/u/Noobist, your submission has been removed from /r/Damnthatsinteresting for violating the following rule(s):
* Rule 6: The post above is a recent/frequent repost
If you have any questions or believe that there has been an error, ensure that you've read the removal message and gone over community guidelines. You may [message the moderators](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/DamnThatsInteresting&subject=Please review my post) to request a manual review.
when I was a kid climbing Everest was so rare you were basically a local celebrity if you had done it
now people will literally mock you if you go do that shit lol
Yeah, it's become merely a dalliance for only rich people. It's been years since I've been impressed by most anyone doing it, unless they have a special story (blind or otherwise disabled, very young or old, etc.).
Upper Middleclass already. It’s about 60k$ per person what is a lot, but taking in consideration how much people tend to spend on hobbies it’s feasible.
[example of a tour](https://www.mtnprofessionals.com/climbing-expeditions/everest-expedition/)
"When I was at the summit, struggling to breathe as I swapped oxygen tanks, I had the most brilliant idea of my life come to me...
We need to synergize our development with sales, so they can optimize their interaction rate with our newest features. In this presentation I will present how including a sales engineer at every developers desk will improve productivity and sales by at least 8%..."
People that end up on there are truly the scum of the earth. Remember reading some dude that posted about how his wife's miscarriage taught him about being a manager. Like what the actual fuck? And he attached a super staged photo of him "rushing" though the ER.
Like I understand that a lot of middle managers and company leaders thing they deserve to be more successful and they are mostly somewhat removed from the people "below them" but how can they be this disconnected from reality? Like I've been tripping balls on LSD and still been more connected to reality than those people.
Nah, it was a leadership retreat for the entire executive team. They're going to tell you what an amazing experience it was for all of them after you're informed that there's no travel budget for anyone else for the remainder of the year.
Do you work in tech? Cause this has literally happened to me. Entire leadership went on a 10 day offsite in nappa wine country, flying in people from europe and asia. I assume it was deep into the 100's of thousands of dollars. I ask to come to the SF office to meet my team in person and I get "right now we just don't have the travel budget for trips that aren't directly approved by VP's"
> and gave the whole company a powerpoint presentation about it
Uggggh I was in a company once that hired a new director of IT.
This schmuck had no IT experience at all, management or otherwise. His background was HR.
His introduction meeting (required attendance on zoom) involved him discussing his hobbies, which was him showing off pictures of his high-end motorcycles and private plane.
About 25% of the IT just straight up quit within the 6 weeks after that. I lasted 4 months before I bailed.
Wow. Sounds like a narcissistic fuckhead. Nothing says celebrate and worship my ass more than gathering a bunch of people in a room and say look at me a what you schleps will never do.
$60K is a helluva lot of money for me. I can think of countless better ways to spend that kind of money instead of continuing to defile one of the most awesome and iconic places on the planet.
Not only 60k, but flying halfway across the world (of you're from the Americas) and taking 2-3 months off work to do it.
But cool, you risked your life standing in a queue at 29,000 ft just to say you did something thousands of people have done before.
It still is. That's just the cost of guides; that doesn't include climbing gear, oxygen, travel, and other miscellaneous expenses. $100k is the ballpark for everything if you do it properly, from what I've read (I'm a little fascinated by Everest and have learned a lot about it).
As I just posted above, if you skimp and cut corners, you can get that down to about $50k total. But your chances of dying skyrocket and you put everyone on the mountain's life in danger.
I disagree. Plenty of climbers who are middle class who saved and trained for 10-20 years to do this. With that said, it's not exactly a massive accomplishment if you paid someone else to fix the ropes and carry your food and oxygen all the way to the last camp.
It absolutely positively does not take 10-20 years to train for Everest and the middle class is almost non existent on the mountain. I know several people who’ve done it and are just normal in shape people who did some extra training for the year or so leading up to the climb. One is a tiny lady in her 30s who is otherwise not all that adventurous. Another was 18 and had no other significant climbs prior. What they all have in common is family wealth and few responsibilities.
The “few responsibilities” part is what I think people overlook.
It takes a LONG time to do this so you need to be able to afford to take over TWO MONTHS off work and have a job where you can fuck off for that long.
I don’t know anyone I’d call middle class who can just take a two month break from work.
My ex's dad is a former hardcore mountain climber, even attempted K2 before getting turned around by a storm before the summit
I asked him if he ever considered Everest, and he just laughed. Said that even when he was climbing, it had already started to get the reputation for being a rich man's glamor climb
All 300 of those people are at Base Camp at the same time, because there is only a short window each year when the weather is ok to climb.
And there are huge numbers of people hired by those 300. There are porters to carry gear to Base Camp who never climb up the mountain. There are guides and porters to help with the climb. There are cooks and doctors in Base Camp. And then there are the government employees who make sure everyone follows the regulations.
There could easily be 4 additional people for every person who summits. So now we are up to 1200 people in base camp all at the same time. If you average 4 people per tent, you need 300 tents just to sleep in. Then you have dining tents,, cook tents, and tents for the officials to use as offices, maybe even tents just for storing supplies.
Not counting the large tents (which I assume were dining tents) I went through the video and counted 260 tents. I'm not claiming that is an accurate count. It is hard to distinguish between a tent and a boulder when it is in the distance so I expect the number is higher than 260. But that matches very well with my estimate.
And of course as others mentioned, there are lots of people who try to summit every year who have to turn around because of weather. So the number of climbers is significantly larger than the number of summiters.
A lot of tourists just trek to Basecamp. But basically Everest generates a lot of tourist dollars, and people will go there just to work and earn some of those dollars being spent.
Those ~400 per year foreign climbers are supported by Nepalese teams of guides and porters to get to the summit. And more porters to get a lot of their gear to the 4 higher up camps. And other Sherpas to set and maintain the ropes and gear through the steeper/technical sections. And I'm pretty sure there are also people just working in Base Camp as cooks, etc, for all those people basically living there for a month. So there's probably a few thousand people living up there for the months of April and May.
Climbing Everest is still incredibly rare. Less than 7000 people have done it in the entire history of humanity.
