Nepal's government doesn't put a specific limit on permits. This year 381 people were permitted to climb – a number the AP says is the highest ever. Foreign climbers must pay a fee of $11,000 for a spring summit of Everest, and provide a doctor's note attesting to their fitness....Nice/smart of them to be polite, but it doesn't bother me that Nepal cashes in on this tourism. This is something I thought before I read the headline in The Onion: "World Populace Actually Fine With Rich People Dying On Mount Everest." Nepal might want to think about whether it's getting hurt by tourists or whether the image of crowds is undermining the prestige of climbing the mountain. Maybe just raise the fee. $11,000 isn't enough.
In a statement Monday, the tourism board expressed condolences to the bereaved family and friends of those who died, and added that it takes the matter seriously and was "disturbed" by the news.... "As is known, climbing Everest is a hardcore adventure activity, a daunting experience even for the most trained and professional climbers," it said in the statement....
May 29, 2019
Why shouldn't Nepal take their money?
I'm reading "After Deadly Season On Everest, Nepal Has No Plans To Issue Fewer Permits" at NPR.
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Lower the fee and do away with the medical requirement. The more of these assholes that die the better the world becomes.
Leave the fee at $11,000; BUT!
make that contingent on them cleaning up after themselves. If they leave their trash; charge another ten (or twenty) G's for 'littering'
It's a clever plan to slowly wipe out the west.
Risk of death probably increases the attraction/
What kind of doctor would put in writing that you were fit enough to climb Everest?
Second paragraph of my comment at 6:04 on the Everest post:
It’s not as Nepal has any motivation to restrict the number of climbers. It is not a wealthy country, and the climbers pay their exorbitant fees up front.
@Althouse, I agree with your final sentence. Make the fee $100,000. They won’t get 381 climbers, but they will still get 100 or more.
They tried restricting permits and all the money and climbers went to Tibet.
Perhaps a time will come when Nepal provides a paved path to the summit (with permanent fixed ropes), and then imposes a per-minute charge for using it?
As for those summit photos, well, forbid cameras above some altitude, use automated equipment (replaced as necessary) to shoot the photos, and then charge $$$$ for rights to them.
They just need to consult with Six Flags, Disney et al to make the attraction more accessible. And more profitable, of course.
Climbing Everest is like MMA fighting: Protect yourself at all times or prepare to die.
Either the permit is to limit the number of climbers (in which case, they should limit the number to an amount the mountain can safely hold) or it's a money grab. Since it is, of course, a money grab, why not grab all the money they can?
But then, I think the whole thing is ridiculous and can't imagine why anybody would bother. Which is to say, I am with The Onion.
"This year 381 people were permitted to climb ..."
Not much of a crowd. Amazing that even a story about some people committing suicide-by-Everest has to spin and hyperventilate.
Rich people dying will always make the news.
As John Lynch points out, you raise the fee too high and more people will come in from the Tibetan side.
If anyone really wanted to cut the crowds, and just maybe the fatalities, they might consider Jon Krakauer's suggestion: No more bottled oxygen (except for rescue operations). How many people manage that each year? How many fewer would even think they could try?
But this brings us back to our host's question. Why should Nepal do that to themselves? They're poor, and here people want to pay them to climb this mountain.
It's unreasonable to believe we can protect people from their own stupidity. This is also why it's offensive those with Grievance Studies degrees expect us to pay their college bills.
381 permitted to climb but in the other recent post on Everest, the instagram post said, "Around 700 more people will be looking to summit from Tuesday the 21st onwards." Are those hundreds of others all coming from Tibet?
If there are crowds, it's too cheap. They need to up the prices.
Freaking white privilege!! Only allow POCs to climb the mountain!
have we done the "debating this isnt a hill to die on" yet?
If there's too many people climbing clearly the solution is to have a set number of climbing permits, say 100 per year, and then just auction them off to the highest bidders. Maximum profit. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Bet they'd get a lot more than 381 x $11,000 = $4,191,000.
I'd rather die trying to climb Everest than by spelunking. Spelunking mishaps sound alarmingly like being buried alive. Sky diving is the best available stupid death. Up until the moment of splat, it's quite exhilirating. The "oh cripes, what have I done" moment is relatively brief.
make all the climbers post a whopping "death penalty" fee up front.
