Mount Everest is a rich man’s game. The average cost to climb the mountain is $76,000 USD. Permit prices alone are now $15,000 USD. Between those costs, required climbing guides, supplemental oxygen, travel, equipment and insurance, the sum builds up quickly.
Since the 1990s, the pioneering mountaineers who once scaled the 29,032 ft. peak, have given way to wealthy, inexperienced and attention-seeking climbers. These are wealthy people who view the mountain as a bucket list item. Even though the mountain has claimed over 340 lives since 1921, Everest has become a kind of status symbol, a mountain you can climb to show you can afford it, even if you aren’t prepared.
This is a stark contrast from how it used to be. In the early days of Himalayan climbing, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay spent years preparing for their first attempt in 1953 to be the first people to reach the summit. A real expedition should require serious training and a deep respect and understanding for the mountains and the people who live there.
Everest is known in the Nepali religion as the “mother goddess” and climbing her is seen as disrespectful. Early climbers made more efforts to learn about the culture and apologize for stepping on the mountain. The disrespect to the goddess often goes completely unnoticed by many modern Everest climbers. While Hillary founded schools in the area and is held to a high respect by locals, and Norgay is seen as a Nepali hero, wealthy modern climbers expect their Sherpa guides to carry luxury tents and WiFi beacons over extremely dangerous terrain.
Because so many inexperienced climbers are making the attempt, the logistics have changed dramatically. Skilled climbing guides called sherpas have installed fixed lines, which are basically a series of ropes that go from Camp One all the way to the summit. Climbers can buy a device called an ascender, that clips into this line, which they lean on and slide up all the way to the top. Before the fixed lines were installed in the 1990s, in order to climb you would need to use an ice axe to make your way up the mountain. When these were installed, it was an extremely controversial action, and for a good reason. It makes the climb much more accessible by removing the basic alpine skills such as route finding, self arrest and crevasse navigation. The technology fills the mountain with people who are physically and mentally unprepared.
As a result, the mountain is covered in trash. Often, when the ice starts melting, human feces starts sliding down the mountain, ending up at camps. Guiding companies will simply cut the logos off their tents to avoid the consequences of leaving them up. A recent mission brought down over 200,000 pounds of trash. Everest is no longer a pristine wilderness, but a polluted, crowded mess.
Everest should not be as dangerous as it is but its popularity has led many inexperienced climbers to their deaths. On many days, “traffic jams” form on the summit, forcing climbers to wait in freezing temperatures and high altitudes, referenced in books such as Into Thin Air. These can lead to altitude sickness, swelling of the brain, frostbite and sometimes death. This increased the risk for everyone involved, especially the Sherpa guides, who are at a greater risk because of the frequency of their trips up. They carry far more supplies, fix lines and occasionally rescue tourists in distress.
The 2019 climbing season was an especially brutal one. The Nepali government issued a record number of permits. This led 11 people to their deaths on the final summit push, mostly due to overcrowding. There was a line of nearly 100 people on the Hillary Step, often cited as the most difficult and dangerous part of the climb, close to the summit. Fights broke out between climbers over who should be given priority, those going for the summit, or those descending the mountain.
Thomas Becker, a climber, tells The Guardian that the situation resembled Lord of the Flies, with people cursing and yelling at each other on the thin ridge line. Earlier that day, he had six of his eight oxygen bottles stolen by other climbers, which left him with only two to summit with. He remembers passing five corpses that day, one still dangling in his harness. The mountain was so crowded above Camp Four that no rescue missions could reach the Hillary Step.
Despite doing the most dangerous and difficult work, sherpas are paid next to nothing. Their jobs involve massive risk. They can be easily wiped out by avalanches or sudden storms, but their compensation is only a fraction of what the companies that hire them make. The job for sherpas is extremely dangerous and leads to very little pay. While the foreign climbers pay over $50,000 USD to climb, a climbing sherpa will usually make between $2000 to $5000 USD per season, leading multiple climbs. In comparison, a foreign guide will make over $50,000 a season. Every year sherpas will die on Everest. In 2014, an avalanche on the Khumbu Icefall killed 16 sherpas in a single moment. But climbers, expecting to be catered to, put their Sherpa’s lives at greater risk.
One recent example shows just how bad it’s gotten. A Malaysian climber collapsed high on the mountain and was essentially left for dead. But a team of Sherpas spent hours carrying him on their backs down the entire mountain, saving his life, a near impossible task. This was not heroism for the sherpas. It was expected. There was no extra money for them when they got down.
People want to be able to say that they climbed Everest. It is not a mountaineer’s mountain anymore. It is a luxury product that caters to people with enough money to buy the experience, regardless of whether they’ve earned it.
