More climbers around the world are choosing to summit Everest from Tibet

There are only two routes to climb Mount Everest. One is from the southern side in Nepal, and the other is from the northern side on the Tibetan plateau. An increasing number of global mountaineering professionals believe that Nepal’s lackluster management and overcrowded conditions are driving climbers away from Nepal to the mainland. Moreover, the mainland is making significant investments to enhance the competitiveness of the northern route to the world’s highest peak.

In recent years, individuals and groups offering cheap mountaineering services have sprung up like mushrooms in Nepal. Mountaineering experts have warned that these groups are attracting a large number of “aspiring” amateur climbers to Everest, but they also bring greater risks of casualties, mainly because some expedition leaders themselves lack the necessary skills. Furttenbach, who has moved his climbing company from Nepal to the mainland out of safety concerns, said that these phenomena on the southern side of Everest in recent years are “absolutely intolerable.”

As more and more mountaineering professionals deem Nepal’s lax approach to climbing safety to be unacceptable, established climbing organizations are beginning to shift their operations to the mainland, on the northern side of Everest. “The southern side has become too crowded and is full of inexperienced practitioners,” said Phil, a veteran Everest climber who announced in January that he was moving his climbing company, “Altitude Addicts,” to the mainland. His company is the third such group in recent years to abandon Nepal.

In contrast, the mainland is actively opening up the northern side of Everest to climbing organizations and investing heavily in infrastructure critical for safe summits. Currently, the mainland is building a mountaineering training center in Lhasa and plans to allow helicopter rescue operations on the northern side of Everest starting from 2019. Not only that, the mainland also regularly fixes climbing ropes before each climbing season begins—a common practice among most major peak management agencies worldwide. But on the southern side of Everest, Nepal has not done so.

“China is addressing more issues in ways that Nepal has traditionally struggled to achieve, due to its lack of systems to enforce such regulations,” predicted industry insider Adrian, who forecasts that more groups will shift to the mainland on the northern side of Everest in the coming years.