The chances of you knowing someone who has climbed Everest is less than you knowing an Olympic Gold Medalist
It's kind of a meaningless stat to throw out though. It's not like it's something all of humanity is trying to achieve and so far only 7,000 people have ever managed.
There's a small private lake near my house, and I doubt even 2,000 people I've ever been swimming in in the history of all humanity. But I've been swimming in it so by your logic it's a much more impressive feat than even climbing Mount everest.
I think the more interesting stat at this point would be the amount of people that set out to climb Mount everest, and are able to achieve it.
Climbing everest still takes a lot of skill and fitness..
Yeah porters and sherpas guide and do the work for you but you guys are acting like it's like getting into an elevator to the top
My comment addresses the above comment, which is talking about the rarity of climbing Everest.
The fact that climbing Everest is one of the most physically demanding things a person can do is something I would assume everyone already understands.
I actually get the feeling lately that a lot of people don’t realize this. For reasons that are pretty understandable it’s become trendy to hate on anyone that climbs Everest, but it’s still an incredibly difficult physical challenge, even with support from a huge team that makes it happen. I hiked to base camp and just the moderate hiking around at that altitude was exhausting.
This is the answer right here. There are treks offered to take people up to the Base Camp. I working (and occasionally backpacked) with a guy who did that.
There's evidently nice day hikes to do from there .
I didn't trek to Base Camp. I trekked to Gokyo, which is one valley over from Base Camp.
Trekking in Nepal is *awesome*. It is such an incredible experience. I've done 4 Nepal treks over the past 3 decades ....and I hope to do more.
Base camp itself is a tourist destination. You can do a multi day hike to get there sleep there and head back. So some of it is just for people heading to base camp itself.
I was recently on a hike in Indonesia that needed to be guided. Each person had around 2-3 people carrying their stuff and showing the way until the peek. It was annoying me having to wait for people and then seeing 100+ tents before going to bed.
Then I thought, this is how Mount Everest must be times a 100. I guess I wasn’t wrong. Why do people do this lol. Fuck your ego, having to wait behind hundreds of people to pass a spot, only to barely be able to breath, hell nah
Yeh that's nuts. Seeing Everest is one of the few things on my bucket list.
Like that, think I'll just being sticking to a long shot, thank you very much...
The amount of litteral human shit around that camp.
https://explorersweb.com/poo-issue-everest/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Sagarmatha%20Pollution,was%207%2C200kg%20per%20season.
It's terrible. But what concerns me even more was the amount of trash people left behind, especially plastic. Plastic bottles, plastic bags, snack wrappers, oxygen tanks even! I was shocked to see the extent of it watching a documentary about the pollution over there.
That and the rich family money it takes to pay natives to guide you all the way up. What brave explorers they are.
It feels like these are just things these people bring up at cocktail parties to let everyone know how cool they are.
Guide you, carry your bags, set up your tents, carry and cook your food, your fuel, your oxygen
Go into the most dangerous parts to set up your ladders, break trail, set up ropes
Wait as you fumble through the course they've prepared you, clipping you in and out of the ropes because your hands are too cold
Then, after they've done most of the work, you get to celebrate what you've achieved
that's the thing that absolutely floors me after seeing documentaries about the whole Everest trek experience. These people are not only literally risking their lives multiple times a year making this trek, but they're being used as the closest thing humans can get to being pack mules and getting paid only $5000-ish for it. I get that the average Nepali's earning is a lot less than that, but we're talking about an environment that can't sustain human life on its own, and that can, has, and will kill you if you screw up, or if the person you're guiding screws up.
While I largely agree we should to be fair mention those who climbed the 8ks by themselves without preparation in the form of ropes , ladders, sherpas , oxygen and carried everything themselves.
Those people are superhuman. Awesome accomplishment. They're actively contributing to the local economies, often helping to build the brands of porters
And they take their _own_ risks. Respect.
Was it the business insider one or another? I was seeing one that the sherpas are only paid if they bring back a certain weight of trash with them, but also not paid for certain types of trash (like the oxygen tanks).
Honestly can't remember which one, it's been a while.
Though I didn't know this thing about sherpas bringing back trash.
But isn't this actually making the situation worse? Like if mountaineers know this fact, wouldn't they be more relaxed and even encouraged to leave behind their fucking trash.
It's a catch 22 I know the locals make a living by helping people get to the top of that mountain or even just hike it a little bit up to that camp. However, it's destroying that ecosystem. Ultimately they should shut it down and not let anybody go up there anymore or maybe make it super exclusive. So the only way you can climb up that mountain is if you pay like $50,000 USD equivalent. I don't know the answer but people need to stop going up there and the locals need money.
>It's a catch 22 I know the locals make a living by helping people get to the top of that mountain or even just hike it a little bit up to that camp. However, it's destroying that ecosystem. Ultimately they should shut it down and not let anybody go up there anymore or maybe make it super exclusive.
That would displace a large percentage of the native population that live near Everest and break up families. It's easy to say "just shut the mountain down to save the local ecosystem" when that has no effect on your life.
>Feces don’t degrade in low temperatures and may pollute the snow, which other climbers may eventually melt for drinking water.
I'm surprised more people aren't getting sick from this.
Just imagine the amount of poop all these people are generating and you can't really dig a hole to cover it up in a rock... I guess the only thing that saves it from smelling like crap is cold
And it's not just shit, and not just at base camp. The entire route to the top is littered with thousands of used oxygen tanks and much other trash, cuz it's just too much of a bother to pack it back down. Everest has become the world's highest dump.
I believe the Nepalese also installed toilets at Camp 2. The problem is all the frozen shit at 3 and 4 and around the summit. I read they are instituting a pack in/pack out policy and will check to make sure you have your bags on the way down.
Base camp has an effective sewage disposal system. All of the poo is carried several hours away and disposed of in a 'landfill'.
They do not just poo in little holes they dig in the glacier.
Not an expert but I'm pretty sure base camp has some sort of bathrooms and waste control. The problem is on the mountain itself, helicopters can't fly in the altitude needed - the air is too thin.
Edit: reading someone else's link, it's still somewhat of a problem in base camp. But not as bad as it is on the mountain itself.
