Drones Will Do Some Schlepping for Sherpas on Mount Everest

Help may at last be on the way for the Nepali Sherpas who carry heavy loads for foreign climbers through treacherous sections of the world’s tallest peak.

When the main climbing season begins next month on Mount Everest, expedition companies will test drones that can ferry loads as heavy as 35 pounds in the high altitudes, bring back ladders used to set the climbing routes, and remove waste that is typically left behind.

Goods that would normally take seven hours to be transported by foot from Everest’s base camp to Camp I can be airlifted within 15 minutes. By lightening the Sherpas’ burdens, drone operators hope that the chances of fatal accidents — which have risen as climate change has accelerated snowmelt — can now be reduced.

“Sherpas bear enormous risks. The drone makes their task safer, faster and more efficient,” said Tshering Sherpa, whose organization, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, is responsible for fixing the route through the deadly Khumbu Icefall, southwest of Everest’s summit.

For about a year, operators have been experimenting with two drones donated by their Chinese maker. The pilot test during this year’s Everest climbing season is seen as an important opportunity to persuade expedition agencies to invest in more of the devices, which could be used to carry climbing gear and essential items like oxygen cylinders.

While the upfront cost of the drones may be high, their proponents say they will eventually reduce agencies’ costs.

Among those who could benefit most are the experienced Sherpas known as “icefall doctors.” Before every climbing season, they assemble at the Everest base camp for the daunting mission of establishing a route through the shifting ice.

They carry heavy loads of ladders, fix them over crevasses and lay rope to climb up the ice wall. Once the ladders and ropes are set along the Khumbu Icefall to Camp II, other Sherpas ferry oxygen bottles, medicine and various essentials to high camps. Sherpas make this dangerous climb at least 40 times a season, according to expedition organizers.

When the icefall doctors made their way to the base camp early this month, they were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the drone pilots, who were still in Kathmandu, the Nepali capital, finishing flight clearance documentation.

“They are calling us to team up early,” said Milan Pandey, a drone pilot affiliated with AirLift, a startup drone company in Nepal.

The catalyst for the use of drones was the latest…