KATHMANDU, Nepal– Locals at Zermatt, a village in South Switzerland, near a mountain peak was forced to draw back an invitation to Sherpas to help restore trails around the Matterhorn (A mountain in the Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy).
Zermatt was planning to take 10 Sherpas to carve the route on the occasion of 150th anniversary of the summit’s conquest, however, a bureaucratic snag left them with no entry permits into Switzerland, according to Reuters’s report.
The snag perils plans made by Zermatt officials who had dreamed to demonstrate the historic ties to Nepal.
The report further said citing Swiss migration office that the latter never received an application for work permits for the Sherpas to support a two-month project that had aim to reinstate an eroded 3-km path leading to the Hoernli hut, the gateway to the mountain.
With a belief that Mountain people have enough craft and experience of fixing paths without using machines, Zermatt had invited the Sherpas.
In the meantime, a spokeswoman for the Federal Office for Migration in Berne, the capital city of Switzerland said the office had “a generally favourable stance on such projects.”
She also blamed Zermatt of inviting Sherpas to share culture and education rather than pure motive for their work. Zermatt said they were forced to drop the project after several efforts to intervene on behalf of the Sherpas failed. They are learnt to look for a “Swiss solution” to restore the path.