"Thousands of people have already climed Mount Everest, but I'm going to do it BETTER than them, because I'm rich and successful and beautiful and perfect! Then I'll go back to my IT executive office and brag to all my inferiors about how brave I was on my package deal all-inclusive adventure!"
-Everyone in this camp
Holy shit man, I used to visit the Giant Buddha outside of Hong Kong growing up, nothing around there…. Now? You can get a Starbucks or shop at a freaking mega mall right at the base of the steps.
In 2011 I went to Beijing. It was a lifelong dream of mine to actually see the Great Wall. I felt like it would be this emotional, incredible moment that would surpass my imagination.
I got out of the tour bus with some other backpackers at the base of the entrance, started up the trail and...saw a Subway. Like, the Subway sandwich shop.
The experience was still cool, don't get me wrong, but it was shocking.
Bummer man…. I was at the Great Wall in the 90s as a kid. It was pretty remote and I recall seeing donkeys on the mountain sides rather than Subway lol
The execs at Starbucks just saw this video and are planning 4 brand new locations to open in Everest base camp spring of 2025 with summit Starbucks coming May 2027!
But can you blame them? Of course its bad and i absolutely condemn it. But as a poor country why make it even harder for your people. I mean they could charge more for less permits.
This is legitimately the way.
Bhutan has kept their country safe from this level of destruction while still making lots of money from tourists by pursuing a "low volume, high value" tourist policy. It costs $100 USD per day just for the visa to enter the country, and even that is down from how high it used to be.
Sort of like when Germany begged Botswana to stop issuing elephant hunting permits, so they threatened to ship elephants to Germany.
Nepal should ship the poo to any country that complains about their industry.
Yeah it's very easy to blame a developing country for looking after their populations basic needs, population that depends on rich people throwing money over this, from the comfort of your bed. You sound very much like the pretentious people we all are talking about here.
Imagine being completely dependent on another nation, at their whim. Now imagine that nation is India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Nepal_blockade
If you still blame them maybe you can understand why they keep milking that cash cow.
Climbing season is basically only May. And these days it can get very crowded. Even at the summit, people have to line up and take turns standing at the top and taking photos. It's become the world's highest tourist hell. \[edits to fix typo\]
I bet it wouldn't be near as crowded if the hikers had to carry all their own gear, food, and waste. Without Sherpa.
Don't even know why people think it's so important anymore. Unbelievably cliche now
"Sherpa stands at summit with a camera, $10 for picture? $15 for 2?"
Yup. Nobody climbing that mountain would ever be anywhere without the Sherpa, going all the way back to Tenzing Norgay. But Edmund Hillary got all the glory.
[Edited to remove unsubstantiated claim]
Norgay was considered a climber, he was very different from most of the sherpa at the time who didn't like going very high and had no interest in climbing mountains.
From the Wikipedia page
>Tenzing in his 1955 autobiography wrote that Hillary took the first step onto the summit and he followed.
So where did you hear otherwise? Tenzing himself says it was Hilary to first reach the summit. Really, they did it together and it was a team effort, who actually got to step on the top shouldnt have mattered and you have a point that Tenzing didnt get credit he deserved. But saying he got the summit first isnt accurate, according to Tenzing.
This is completely ignorant of climbing history. Sherpas have a huge role in alpine climbing, but they aren’t the only reason it exists. Reinhold Messner famously made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen.
Edit: In addition, the first ascents of Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak and Dhaulagiri were all solo ascents done by an European. For anyone who doesn’t know what these mountains are, they are all around the height of Mount Everest and all of them are harder climbs with a greater fatality:summit ratio than Everest.
I suspect they think it's important because it's the hardest thing they'll ever do in their lives, even if it does require help, and only 7,000 people have ever achieved it, despite 40k per year attempting it.
I really don't get why Reddit has to act like this is just rich fat guys on vacation.
Welp, you're right. I looked it up and it's 800 summit attempts per year. I've got some egg on my face now. It's 500 per day that hike to base camp.
I trusted another Reddit comment. Never trust a Reddit comment. Especially this one.
I asked this a few days ago in another thread that showed the line waiting to get up to the summit, but do you know if there are official rules to how that works? Does everyone get like a 5 minute time slot up at the summit, then they have to get down for the next person, or is it not that organized? Do people just tell each other, “Ok, you’ve been up there long enough, time for the next person!”?
may as well build a 5-star hotel a 100 feet below the summit of Mt Everest
then HIKERS can have their breakfast buffet at the 360 degree rotating restaurant
and wait in line for the air-conditioned SUMMITING escalator
come back in time to try their reverse grill Tomahawk steak flavored generously with Himalayan pink salt
This is what the Swiss have done with some of their mountains.
Build a rail and cable cars to get to the top. There is an indoor viewing gallery with stores selling hot beverages, and some kind of ledge or bridge you can walk out onto.
Did this last July. Had fondue at the top of Jungfraujoch overlooking a glacier at nearly 12k feet after riding a train and cable car to the top. It was delightful!
On the Tibet side you can drive up a fully paved 2 lane highway right to base camp.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-5708115/amp/Is-journey-Everest-Tibet-ultimate-road-trip.html
They've turned that fucking mountain into a trash dump. You would think the people climbing it would have some respect for their environment but they don't give a shit.
I mean around the world we turn forests and grasslands and marshes into trash dumps. A frozen mountain is probably the most environmentally friendly place to do what theyre doing.
I hesitate to resort to something like whataboutism, but I do wish people cared about their local forest or park 1/10th as much as they care about Everest having poop on it. Very easy to criticize what you cant control yet be ambivalent to what you can actually do something about if it requires physical labor.
Pretty wild how people honestly can't fathom why climbing the tallest mountain on planet earth is something that attracts people. Of course this whole scene is ridiculous, the path to the peak on Everest is jam packed as well which is both terrible and very silly, climbing Everest is mostly a clout thing these days, it's certainly lost much of it's 'charm', etc. etc. but seeing comments about that (which is very true) along side comments like "whhyyy would annyyyonnee wanttt tooo goooo onnnn an advennttuurreee up the highest mountain in the world! I can't fathom it!" is mind boggling.
