In spring 2007, I attended a guided mountaineering tour by Kari
Kobler/Switzerland to Mt. Everest from the Chinese Tibet side, which
made me think more and more critical about the relationship of
reliability, quality, safety, and costs of tour guides and the
mountaineering companies on Mt. Everest.
My personal conclusion is that in case I came back to Everest I would
NOT choose Kobler & Partner mountaineering company again! The
reasons are as follows:
- When members of the expedition became sick in base camp Kari Kobler
would not stay with us for a few days for recovery but would
recklessly push up to ABC and even demand every member to go to
higher altitude. Time was not an issue at this early phase of the
expedition.
- Acclimatizing slower than other group members Kari Kobler would
request me going up to higher altitude instead of going down for a
few days. In my opinion this was a major cause for problems which
could have put myself into high risk.
- Pushing himself for his third personal attempt to reach the summit
and pushing another Swiss lady to her final summit attempt, he would
use all of the available summit sherpas. Expecting his further
clients getting ready for summit a week later or so this appeared
unacceptable, disappointing, reckless and egocentric to me: Kari
Kobler accepting the risk that his clients would have to deal with
"burned" sherpas - sherpas required to summit a second time while
being tired. Kari Kobler risking the safety of his clients was
irresponsible, might even have caused the death of clients, and
significantly limited the chances to reach the summit. As a matter of
fact I even have paid an extra fee for a summit sherpa. However,
all experienced sherpas have been used by Kari Kobler himself!
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Topic: Mount Everest Expedition mit Guide Kari Kobler (Read 22805 times)