewn with huge boulders unearthed while digging the foundation.&nbsp; The Seti brought down these boulders during a gigantic flood that geologists estimate happened 800 years ago when a chunk of Annapurna IV broke off and ploughed into the glacier below. Today, Sungava (means ‘orchid’) sits safely on a high terrace, 100m above the blue-green Seti and commands a view of Dhaulagiri, Annapurna South, Machapuchre, Annapurna III and IV.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024102411104_5f8fc736c86ea3c08d7bef43bb727081d3cc1a2caa55ae2b441717e6044de7e9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024102411104_5f8fc736c86ea3c08d7bef43bb727081d3cc1a2caa55ae2b441717e6044de7e9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2016" height="1512" loading="lazy" alt="High living below the Himalaya NT"> </figure>  The soil here is conglomerate that has solidified like concrete, and the boulders were extracted by heavy earthmovers. It is intriguing to think that these metamorphic rocks as big as cars, rounded by glacial grinding, were once a part of a much higher Annapurna IV. Even for those with little interest in geology, Sungava is an ideal place to contemplate the tectonic forces that pushed these peaks into the sky to be sculpted into delicate shapes by wind, snow, earthquake and avalanche over millions of years. The view of the Himalayan panorama from Sungava’s many balconies are breathtaking when not obscured by clouds, or the haze that drifts in from across the southern border. On most days, just watching the towering pyramid of Machapuchre (Tamu name: कतासुँ क्लिको) play hide and seek with the clouds is mesmerising. There are rocks aplenty at Phulbari, and it is probably the flowers that grew along the flat terraces e that gave the place its flowery name. The boulders will hopefully be turned into a rock garden while landscaping. An nearby restaurant complex is making the best use of the stones in its design, using flat rocks as outdoor benches and tables. Sungava was designed by the husband-wife architect team of Deepak Sherchan and Jyoti Joshi of <a href="https://thedarkmermaidamarbshrestha.blogspot.com/2013/12/creative-builders-collaborative-cbc.html">Creative Builders Collaborative (CBC)</a>, which also built Heritage Plaza, Indreni Apartment and numerous other projects in Nepal. Sadbhavana retains CBC’s trademark Newari-style masonry and here it borrows from the orange brickwork of the old town of Pokhara, integrating it with modern design elements. A few of those heritage houses are still standing in Ganesh Tole and Ram Krishna Tole in Pokhara’s old quarter.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024102411108_5eb64a4885961b6d30781cefeb1e8a313da313ac5227c7a66b60f0c7d48d6fab.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2024102411108_5eb64a4885961b6d30781cefeb1e8a313da313ac5227c7a66b60f0c7d48d6fab" data-rendition-name="original" width="1362" height="595" loading="lazy" alt="High living below the Himalaya NT"> </figure>  About 400m from the apartment past a bend on the river, and down below three tiers of terraces in the canyon is a suspension bridge. Below it, the Seti is still swollen with post-monsoon flow as it tumbles away in a hurry to head down south.&nbsp; Back at the apartment, it is quiet, far away from the hubbub of Lakeside a 15 minute drive away, and in the lap of greenery. There are 52 units at Sungava and it already has a close-knit prospective community of professionals, including doctors, publishers, engineers, and businesspeople from the renewable energy and IT sectors.&nbsp; Some residents say they opted for a second home in Pokhara to make it a ‘base camp’ to explore the Annapurnas with its many hiking trails made newly accessible with new roads. With the NRN citizenship law, overseas Nepalis can now also buy the flats. &nbsp; The floor plans include options for north and south-facing 3-bedroom apartments with verandas, and the facility has underground parking has EV charging, heated pool, sauna and gym. There are still some unsold apartments with panoramic views of the mountains and one can imagine oneself at the kitchen with its huge window, humming a ditty while preparing breakfast: “खाना पकाउँ हिमाल हेरेर...”