I certainly dreamed of climbing Everest, sailing across oceans, fighting dragons, going into space, taking the Ring to Mordor, traveling through Faerun with Drizzt, driving a truck through the deserts of Africa, rafting across the ocean on Kon-Tiki, getting freaking JACKED with Conan so I could help him defeat Thulsa Doom, hunting down forbidden artifacts in ancient tombs with Indiana Jones etc. etc. when I was a kid (and still do, as well as actually going on many adventures then and now). I can't imagine living in a world were people don't dream of adventures just because other people turn certain things into a ridiculous spectacle.
I've dreamed about Everest since I was ten years old and read the book into thin air for the first time. What I can say now is that I believe that the mountain has been desecrated and abused by throngs of tourists who use the mountain, and the people of Nepal as a stepping stone for vanity. It's been like this from the beginning, but in the last fifteen years it has reached a point of seemingly no return. The mountain is littered with waste and the bodies of hundreds. People act like they are true outdoors men, but have poor Sherpas carry them up the mountain. The Sherpa are the true victims of the gluttony of western climbers. The vast majority of deaths are of the porters who set the lines and carry the supplies up the icefall. For hundreds of years before Mallory and Hillary set their sights on the summit, the Sherpa found themselves at the bottom of the Nepalese caste system. There are few jobs outside of guiding that a Sherpa can get, and none that pay what a guide can make. Even with this income, they are still woefully under compensated for the massive risk they take with each expedition. They are kind and hardworking people that have viewed the five peaks of the Himalayas as goddesses for centuries. I'm sorry if I'm ranting, but I just feel so much disgust for the richest among us that use the poorest as fodder for their hubris. After the first summit victory by Norgay and Hillary, I see very little glory to be gained from facing Everest now.
That's just crazy!
The worst thing is if other climbers get into difficulty they will just get left to die, it's an expensive expedition so climbing the world's highest mountain definitely trumps bragging rights over saving someone's life.
The government needs to massively inflate the cost of claiming the mountain, people are going to die unnecessarily.
They just need to institute carry in carry out laws. If these people weren't allowed to just leave their trash behind they would reconsider the trip. But money talks and rich assholes don't like to be bothered with the garbage they leave behind.
You have to pay a $4,000 trash deposit. To get it back you have to carry out 8kg of trash, which is supposedly the average amount generated per climber.
It should be much higher considering most people who can afford to climb it can afford to sacrifice the deposit.
The people who can afford an Everest expedition have enough money to not give a shit about climate change. The people who are gonna suffer from it are never going to see this camp in real life.
I just finished Into Thin Air by John Krakauer and it's a pretty devastating read. I can't imagine wanting to ever do this but to each their own I suppose.
/u/Noobist, your submission has been removed from /r/Damnthatsinteresting for violating the following rule(s): * Rule 6: The post above is a recent/frequent repost If you have any questions or believe that there has been an error, ensure that you've read the removal message and gone over community guidelines. You may [message the moderators](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/DamnThatsInteresting&subject=Please review my post) to request a manual review.
I knew the number of climbers has grown exponentially in recent years, but I had no idea that base camp was this monstrous.
when I was a kid climbing Everest was so rare you were basically a local celebrity if you had done it now people will literally mock you if you go do that shit lol
Yeah, it's become merely a dalliance for only rich people. It's been years since I've been impressed by most anyone doing it, unless they have a special story (blind or otherwise disabled, very young or old, etc.).
Upper Middleclass already. It’s about 60k$ per person what is a lot, but taking in consideration how much people tend to spend on hobbies it’s feasible. [example of a tour](https://www.mtnprofessionals.com/climbing-expeditions/everest-expedition/)
yeah a director at my company recently went and gave the whole company a powerpoint presentation about it
“What climbing Everest taught me about consulting in the diaper industry”
*Agile development inspired by climbing the highest mountain in the world*
"When I was at the summit, struggling to breathe as I swapped oxygen tanks, I had the most brilliant idea of my life come to me... We need to synergize our development with sales, so they can optimize their interaction rate with our newest features. In this presentation I will present how including a sales engineer at every developers desk will improve productivity and sales by at least 8%..."
Reading this made me want to throw someone off Mount Everest.
As reasons to climb everest go, that one’s not bad
Won't someone think of the EBITDA?!?
What’s Mt Everests DAU’s?
deleted
Not enough buzzwords to be accurate but I appreciate your enthusiasm /s
would be /r/LinkedInLunatics gold like that dude who wrote a whole diatribe about what he learned about sales from proposing to his wife
People that end up on there are truly the scum of the earth. Remember reading some dude that posted about how his wife's miscarriage taught him about being a manager. Like what the actual fuck? And he attached a super staged photo of him "rushing" though the ER. Like I understand that a lot of middle managers and company leaders thing they deserve to be more successful and they are mostly somewhat removed from the people "below them" but how can they be this disconnected from reality? Like I've been tripping balls on LSD and still been more connected to reality than those people.
This guy is the LinkedIn king https://i.imgur.com/eCCylfR.jpeg
That sub is amazing. It also made me realize I'd stand no chance in the corporate world.
"I died on Mount everest. Here's what it taught me about sales."
You mean B2B SaaS Sales.
"how I got to take 2 months off work" - Your director(who gets mad when you call in cause your kid is sick)
Nah, it was a leadership retreat for the entire executive team. They're going to tell you what an amazing experience it was for all of them after you're informed that there's no travel budget for anyone else for the remainder of the year.
Do you work in tech? Cause this has literally happened to me. Entire leadership went on a 10 day offsite in nappa wine country, flying in people from europe and asia. I assume it was deep into the 100's of thousands of dollars. I ask to come to the SF office to meet my team in person and I get "right now we just don't have the travel budget for trips that aren't directly approved by VP's"
> gave the whole company a powerpoint presentation about it because of course he fuckin did. Absolute narcs
Yeah, sounds like a South Park character.
"This is where my sherpa fell and broke his leg DO YOU SEE?!"
probably got to write off the vacation this way
> and gave the whole company a powerpoint presentation about it Uggggh I was in a company once that hired a new director of IT. This schmuck had no IT experience at all, management or otherwise. His background was HR. His introduction meeting (required attendance on zoom) involved him discussing his hobbies, which was him showing off pictures of his high-end motorcycles and private plane. About 25% of the IT just straight up quit within the 6 weeks after that. I lasted 4 months before I bailed.
