Nepal Everest Base Camp Treks & Climbing Trips Cancelled — fundraiser set-up

The ongo­ing and evolv­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic cou­pled with the scarci­ty of test­ing, treat­ment, and vac­cine dis­tri­b­u­tion in Nepal, par­tic­u­lar­ly in remote regions, all cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion where vis­i­tors are poten­tial threats to Nepali communities. 

Instead of just stand­ing by though, we are set­ting a tar­get of rais­ing $20,000 for local vac­ci­na­tion efforts, as well as Moun­tain Mad­ness staff in the Mount Ever­est region.

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At Moun­tain Mad­ness, we take great care to ensure the health, well-being, and safe­ty of our guests, but also of the peo­ple and places which we vis­it. Hav­ing worked in the Solukhum­bu region of Nepal for decades, we have deep per­son­al and trust­ed rela­tion­ships with many peo­ple there — and high­ly regard them as an impor­tant part of the Moun­tain Mad­ness family. 

Pho­tos by MM col­lec­tion and Deana Zabaldo/​Chang­ing Lives Nepal

THE SIT­U­A­TION IN NEPAL

Try­ing to bal­ance what is best for adven­ture trav­el and what is best for Nepal are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive. The imme­di­ate pri­or­i­ties are to both lim­it any addi­tion­al pos­si­bil­i­ties of expo­sure to at-risk peo­ple of the Khum­bu region and to pro­vide sup­port in the effort to test, vac­ci­nate and treat COVID-19.

COVID-19 data from Nepal mea­sur­ing the preva­lence and impacts of dis­ease are cur­rent­ly either incom­plete or unavail­able. Test­ing capa­bil­i­ty and treat­ment options in more remote regions are inad­e­quate in the face of a high­ly con­ta­gious and dan­ger­ous virus. 

How­ev­er, test­ing alone is not the per­fect solu­tion, and the rush to give a boost to the econ­o­my of Nepal will like­ly cause reg­u­la­tions to be relaxed. Encour­ag­ing tourist vis­its seems a dan­ger­ous gam­ble, and not one that Moun­tain Mad­ness will take. 

A gov­ern­ment-dri­ven cam­paign of vac­ci­na­tion in Nepal start­ed on Jan­u­ary 20 with 1 mil­lion dos­es donat­ed by India (pho­to shown here by NDTV). There are over 28 mil­lion res­i­dents of Nepal and avail­abil­i­ty of test­ing and vac­cines in remote regions will like­ly take a very long time. With­out a suc­cess­ful effort to com­bat this virus, the impact on the peo­ple of the Khum­bu will be devastating. 

CON­TRI­BU­TIONS TO VAC­CI­NA­TION EFFORT

To help in vac­ci­na­tions, Moun­tain Mad­ness is fundrais­ing to pro­vide direct finan­cial sup­port for the fol­low­ing: social mobi­liza­tion, com­mu­ni­ty out­reach, vac­ci­na­tion sup­plies and equip­ment, cold chain capa­bil­i­ties, vac­ci­na­tion pro­gram staff and train­ing, and oth­er mass vac­ci­na­tion pro­gram needs. 

Through­out our decades of work in the Khum­bu, we have estab­lished rela­tion­ships with effi­cient and high­ly com­pe­tent local net­works. And, we under­stand and appre­ci­ate the high­ly-skilled logis­tics and sup­ply chain suit­ed for this par­tic­u­lar envi­ron­ment that will see vac­ci­na­tion through to the fin­ish line. We can think of no bet­ter or more high­ly skilled logis­tics and sup­ply experts than the Sher­pa of the Khumbu. 

While we rec­og­nize that a few thou­sand dol­lars is but a drop in the buck­et of over­all need, it is a place to start and a seed plant­ed for growth. We encour­age indi­vid­u­als and oth­er guide ser­vices to donate or cre­ate their own relief effort and in sol­i­dar­i­ty we can all improve the sit­u­a­tion for the peo­ple of Nepal. Col­lec­tive­ly focused efforts can and do make a difference. 

HELP­ING OUT STAFF

In addi­tion to assist­ing the vac­ci­na­tion effort, Moun­tain Mad­ness is donat­ing $100 for each of our Nepal Khum­bu trip reg­is­trants who are post­pon­ing their Ever­est Base Camp Trek, Ama Dablam, and Island Peak trips with us this spring. This mon­ey will be dis­trib­uted to our Nepal staff to help off­set the work the spring sea­son pro­vid­ed would have oth­er­wise pro­vid­ed. As there are no charges for post­pon­ing and all trip mon­ey is moved for­ward, we will also be con­tact­ing all our cus­tomers to invite them to con­tribute to our larg­er efforts, as they have so gen­er­ous­ly done fol­low­ing the earth­quakes in 2015 and Spring 2020 when the pan­dem­ic first arrived. 

THE GOAL

Help reach our tar­get of $20,000 toward vac­ci­na­tion efforts in Nepal and sup­port­ing Moun­tain Mad­ness Nepal staff. Final amounts allo­cat­ed to each of these two needs will be deter­mined upon con­clu­sion of the fundrais­ing effort.

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If you have any ques­tions, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact our office. Call our office at 800−328−5925 or email com­pa­ny own­er Mark Gun­log­son at markg@​mountainmadness.​com