Asian Window

In May, journalist Billi Bierling became the first German woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest from Nepal. She was shocked at the naivete of many mountaineers and astounded that, these days, Everest base camps offer hot showers, Internet access, TVs and fresh strawberries. Lena Greiner has the story in De Spiegel.

“Namaste, where can I put my bicycle?” Billi Bierling asks the waiter in Nepalese in Katmandu’s tourist district of Thamel. The grey mountain bike is the trademark of the 42-year-old journalist from the Bavarian town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

It’s an essential tool for her work — interviewing mountaineers on behalf of Elizabeth Hawley, the famous chronicler of Himalayan expeditions. “I’d go crazy driving a car in this chaotic traffic,” she says.

Every day Bierling cycles along the narrow streets of the Nepalese capital through a whirl of dust, honking cars, rickshaws and street vendors to talk to climbers before and after they have embarked on their expeditions. Hawley’s database contains the details of all Himalayan expeditions undertaken since 1963. what route was taken, who reached the summit when, was artificial oxygen required, how was the weather, were there accidents? more

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