Free Republic

China will set up a "separation line" on the peak of Mount Everest to avoid possible COVID-19 infections by climbers from virus-hit Nepal, state media reported, after dozens were taken ill from the summit's base camp. While the virus first emerged in China in late 2019, it has largely been brought under control in the country through a series of strict lockdowns and border closures. More than 30 sick climbers were evacuated from base camp on the Nepalese side of the world's highest peak in recent weeks as Nepal faces a deadly second wave of COVID-19, raising fears that the...

Variant Bio has spent the last several years scouring the world for genetic outliers in human beings. It found a small group of “outlier humans” with special variations in their DNA that could affect disease risk and eventually be used to develop medicines to improve human life. Founded in New York, the 10-person startup’s lead geneticist Stephane Castel is focusing on the DNA of Sherpa people living at high altitudes in Nepal and Himalayas. Their unique genetic characteristics allow them to live healthy lives with blood oxygen levels far below what most humans need. Most people in high altitudes suffer...

Littering on Everest is a significant issue, both on the base camps and higher up the mountain itself. In recent years both Nepal and China have implemented measures to try to force climbers to bring their waste down with them, and not leave it on the mountain. Nepal in 2014 began charging a $4,000 garbage deposit that would be forfeited if climbers fail to return with their trash. The government of the Tibet Autonomous Region statement announcing the closure called for further action to protect Mount Everest, saying that workers had collected some 9 tons of trash from above 17,000...

A leading mountaineering official on Tuesday urged Nepal to reduce climbing fees for Mount Everest and other mountains during the peak climbing season, to lure climbers back from Tibet where mountaineering is cheaper. Tourists are returning to Nepal, one of the world's poorest countries with largely aid-and tourism-dependent economy, after the Himalayan republic emerged from a long civil war in 2006. Climbing is one of the most popular tourist pastimes but Ang Tshering Sherpa, chief of the Union of Asian Alpine Associations, an umbrella body of 26 alpine groups, said overcharging was driving climbers across the border to Tibet. "The...

Tragedy has befallen yet another sherpa at base camp on Columbus resident Bud Allen’s attempt to climb Mount Everest. Allen, a commercial real estate developer, wrote in his online journal post late Monday that two sherpas apparently drank something spiked with a substance, possibly wood alcohol. One of the sherpas apparently has died, while another is reportedly in serious condition. “I can’t understand why they would do that but it is tragic all the same,” Allen wrote. “There has been some speculation that what is an extremely dangerous practice at low altitude could be fatal at 17,500.” Base camp, the...

Sir Edmund Hillary, the lanky New Zealand mountaineer and explorer who with Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa guide, won worldwide acclaim in 1953 by becoming the first to scale the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak, has died, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced Friday in Wellington. He was 88.