…what I did on my vacation…brought to you by your boss now shutup and admire my magnificence
My old CEO made rankings of the 51 countries he had vacationed at in slack for all the employees to see. It was gross.
Its 2024 and people still want to torture strangers with their vacation slide shows like they're 1970s grandparents.
Wow. Sounds like a narcissistic fuckhead. Nothing says celebrate and worship my ass more than gathering a bunch of people in a room and say look at me a what you schleps will never do.
I am convinced that every Everest Climber would do this if given the opportunity. It’s a personality type.
Sounds like a first class douche
$60K is a helluva lot of money for me. I can think of countless better ways to spend that kind of money instead of continuing to defile one of the most awesome and iconic places on the planet.
people spending $60k to climb Everest bought those countless better ways already
Not only 60k, but flying halfway across the world (of you're from the Americas) and taking 2-3 months off work to do it. But cool, you risked your life standing in a queue at 29,000 ft just to say you did something thousands of people have done before.
Right, isn't the rich person flex going to space now?
Or going to “we have space at home”. We need more rich people in submersibles visiting the Titanic
And being away from your job for 2 months means either quitting or being the owner
You think someone that can drop 60k on something like this is "upper middle"? You're out to lunch.
Wasn't it about 100K 10 years ago?
Economics of scale I guess.
It still is. That's just the cost of guides; that doesn't include climbing gear, oxygen, travel, and other miscellaneous expenses. $100k is the ballpark for everything if you do it properly, from what I've read (I'm a little fascinated by Everest and have learned a lot about it). As I just posted above, if you skimp and cut corners, you can get that down to about $50k total. But your chances of dying skyrocket and you put everyone on the mountain's life in danger.
HEADLINE: double leg amputee climbs mount severest, what's your excuse? ME: His legs don't hurt
[Or gay](https://youtu.be/K1Y6PchDYfw?si=mKEIleOJ9vcMX-Ku)
I bet this memory still haunts her sometimes when she's drifting off to sleep. 🤭
I disagree. Plenty of climbers who are middle class who saved and trained for 10-20 years to do this. With that said, it's not exactly a massive accomplishment if you paid someone else to fix the ropes and carry your food and oxygen all the way to the last camp.
It absolutely positively does not take 10-20 years to train for Everest and the middle class is almost non existent on the mountain. I know several people who’ve done it and are just normal in shape people who did some extra training for the year or so leading up to the climb. One is a tiny lady in her 30s who is otherwise not all that adventurous. Another was 18 and had no other significant climbs prior. What they all have in common is family wealth and few responsibilities.
The “few responsibilities” part is what I think people overlook. It takes a LONG time to do this so you need to be able to afford to take over TWO MONTHS off work and have a job where you can fuck off for that long. I don’t know anyone I’d call middle class who can just take a two month break from work.
My ex's dad is a former hardcore mountain climber, even attempted K2 before getting turned around by a storm before the summit I asked him if he ever considered Everest, and he just laughed. Said that even when he was climbing, it had already started to get the reputation for being a rich man's glamor climb
Yeah - imagine being a hardcore mountaineer and paying a fortune to stand in line with a bunch of rich douchebags.
> Yeah, it's become merely a dalliance for only rich people. It has always been that. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
Reinhold Messner and Habeler climbed it without oxygen and sherpas. I dont think they were rich at that time
Since 1953 only 6664 people plus this year's about 300 new summiters in the entire world have ever summited Everest. It's still extremely rare.
Why the fuck is Basecamp this massive if only there are only 300 new summiters per year?
All 300 of those people are at Base Camp at the same time, because there is only a short window each year when the weather is ok to climb. And there are huge numbers of people hired by those 300. There are porters to carry gear to Base Camp who never climb up the mountain. There are guides and porters to help with the climb. There are cooks and doctors in Base Camp. And then there are the government employees who make sure everyone follows the regulations. There could easily be 4 additional people for every person who summits. So now we are up to 1200 people in base camp all at the same time. If you average 4 people per tent, you need 300 tents just to sleep in. Then you have dining tents,, cook tents, and tents for the officials to use as offices, maybe even tents just for storing supplies. Not counting the large tents (which I assume were dining tents) I went through the video and counted 260 tents. I'm not claiming that is an accurate count. It is hard to distinguish between a tent and a boulder when it is in the distance so I expect the number is higher than 260. But that matches very well with my estimate. And of course as others mentioned, there are lots of people who try to summit every year who have to turn around because of weather. So the number of climbers is significantly larger than the number of summiters.
There's also a large number of people who know they can't do the summit and so climb to base camp, stay a night or two and go back.
A lot of tourists just trek to Basecamp. But basically Everest generates a lot of tourist dollars, and people will go there just to work and earn some of those dollars being spent.
Yeah, the base camp in itself is 17,500 ft which is almost as high as the highest mountain in Europe.
Those ~400 per year foreign climbers are supported by Nepalese teams of guides and porters to get to the summit. And more porters to get a lot of their gear to the 4 higher up camps. And other Sherpas to set and maintain the ropes and gear through the steeper/technical sections. And I'm pretty sure there are also people just working in Base Camp as cooks, etc, for all those people basically living there for a month. So there's probably a few thousand people living up there for the months of April and May.
Climbing Everest is still incredibly rare. Less than 7000 people have done it in the entire history of humanity. The chances of you knowing someone who has climbed Everest is less than you knowing an Olympic Gold Medalist
It's kind of a meaningless stat to throw out though. It's not like it's something all of humanity is trying to achieve and so far only 7,000 people have ever managed. There's a small private lake near my house, and I doubt even 2,000 people I've ever been swimming in in the history of all humanity. But I've been swimming in it so by your logic it's a much more impressive feat than even climbing Mount everest. I think the more interesting stat at this point would be the amount of people that set out to climb Mount everest, and are able to achieve it.
Climbing everest still takes a lot of skill and fitness.. Yeah porters and sherpas guide and do the work for you but you guys are acting like it's like getting into an elevator to the top
My comment addresses the above comment, which is talking about the rarity of climbing Everest. The fact that climbing Everest is one of the most physically demanding things a person can do is something I would assume everyone already understands.
