Climate Witness: Dawa Steven Sherpa, Nepal

My name is Dawa Steven Sherpa and I am from Kathmandu, Nepal. I am 24 years old. My Dad is a Sherpa from the Everest Region and my mum is a Belgian. My family have run a climbing company and outfitting agency for 25 years now and I have grown up with mountaineers, so climbing and mountaineering have always been a passion.

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In 2006 I started climbing seriously and I summitted Mt. Cho Oyu, which is 8,201 metres. That was my first 8,000 metre peak. The following year I made it to the summit of Mt. Everest, and this year I climbed Mt. Everest and the adjacent Mt. Lhotse (8516 m) together.

A close call becomes a wake up call

In May 2007, after summiting Mt. Everest, I went back down to base camp when suddenly there was a rescue situation. As I was one of the only ones available I was asked to return to the Everest Khumbu Icefall to assist. As I was going up, some of my team were coming down. They were praying Buddhist mantras and as they passed me they said: “Dawa, if you want to die keep going, but if you want to live come down with us”. The ice was cracking and the ice under my feet was slush. So I went back. It was just on the edge of what we call the ‘football field’ in the icefall. About one hour after I had turned back, the whole football field area had collapsed. I know if I hadn’t turned back I would have died in there.

Although it was late May and coming into summer, the dramatic collapse of this portion of the famous Khumbu Icefall was unusual. It was also not the first time an event of this nature had happened in that season. There were still a lot of Sherpa up on the mountain who were clearing the higher camps and I could see the potential for disaster.

I felt that climate change was definitely having an effect on this, but at that time it was just a concept to me and I knew only a little bit. So when I came back to Kathmandu I went to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and spoke with researchers who are studying glacial melting and the impact of climate change on the Himalayas.

I realised the problem was not just with us mountaineers but with all of the downstream communities and also on a larger scale, India and China and the entire region.

Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs)

One of the most apparent threats are the “glacial lake outburst floods” or GLOF. A GLOF occurs when a glacial lake is created by melting glacier and it bursts. Imja Lake is the most dramatic example of a potential GLOF, because if it bursts it could wipe out about 70% of the trekking trail to Everest Base Camp. Not only will that destroy homes and potentially kill people in the downstream community, but it will wipe out the jewel in the crown of Nepal’s tourism industry and Nepal depends on Tourism.

Last year a small lake at the edge of the Khumbu Glacier burst - a small pond in fact - and it washed away 4 bridges on the Everest track up to base camp. This had the unexpected consequence of trekkers using a different track through the forest and this damaged the undergrowth, which can take decades to recover.

Climbing becoming more difficult and more dangerous

Climbing is becoming more dangerous, and I think we will start to see more injuries and fatalities because of the difficult conditions. For example, last year on the famous Hillary Step I was climbing around 50 metres of rock, but this year, there was about 150 metres of rock. Wearing crampons and standing on bare rock at over 8,600 metres is a very scary ordeal. At one point I slipped and if I wasn’t clipped in I would have fallen 2,000 metres to Camp Two.

This year we also had a rock fall come through our camp when we were on Mt. Lhotse. The rocks were the size of footballs and a Spanish climber was hit and his leg was broken. It was extremely scary stuff. The Sherpas said they had never seen or heard anything like it before on Mt. Lhotse. They all think it is because unlike other years, this year in the Everest Region there was no snow in the winter, and the snow normally pins the rocks down onto the slopes.

I talk to a lot of climbers who are preparing for trips to the Everest region. They ask about the classic climbs and I tell them that they shouldn’t read the books from 20 years ago because the difficulty level described in those books no longer applies, as the climbs have become a lot more technical.

Water needed for local communities and tourism

The whole Himalayan Region depends on the glaciers because that is a major source of freshwater for 1.3 billion people. If you think of the Himalayas like a water tower, it is pretty much like saying the water tower is empty.

Locally we depend heavily on the tourism industry and tourists want modern amenities like a shower and good food, but without adequate water some villages cannot provide these services. So you are probably going to see a lot of tourists diverted to different villages or even visit totally different regions because of the availability of water.

As conditions become more difficult, reduced access to higher places also means less tourists and this has an impact on the local people because they lose jobs and income. Without enough income they tend to become more environmentally damaging, as they look for cheaper options such as fire wood from the forests instead of kerosene or killing pheasants in the forest instead of eating chicken.

Eco Everest Expedition

For all of these reasons my family business, Asian Trekking, partnered with ICIMOD and UNEP to embark on the Eco Everest Expedition. Some famous mountaineers including Chris Bonnington, Reinhold Messner, Ken Noguchi (senior advisor for the expedition and helped with clean up at Base Camp), Conrad Anker, Peter Habelar, Wolfgang Nairzand, and Peter Hillary gave us their support.

Apa Sherpa who has climbed Everest 18 times was on my expedition. Apa was a victim of the Dig Cho GLOF which washed away half his property and land in 1985.

Participants in the Eco Everest Expedition climbed Everest in May 2008 to raise awareness about climate change, especially GLOFs. But I also wanted to address the environmental damage that the mountaineering industry causes, in particular the problem of garbage and human waste. On the expedition we field tested an "Eco-Code of Conduct" (ECC) and we used waste disposal bags - donated by the American Alpine Club - and I gave all of my Sherpa 50 rupees per kilo of garbage that they collected off the mountains. At the end of the expedition we collected nearly a tonne of garbage as well as one dead body.

A trust fund has also been set up for community development and to finance further research and monitoring of glaciers and glacial lakes.

I work for the tourism industry and I work with nature and so I think it is my responsibility to raise awareness among the international community, especially my clients who come to see our mountains. It is also my responsibility to train my guides and to train and raise awareness in the local community where I work because at the end of the day it is not just us mountaineers but it is everybody, and if everybody knows what is happening then I think the solutions will come by themselves.