High living below the Himalaya

When the United Nations held its Summit of the Future at its headquarters in New York in September, many world leaders, including Nepal’s Prime Minister K P Oli, highlighted the effect of climate breakdown in increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. What did not get as much attention was the long term impact of the climate crisis on food production. In fact, heat stress, weather extremes and the consequences on rain-fed agriculture is already being felt worldwide, undermining the chances of the <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/">UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)</a> being met by 2030.&nbsp; The SDG’s 17 targets commit countries like Nepal to reduce poverty and inequality, end malnutrition, protect the natural environment, and ensure that citizens all enjoy health, justice and prosperity without leaving anyone behind.&nbsp; However, besides the impact of climate breakdown on agricultural production, in Nepal the area under cultivation is impacted by urban expansion, falling productivity and the need for expensive inputs like fertiliser and pesticides.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_626413c5baf4dae407ac9579231b41daeb51510aa636b75aeb7489d94cca6a62.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241019041052_626413c5baf4dae407ac9579231b41daeb51510aa636b75aeb7489d94cca6a62" data-rendition-name="original" width="999" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Kathmandu's urban sprawl is eating into its fertile cultivable lands. Photo: TAYLOR MASON</figcaption> </figure>  Now, a new study led by Nepali researcher Prajal Pradhan at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands looks at how urban agriculture may offer a solution to falling food production and meeting SDG targets. The researchers evaluated 1,450 publications exploring the contributions of urban agriculture with both positive and negative effects, and published their findings in the journal Cells Report Sustainability. Urban agriculture can help achieve 17 SDGs, positively influencing 81 targets. However, it could also undermine 51 goals.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-vanishing-land">The vanishing land</a>, Taylor Mason “Urban agriculture offers immense potential for sustainable development, but realising this potential depends crucially on adopting practices that minimise its adverse effects while maximising its benefits,” Pradhan explains. Urban agriculture can substantially enhance urban food security, provide employment to the urban poor, serve as ground water recharge in built-up areas, and preserve open spaces that can serve as safe havens during disasters like earthquakes. However, it also presents problems like the potential health risks from contamination and the need for expensive inputs. &nbsp; “Urban agriculture plays a definitive role in advancing the SDGs, but achieving this requires tailored, context-specific solutions that address the unique challenges of different regions,” says Yuanchao Hu of Wuhan University in China and who is a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “But it needs equitable access and rigorous management of environmental risks.”&nbsp; Rapid urbanisation is eating into Nepal’s most fertile agricultural land, which means farming in remaining open spaces inside cities can be a viable alternative, especially as food prices rise.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_7b7c9413086226fbdc630d45acf772cfa1ced77a8970b9056ec5ec7e5226fdf8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241019041052_7b7c9413086226fbdc630d45acf772cfa1ced77a8970b9056ec5ec7e5226fdf8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>A vegetable patch in between new houses in Thimi. Photo: TAYLOR MASON</figcaption> </figure>  “The conversion of Nepal’s most fertile land into cities is a severe problem,” Pradhan told Nepali Times. “Crop cultivation, horticulture, agroforestry, beekeeping, livestock rearing, or aquaculture can all be farming activities within and around cities.”&nbsp; The study makes recommendations for sustainable practices that build on the positive aspects of urban agriculture while mitigating the downsides, thereby promoting more resilient cities in future. Research shows that urban agriculture has been helping many countries attain SDG targets by enhancing food security and biodiversity while helping education and preservation of open spaces.&nbsp; Indeed, many farmers from the hinterland who have settled in Kathmandu Valley or other urban areas of the country have been practicing urban agriculture, leasing neighbourhood patches or cultivating roof gardens both out of necessity because of inflation and falling income to grow their own food, and also as a fulfilling hobby. Saurav Dhakal, a sustainability advocate with Story Cycle and now research fellow at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, says there are socio-economic and environmental benefits of urban agriculture. “It provides benefits to all urban dwellers, regardless of their income status,” says Dhakal, “families get fresh food, and there are many other benefits like water retention, heat regulation and biodiversity. These are all public goods, so special government incentives may be needed.” It is not unusual to see vegetable patches and even paddy fields within inner city Kathmandu where an older generation of farmers are using available fertile land and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/rooftop-gardens-kathmandu,1415">roof gardens to produce fresh, nutritious food </a>to reduce their dependence on food items that have to be bought after being trucked in from large distances.