When Hillary Dawa Sherpa was finally found crawling toward Everest Base Camp on the morning of June 4 — seven days after he was left alone in the death zone without food, bottled oxygen or any rescue effort from his own employer — his family had already begun performing his funeral rites. They had been told he would not return.
The jet stream has retreated, the fixed ropes have been coiled, and the thin, biting air of the Everest balcony has fallen silent once more. Spring 2026 is in the books, but for the founders of 8K Expeditions, the world’s rooftop was merely the opening act.
The government has listed a string of tourism and civil aviation achievements from the first 100 days in office, under Prime Minister Balendra Shah's administration, ranging from the approval of flydubai's regular flight schedule from Pokhara International Airport to the digitisation of mountaineering permit services and the launch of a national health tourism strategy — outlining what it describes as a period of significant policy and operational reform for the sector.
Seven Nepali climbers, including renowned singer Raju Lama, have summited Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Europe's highest peak, in what organisers are calling the first time such a large Nepali team has scaled the mountain together in a single push.
A short bus ride out of Kathmandu and a trail that wound through forest, past smaller waterfalls and through a quiet hillside village took my three friends, and me to Pangsam Okhreni Waterfall on a recent hike — a day that delivered fresh air, good company and, by the time we turned back, an unplanned lesson in why a raincoat beats an umbrella on the trail.
By the time the Killer Mountain's summit teams had returned to high camps, two women had written their names into mountaineering history — one by becoming the oldest woman ever to stand on top of the world's ninth-highest peak, and the other by adding Nanga Parbat to a collection that already included every 8,000-metre summit on earth.
The Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) has commenced a two-day rock-climbing training at Bimal Nagar in Tanahun district, bringing professional mountain skills development out of Kathmandu and into Gandaki Province as part of its ongoing Professional Mountain Leader Fundamental Skills Training.