https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/26/i-wont-be-joining-queue-everest-overcrowding-summit
Recently, on top of the Everest, due to the high number of people trying to reach the world’s roof, climbers had to queue at the last meters. They even waited for hours, without moving, and some ended dying because of the fatigue or because they ran out of oxygen.
Since 1953, when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed for the first time the mount Everest, the amount of people that every year attempts to do it is increasing. At first only experimented mountaineers could try it, and it was already difficult for them, but now more and more inexperienced people want to reach the top of the highest mountain in the world. These people pay extremely expensive prices in order to achieve this feat comfortably, although the danger never disappears, and sherpas are constantly risking their lives for them. It has converted practically into a turistical acyivity for rich, dangerous and exciting.
In fact, we can easily blame nepal government, which is in charge of giving permissions to be able to climb the mountain, and as they want to earn as much money as it is possible from Everest, they do not mind about letting too much people go up the mountain. This obviously has to change, because it seems that as long as you’re able to pay the huge amount of money that costs the permission, whether you are prepared or not does not matter. People who have never been interested in mountaineering now decide to climb the Everest as their first high mountain. Maybe if it is that easy and anyone can do it, as you could pay a ticket and go on a roller-coaster, this is no longer alpinism. Maybe reaching the top of the Everest is no more an incredible feat. I think that, at least, the number of people that have acces to the top should be restricted, like Kilian Jornet said in an interview, by their experience: to get the pass for mount Everest you must have climbed others 8000.
In addition, the hundreds of people that go through the mountain represent a lot of trash that often ends up on the Everest, leaving this incredible place full of abandoned tents, oxygen bottles, and rejected equipment. The near villages’ inhabitants pick up tones of these materials every year, but this is not the solution, and some climbers do not show a respectful thinking. Although it is forbidden to leave there any residues, and you can be fined if you do, several people use this place as a landfill.
I also think that in some way this is yet a lost battle, because we arrived at a moment that things that in the past were almost imposible to do, now are not, places where anyone had never been are now civilized places. The adventure seems to be disappearing as technology is developing, and climbing the Everest and exploring unknown lands will not be the same again. So maybe it is the normal course of the things if there are people queueing on top of the Everest. Probably most of the adventure’s emotion has gone, but there’s equally a lot of people waiting to reach the highest place in the world.
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