Kathmandu, April 30 -- The Nepal Himalaya has seen a spurt in expeditions this spring, largely because of the backlog of the past years, and possibly because of the global publicity generated by the'traffic jam' photographs of 2019.

Climbing on Everest, for instance, was affected in 2014 and 2015 due to theIcefall avalancheandearthquakes, 2016 was slow because of the lingering impact ofthe blockade. And 2020 was a wipeout because of thepandemic.

There are a record-breaking42 expeditions with nearly 400 foreign climbers on Everestthis spring.But while Everest gets all the attention, there have also been 44 climbers on four expeditions on the north face of Annapurna I, and many of them are doing it in tandem with Dhaulagiri which has five...