KATHMANDU, JUNE 1 As the 2026 spring climbing season draws to a close with over 1,000 summits recorded on Everest, Lhotse, and Nuptse, a detailed account by Imagine Nepal managing director Mingma Gyalje Sherpa has put a spotlight on how close the season came to not happening at all, and on the small team whose independent action broke a weeks-long deadlock on the Khumbu Icefall. A large hanging serac had blocked the standard route below Camp I since mid-April, halting progress and generating anxiety across an Everest Base Camp packed with hundreds of waiting climbers and expedition staff. On April 26, a joint inspection by 17 EOAN mountain guides and eight SPCC icefall doctors reached the site and concluded that no viable alternative route existed. Their recommendation: wait ten more days, or go home. Within hours of that assessment, a separate six-member team organised by Mingma G, comprising Pemba Waiba, veteran Everest climber Dawa Tenzing, Saila Mingma of Altipro, IFMGA aspirant Dipen Gurung, Elite Expeditions' Phuri Kitar, and Polish mountaineer Bartek Ziemski, moved through the same section, fixed ladders and ropes above the blockage, and found conditions considerably safer than described. A whiteout stopped them just short of Camp I, but their route became the basis for the official opening two days later, when a joint EOAN-SPCC team reached Camp I on April 28.

Mingma G's account describes the episode as a near-miss for the entire south-side season. With the icefall doctors and EOAN guides having formally concluded the route was unsafe, he argues, no further attempt would have been made once that assessment became public. 'Everyone waiting at base camp had already lost their hopes, and most of them were mentally prepared to go home without trying,' he wrote. The account also describes institutional friction: an EOA meeting in Kathmandu on April 23 had produced agreement on deploying qualified guides for an alternative route search, but Mingma G says that consensus did not hold at Base Camp, where the quality of the guides assembled fell short of what had been promised. The six climbers faced criticism during the season from others at Base Camp who warned they were being reckless and could endanger other climbers. Mingma G said several companies that had publicly called the icefall too dangerous quietly deleted those posts once Imagine Nepal announced the route had been found.

He has called on the industry and government authorities to formally recognise and reward the six climbers, saying their contribution underpinned the entire season's commercial and sporting outcomes. The Department of Tourism recorded 1,008 Everest summits in 2026.