Peak revenue

Conquer Everest, and home for tea

On 29 May 1953, Edmund Hillary created an industry for the country he would later be appointed to as New Zealand ambassador: climbing Mount Everest.

First, it has to be said that, with rare exceptions, and even taking into account the mountain’s prominence (as opposed to its height above sea level), mountaineers who climb Mount Everest do not climb all of Mount Everest. Of the 29,031 feet eight-and-two-fifths of an inch that it stands above the Bay of Bengal (which conjures up a wild thought, not of how they measured the summit, but of how they measured the Bay of Bengal), only about the final 16,000 feet are climbed (from the south, or 20,000 from the north). Since climbers generally fly to these locations, they don’t quite climb Mount Everest, therefore, even if they do reach the top. (If they do, then I have myself climbed Ben Nevis, Mount San Jacinto, Titlis, Pilatus and Mont Blanc.) This all casts question on whether flying to Everest’s summit should be allowed: they fly to the half-way point already, so why not allow it to the very top? (I’ll come back to this.)

It somewhat beggars belief that it was the British who named this outcrop of rock situated between China and Nepal. The peak is distinct from the surrounding landscape (unlike those hills that people have shown me with outstretched fingers, whose names applied to something like the third hump along to the left of that oak tree). For centuries, the tallest mountain in the world had no name, probably because most of the world didn’t even know it was there—it is 140 miles from anywhere (whereby anywhere means anywhere). It was then proposed naming it to honour the predecessor of the British surveyor who was naming it (modesty, and all that, otherwise he’d have called it Mount Waugh), who gallantly objected, albeit on the ground that people couldn’t pronounce his name right. So, they named it after a double-glazing company instead.

Once Nepal knew that it had this mountain, it gave it its own name, a different one from the double-glazing company. Mountaineers know what that name is, probably because they need to, since it’s marked on Nepalese road signs. The Chinese name for it was first recorded in 1721, which goes to show that, when the British couldn’t find so much as trace of a name for it in 1849—hence them resorting to Sir George Everest (which he pronounced as it’s written—eve, rest), they hadn’t really been trying very hard: they didn’t even ask the people next door.

In recent years, so congested has the mountain become that serious environmental and organisational problems have arisen: queues of mountaineers waiting to place their plates of meat on the summit, and nowhere to sit. Its popularity became such that, oh, ages ago, the Nepalese government introduced a reservation and fee system to administer climbs, and thus stumbled upon a feature of modern living that had long eluded it: capitalism.

Capitalism is where you take something for nothing (e.g. a natural resource, like a mountain) and make a mint out of it. The great thing with this particular great thing is that you don’t need to dig it out of the ground, or ship it down a pipeline. You have Everest for ever. Nepal is not a wealthy country, so at least they do have this one great resource to benefit its very … democratically administered population.

Now, as you can tell (and as some of you will be fully aware), while I think I would know one end of Mount Everest from the other, that’s where my expertise on the subject ends. So, I pretended to be a web browser and went and looked at climbing packages offered by enterprising firms who’ll take all the drudgery of the paperwork (but not of the climbing) out of your hands, together with a quite eye-watering fee. From doorstep back to doorstep is about 60 days, and here’s the schedule from one supplier, Elite Exped:

In fact, one of the most difficult aspects of climbing Everest must be choosing who you’re going to book with, not only because there are many companies offering this service to the fit and exuberant, but because it’s a trip that could also potentially turn out to be their last. (If you’re interested, I have also written about Clipper Ventures, a sailing firm that does the same thing for yachters, here.)

However, there is a point here, and it comes from the one other thing that I know about Mount Everest: you cannot drive a garbage truck up it. Litter and garbage have now become a chronic issue, and the Nepalese are not very good at picking up other people’s litter at an elevation of 20,000 feet. No one is. Now, until I knew that there is an island the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean made up entirely of waste plastic, I’ll confess its existence didn’t worry me all that much. It doesn’t worry me constantly now, being one of those things for which I need neither God’s courage (to change) nor His serenity (to accept), aside from knowing the difference it might be making to my fish supper.

