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When we say “Everest is crowded,” this is what we mean
- breakyerself 7y agoI was a nope before, but now it's a double nope. Asphyxiating or freezing to death because of a crush of people pretending to be Edmund Hillary seems like a big waste to me.
- mc32 7y agoTrue. They should have a limited number of slots and choose via lottery. That said, according to the article, these ascensions only happen two or three days a year. So it’s not like there are 200 people summitting every day. It only happens in very rare spurts when the weather is favorable, which is around 1% of the days.
- freewilly1040 7y agoWhy disparage the climbers? Getting to the top of Everest is an impressive accomplishment.
- Waterluvian 7y agoI read that some of them are basically babysat the way up and put everyone in danger just by existing there.
- whamlastxmas 7y agoSounds like life in general
- jonhendry18 7y agoNot anymore.
- roymurdock 7y agoMore of a wealth marker than anything else (who else can pay $45k-130k and take months off work to prep?) It used to be one team was allowed a permit per year, but has since evolved to be a tourist mecca: http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2018/12/17/how-much-does-it-cost-to-climb-mount-everest-2019-edition/ http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2018/12/17/how-much-does-it-...
- crikli 7y agoGetting to the top of Everest without supplemental oxygen and without relying on fixed lines is an impressive accomplishment. Getting to the top of Everest by jumaring up fixed lines while sucking down 3x the volume of oxygen Hillary and Norgay used is high risk tourism.
- paganel 7y agoStaying on top of your bills in an adverse economical environment like ours is really an accomplishment, especially if you add kids to the mix, climbing a piece of rock at the cost of tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for no reason whatsoever is just stupid.
- jdietrich 7y ago>Getting to the top of Everest is an impressive accomplishment. It's not technically difficult, it doesn't require a particularly high level of fitness, it's just pointlessly dangerous. A substantial proportion of Everest climbers have negligible mountaineering experience and no real interest in the sport, they just want the bragging rights. You pay your money to an expedition company, you follow their instructions and they get you up to the death zone; whether you make it back to base camp is in the lap of the gods. About one in twenty people don't make it back. The only people I feel sorry for are the Sherpas. This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_died_climbing_Mount_Everest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_died_climbi...
- yur50 7y agoI am from Nepal. Our sherpas are making good money from it, no need to feel sorry for them. And it is better to keep Everest as a wasp trap. There are plenty of other mountains which are empty in the Himalayas to climb. If people want to pay to die on Everest, I do not care. It is just one mountain. I am happy to let them have bragging rights in return for contribution in our economy.
- ak39 7y agoGreat response. The fact the sherpas are indeed making money (better than nothing) is good news. I believe they ought to be making even more insane amounts of money though. I wonder if the overcrowding has now increased the danger factor appeal?
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Getting to the top of Everest is an impressive accomplishment. It's certainly an expenditure of effort and resources, which ought to require a an impressive accomplishment to justify it, but tasks, however expensive and/or difficult, aren't accomplishments, only (at best) the cost paid for accomplishments.
- ken 7y agoLook past the literal. This is a metaphor for what we're all doing to this planet. An action which appears noble when one person does it becomes problematic when a billion people do it. You can opt out of climbing Everest (and most of us do), but almost nobody is opting out of buying electronics, burning fossil fuels, using plastics, etc. Half the people in the USA don't even vote, and a sizable majority of eligible blood donors don't donate -- and those are both free, and make life better in the community in which you live. When we say "Earth is crowded", this is what we mean. We're living in an unscalable and unsustainable manner. We pretend that being just one individual of billions means the bad things we do, or the good things we don't do, aren't really our own fault.
- GuiA 7y agoEverybody wants to live a lifestyle that presently requires burning fossil fuel, buying electronics, using plastics, etc. Two possibilities: - technological advancement lets everyone indulge in this lifestyle without those externalities, or ones that are worse - people voluntarily dial down their consumption (of food that has flown from across the world because it’s not in season, of electronics made with rare earth metals, etc), travels, and so on. Both seem extremely unlikely and it’s hard to keep hope.
- jdietrich 7y agoThere's a grotesque disparity in per-capita CO2 emissions, even between highly developed nations. America produces 16.5 tonnes per capita, Britain produces 6.5 tonnes, Switzerland produces 4.3 and Latvia produces 3.5. Turning the dial down on our consumption is eminently possible without meaningfully compromising our standard of living, we just need to give a damn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- sneak 7y agoPeople, en masse, seem to mostly only care what their mass media channels tell them to care about. That’s not being done in the US for consumption side-effects.
