Drones for Everest supply

A drone cargo service is set to start moving loads across Everest’s Khumbu Icefall as soon as the route to Camp 1 is opened for the 2026 spring season. (explorersweb.com) The Khumbu Icefall is the broken, shifting lower glacier between Everest Base Camp and Camp 1, and nearly 50 people have died there since 1953, according to ExplorersWeb’s review of the route’s history. Sherpa workers cross it repeatedly each season to carry ropes, ladders, oxygen, tents and food. (explorersweb.com) This year’s route opening is running late. ExplorersWeb reported on April 22 that the Icefall Doctors still had not set a tentative opening date, compared with April 10 in spring 2025. (explorersweb.com) The Icefall Doctors are the Sherpa team assigned by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee to build the route through the icefall each spring. The committee sent its 2026 team toward Everest Base Camp in early March, and the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal separately sent a 10-member rope-fixing team on March 25 to work above Camp II. (thehimalayantimes.com 1) (thehimalayantimes.com 2) The drones are meant to cut the number of human carries through the icefall, where climbers and workers move under hanging blocks of ice and across aluminum ladders laid over crevasses. ExplorersWeb reported last year that if drones take loads to Camp 1, Sherpas may need to cross the icefall only once instead of making repeated supply runs. (explorersweb.com) The technology is no longer theoretical on Everest. DJI said its FlyCart 30 completed delivery tests on the mountain in April 2024, carrying payloads of up to 15 kilograms between roughly 5,300 and 6,000 meters on the south side of Everest. (dji.com) By the 2025 spring season, DJI said the same model had moved 1,259 kilograms of supplies and waste on Everest in routine service. ExplorersWeb also reported that drones supported the 2025 Icefall Doctors as they fixed the route through unusually broken ice after a dry winter. (viewpoints.dji.com) (explorersweb.com) Nepal’s climbing system is already adapting around the icefall bottleneck. The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee said last month that all foreign climbers on Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse must pay a $600 Khumbu Icefall route fee and follow stricter waste rules at base camp. (thehimalayantimes.com) If the Camp 1 line is fixed in the coming days, the next test will be whether drones can keep supplies moving fast enough to ease the annual traffic jam through Everest’s most dangerous approach. (explorersweb.com)