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101905100_1291ce98dbbb8caed8702ac4b1d469b3e13016d7ecaaf3bfd5f91c974d3c0c77.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2024101905100_1291ce98dbbb8caed8702ac4b1d469b3e13016d7ecaaf3bfd5f91c974d3c0c77" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>An older generation of farmers are using any available fertile land to continue farming but it is getting more and more difficult. Photo: TAYLOR MASON </figcaption> </figure>  Nepal’s urban population grew rapidly from only 3.6% in 1991 to 25% today. There is large outmigration from the mountains to peri-urban areas of the Tarai, to Kathmandu Valley and Pokhara, with many young men then moving abroad for work. Kathmandu Valley’s population has swelled to nearly 3 million, and is growing at 6.5% a year. Dilip Shrestha, 71, used to work for Nepal Food Corporation, so he knew firsthand about inflation, shortages and vegetables with pesticide residue. So, when he designed his new house in Kathmandu, he built a spacious roof where he grows cucumber, ginger, garlic, coriander, onions, tomatoes, chili, beans, okra, pumpkin and lettuce. His family eats healthier, and he has reduced dependence on the market.&nbsp; The co-author of the Cell Reports Sustainability journal article, Daya Raj Subedi who is a PhD candidate at Beijing Forestry University, says urban agriculture also promotes inclusion and psycho-social wellbeing.&nbsp; He says, “A crucial finding of the study is the identification of opportunities and challenges associated with urban agriculture, it can promote sustainable transformation of society.” In Banepa, 55-year-old Bijaya Manandhar in her lifetime has watched the fertile farms of her neighbourhood that used to supply vegetables to Kathmandu, now completely built up with no open space left. The pandemic lockdown prompted her to turn to the family’s <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/rooftop-agriculture-on-the-roof-of-the-world">ancestral livelihood by growing food</a> not on terrace farms, but on the roof terrace. Manandhar is now a part of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/rooftop-agriculture-on-the-roof-of-the-world%5C%5C">कौसी खेती र करेसाबारी क्रान्ती</a> (Rooftop Farming and Garden Revolution) which has an online membership of 52,000, and awards annual prizes to women who excel in urban agriculture.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_7257f5def8f823f35a799fa6f6825e153f2ffa406ac11325d4fe74049b79e96d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20241019041052_7257f5def8f823f35a799fa6f6825e153f2ffa406ac11325d4fe74049b79e96d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="736" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Rooftop farming is gaining popularity as a form of urban agriculture. </figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_beff1a4494ce896dd8fd383ee1f518e5448bcf7ea8bb138255391c7bcb9769ed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20241019041052_beff1a4494ce896dd8fd383ee1f518e5448bcf7ea8bb138255391c7bcb9769ed" data-rendition-name="original" width="4000" height="3000" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> </figure>  Pradhan says the challenge now is to upscale such examples of successful urban agricultural practices so they support Neal’s efforts to meet SDG targets. He adds, “Crop cultivation around cities can be protected by land use plans and regulations. Promoting community-based agriculture, including rooftop gardens, requires community engagement and public-private partnerships across the food value chain.”&nbsp; Such support would accelerate the popularity of existing rooftop farming and community gardens in Kathmandu Valley, or kitchen garden initiatives in Pokhara, and building on traditional farming practices that are preserved and integrated into urban settings like in Bhaktapur and Banepa. In Lalitpur, the Women Entrepreneurship Facilitation Center promotes urban farming enhancing both sustainability and empowerment.&nbsp; Another co-author of the report, Yuanchao Hu from China says followup research of the team will aim to identify good practices in local urban agriculture practices. He adds, “There are examples of urban agriculture that optimise sustainability, ensuring that it remains a viable solution for cities globally while countries try to meet SDG targets.” Prajal Pradhan, Daya Raj Subedi, Kshitij Dahal, Yuanchao Hu, Prakriti Gurung, Sijal Pokharel, Sagar Kafle, Biplav Khatri, Sudeeksha Basyal, Monika Gurung, and Aruna Joshi. Urban Agriculture matters for sustainable development. Cell Reports Sustainability, 1:100217, 2024. [DOI: 10.1016/j.crsus.2024.100217] Prajal Pradhan (<a href="mailto:p.pradhan@rug.nl">p.pradhan@rug.nl</a>) This article is brought to you by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/" target="_blank">Nepali Times</a>, in collaboration with <a href="https://inpsjapan.com/en/" target="_blank">INPS Japan</a> and <a href="https://sgi-peace.org/" target="_blank">Soka Gakkai International</a>, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758" data-rendition-name="original" width="680" height="103" loading="lazy" alt="SDG logo"> </figure>

Back to the land in the cities