- AngryData 7y agoThat is why you gotta bring a paraglider chute. When shit starts to get bad you can just be like "See ya later suckers!" and spectacularly leap off the mountain in James Bond fashion and gently cruise back down to more sane elevations.
- SergeAx 7y agoGotta check if the chute works in this thin air first.
- dmckeon 7y agoOpportunity for a lottery system: pay some significant fee, put in a few weeks hauling trash down from high camps to earn a 10 to 15% chance at trying to summit during the next season. Unlucky entrants are welcome to pay fee and cleanup to try again another year, and the mountain ends up cleaner.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- DonHopkins 7y agoExcellent idea! Bonus for frozen turds, yellow snow, and body parts.
- mieseratte 7y agoThis is how they manage alligator tags in my state, and I've heard of similar systems in other states for scarce wildlife tags, so that type of method for preservation of resources isn't at all unheard of. Each year you pay some fee ($10 for this gator tag), are entered into a lottery. If are not issued a tag you receive a preference point. If you are issued a tag you get the tag, go back to 0 points. Some states use points as tickets in a drawing system, and some use the points as levels, e.g. all 5 pointers get tags, then 4 pointers, and so on until you run into the first "less tags than people" level at which point you do a drawing. I love the idea of adding in a volunteering component to help improve the area.
- philtar 7y agoVery close to 0 people would do that. You have to pay money, then become a janitor just for a chance.
- Waterluvian 7y agoEverest is so fascinating because it makes the simplest things so hard and dangerous. A man literally died waiting in line too long.
- _bxg1 7y agoGotta get those Instagram photos.
- DonHopkins 7y agoEverest should host Freezing Man and Iyce Festival.
- human20190310 7y agoThey should charge $2,000,000 for a license to climb.
- celticninja 7y agoYes, only the super rich should be able to climb it, unlike how they only let the quite rich climb it now.
- keymone 7y agoSummiting Everest is a scarce resource, why shouldn’t it be expensive? Limit number of licenses active during each week and auction them off to highest bidder, nothing wrong with that.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y agoOr implement some kind of lottery system?
- keymone 7y agoLottery systems where price of participation is low are easily gamed.
- celticninja 7y agoBecause then Joe 'CEO' blogs can summit Everest with a whole bunch of Sherpas and Billy 'been climbing since he was a teen' Smith is SOL because he spent his life climbing mountains and not hoarding cash.
- human20190310 7y agoClimbing Everest already requires hard work and talent. Making the $2M would simply be another achievement required to advance to the next level.
- sametmax 7y ago
- oh_sigh 7y agoI don't want to be this person - but who gives a hoot whether Everest is dirty or not? It is probably in the 1% of the hardest places to get to on Earth list, and the only people that go are the rich or sherpas who are employed by the rich. I think China/Nepal should make sure some of that $50k+ permit fee is going towards cleanup for long term profit maximization, but I don't see why any otherwise normal person should care about it.
- titzer 7y agoRepeat this comment 1000x to see how breathtakingly short-sighted it is.
- whamlastxmas 7y agoEverest could be a literal landfill and I really wouldn't care. It's not some holy ground or a place people live
- titzer 7y agoShit on the planet and it will shit right back on all of us.
- roymurdock 7y agoHere's a good blog with a breakdown of costs to climb Everest and how they're evolving: http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2018/12/17/how-much-does-it-cost-to-climb-mount-everest-2019-edition/ http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2018/12/17/how-much-does-it-... Sounds like 2019 is the year of China exerting full control over the Tibet-side approach: "In my mind climbing in Tibet has just become more expensive and more controlled. While the intent of some of this is good (trash, centralized rescue) others are onerous in nature and can result in unexpected expenses. Climbing Everest from the North or Tibet side was historically seen as cheaper, wilder, freer and more independent than the Nepal side. Well, that ship has sailed. If you want a more independent 8,000-meter climb, Everest is no longer on the table. Take a look at Makalu or Dhaulagiri."
- Johnny555 7y agoIt's starting to look a lot like Half Dome: http://www.sierradescents.com/hiking/half-dome/cables-7.html http://www.sierradescents.com/hiking/half-dome/cables-7.html
- threatofrain 7y agoNatural places don't seem like a scalable form of entertainment.