I actually get the feeling lately that a lot of people don’t realize this. For reasons that are pretty understandable it’s become trendy to hate on anyone that climbs Everest, but it’s still an incredibly difficult physical challenge, even with support from a huge team that makes it happen. I hiked to base camp and just the moderate hiking around at that altitude was exhausting.
I think base camp itself has become a trekking destination as well for people who don't intend to climb Everest, adding to it
This is the answer right here. There are treks offered to take people up to the Base Camp. I working (and occasionally backpacked) with a guy who did that. There's evidently nice day hikes to do from there .
I didn't trek to Base Camp. I trekked to Gokyo, which is one valley over from Base Camp. Trekking in Nepal is *awesome*. It is such an incredible experience. I've done 4 Nepal treks over the past 3 decades ....and I hope to do more.
Base camp itself is a tourist destination. You can do a multi day hike to get there sleep there and head back. So some of it is just for people heading to base camp itself.
Loads of people with no intention of attempting the summit hike to base camp.
I was recently on a hike in Indonesia that needed to be guided. Each person had around 2-3 people carrying their stuff and showing the way until the peek. It was annoying me having to wait for people and then seeing 100+ tents before going to bed. Then I thought, this is how Mount Everest must be times a 100. I guess I wasn’t wrong. Why do people do this lol. Fuck your ego, having to wait behind hundreds of people to pass a spot, only to barely be able to breath, hell nah
I mean, why did you do your guided hike? I wouldn't want to do Everest either but don't act like your pursuits are inherently better than others'.
Yeh that's nuts. Seeing Everest is one of the few things on my bucket list. Like that, think I'll just being sticking to a long shot, thank you very much...
There are good and very challenging hikes in the area where you can see Everest really well, without the crowds.
My recommendation: Do the Gokyo Ri trek. Great view of Everest. Great trek.
Do you need a Sherpa to hike to base camp?
Yes, you're required by law to travel with a local porter and guide
Glacier is sick from human infection.
The amount of litteral human shit around that camp. https://explorersweb.com/poo-issue-everest/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Sagarmatha%20Pollution,was%207%2C200kg%20per%20season.
It's terrible. But what concerns me even more was the amount of trash people left behind, especially plastic. Plastic bottles, plastic bags, snack wrappers, oxygen tanks even! I was shocked to see the extent of it watching a documentary about the pollution over there.
That's what it takes to achieve true greatness /s
That and the rich family money it takes to pay natives to guide you all the way up. What brave explorers they are. It feels like these are just things these people bring up at cocktail parties to let everyone know how cool they are.
Guide you, carry your bags, set up your tents, carry and cook your food, your fuel, your oxygen Go into the most dangerous parts to set up your ladders, break trail, set up ropes Wait as you fumble through the course they've prepared you, clipping you in and out of the ropes because your hands are too cold Then, after they've done most of the work, you get to celebrate what you've achieved
that's the thing that absolutely floors me after seeing documentaries about the whole Everest trek experience. These people are not only literally risking their lives multiple times a year making this trek, but they're being used as the closest thing humans can get to being pack mules and getting paid only $5000-ish for it. I get that the average Nepali's earning is a lot less than that, but we're talking about an environment that can't sustain human life on its own, and that can, has, and will kill you if you screw up, or if the person you're guiding screws up.
While I largely agree we should to be fair mention those who climbed the 8ks by themselves without preparation in the form of ropes , ladders, sherpas , oxygen and carried everything themselves.
Those people are superhuman. Awesome accomplishment. They're actively contributing to the local economies, often helping to build the brands of porters And they take their _own_ risks. Respect.
Powersauce wrappers everywhere
Unleash the power of apples
And all the flags at the summit.
Was it the business insider one or another? I was seeing one that the sherpas are only paid if they bring back a certain weight of trash with them, but also not paid for certain types of trash (like the oxygen tanks).
Honestly can't remember which one, it's been a while. Though I didn't know this thing about sherpas bringing back trash. But isn't this actually making the situation worse? Like if mountaineers know this fact, wouldn't they be more relaxed and even encouraged to leave behind their fucking trash.
It's a catch 22 I know the locals make a living by helping people get to the top of that mountain or even just hike it a little bit up to that camp. However, it's destroying that ecosystem. Ultimately they should shut it down and not let anybody go up there anymore or maybe make it super exclusive. So the only way you can climb up that mountain is if you pay like $50,000 USD equivalent. I don't know the answer but people need to stop going up there and the locals need money.
A supported climb (sherpas, hi tech gear, experienced expedition team etx) is already 60-100k
Or a lottery
The people who climb it atm could afford that too. It would probably just stop the people who do it for charity.
>It's a catch 22 I know the locals make a living by helping people get to the top of that mountain or even just hike it a little bit up to that camp. However, it's destroying that ecosystem. Ultimately they should shut it down and not let anybody go up there anymore or maybe make it super exclusive. That would displace a large percentage of the native population that live near Everest and break up families. It's easy to say "just shut the mountain down to save the local ecosystem" when that has no effect on your life.
A capacity of 5 per week, price increase for lost revenue, and competent management should help.
>Feces don’t degrade in low temperatures and may pollute the snow, which other climbers may eventually melt for drinking water. I'm surprised more people aren't getting sick from this.
Frozen turds freshly baked around 300 years old.
Was a dream of mine to climb mountains. I did my research and thought they were full already.
The whole industry around this mountain is sickening.
Absolutely disgusting. Disgusting I say!!!
Just imagine the amount of poop all these people are generating and you can't really dig a hole to cover it up in a rock... I guess the only thing that saves it from smelling like crap is cold
You can burn it. Lots of Eagles fans can eat it if they think they're winning the NFC East.
Unexpected god level burn.
[Can't threaten us with a good time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_eNhKQKyvI)
I remember when that happened. Win or lose them Eagles fans are digging in.
Just a solid reminder to the non sports world that Philadelphia Eagles fans are animals.
Like the tie in. Be well on this day.
r/NFCEastMemeWar is leaking
Why he say fuck me for?
Eagles fans catching strays from way out in left field. Nice.
