Mount Everest Base Camp Closed to Tourists

Many say wherever you go, one should go to Tibet once in his/her lifetime. It turns out few people would really make it true, excuse like too far away, high altitude sickness, have no long vocation.etc. stop one making it happen. However, somethings in Tibet may never be able to experience from April 1st 2019. 

According to the announcement of Tingri Everest authority, no unit or person could visit Everest natural reserve over Rongbuk Monastery area. This announcement means you are not allowed to go to Everest Base Camp but stop at Rongbuk monastery where you can go the farthest. Mount Everest is 8km away from Rongbuk Monastery where you can also enjoy the mount view,  sunset and sunrise. As for travelers who have a climbing permit, they can go to the Everest Base Camp at an altitude of 5,260 meters and higher. Though the number of climbers will be limited from April 1^st2019.   

It was used to a land of purity, now, it has became the world highest junkyard.

There are 70 thousand – 100 thousand tourists gathering in Everest Based Camp from April to October each year. Everyone highly praises its grand sight, however, many of them leave all kind of rubbish during their climbing expedition or sightseeing tours. Tents, oxygen bottle and plastic bags can be seen everywhere, what a more, 12 ton excreta leaves behind by tourist and climbers as well. This 12 ton of feces are pullutig the glacier water.

Apart from all kind of rubbish, dead body is another pollution source. 300 people dead when they climbed the Everest in 50 years. More bodies can be found at an altitude of 6,200 meters, some of them are lost lives from high altitude sickness, physical exhaustion, snow slide，avalanche and frostbite.  

All of these signs are telling us it’s time to do something about it, so that the beauty of Mount Everest area in the Himalayas can be seen for many generations to come. This restriction have a big impact in tourism industry, but measures like that carried out is good for its recovery in the long term. Every tourist who goes to Tibet should have environment protection awareness, and the best you can do is not to leave your own rubbish while you are in Tibet.

Now, if you are a potential tourists or climber to Mt. Everest, you may want to know what is the closest place you can go to see Mount Everest. Actually, you can still go all the way up to Rongbuk Monastery which lies at 4980 metres (16,340 ft) above sea level. The Rongbuk Monastery is the highest monastery in the world. From Rongbuk Monastery to Everest Base Camp to tourist is 2.5km, so after this restriction applies, you will miss this 2.5km to EBC for tourists. But you do not miss much in terms of landscape view of Mount Everest and the Rongbuk Valley. You can still take a great close look at Everest NorthFace from Rongbuk Monastery.

The second question you may have as a tourist is where tourists stay at night at Rongbuk Monastery area. According to recent announcement from Tingri Everest Nature Reserve in Tibet,  all the tent guesthouses at the original tourist Everest Base Camp will be moved down to a 100 meter long experimental area at the both sides of the road nearby Rongbuk Monastery. So you can stay either at the Rongbuk Monastery guesthouse or Yak hair tent guesthouse. Rongbuk Monastery guesthouse has multiple dorm rooms from 4 people per room to 8 people per room. The tent guesthouse is a big yak hair made tent which hosts from 8-12 people in one tent.

If you are a climber and want to climb mountain Everest, then there are few thing changed after this restriction applies. First one, the Tibet Mountain association and Tibet Tourism Bureau will dramatically reduce the number of climbers each year. Second, you need to leave a big number of deposit (financially) at the Mountain Association and if you leave anything up on the mountains, these organizations may take some part of deposit. Last one is that every climber has to bring 8kg of rubbish down to the base camp after climb. These three is the biggest change in the coming climbing season in Tibet.

We are trying our best to provide as accurate and up-to-date info as possible. If there is any changes to above rules, we will update it the soonest we can.