- dantillberg 7y agoNature tourism needs to be scaled horizontally. There are plenty of beautiful places to go, just not everyone can go to the same few places.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoFor many, the beauty is derived from the uniqueness or low supply of the features of the place. Whether it’s status signaling or genuinely wanting to see it in person, the limited quantity of great waterfalls, accessible and scenic mountains, sunsets, clear blue green water on a white sand beach, combined with good weather, will never be able to be substituted with ever abundant plains or deserts. Landscape of Hawaii will be more popular than Nebraska, unless maybe 90% of the world looked like Hawaii and 10% like Nebraska.
- titzer 7y ago> Nature tourism needs to be scaled horizontally. Fuck no. Tourism is a vampiric money-making enterprise that absolutely ruins that which it attempts to make accessible.
- pas 7y agoEnterprise or not, people like novelties, want to experience other places, wonders of the world, etc. And of course since we specialize, it's not surprising that this too became something that produces a surplus. It's up to society and culture as a whole to protect and preserve said wonders. (From park rangers to laws and entrance limits and lotteries.)
- gfody 7y agonot just everest is crowded http://www.thisworldrocks.com/17-bucket-list-items-ruined-by-real-images/ http://www.thisworldrocks.com/17-bucket-list-items-ruined-by...
- geomark 7y agoI've been to about half of those destinations quite a long time ago. My young adulthood memories now ruined by seeing what has happened to them.
- philshem 7y ago'You aren't stuck in traffic. You are traffic.'
- dagw 7y agoAdmittedly only been four of those places, but they where nowhere near as bad as those pictures show. Those photos all seem to of the most crowded space the photographer could find in the middle of peak tourist season.
- hsod 7y agoYeah, I've been to two of them recently. Yeah you have to wait in lines... is that surprising? Other people want to see things too.
- jurassic 7y agoI visited Spain last year after studying the language seriously for several years; overtourism spoiled many of my experiences. I literally fled a cathedral in Granada because the crush of bodies was giving me a claustrophobic panic attack. From my perspective as an independent traveler, the guided busloads are the most obnoxious because they do everything in unison. If you also want to do the thing the 250 bus-people are all doing right now, forget about it. Sad to see the same thing happening on Everest. If I saw that line, I would immediately turn around. When I was younger I thought travel was important to me. But after doing it a bit, I've realized travel isn't what I thought it was. It isn't that exciting and it's not some kind of achievement, other than the achievement of having enough disposable income to make it happen. The people who create things worth visiting--whether that's art or food or buildings or whatever--are people staying where they are and investing in their communities. I want to be one of those people, not the rich jerks taking up space and contributing nothing to the scene.
- DonHopkins 7y agoIt even goes meta. There are coffeeshops in Amsterdam that guided tour groups regularly pass by outside to stare in the front window and observe other tourists smoking weed. Maybe the answer to sex tourists in the Red Light District is sex tourist tourists who rudely point and take photos.
- fouronnes3 7y agoThis is a great idea for a comic in the style of smbc. First two panels are your comment, the second panel is "Pretty soon the meta-tourism got out of hand" <drawing of a tourist^5>. The final panel is the entire human population as a directed acyclic graph of tourists^n, and a small group named "the resistance" is looking for the single "tourist zero" a.k.a tourist^0 so they can murder him and end the tourist singularity.
- jboggan 7y agoI'd read this book.
- 7y ago
- skilled 7y agoI guess this makes me fortunate. I did the EBC trek in late 2015 and it was such a wonderful experience. Hardly anyone doing at the time because of the Earthquake that happened earlier in the year. Can't imagine doing it when there are thousands of people in the area leading up to the slopes.
- TomK32 7y agoAnd it's not even the biggest mountain from base to top on this planet.
- collyw 7y agoIt is the one that the vast majority of people will know as "the highest".
- fouronnes3 7y agoAnd the summit is not the furthest point from the center of the Earth.
- Majestic121 7y agoOh ? Which one is ?
- spraak 7y agoPossibly Kilauea on Big Island. From sea floor to peak
- OskarS 7y agoI feel like, at this point, climbing Everest is starting to become morally questionable. There has been much reporting that Everest is starting to have a serious trash problem, as well as having many dead bodies strewn all over the path to the top. Any climber, even the most ethical and concientious, is just going to make these problems worse, as well as making it less safe because of crowding situations like this. If you're thinking of climbing Everest: just don't. Climb some other mountain. There are lots of them. Let's leave this one be.
