April 23, 2024: Big news from China, and it’s not looking great: Shisha Pangma and Mt Cho Oyu won’t be open for climbers this spring, and foreigners can only access the North Side of Everest starting May 7. Climbers are scrambling to rearrange plans or find other options.
The nearly 50 clients and staff aiming for Shisha Pangma this season will have to look for something else. The distant view they caught while trekking in Langtang last week is the closest they’ll get to the mountain. Most of the climbers who were waiting for climbing permits from the Chinese authorities received bad news in Kathmandu this morning alerting them that they wouldn’t be allowed to climb Mt Cho Oyu and Mt Shishapangma this year.
“After 17 days of waiting for confirmation to climb Shisha Pangma, we’ve been informed that climbing will not be permitted in the region,” Moeses Fiamoncini of Brazil wrote.
Dreams of joining 14 eight-thousander club for many climbers including 20-year-old Shehroze Kashif and Sirbaz Khan from Pakistan, renowned Turkish climber Aydın Irmak, Naoko Watanabe from Japan, young Scottish-French mountaineer Alasdair Mckenzie, renowned Nepali woman climber Dawa Yangzum Sherpa and Arjun Vajpai from India among others.
There were also plans to conduct search and recovery missions in Shishapangma this season. The news comes at a time when a team was ready to bring the bodies.
