Nepal to relocate Everest base camp after 70 years 

Kathmandu: Climbers aiming for Mount Everest might soon have to face a more difficult route as Nepal is planning to relocate its base camp—which has stood in the same place for 70 years—due to climate change.

Nepal plans to relocate its Everest base camp as the famous Himalayan trekking site faces a significant threat from global warming and the impacts of increasing human activity. 

This follows the recommendations of a committee created by Nepal’s government that seeks to facilitate and monitor mountaineering in the very popular Everest region. 

Everest, which is on the China and Nepal border, has two base camps. The south base camp on the Nepal side is more popular. It is currently located at an altitude of 5,364 m. However, it is likely to be shifted as much as 400 m lower, to a site where there is no year-round ice.

The base camp—situated on the Khumbu glacier which is rapidly thinning— attracted some 1,500 people from across the world this past spring season. 

It comes as ice on the South Col Glacier (SCG) was revealed to have shrank 80 times faster than it was formed according to a new report published by the international scientific journal Nature found earlier this year. 

According to Everest base camp manager Tshering Tenzing Sherpa, who works with the regional Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, the existing site would be fit for no more than another three or four years. 

A 2018 study by researchers at the University of Leeds found that the section of the glacier near Everest Base Camp in Nepal was thinning by about a meter, while a stream running through the settlement was expanding at an alarming rate.

The move is expected to increase the duration of the summit from Everest Base Camp in Nepal, which is currently around a week.