Mount Everest Climbing Route - Nepali authorities have announced that the climbing route of Mount Everest is set to be changed from the "West Shoulder" to a more central path at the start of the 2015 climbing season.
The decision to change the route, which has been in use for nearly 3 decades, comes after about 16 guide climbers (known as Sherpas) were killed in April last year in an avalanche. The tragic deaths of these men triggered prolonged protests from the Sherpas that highlighted the dangers of their work.
The change of the current Mount Everest climbing route is meant to keep climbers away from several dangers that lurk on the route, particularly around the Khumbu Icefall, where the 16 Sherpas died in an accident last year.
"We think the risk of avalanche in the left part of the Khumbu Icefall is growing and we are moving the route to the centre where there is almost no such danger," the chairman of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, Ang Dorji Sherpa, told the BBC.
Although the new route is comparatively longer and more difficult to climb for inexperienced mountaineers, it is much safer.
"The route through the centre part will be difficult and time consuming but it will be relatively free from the risk of avalanche, as the ice cliffs and hanging glaciers are comparatively far away from it," Mr. Sherpa added.
There have been concerns that climate change is making climbing Mount Everest even more dangerous. This has contradicted the demands of the Sherpas for helicopters to be used to deliver heavy equipments to Camp 1 (the first base after the foot of the mountain).
Sherpas, who do a lot of heavy lifting while guiding mountaineers up and down the Mount Everest ice peak, have also demanded a raise in their wages.
