원정 개요

Van Haver intended to climb Lhotse without oxygen and a minimum of assistance. He had taken a light paraglider with him in case of an opportunity would have occurred to fly from the saddle down to the top. Knowing it was too hard to take off alone, he vaguely planned to ask his Sherpa and others to help if the day would ever happen. Eventually the paraglider came up maximum to C2 and Van Haver never flew with it. First of all, Van Haver was here to try Lhotse without oxygen.

Van Haver had hired Pemba Dorje Sherpa (speed climber), who was informed about his flying idea from the beginning of the expedition. Despite that both Pemba Dorje and Van Haver knew it wasn't authorized to fly, Pemba Dorje wasn't vindicative or frontally forbidding it either (“we will see”). Pemba Dorje came back to BC from his successful Everest summit (12 May) on the 14 May. During this evening, a dispute occurred, when at some stage Van Haver said he didn't need Sherpa assistance until C4 (he was in fact climbing on his own since the beginning of the expedition, so far up to 7500m). A few similarly originated little frictions had already occured before, maybe worsened by Pemba Dorje's rough English knowledge. For instance when Van Haver wanted to walk up to C2 alone, Pemba Dorje had told him the camp was provided with food: when Van Haver arrived up there there actually wasn't any.

Whatever the exact origin of the dispute, on the day after it occured (15 May), Pemba Dorje called the liaison officer, revealing the paragliding “plan”. Pemba Dorje and other Sherpas came in front of the Van Haver tent, shouting and agressively threatening him sometimes with rocks (equivalent to the “Everest fight” of Simone Moro with the Sherpas). Then the army came and took his passport. Ministry police contacted him, asking him to come back to KTM with a 6:30 am helicopter flight on the next day. Nims Dai and Dawa Sherpa tried to intervene in his favour in vain.

Van Haver left BC on 16 May by foot, reaching Namche Bazar on that day. On 17 May he reached Lukla, where he got blocked 2 days (18-19 May 18), eventually reaching KTM on 20 May.

Van Haver came to the Tourism Police, which gave him back his Passport. Since he hadn't done anything wrong (nor actually flew from anywhere), the police told him he wouldn't be banished from Nepal nor had to pay any penalty, but he was advised not to go back to BC this time. Anyway from now his schedule was getting too narrow: he would have needed to come back to BC, re-acclimatize and hire a new Sherpa in order to be able to try the next summit window. And mostly the game was not anymore a happy one in such context.

Van Haver waited for his gear (Camera, Go-Pro, fur sleeping back, tent, etc., about 8000 Euros in total) to be brought back down from C2 and C3.

Van Haver was disappointed by the human behaviour rather than not having tried for the summit. He was stunned by the mountain beauty, but also amazed by the Disneyland atmosphere reigning on the normal route, where “ordinary people act as if they were extraordinary people”.