- sneak 7y agoLeaving trash in a place approximately zero people ever go is morally very similar to leaving trash in a landfill. It doesn’t harm anyone or anything. Why are you so unconcerned about other mountains?
- Fradow 7y agoIt's not. When you leave trash in a mountain, you leave it upstream from other places. At some point it is going to taint streams and/or go down. There are people leaving downstream who are going to have to leave with the consequences of that trash.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> When you leave trash in a mountain, you leave it upstream from other places. At some point it is going to taint streams and/or go down. There are people leaving downstream who are going to have to leave with the consequences of that trash. This is a stronger argument as to mountains that are low enough to experience snowmelt.
- frankbreetz 7y agoAre you suggesting "approximately zero people ever go" to Everest under an article about how Everest is overcrowded?
- sneak 7y ago
- rsgrafx 7y agoThe first thing I thought of when I saw that photo was that Seinfeld episode where Kramer starts swimming in the East river. idk why lulz.
- ak39 7y agoYikes. If I had to undertake such a project, it would undoubtedly be mostly about leaving all others behind. To be secluded. Alone on a mountain. The mountain. I can't imagine having to bear this sort of human traffic after all of the struggles to get there. Hipster style misanthropy is hard to pull off these days it would seem.
- pjc50 7y agoYou can go alone(ish) to the world's second highest mountain, which is nowhere near as hip. The inherent part of getting away from everyone else is to not choose the same things as they do.
- ak39 7y agoPrecisely. I have always been at odds with my wife's enthusiasm for visiting places (travelling in the modern context) where hotels, tour-packages and worn-out guides define your experience. Unfortunately I can't suggest an alternative to her besides the lemmings path. (The top post on this thread is 100% my sentiment about holiday travelling. Hell is indeed "others".) And by second highest, you mean K2? Agreed. But really these projects are out of my physical, mental and financial reaches currently.
- pas 7y agoHm. Why don't you put together a travel plan? Or why don't you encourage her to do so herself? There are countless blogs recommending very specific itineraries (when to go, which place to sleep at, how much time to see what), yet if you book it yourself, buy the tickets yourself, you won't have that you are the product feeling. * Mountains. There are beautiful and amazing mountains, ridges, peaks, climbs all over the world, not just in the Himalayas. (For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orla_Per%C4%87 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orla_Per%C4%87 -- affordable as fuck compared to anything else basically, and still pretty challenging, yet no need for sherpas, base camps and O2 bottles.)
- kzrdude 7y agoIt's like the opposite of the "long tail" — I don't know what to call it. The fact that the top few attractions, events etc attract a disproportionate amount of people. If you want to escape into nature for example - don't fly across the country or world to go to the #1 prominent or obvious place. Get out anywhere, close to you or new to you, maybe new to most people.
- utoku 7y agoThis immediately reminded me of Yvon Chouinard quote from 180 Degrees South documentary: "Taking a trip for six months, you get in the rhythm of it. It feels like you can go on forever doing that. Climbing Everest is the ultimate and the opposite of that. Because you get these high-powered plastic surgeons and CEOs, and you know, they pay $80,000 and have Sherpas put the ladders in place and 8,000 feet of fixed ropes and you get to the camp and you don’t even have to lay out your sleeping bag. It’s already laid out with a chocolate mint on the top. The whole purpose of planning something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain and if you compromise the process, you’re an asshole when you start out and you’re an asshole when you get back.”
- wccrawford 7y agoIt's clearly not the "whole purpose" for some people. For some people it's just an incredible experience, and not some spiritual journey.
- anonair 7y agoTLDR: > Because of the intense jet stream that hovers near Everest’s 29,029-foot summit for much of the year, there are only a few weather windows, often two or three days in late May, when it's optimal for climbers to make a push for the top—forcing many expeditions to all go for it at the same time.
- Hoasi 7y agoThis is way beyond ridiculous.
- MagicPropmaker 7y agoBasically this guy is saying "I went to Everest! Don't ruin my accomplishment by you going, too!"
