Everest “like a war zone”

MountEverest.net is an amazing site that aggregates all the climbing news of the Himalaya region. With one of the many olympic torches at the Northside (Tibetan side that is!) basecamp, the site is abuzz with updates and news from the area… well, at least what news can get out, due to a basically complete blackout of phones, and an increased presence of armed soldiers.

View selected updates from the last two days below…

12:46 pm EDT Apr 29, 2008
- “There is a small police post at 6400m (ed: camp 2) on Everest and the one armed soldier does the rounds each day, with conspicuous sniper rifle, however they mostly give a friendly Namaste,” is the latest report to ExWeb from Everest south side.

- On Everest south side, BBC (expelled yesterday) reported that a tourism ministry official there, Prabodh Dhakal, said that climbers were not allowed to hold even informal chats with media, in fact, if any mountaineer talked to the BBC, he or she would be expelled. “We are doing this for our friend, China,” Dhakal said.

09:58 am EDT Apr 30, 2008
- International journalists invited by the Chinese Government to Everest’s Tibetan BC are ungrateful campers. Tired and sick from too rapid altitude gain; they’ve come to find a new 90km black-top road and a media center in Rongbuk – but no news to report, or any word on the torch’s whereabouts.

- In any case, most climbers are headed down after acclimatizing in C2 where at 6400m; a huge banner alerts everyone not to proceed beyond this point. A post with armed soldiers guards the spot.

- Everest is like a war zone; expeditions’ websites report little about their members’ movements between C2 and BC, and avoid making other comments. “Due to restrictions on Everest this spring, we apologize for the lack of in-depth reports from the team,” posted Jagged Globe yesterday. “We hope that this will change soon.” Also Brazilians Rodrigo and Eduardo, just back from C2, mentioned they can only use the phone with a soldier listening in.

- The doctor also said he had already treated many members of the military who had fallen sick because of the altitude. Meanwhile, a dozen more soldiers were reportedly on their way to BC yesterday.

Also interesting… there is a special hotline setup for anonymous reports from the mountain:
The “Climbers Without Borders” Everest 2008 hotline allows climbers, their relatives and friends to report anonymously from the mountain as long as the caller is known to ExWeb. Pls call (1) 206-666-2407 (from a sat phone pls dial 001-206-666-2407). State your name and message (your name will be withheld).