High winds delay dozens of climbers ascending Mount Everest

KATHMANDU, Nepal – High winds have delayed dozens of climbers trying to reach the summit of Mount Everest, a mountaineering official said Wednesday.

The winds have made it difficult for the climbers to make their attempts for the summit but posed no immediate danger, said Gyanendra Shrestha, an official in Nepal’s Mountaineering Department who is at base camp on Everest.

The climbers have descended to lower camps on the slopes of the world’s highest mountain to wait for the conditions to improve.

Nearly 88 climbers have reached the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) summit in the past few days, marking the first successful climbs following two years of disasters that virtually emptied the mountain.

An avalanche triggered by a powerful earthquake killed 19 climbers and injured 61 others at base camp last year. In 2014, 16 Sherpa guides were killed by an avalanche above the base camp.

Last year’s climbing season was scrubbed, and nearly all of the climbers in 2014 abandoned their attempts after the avalanche. The only team who reached the summit that year from the Nepal side was a Chinese woman and her five Sherpa guides.