It’s not the waste itself that is the main concerning issue—to me at least in this moment. It’s how the mountain is administered, with ecological protection and ethics everywhere stated to be paramount, compared to what the mountain looks like, which is a rubbish dump. That has, sadly, been the case for some time. But Nepal brings in hard-needed cash with the reservation and fee system and is cash-strapped, so they obviously want to maximise tourist revenues (including encouraging long-period visits, such as those offered by the likes of Elite Exped). Mountaineers are not like mild-mannered English housewives in Torremolinos. They have to follow the leader, as it were, but, for what they pay in cash terms, they do occasionally take the lead (Elite Exped says its clients are not clients; at those prices, they look more like business partners, to be frank).

However, there is a new kid on this block of ice.

Thanks to The Guardian for this screenshot. Despite the fact that the one on the extreme right looks bigger (a thing that has to do with perspective, I think), Everest is the second hump to the left of that, before you get to the third and, finally, the fourth and, obviously, final, humps. That’s Everest. There, can’t you see it?).

Yes, this special xenon blood treatment (highly prohibited if you happen to also run the 200 metres low hurdles) and putting a tent up in your living room (always fun for the kids) helps you to the point where you can toddle up Everest and almost be back home in time for tea. One week is all it took a recent expedition to go from London to the top and back. As you can see from Elite Exped’s schedule, that, in mountaineering terms, is back in time for tea.

Concerns have been raised as to the level of mountaineering competence that such short-cut measures will encourage, but also of concern to the Nepalese authorities will be the fact climbers won’t be sojourning in Nepal for a length of stay approaching anything like two months. More like a weekend. One swings-and-roundabouts argument with this new development is that low-competence mountaineers might at least be around Everest for a shorter time in which to do their high-level littering.

The Nepal tourism ministry confirmed to the Guardian it had opened an investigation into the legality and ethics of the methods used by the climbers. Yes, I wonder why: the Nepal tourism ministry has its challenges in picking up Kit-Kat wrappers at 25,000 feet, and it is worried about the legality of using xenon and hypoxic tents? Are they serious? I wonder if they look for any other illegal substances in climbers’ kit bags. (And, more to the point, whether they find them.)

Mountaineering is dangerous (two people I knew have died on mountains, one on her honeymoon, so I know), but the dangers mountaineers assume are dangers for which the mountaineers alone take responsibility. Investigating the means they use is—so far as they have no other impact than on the individual—out of place. It is mountaineers who decline responsibility for the relational difficulties between them and their peaks who are the least responsible: it is not a competitive sport; it is a relationship, imbued in respect and admiration, requiring of the most consummate skills and knowledge. So I’m not sure what legality and ethics Nepal is talking about. No doubt it will tell us. Khimlal Gautam, one of the surveyors who measured Everest in 2019, says, “Now is finally the time to develop a firm code of ethics for mountaineering.” Maybe what Nepal means with looking into the ethics of the British team that went up and down in a week last month is that they’re going to create the ethics now.

Knighted for his feat in ’53, Sir Edmund would have wondered at the popularity of a climb that had defeated so many before him, on a mountain that had barely been seen before the 18th century, now plagued by litter and climbable within a week. I’m not sure what he would have said about its commercialisation, either, or its ethics, for that matter. He might well have nodded at Gautam’s remark, “Tomorrow, there might be technology that allows helicopters to reach the very tip of Everest’s summit. If that happens, what will we do?”

Yes, well I suppose a no-fly zone is always a possibility, but what else they do will depend on the effect that flying by helicopter to the summit of Everest, and, for that matter, anything else, has on whatever it is that they don’t want affected.

The discussion in the press and trade is all about what these things do to the human frame, as well as—apparently—legality and ethics and, on the sidelines, whether traditionalists think it’s right that young whipper-snappers should slot conquering Everest in as a summer break, instead of having to take a pesky two-month leave of absence. However, as yet, with those queues for the summit still pretty much in evidence, and the capacity schedule pretty much full, there is pretty much nothing yet being said about the dent this development could make in Nepal’s not-so-pretty revenue receipts.