KATHMANDU, Nepal- The new mountaineering rules will be more tourist friendly and comparatively safer for mountaineers, said Ang Tshering Sherpa, member of technical sub- committee to review current rules and regulation of mountaineering and ex-president of Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA).
‘Mountaineering rules and regulations related to mountain tourism are too old, so we are studying them and researching ways to make them more relevant and facilitating to foreign mountaineer,’ Ang Chiring Sherpa, also the founder of Asian trekking private Ltd told to Nepal Mountain Focus.
With the aim to study and update the existing mountaineering rules and regulation in the country, the government of Nepal had constituted a task force two months ago.
The eight member task force headed by Purna Chandra Bhattarai, joint secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoTCA) will submit it report to the government within few months after getting suggestion from sub-committee and it will be imposed after getting nod from the Council of the Ministry.
The task force is believed to review the royalty of Mt. Everest and structure of expedition team, besides permitting more peaks for the expeditions.
According to Sherpa, climate change and global warming are hitting hard the snow peaks and exposing rock portions, which use up more energy of the mountaineers and they are stressing the need to set new criteria for mountaineers on the basis of experience and technical skills.
Sherpa said that, the task force is getting suggestions from the local Sherpa and foreigner to open new peaks in the country. ‘The foreigners are advising us to open three new peaks. We will recommend to open new peaks keeping in view the development, facility for locals, employment and more over safety for local Sherpa,’ Sherpa told Mountain Focus adding the local Sherpa worship some of the peaks as of God.
Mountaineering experts stressed the need to permit only skilled and trained mountaineers to ascend the peaks hence now since many mountaineers quit their attempts from the base camp in the past. Veteran Mountaineer and the first oldest person to atop Mt. Everest had quit his attempt citing his worsening health condition in this season.
The task force will discourage people who express their desire to set new record on the peak beyond their capacity. In recent years, climbing the Mt Everest and other peaks has become a fashion among the climbers.
The task force will summit it preliminary report to the government within three months, thus the new rules will be come into force from 2014.
Aiming to achieve basic objectives of bringing about the mountaineering highly attractive, competitive, simple and generic the government had imposed Mountaineering Rules 2002. The government had opened 116 more peaks for climbing in different parts of the peak then.
