Backcountry Beacon

Does exploring Nepal’s 1,300+ peaks higher than 6,000 meters (19,685+ feet)—many of which haven’t been climbed let alone skied—sound like your kind of adventure? Here are ten things that might make you think twice before you pack your bags and jump on a plane with your touring gear.

Then again, for the masochist/devil-may-care crowd out there, maybe these are ten things that’ll make the whole adventure sound even more appealing.

10. Schlepping Equipment and Gear

“With Nepal Airlines’ 44-pound baggage limit, you best be pretty serious about making turns,” says ski mountaineer Tim Kelley who has climbed (but not skied) in the Himalayas. “It’s hard enough standing in line waiting to board the plane in the 100-degree Bangkok airport wearing a down jacket and plastic boots, with all of your climbing gear in your carry-on; I can’t imagine having to have a ski helmet on as well.”

9. Civil Unrest

The U.S. Department of State has issued a travel warning for Nepal. The Chinese side of Nangpa La has seen violence as well. (Pakistan and Kashmir aren’t exactly models of peace and serenity either.)

8. You Have to Quit Your Day Job

Unless you can con your way into a leave of absence, you might have to take a permanent vacation from your workplace. To get to the goods (snow line is at 17,500 feet), you have a one- to two-week approach ahead of you. “If you were lucky, you might finally get one run in 17 days’ time if you walked in,” says ski mountaineer Craig Calonica, director and guide for Himalayan Heli Ski Guides (HHSG). “Which is fine, and we [HHSG guides] have all done that, but you’re looking at a minimum [of] six weeks to do anything worthwhile.”

7. Crappy Snow

All your planning and the bags of money spent will be for naught if the Himalayas have a drought year. You could go to the exceptionally high peaks, as they always have snow and ice with glaciers surrounding them, but the glaciers present their own dangers. Such as bottomless crevasses. And besides, the snow isn’t all that. Laura Bakos, the first woman to ski an 8,000-meter peak, described Cho Oyu’s summit as windblown and crusted—from what we hear, such conditions are common.

6. Too Much Snow

Large dumps in late September are common. A few years ago, the members of Team Dynafit, who attempted a speedy summit and ski descent of 26,758-foot Manaslu (the eighth highest in the world) had to take two-hour shoveling shifts during a late-September storm to keep base camp tents from being buried, and still, the kitchen tent collapsed. (After continued bad weather in October, Team Dynafit left for home.) Oh, and did we mention avalanches? They can rip 4,000 feet down a steep mountain face and make you disappear. See number 5.

5. Avalanches

The Himalayas have claimed the lives of some of the world’s most renowned mountaineers. Earlier this year Fredrik Ericsson died on K2. Back in 1999, arguably the best mountaineer at the time, Alex Lowe, and his team attempted to summit and ski the 8,000-meter Shishapangma. Had they succeeded, they would have been the first Americans to do so. Instead, the bodies of Lowe and one of his climbing partners, Dave Bridges, were never recovered.

4. Decades of Preparation

You have to rack up several seasons of mountaineering on high peaks like Rainier, Aconcagua, Denali, or Mexican volcanoes. You need knowledge of how to travel across crevasses and ice climb. You need to be an expert skier. “Give respect to the process and the mountains,” says Kit DesLauriers, the first woman to climb and ski the seven summits. “It’s a learning curve that can’t be artificially shortened, so once you are finally ready, you will know it.”

3. Altitude Sickness

You can be in the best shape of your life, but if you’re not acclimated, you’re gonna get zapped by the altitude. There are worse consequences than vise-like headaches. Many mountaineers succumb to high altitude pulmonary or cerebral edema, both of which can be fatal.

2. No Organized Guides

With the correct high-altitude résumé and a good chunk of change, several guide services will take you up Mount Everest (some outfitters requiring more effort than others). But few, if any, will organize a private trip for someone. So, you’re pretty much on your own to find a local expedition team complete with yaks, porters, and guide—which DesLauriers thinks is appropriate. “It is such a small niche of people who have the travel and skiing skills and personal experience to pull off a ski trip to the Himalayas, and to these people I say that they can figure this stuff out.”

1. PPPD: Prolonged Pain and Possible Death

We thought we’d drill this home one more time—avalanche danger is extreme and altitude sickness is nearly certain. We don’t have a vendetta against the Nepali Ministry of Tourism or anything. We’re just telling it like it is.

If you have decades of experience climbing high peaks, navigating glaciers, and skiing gnarly terrain, then perhaps you have what it takes. So for the select few, we leave you with the one reason to risk your life—a reason that reportedly hung in Alex Lowe’s office:

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. – Helen Keller, 1957

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Tags: alpine climbing, avalanche safety, ski mountaineering