If there's too many people climbing clearly the solution is to have a set number of climbing permits, say 100 per year, and then just auction them off to the highest bidders. Maximum profit. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
I agree, let free markets work. The problem is, Nepal isn't the only country with access to Mt. Everest, so in this case the market would just shift to Tibet.
Sky diving is the best available stupid death. Up until the moment of splat,
For a while YouTube had a video taken by a skydiver so eager to try out his new helmet cam he forgot to put on his chute. Or so I was told — I thought skydivers checker each other before getting on the plane?
The economic bonus comes from more than the climbing fee. If each climber spends $10 in Nepal in addition to the climbing fee, well, you do the algebra.
Nepal isn't the only country with access to Mt. Everest, so in this case the market would just shift to Tibet.
I understand that the Tibetan route is a lot more technically demanding.
381 times $11,000 is not very much money. I don't think the government of Nepal is doing this for 4 mill and change.
I don't think the government of Nepal is doing this for 4 mill and change.
You'd be surprised at how far 4 mill goes in Nepal.
The reason why the native guides are willing to participate is because they make as much during the short climbing season as they do the rest of the year.
That people taking on a risky adventure die in the process doesn't faze me in the least. It's the ultimate in personal responsibility. I'm fine with it so long as it doesn't cost or inconvenience the rest of us. You wanna do drugs? Okay, but don't expect the taxpayers vis the cops to revive you with Narcan or to take you to the hospital.
As to the Everest stuff the only thing that annoys me is the amount of trash and bodies being accumulated all along the trail. I know that Nepal started to impose a trash removal requirement or pay a fee. It's a start but it's not cutting it. And no one has any incentive to bring any body back. Well, maybe some of the families of those who've died. So offer a service to go up and get that body. For a fee.
In the end the only thing that Nepal can do to address those issues is to raise the price of permits to the point that the sherpas will have the incentive to go up and retrieve trash and bodies.
I don't care one bit how many rich people die on that mountain.
I do think Nepal should charge more per permit.
People will pay.
The Nepali economy gets a lot more than just the fees. Sherpas have to be paid and money is spent during the climbers stay there. I was in Namche Bazaar in the 90's and the place was booming from the Everest expeditions.
"What kind of doctor would put in writing that you were fit enough to climb Everest?"
Exactly. Given the long list of 'qualified' people that have died on Everest wouldn't the correct answer be that no one knows in advance who is and is not fit enough to climb the mountain?
The Onion headline: "World Populace Actually Fine With Rich People Dying On Mount Everest." is a prime example of why it's so hard to do satire today. It's not satire!
The Onion headline: "World Populace Actually Fine With Rich People Dying On Mount Everest." is a prime example of why it's so hard to do satire today. It's not satire!
Sadly, it's an extension of, "You can't make this stuff up!". Truth really is stranger than fiction and it's impossible to parody parodies.
Amexpat said...
The Nepali economy gets a lot more than just the fees. Sherpas have to be paid and money is spent during the climbers stay there. I was in Namche Bazaar in the 90's and the place was booming from the Everest expeditions.
I am just surprised the government hasn't tried to take a larger cut.
My guess is the businesses profiting happen to have government minders.
Let them go to Tibet.
I don't think China would let foreigners inside Tibet,their second largest gulag.
Shana, they bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash.
I like to go in late December when the crowds are down. Pop by the summit, take a few selfies, and clamber back down again before dinner.
Either end up "stuff on a rock" after falling, "stuff on a rock" if you die on the summit or frozen "stuff on a rock" if you are buried there until global warming releases them someday from their ice tomb...or not. Do you feel luck pilgrim? Well do you?!
There have been very good documentaries and at least one reality series relating to climbing Everest.
That 11K is just the permit fee, i believe. The climber has to shell out for gear, transportation, food, etc to even GET to the base camp. there are 4 higher camps, the last just before the 'death zone', which is the term for 'too high to easily breath unassisted'. (Though many do, as there is more cachet to climbing without oxygen.)
another thing: that picture where there's a line for the summit? it doesn't show that it's a 10+ hour climb to even get THAT far from camp 5. climbers have to leave something like 2AM to even -attempt- to summit. also, it's VERY rare for there to NOT be storms that high. that picture was itself a one-in-a-million shot.
