Khimlal Gautam

Khimlal Gautam is a Nepalese mountaineer and Chief Survey Officer in the Survey Department, Government of Nepal.[1] He is the world's only civil servant and surveyor to scale the Mount Everest twice.[2] He is also the highest-ranking government official from the Nepal government to have summited Everest. He is the first surveyor along with Rabin Karki to reach the top of the mountain to measure, with the aid of state-of-the-art technology, the actual altitude of the peak.[3]

Khimlal Gautam
Khimlal Gautam in a conference.
NationalityNepali
Occupation(s)Surveyor, civil servant
Notable workPandhrau Chuli (Non-fiction book, 2022)

Early life and education

He was born in the Hadaule Village of Kaski District. He has completed his Masters in Geographical Information Science and Systems from Universität Salzburg.[4]

Since childhood, Khimlal has been enamored with the Himalayas.

First summit
Khimlal on the right, Rabin in the middle, and Tshering on the left.

In 2010, the Gorkhapatra daily newspaper published an advertisement inviting interested Nepalese civil servants to apply for the first civil servant expedition to summit Mount Everest which was for the promotion of the Visit Nepal Year 2011.[5] He applied for the mission and was chosen as a reserve candidate. Later, one of the team members withdrew and he got to be a part of the team. At 5:20 am on May 18, 2011, he was the first member of his team to reach the summit.[6][7]

Second summit

The 2015 Nepal Earthquake may have altered the height of Mt Everest. In 2017, Nepal's Survey Department commissioned a team of surveyors to prepare for an Everest expedition in the hopes of resolving the issue.[8][9] Gautam was selected as the team leader for this expedition because of his previous experience on mountaineering and his engineering skills.[6][10] KP Oli, the Prime Minister of Nepal, said goodbye to the expedition team on April 10, 2019.[11] After 26 days at Base Camp preparing, planning, and acclimating for the final push for the summit they began their climb on May 18.[1] Two days later they encountered weather issues and wind turbulence while at the South Col taking a final break before the summit.[12] Gautam discovered that there were insufficient oxygen bottles there. Their main Sherpa told him that the mission was almost impossible and requested to descend to camp two. He knew the mission would fail if they descended considering his previous experience on Mount Everest. On May 22, he reached the summit of Mount Everest at 3 a.m. along with his colleague Rabin Karki and a Sherpa.[13][14][15]

Book

References
  1. Gautam, Khim Lal (17 October 2020). "Measuring Mt Everest: because it is there". Nepali Times. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  2. "Nepali surveyor's arduous journey to get to 8,848.86". Record Nepal. Bhadra Sharma. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  3. "Expedition to remeasure height of Everest". Mountain Planet. Daily Mountain. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  4. "Rising Stars Biography". Geospatial Media. Geospatial Media and Communications.
  5. "Nepal civil servants set to conquer Mt Everest". New Indian Express.
  6. Gautam, Khimlal. "Everest Day: A conversation with Nepal's Everest height measurement leader". Online Khabar (Interview). Interviewed by Birat Anupam.
  7. Gautam, Khim Lal (10 December 2020). "Two hours on the summit". Geospatial World.
  8. "Measuring Mount Everest: a proud Nepali on his dangerous mission to the top of the world". South China Morning Post. 10 November 2020.
  9. "Expedition to remeasure height of Everest". Agence France Presse. 9 April 2019 – via The Himalayan Times.
  10. Gautam, Khim Lal (2011). "Feelings of the first Nepali Surveyor on top of Mount Everest". Nepalese Journal of Geoinformatics. 10 (2011): 48. doi:10.3126/njg.v10i0.23192. S2CID 239297013.
  11. "PM Oli bids farewell to government team assigned to measure Everest's height". Ratopati. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  12. Slater, Joanna (17 October 2019). "Is Mount Everest shrinking? Nepal is on a mission to find out". Washington Post.
  13. "The Quest for the Highest Point". The American Surveyor. Jodie Hartnell. 8 February 2021.
  14. "How do you measure Everest? It's complicated by frostbite—and politics". National Geographic. Freddie Wilkinson. 28 September 2020.
  15. "Mt Everest grows by nearly a metre to new height". BBC News. 8 December 2020.
  16. Gautam, Khimlal (2022). Pandhraun Chuli (1st ed.). Fine Print. p. 351. ISBN 978-9937-746-48-9. {{cite book}}: External link in |ref= (help)
  17. "A firsthand account of a Nepali surveyor's Everest summits". kathmandupost.com. Retrieved 2023-09-08.
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