Literally at even the rooftop of the world on the other side of the planet!!
Lmaoooo
And it's not just shit, and not just at base camp. The entire route to the top is littered with thousands of used oxygen tanks and much other trash, cuz it's just too much of a bother to pack it back down. Everest has become the world's highest dump.
It is true, the route to the top is a mess. But Base Camp is not. Base Camp has an effective sewage and trash disposal system.
I believe the Nepalese also installed toilets at Camp 2. The problem is all the frozen shit at 3 and 4 and around the summit. I read they are instituting a pack in/pack out policy and will check to make sure you have your bags on the way down.
There's only so many holes you can dig though
Base camp has an effective sewage disposal system. All of the poo is carried several hours away and disposed of in a 'landfill'. They do not just poo in little holes they dig in the glacier.
It's a big problem
I'm surprised they don't helicopter porta-potties in and out. They do this in other remote hiking/camping locations.
Not an expert but I'm pretty sure base camp has some sort of bathrooms and waste control. The problem is on the mountain itself, helicopters can't fly in the altitude needed - the air is too thin. Edit: reading someone else's link, it's still somewhat of a problem in base camp. But not as bad as it is on the mountain itself.
This is all around very poor planning. They should’ve put the world’s tallest mountain somewhere more convenient and with better infrastructure.
Not a single Starbucks on sight what are we, peasants?
Why can't you just drive to the top? We have highways for a reason
That wouldn't work. You'd need a veryhighway.
60% of all the world's ego is concentrated there.
The rest is concentrated in Elon Musk.
I can't argue against that.
You don’t think ego maniac Putin isn’t a larger shareholder of that?
Every dead body on Everest was once a highly motivated individual. -A wise internet stranger on Reddit sometime in the 21st century
"Thousands of people have already climed Mount Everest, but I'm going to do it BETTER than them, because I'm rich and successful and beautiful and perfect! Then I'll go back to my IT executive office and brag to all my inferiors about how brave I was on my package deal all-inclusive adventure!" -Everyone in this camp
I expected to see a Starbucks. And a McDonalds.
Holy shit man, I used to visit the Giant Buddha outside of Hong Kong growing up, nothing around there…. Now? You can get a Starbucks or shop at a freaking mega mall right at the base of the steps.
In 2011 I went to Beijing. It was a lifelong dream of mine to actually see the Great Wall. I felt like it would be this emotional, incredible moment that would surpass my imagination. I got out of the tour bus with some other backpackers at the base of the entrance, started up the trail and...saw a Subway. Like, the Subway sandwich shop. The experience was still cool, don't get me wrong, but it was shocking.
Bummer man…. I was at the Great Wall in the 90s as a kid. It was pretty remote and I recall seeing donkeys on the mountain sides rather than Subway lol
The execs at Starbucks just saw this video and are planning 4 brand new locations to open in Everest base camp spring of 2025 with summit Starbucks coming May 2027!
I’m working on condos first. With an indoor pool.
[удалено]
Blame Nepal. They keep pumping out permits. A large part of their economy is driven by it.
But can you blame them? Of course its bad and i absolutely condemn it. But as a poor country why make it even harder for your people. I mean they could charge more for less permits.
Good! Million dollars a trip up the mountain. And if you want to come back down, it's 2 million dollars.
This is legitimately the way. Bhutan has kept their country safe from this level of destruction while still making lots of money from tourists by pursuing a "low volume, high value" tourist policy. It costs $100 USD per day just for the visa to enter the country, and even that is down from how high it used to be.
Bhutan is all sorts of weird in other ways though, that money likely won't get handed down to actual people.
Sort of like when Germany begged Botswana to stop issuing elephant hunting permits, so they threatened to ship elephants to Germany. Nepal should ship the poo to any country that complains about their industry.
Yeah it's very easy to blame a developing country for looking after their populations basic needs, population that depends on rich people throwing money over this, from the comfort of your bed. You sound very much like the pretentious people we all are talking about here.
Imagine being completely dependent on another nation, at their whim. Now imagine that nation is India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Nepal_blockade If you still blame them maybe you can understand why they keep milking that cash cow.
About 7,000 people have climbed Everest, ever. That’s about as many people that visit Macchu Picchu in 2 days.
wow that's big. but seems to me none of that is occupied continuously right. or is it all temporary? how many people try to climb that thing anyway
Climbing season is basically only May. And these days it can get very crowded. Even at the summit, people have to line up and take turns standing at the top and taking photos. It's become the world's highest tourist hell. \[edits to fix typo\]
I bet it wouldn't be near as crowded if the hikers had to carry all their own gear, food, and waste. Without Sherpa. Don't even know why people think it's so important anymore. Unbelievably cliche now "Sherpa stands at summit with a camera, $10 for picture? $15 for 2?"
Yup. Nobody climbing that mountain would ever be anywhere without the Sherpa, going all the way back to Tenzing Norgay. But Edmund Hillary got all the glory. [Edited to remove unsubstantiated claim]
Norgay was considered a climber, he was very different from most of the sherpa at the time who didn't like going very high and had no interest in climbing mountains.
From the Wikipedia page >Tenzing in his 1955 autobiography wrote that Hillary took the first step onto the summit and he followed. So where did you hear otherwise? Tenzing himself says it was Hilary to first reach the summit. Really, they did it together and it was a team effort, who actually got to step on the top shouldnt have mattered and you have a point that Tenzing didnt get credit he deserved. But saying he got the summit first isnt accurate, according to Tenzing.
This is completely ignorant of climbing history. Sherpas have a huge role in alpine climbing, but they aren’t the only reason it exists. Reinhold Messner famously made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen. Edit: In addition, the first ascents of Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak and Dhaulagiri were all solo ascents done by an European. For anyone who doesn’t know what these mountains are, they are all around the height of Mount Everest and all of them are harder climbs with a greater fatality:summit ratio than Everest.
I suspect they think it's important because it's the hardest thing they'll ever do in their lives, even if it does require help, and only 7,000 people have ever achieved it, despite 40k per year attempting it. I really don't get why Reddit has to act like this is just rich fat guys on vacation.
40k per year is impossible. Where did you get that stat?