That’s cheap for Cryogenic disposal of remains after suicide .
Everest would be on my Kick The Bucket List.
Tricky. The original climbers in the Himalayas were rich and it took a lot of money to launch the old style of expedition climbing. When solo climbing by those with no need of oxygen and few sherpas for support became more common the move to democratize the mountain began and has accelerated to the present where middle class climbers with passion have the mountain in reach. Should only the rich be able to climb? Clearly a 100 k fee would cull a lot but the permits are per team and not per person so the 60 k now going to the outfitters would only have to rise by the climbers share of the teams fees.
Bernie sez:
The mountain should be equally accessible to all. Free Sherpa's for every American.
But not funerals.
Nepal should charge an extra $25K to be returned when the climber survives.
The only rationale I can come up with for why Nepal should decrease the number of permits issued is if issuing permits beyond a certain number becomes a safety hazard for the people climbing the mountain. Similar to how a club can only permit so many people at one time before it becomes a safety hazard, there might exist a maximum number of climbers that can be present at one time before that becomes a safety risk. I believe a comment of one of the recently deceased climbers Althouse posted the other day mentioned how it had become more hazardous because so many simultaneous climbers made climbers have to wait in dangerous conditions to proceed farther.
But other than that, I see no reason why Nepal shouldn't make money off people who want to travel there and risk their own life for a thrill. Everyone who goes there knows it is quite dangerous to attempt to climb.
Plus if Nepal did limit their number of permits to ensure safety, they could probably jack up the fees a bit.
A really rich guy would hire someone else to climb Everest. Just sayin'.
Under Communism, Everest climbs you.
11 died out of 381 climbers. That is 1 out of every 34.6. Like 1 out of a typical classroom. In a single year--if you climb multiple times just up those odds. That doesn't count permanent brain damage from low oxygen or missing fingers/toes from frostbite. What kind of lunatics do this?
My hope is that it climbers become social outcasts and that people start to see it as uncool to leave their O2 bottles, their urine, their feces, their energy bar wrappers at high elevation. I want more photos of the environmental disaster that climbing Everest has become. I want this to become as shameful as a burning Cuyahoga River.
The fee should be waived if you bring a corpse back after your climb.
I agree, Chickelit. I'm retired now, but I was a real climber and a mountain guide, not one of those Everest dilettantes. Climbing Everest should be the peak of uncool. We need people to start saying, "Everest? What kind of idiot would want to be part of that mess?"
"We need people to start saying, 'Everest? What kind of idiot would want to be part of that mess?'"
Neverest
The other day, someone wrote a sympathetic comment about the Sherpa and how dependent they've become on Everest traffic. "We can't pull the plug on their way of life" was the take home message. I submit that that is rather like defending the actaul people who went into the jungles of West Africa to capture slaves. Those were black people doing the capturing, and selling to white slave traffickers, and profiting no doubt. Should we have worried about their "economy"?
A question from a non-climber...if the path up is so crowded on a narrow edge, how is space made for climbers coming down? Truly, just curious.
Blogger MadisonMan said...
Nepal should charge an extra $25K to be returned when the climber survives.
They need more incentive not to die?
It's time to make it a proper tourist venue. They need a hotel and restaurant on top, pressurized and with a tramway to bring guests up without the inconvenience of the climb. For those wishing to climb, they should put in stairs and even pipe in oxygen all along the way so people can fill up their bottles. And of course lots of snow sheds, heated.
Time to tame it, so people can find challenges that are more meaningful.
"A question from a non-climber...if the path up is so crowded on a narrow edge, how is space made for climbers coming down? Truly, just curious." -- I've never been there but my guess is that there's at least one bottle neck where all have to wait while one climber goes either up or down. It doesn't have to be a continuously narrow route to be a real problem. It is simply stupid or uncaring to allow a situation to exist where 200 or more climbers are trying to summit on the same day via such a route.
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Not much of a crowd. Amazing that even a story about some people committing suicide-by-Everest has to spin and hyperventilate.
It's a crowd because weather patterns force everyone to climb at about the same time.
You'd think for eleven grand per climber the government would clean the place up a little bit - pick up some of the trash and maybe remove the bodies.
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