Is Mount Everest Really Worth It?
Mount Everest is one of the most well-known tourist traps around the world. But what really goes on in the process of climbing the famed peaks? Well, I think it's far more trouble than it's worth.
To start with, it takes advantage of the Nepali people. Being a Sherpa is a very well-paying job in Nepal, but it's also very dangerous. Sherpas have to go back and forth along the dangerous cliffs carrying luggage for rich tourists, sometimes covering up to 40 times more distance than their clients. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sherpas have a death rate 1204% higher than US soldiers in Iraq, which is just flat-out unacceptable for any job, let alone a job in the tourist industry.
In order to keep this industry thriving, too many permits are issued, which causes overflow on mountain season and bottlenecks, which could mean death up there. The mountain has two sides, the Nepali side and the Tibetan side. The Tibetan government has a firm hand when it comes to climbing permits, and issues a reasonable amount, but the Nepali side is a different story. To help the tourist industry boom, the government has no limit on how many people can climb, leading to frequent overcrowding.
This overcrowding may seem like just an annoyance, but it's much more dangerous than that. “It’s like climbing stairs and holding two out of every three breaths,” Alan Arnette describes it, who summited in 2011 and covers Everest news for Outside. “And that’s while using bottled oxygen,” he added. Surprisingly, difficulty breathing is not even the worst part. When someone ascends to an altitude as high as Everest, they begin to experience pulmonary fluid filling their lungs and a disease known as HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema), which causes one’s brain to expand, leaking down their spine, as well as causing blood to thicken and clot. There are also mental ramifications. As Scientific American puts it, “A climber with HACE may experience amnesia, confusion, delusions, emotional disturbance, personality changes and loss of consciousness.” Inexperienced climbers are more likely to cause bottlenecks in death zones, hampering the efficiency with which everyone makes it through the passes, in turn heavily increasing the risk of HACE, or even death, for not only themselves, but for other actually qualified climbers. However, there is no previous climbing experience or even training required, only $11,000 for a climbing permit and a doctor's note, which is ridiculous.
These wannabe mountaineers also help to destroy the natural beauty of Everest. Campers leave their trash, poop, and sometimes their dead bodies. Let's look at the problems these three pollutants cause. First, trash. Nepali Sherpas regularly risk their lives to carry trash down that tourists carelessly discard, and this trash often ends up being burned, releasing toxic chemicals into the air, or buried, leaching poisons into the water and soil, unable to be recycled simply because lodge owners would rather not spend the money. Poop is also a massive problem. Over 12,000 lbs. of human waste are left on Everest every year, and it is often found in the local water supply, with little in the way of a filtration system. Lastly, the dead bodies of failed, usually unskilled climbers litter the gorgeous mountain range. More often than not, bodies cannot be retrieved or decomposed due to low temperatures and are sometimes even used as landmarks.
This sort of exploitations, danger, and destruction of the mountain should be completely unacceptable in this modern day and age. By now, we should have the knowledge and basic respect for nature to leave it well enough alone, except for infrequent trips keeping the health of the mountain and its native people above any cool Instagram pictures or bragging rights.
St. Francis High School
2130 W. Roosevelt Road, Wheaton, IL 60187
Phone (630) 668-5800
Fax (630) 668-5893
Phone (630) 668-5800
Fax (630) 668-5893