The 700-year-old Lakshmi Narasingha temple in Bhaktapur houses a rare half-lion and half-human incarnation of Lord Vishnu carrying the Goddess Lakshmi. The temple was destroyed in the 1934 mega earthquake that killed 10,000 people and destroyed many monuments in Kathmandu Valley. It was rebuilt by a German project in the 1980s, but as a single-storey structure instead of its original two-tier pagoda design.&nbsp; With new findings from in-depth research, Bhaktapur municipality began re-restoring the temple in 2021, preserving its original architecture.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_2fae38cce543ad7b1f6de632feb3e212e08ed1acedd747830e949d7b8e878f18.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241017131016_2fae38cce543ad7b1f6de632feb3e212e08ed1acedd747830e949d7b8e878f18" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “Our temples and heritage sites hold deep meaning. It is disheartening to witness how often they lose their original elements, whether by design or accident,” explains Kumar Chawal of the Consumer Committee of Bhaktapur. “There is a need to preserve our architecture and protect its historical value for future generations. Otherwise, we risk losing a vital part of our identity.” The Laksmi Narsingha restoration is similar to the Bhai Dega temple in Patan Darbar Square which also collapsed in 1934, but was rebuilt with a Moghul-style dome by the Rana government at the time. Only two months before the 2015 earthquake, heritage conservationists had started to rebuild Bhai Dega as the original three-tier based on early photographs. But priorities shifted when four other temples in the square were brought down by the 7.8M earthquake on 25 April 2015.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_697ea707d9ad163be5de5f2efbf5b70d3cab771adcc22f0fae6bf937c6cb0130.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241017131016_697ea707d9ad163be5de5f2efbf5b70d3cab771adcc22f0fae6bf937c6cb0130" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  This showed how damage to monuments in Kathmandu Valley spanned from one earthquake to the next. Bhai Dega restoration remains half-complete to this day because money for its restoration ran out.&nbsp; Whereas Bhai Dega restoration was done by the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust with grants from western embassies and international foundations, in Bhaktapur it is the municipality itself that allocated the Rs30.7 million needed to restore the Lakshmi Narasingha temple. The expected date of completion is early 2025. The municipality and local communities are focusing on two main aspects: preserving the past and promoting localisation. The restoration team has designed a blueprint for the temple by using historical photographs and insights from older generations.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_182882fdc393c99e70d1d0490319e415229563666c4934e3a582426ebf00ca30.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241017131016_182882fdc393c99e70d1d0490319e415229563666c4934e3a582426ebf00ca30" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="560" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “At first, the Lakshmi Narasingha temple had only one entrance, but during the demolition process, we uncovered the foundations of four doors. Now, we are restoring all of them. This is an example of how our ancient structures have changed over time, often without our knowledge,” says Chawal. “Constructing temples is not like building houses. They carry historical and spiritual values, which is why they hold a special place in our hearts,” he adds. By replicating ancient design elements and rebuilding the temple as accurately as possible to its original form, the team has stayed true to Bhaktapur’s soul. But the restoration also revived ancient techniques that were in danger of being forgotten, generating employment for woodcarvers, masons, and contractors. The community of Bhaktapur’s Gahiti neighbourhood near the famous Nyatapola Temple has also set aside specific days for locals to volunteer in the reconstruction work. This has encouraged young people to take pride in ownership of their heritage. Families have also supported the effort by donating funds for bells, the temple pinnacle, and other structural features to the temple.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_db850ec0c084cdbe54f65bee92dad2ad8122d20fd60ec87ec086fbb9d2f72bd6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241017131016_db850ec0c084cdbe54f65bee92dad2ad8122d20fd60ec87ec086fbb9d2f72bd6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “I feel at peace knowing I have contributed my sweat to restoring this temple,” said one volunteer. “It is our duty to preserve our temples and heritage. The Nyatapola area will look magical once this temple is completed.” Community mobilisation is a long-standing tradition in Bhaktapur. In the past, locals have actively participated in the restoration of other temples in the city, such as Bhairav and Nyatapola fostering a strong sense of ownership. This collective engagement has not only been crucial in preserving the city's historical monuments but also in strengthening the bond between local communities and their heritage, says officials at the municipality. While securing funding is essential, and the municipality showed it values heritage conservation, the Lakshmi Narasingha restoration is proof that active involvement and sense of responsibility of the local community is as important, if not more. Local involvement also means that the monuments will be cared for into the future, When locals take ownership of these efforts, the restored monuments are not only protected in the present but are also cared for in the future.