New Delhi, India
Cnn
–
At the top of the world in the middle of virgin white glaciers and imposing rocks, silence reigns. Suddenly, it is broken by a scale falling from the sky.
Milan Pandey seated at the Everest base camp, looking at views that few have ever seen – and he arrived without having a crampon or handling an ax of ice. He is a drone pilot, and his work can change things on the highest mountain in the world forever.
The ladders, ropes and oxygen cylinders that Pandey can transport via a drone to help sherpas or “ice fall doctors” in Khumbu Filaful, a glacier located between the base camp and the camp, could probably save lives on the mountain.
The specialized sherpas that are from the neighboring hills and mountains sail and put the path for climbers on Everest for seven decades. Dozens have lost their lives in the process. Pandey, by Airlift Technology, a local drone cartography start-up, believes that with its technical expertise in the use of drones combined with the decades of knowledge of mountaineering Sherpas, they can make it safer to be on the roof of the world.
The base camp is located at a height of approximately 5,364 meters (17,598 feet) above sea level and camp one at 6,065 meters (19,900 feet).
The air distance between the two points is around 1.8 mile. You need sherpas six to seven o’clock to make this trip, but you need a drone of about six to seven minutes.
Mingma G Sherpa from Imagine Nepal, an expedition company that has guided climbers for almost a decade, recognized the need for this kind of help when he lost three of his friends and mountain guides in an avalanche in 2023. Their bodies could not be recovered.
“They had to continue to go up and down the mountain twenty times to understand the route first, then come back for the equipment. I had heard that they used drones in China to help this on another mountain, so I thought” why not “,” he said.
Around the same time, Raj Bikram, CEO of Airlift Nepal, was in contact with the municipality of Khumbu for 3D Mount Everest mapping using drones when the mayor of the region asked for the weight that drones could transport. In April 2024, with the help of two drones given by the Chinese DJI, Airlift began to experiment.
“At the beginning, because it was also our first time at the Everest base camp, we did not know how the drone would occur at this altitude and at this temperature,” said Bikram. Wind visibility and speeds are among the main challenges. It took them a month to learn the field.
Airlift Nepal’s first cleaning journey used a drone to reduce around 1100 pounds of base camp waste at the base camp.
This has taken more than 40 flights: the drone can have about 66 pounds in weight, but they only carry 44 pounds both to be safe.
For the Everest 2025 climbing season, Pandey says that air transport technology will help Sherpas transport the equipment before the start of the season, then pick up the garbage once it starts.
The sherpas tell Pandey what direction they have to go, then Pandey first steals a small drone to navigate the path. Then, the sherpas do what they have always done – climb to the precarious ice falls, or the parts of a glacier which are most difficult to sail.
“Once they have discovered” here, we need a scale “, here we need a rope”, they will send us the coordinates via a talkie-talkie, then we pilot the equipment, “Drones can also fly in vital equipment such as oxygen cylinders and drugs.
Airlift currently has two DJI drones, only one of which is operated on Everest this year. The second is a backup, and if there are more drone flights, they will consider deploying both.
A challenge is money. Each drone costs $ 70,000, and it is even before you start working.
“Everything is expensive at the base camp,” said Bikram.
“Because there is no electricity, we need a lot of fuel to load batteries. The cost of actually reaching camp, the cost of labor, accommodation, food, there are many.”
For Bikram, aeronautical engineer, drones have always been a passion. He made a “DIY drone” in Nepal more than a decade at a time when they were almost nonexistent in the country. This turned out to be essential to help help efforts during the Terrilation de Nepal 2015.
“It is not only that we provide equipment. Research and rescue are one of our main priorities. When people leave the path, we can help geolocate them,” added Pandey.
Some members of the SHERPA community turn away from working in the high perilous mountains and rather move abroad for better jobs and remuneration.
“We hope that our drones will actually make it a safer profession and take more people to this climbing tradition. This is why our country is known, and without the expertise of Sherpas, we could never sail on this ground,” said Pandey.
Dawa Janzu Sherpa, 28, is a “singer” on Everest with the doctors of the ice fall for eight years. The Sherpas team is led by an elder who has developed his expertise in navigation and decides the path, but it is the leader with his power and his young people who first go to the ice clafonne.
“This season, there is a lot of dry ice that makes it very difficult to repair the trails, and there are a lot of ice towers between the two,” he said. Although drones can now be used to determine a provisional path before they go, bad weather means that things are constantly changing.
Janzu Sherpa says that it is risky work, and with use difficult to find, for him, this work was more on the pay check than passion. Drones have half the time and risk.
“Our work is sensitive to time. If we do not install the future trails, future shipments will be slowed down, so bringing the drones means that we do not have to go down just to raise the ladder with us. ”
“With the bad weather that we have seen so far this year, we would not have fixed the path in time without this aid,” he added.
Janzu Sherpa is the only family support for his wife and two daughters. “It is adventurous work and there is a lot of risks, so if there is a way to make it safer, I welcome it.”
The first group of climbers reached the base camp for the climbing season in 2025. It’s a narrow season, so almost everyone will try their climbs in April and May.
The use of drones “is part of the evolution of climbing”, explains Caroline Ogle of New Zealand Adventure Consultants, which spent five seasons at the base camp to manage the expeditions of what it calls “the amphitheater of Everest”.
“If you compare yourself to the early years … when there were no satellite phones or the type of weather forecast we have now, all these types of technology have evolved to make climbing safer. I think that the use of drones is part of this natural development, in particular in the context of making things safer for high altitude workers (Sherpas), “said Ogle.
Lisa Thompson, who has climbed the seven summits – the highest peak on the seven traditional continents – and now leads to climbers through alpine athletics based in the United States, agree with Ogle and considers drones as a “welcome and responsible evolution”.
“I do not believe that this innovation takes away from crafts or the tradition of climbing. The mountain is always the mountain. The challenge is always real. ”
