Published by: World Tibet Network News, Sunday, Jun 09, 1996

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU, June 8 (Reuter) - Nepal plans to discourage inexperienced climbers from trying to scale Mount Everest after 11 people died in May during a deadly season on the world's highest mountain, officials said.

"We should be very particular about ... the climbers to see that amateurs are not included in the expeditions to higher peaks," said Tourism Minister Chakra Prasad Bastola.

"It should be taken as a sport rather than a gamble," he said. "There is a need to look into it and we are ready to make certain changes in rules if necessary."

The deaths in May surpassed the previous record of eight, set in 1970 and matched in 1988.

Caught in a ferocious blizzard, seven mountaineers died on the Nepali side this year. The others were on the Tibetan side.

The spring season begins in March and ends in May, while the autumn season runs from September to mid-November.

Authorities said some organisers of commercial expeditions charged clients high fees without informing them of the risks.

Bastola said an inexperienced climber could sign up for an expedition provided the mountaineer paid the steep fees Nepal requires. "In the process he gets trapped," the minister said.

Western climbers said they shared Bastola's concern but denied that all the deaths this year were due to inexperience.

"Basically there were a lot of people prepared to take a lot of risk," said Peter Athans, a mountain guide from Boulder, Colorado. "There was a very violent storm."

"If there are inexperienced people going they need to be with experienced climbers," Athans said.

Royalties and other spending by foreign climbers make up a major part of Nepal's total annual tourism revenue of some $90 million, 4.4 percent of gross domestic product, officials said.

Mountaineering also provides jobs to thousands of Nepalis.

In May, 84 people climbed Everest. The record for a single season, set in 1993, is 90.

Athans, 39, a four-time Everest veteran, said in view of the limited space for setting up at Camp Three at 7,300 metres (23,947 feet), the number of expeditions along the most used route in Nepal should be limited to eight per season.

This year 10 teams made an attempt along the normal route to the 8,848 metre (29,028 feet) Everest summit.

In an effort to protect the environment, Nepal introduced a one-route-one-team rule in 1993 and limited the number of climbers in a team to seven.

But before the start of this spring's climbing season, Nepal, concerned over the growing number of climbers who were making assaults on the summit through Tibet, relaxed the curbs on the number of mountaineers while increasing the fees.