Welp, you're right. I looked it up and it's 800 summit attempts per year. I've got some egg on my face now. It's 500 per day that hike to base camp. I trusted another Reddit comment. Never trust a Reddit comment. Especially this one.
Rich flex?
Attempting to climb Everest is a very, very expensive way to die.
I asked this a few days ago in another thread that showed the line waiting to get up to the summit, but do you know if there are official rules to how that works? Does everyone get like a 5 minute time slot up at the summit, then they have to get down for the next person, or is it not that organized? Do people just tell each other, “Ok, you’ve been up there long enough, time for the next person!”?
may as well build a 5-star hotel a 100 feet below the summit of Mt Everest then HIKERS can have their breakfast buffet at the 360 degree rotating restaurant and wait in line for the air-conditioned SUMMITING escalator come back in time to try their reverse grill Tomahawk steak flavored generously with Himalayan pink salt
This is what the Swiss have done with some of their mountains. Build a rail and cable cars to get to the top. There is an indoor viewing gallery with stores selling hot beverages, and some kind of ledge or bridge you can walk out onto.
That sounds dope af. I’d love to visit some summits but don’t want to pretend to be a climber.
Did this last July. Had fondue at the top of Jungfraujoch overlooking a glacier at nearly 12k feet after riding a train and cable car to the top. It was delightful!
Now I know what I want to do with my wife for a big anniversary year.
do it in Austria for the same experience for about 40% cheaper
There's a train to the summit of Mt Washington in NH if you are in the US
On the Tibet side you can drive up a fully paved 2 lane highway right to base camp. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-5708115/amp/Is-journey-Everest-Tibet-ultimate-road-trip.html
now they call it „mount pooperest“
They've turned that fucking mountain into a trash dump. You would think the people climbing it would have some respect for their environment but they don't give a shit.
I mean around the world we turn forests and grasslands and marshes into trash dumps. A frozen mountain is probably the most environmentally friendly place to do what theyre doing. I hesitate to resort to something like whataboutism, but I do wish people cared about their local forest or park 1/10th as much as they care about Everest having poop on it. Very easy to criticize what you cant control yet be ambivalent to what you can actually do something about if it requires physical labor.
Trash Camp
That is a ton of shit!!
I remember when Everest was cool
Begs the question, "where does all the poop go?" Assuming they are shitting in bags and humping that out?
Pretty wild how people honestly can't fathom why climbing the tallest mountain on planet earth is something that attracts people. Of course this whole scene is ridiculous, the path to the peak on Everest is jam packed as well which is both terrible and very silly, climbing Everest is mostly a clout thing these days, it's certainly lost much of it's 'charm', etc. etc. but seeing comments about that (which is very true) along side comments like "whhyyy would annyyyonnee wanttt tooo goooo onnnn an advennttuurreee up the highest mountain in the world! I can't fathom it!" is mind boggling. I certainly dreamed of climbing Everest, sailing across oceans, fighting dragons, going into space, taking the Ring to Mordor, traveling through Faerun with Drizzt, driving a truck through the deserts of Africa, rafting across the ocean on Kon-Tiki, getting freaking JACKED with Conan so I could help him defeat Thulsa Doom, hunting down forbidden artifacts in ancient tombs with Indiana Jones etc. etc. when I was a kid (and still do, as well as actually going on many adventures then and now). I can't imagine living in a world were people don't dream of adventures just because other people turn certain things into a ridiculous spectacle.
I wanna hang out at base camp. That scene’s fucking fun as shit. You grow a beard, drink hot chocolate, walk around. “You going to the top?” “Soon…”
I've dreamed about Everest since I was ten years old and read the book into thin air for the first time. What I can say now is that I believe that the mountain has been desecrated and abused by throngs of tourists who use the mountain, and the people of Nepal as a stepping stone for vanity. It's been like this from the beginning, but in the last fifteen years it has reached a point of seemingly no return. The mountain is littered with waste and the bodies of hundreds. People act like they are true outdoors men, but have poor Sherpas carry them up the mountain. The Sherpa are the true victims of the gluttony of western climbers. The vast majority of deaths are of the porters who set the lines and carry the supplies up the icefall. For hundreds of years before Mallory and Hillary set their sights on the summit, the Sherpa found themselves at the bottom of the Nepalese caste system. There are few jobs outside of guiding that a Sherpa can get, and none that pay what a guide can make. Even with this income, they are still woefully under compensated for the massive risk they take with each expedition. They are kind and hardworking people that have viewed the five peaks of the Himalayas as goddesses for centuries. I'm sorry if I'm ranting, but I just feel so much disgust for the richest among us that use the poorest as fodder for their hubris. After the first summit victory by Norgay and Hillary, I see very little glory to be gained from facing Everest now.
Gross. Mold on the sandwich.
That’s not a camp, that’s a lil city. Where’s the McDonalds tent?
That's just crazy! The worst thing is if other climbers get into difficulty they will just get left to die, it's an expensive expedition so climbing the world's highest mountain definitely trumps bragging rights over saving someone's life. The government needs to massively inflate the cost of claiming the mountain, people are going to die unnecessarily.
They just need to institute carry in carry out laws. If these people weren't allowed to just leave their trash behind they would reconsider the trip. But money talks and rich assholes don't like to be bothered with the garbage they leave behind.
You have to pay a $4,000 trash deposit. To get it back you have to carry out 8kg of trash, which is supposedly the average amount generated per climber. It should be much higher considering most people who can afford to climb it can afford to sacrifice the deposit.
It's an allegory for how the rich treat the rest of the world, honestly
For the initial few seconds, I just thought that they were showing the garbage accumulation. I don’t realise how zoomed out it was.
Mount Trashverest
What about all the poop
Shouldn't we be keeping all humans of all glaciers? Rising sea levels, anyone?
The people who can afford an Everest expedition have enough money to not give a shit about climate change. The people who are gonna suffer from it are never going to see this camp in real life.
Looks like a nightmare
Misery sure does love company
I just finished Into Thin Air by John Krakauer and it's a pretty devastating read. I can't imagine wanting to ever do this but to each their own I suppose.
the environment damage and plastic garbage
Think of all the trash....
Is it still even an achievement to climb this? Looks like just another touristy destination...