KATMANDU, Nepal — It’s the world’s highest glass ceiling. Of the 3,755 climbers who have scaled Mount Everest, more than half are Nepalese but only 21 of those locals are women. Aiming to change the all-male image of mountaineering in this country, a group of Nepalese women has embarked on a mission to shatter that barrier by climbing the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents.
The women, ages between 21 and 32, have climbed Everest in Asia, Kosciuszko in Australia, and Elbrus in Europe. They are preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa to mark International Women’s Day this week.
‘‘The main goal of our mission is to encourage women in education, empowerment and environment,’’ Shailee Basnet, the 29-year-old team leader, said before leaving for Africa.
Women in this Himalayan nation rarely got the chance to climb because they were confined to their homes while their husbands led expeditions or carried equipment for Western climbers, Basnet said.
It was only in 1993 that a Nepalese woman — Pasang Lhamu — first reached the 29,000-foot summit of Everest. She died on the way down.
According to Ang Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, Nepalese women had traditionally expressed little attraction to mountaineering. ‘‘It is only recently that women have shown interest,’’ Tshering said.
Since they climbed Everest in 2008, the women have spoken in more than 100 schools across Nepal to tell students about their mission.
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"SACRED COSTUMES -- Nepalese children, dressed in traditional cow costumes, took part in the Gaijatra festival in Kathmandu on Friday. Families who have lost a relative during the year parade a cow, a sacred animal to Hindus, through the city. If a cow is unavailable, a child dressed as a cow is used instead (Boston Globe August 4 2012)."
"US extreme skier describes harrowing Nepal avalanche" by Binaj Gurubacharya | Associated Press, September 27, 2012
KATMANDU, Nepal — Renowned American extreme skier Glen Plake, one of the survivors of the weekend Himalayan avalanche that killed at least eight people, said Wednesday he feels lucky to be alive but heartbroken that he could not save two friends who remain missing.
Plake is a champion hot-dog skier who has appeared in many extreme-skiing documentaries, including 1988’s ‘‘The Blizzard of AAHHH’s,’’ and also is well-known for the tall mohawk he wears on the slopes. He had planned to ski down the slopes of Mount Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain, after reaching the summit.
‘‘I was awake in my tent reading my Bible. . . . The tent began to shake. We thought it was the wind but, in fact, it was an avalanche,’’ Plake told reporters at the Katmandu airport after returning from the mountain in a helicopter. ‘‘It was like an earthquake; it was like a tsunami.’’
Though he said he is ‘‘probably the luckiest person in the world.’’
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Sunday’s avalanche came at the start of Nepal’s autumn climbing season, when the end of the monsoon rains makes weather in the high Himalayas unpredictable. Spring is a more popular mountaineering season, when hundreds of climbers crowd the peaks.
Mount Manaslu, which is 26,760 feet high, has attracted more climbers recently because it is considered one of the easier peaks to climb among the world’s tallest mountains. Avalanches are not very frequent there, but....
Related: Avalanche kills 9 on Nepal mountain
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Also see:
March for gay rights held in Nepal
UPDATE:
"Truce reached among fighting climbers on Everest" by BINAJ GURUBACHARYA | Associated Press, May 02, 2013
KATMANDU, Nepal — A truce has been reached between three foreign climbers and Nepalese Sherpa guides involved in a fistfight on Mount Everest, officials said Wednesday. Two of the foreigners, however, returned to Nepal’s capital and were undecided if they would quit their climb.
Tilak Pandey of the Mountaineering Department said a truce was reached at base camp between the foreigners — an Italian, a Briton, and a Swiss — and the Sherpas on Tuesday.
Nima Nuru of Cho-Oyu Trekking, who equipped the expedition, said Swiss climber Ueli Steck and British climber Jonathan Griffith flew to Katmandu by helicopter and Italian Simone Moro also was planning to return.
Sumit Joshi, a guide from Australia, said by telephone from the Everest base camp that the argument started when the Sherpa guides, who were fixing ropes and digging a path on the snowy trail above Camp 2, asked the foreign climbers to wait until they were finished. He said the climbers ignored them.
Steck and Griffith refused to talk to reporters in Katmandu.
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Can't we all get along?