- josh_fyi 7y agoNepal should sign a Swiss concessionaire to turn Base Camp into a tourist destination and build a cable car as high as possible. Charge a lot. Limit the number of climbing licenses to what the mountain can bear and charge the market-clearing price. Use part of the profit to keep Everest clean. Also offer a $1.5 million copter ride to the summit. Nepal is poor and needs the money, and this would be better for the environment.
- matthewking 7y agoThought your comment on helicopter rides to the summit of Everest was interesting so I looked it up, only 1 person has ever achieved it (twice) and set the world record in doing so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Delsalle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Delsalle
- dna_polymerase 7y agoCurrently on mobile so I can’t link it myself, but there is a Joe Rogan episode about this very much worth listening. People aside, there is so mich waste up there as well as corpses.
- chiefalchemist 7y agoHumans - Racing to the top, while we drift mindlessly off to the bottom. This is the photo that should appear on the gravestone of the species.
- Timpy 7y agoxkcd's comic from two days ago [1] is about the effects of high altitude. I ended up curious about populations at different altitudes and began reading about cultures with different genetic adaptations, especially Sherpas. It seems that freshly published material on the topic is popping up everywhere now. Youtube recommended a video to me titled "How People Have Evolved to Live in the Clouds" [2] which was published yesterday. Is this a coincidence? Are all of these creators subconsciously inspired by the same source? Maybe there's a new TV show about Everest that I'm not aware of that's influencing interest in the topic. Maybe Everest related articles are frequently on HN and I am just now paying attention to it. Am I being played by the algorithm gods? Baader–Meinhof effect is a convincing illusion. [1]:https://xkcd.com/2153/ https://xkcd.com/2153/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elOn5ZYg5fc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elOn5ZYg5fc
- RickJWagner 7y agoA consequence of the time we live in. Some people have more money for such activities, so the activities become more crowded. This will self-correct after a while. During the next global downturn the lines will disappear.
- hwj 7y agoThe image is only visible with JavaScript enabled. Here's the URL: https://www.outsideonline.com/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2019/05/23/summit-crowding_h.jpg https://www.outsideonline.com/sites/default/files/styles/wid...
- athenot 7y agoThe article does point out that this is exacerbated by the very small windows of opportunity when it comes to weather. Meaning there are only a few days of the year where conditions become acceptable and then everyone rushes on those days. The rest of the time, there is nobody on the moutain. Would that taint the experience if I were a climber? Probably so. But as far as the mountain is concerned these days are few and far apart. I wonder though: since there is a lot of tourism for people who just have money and are not strong-skilled alpinists, are there other ascents attempted when conditions are only semi-favorable and where there are only a few brave souls on the mountain due to the difficulty?
- netwanderer3 7y agoIt's difficult enough to coordinate a group of 200 people under normal circumstances, being able to climb to the top of Everest by every single person is nothing short of a miracle!
- true_tuna 7y agoIt should be obvious now that climbing Everest is a vanity project.
- Ayesh 7y agoClimbing the seven summits is one of my life goals, and I'm doing a lot of research on Everest. I have been to the Everest base camp and Annapurna base camp. Unfortunate mont Everest is no longer the great achievement it once was. The risk is still there (the riskiest being you running out of oxygen), but don't expect the thrill of wandering a mountain and using your survival skills there. There was a story a few weeks back that a Sherpa gave his own supply of oxygen to save a Malaysian tourist. There are many stories that are borderline human abuse for Sherpas. For a great hike, I can't recommend PCT and AT trails in North America enough! For Europe, you have GR-20 (one of the best experiences in my while life), Pyrenees, etc. They won't get you to great elevations but they all out yourself with breathtaking views, challenges, and getting to know some amazing people. For the toughest hikers out there, Puncak Jaya (East of Indonesian archipelago) puts your everything up for the riskiest yet most rewarding challenge.
- diveanon 7y agoI personally experience this problem on a daily basis. I am a professional diving guide and instructor working at on a small island in the South China Sea. For me it is very difficult to balance the sense of pride and joy of creating new environmentalists every day who learn to value our precious and rare remaining reefs against the anger and revulsion I feel towards the selfie crowd that stomps all over coral and harasses wildlife on a daily basis. Tourism is a necessary evil in many places, without it my island would be in poverty and its people living off the reef for daily nutrition instead of protecting it. I don't know what the long term solution is, but there are definitely days where I wonder if I am doing the right thing.