Mount Everest death toll rises

Mount Everest hit the news this month as this season’s climbing death toll hit 10. Control of the mountain is now being questioned after it emerged that Nepal issued a record number of climbing permits, coupled with the release of a photo of a huge tailback near the summit. Why are people dying on Everest, and what can be done about it?

Mount Everest has always been a thing of legend – standing at nearly 9000m in height, it is one of the great challenges for humanity to face, proving that it could endure the harshness and the psychological torment of the mountain in order to make it to the top. Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first pair to make it to the top in 1953 and, since then, approximately 4000 people have made it to the top (including 40 in a single day back in 1993).

Everest used to be a taxing challenge, and people aspired to climb it, but now it’s been reduced to just another tourist trap, and people are paying with their lives to make the journey

But no-one would aspire to climb Everest if it were easy, and the challenge has also always been a dangerous one. Around 280 people have died on the mountain – in the past two decades, it’s been an average of around six a year. Nearly half of all deaths were due to avalanches or falls, thereby making it difficult to retrieve the bodies. Illness is also a factor as acute mountain sickness and exhaustion contribute to a quarter of all deaths.

So what has made this year so deadly for the mountaineers? The weather window, linked to concern over the knock-on effects of Cyclone Fani, led to a temporary suspension of climbing activities, narrowed, and the crowd at base camp grew considerably as they waited for mountaineering to resume. This issue was then compounded by bad crowd management, as more than 250 people went up the mountain. Many had to wait for hours both up and down, exhausting them and depleting their supply of oxygen. Few liaison officers stayed on the mountain, resulting in poorly-managed queues of people stuck in a dangerous environment, exposing them to taxing conditions for longer than expected.

Mountaineering is also a physical and psychological pursuit that demands suffering – and, particularly, the ability to make sound judgements at a height when the brain and body, deprived of oxygen, aren’t functioning properly. Climbers are increasingly inexperienced, seeing Everest as a trophy climb, and they don’t prepare their teams properly. It’s also a question of money, with a single trip to Everest, and the cost of hiring a reputable company, reaching around £50,000. It’s an expensive pursuit and you’re likely only going to be able to afford it once, increasing the desperate need to reach the top – that level of desperation can only lead to negative consequences.

Companies are aware of this, and there is intense competition to get prices down in order to find anyone willing to pay. But, as a result, these agencies hire inexperienced people as guides who can’t offer proper guidance to their clients. The competition is for volume of customers, not for the quality of care they receive, and it’s not hard to see this leading to further loss of life.

Climbers are increasingly inexperienced, seeing Everest as a trophy climb, and they don’t prepare their teams properly

However, for all the media coverage of Everest, it is far from the deadliest mountain as its popularity means that there is more infrastructure and support on the mountain, actually making it the least deadly peak in the Himalayas. The deadliest is Yalung Kang – four people have attempted to climb it since 2010, three of whom died in the process. The small numbers skew the figures, giving it a 75% death climber rate, but it does also reinforce the point that the less popular mountains are potentially the most lethal. At the moment, the biggest danger on Everest appears to be the sheer number of people there.

How can these issues be solved? Experienced climbers have suggested introducing certain mandatory criteria before Everest climbing permits are issued, and tackling the issues of liaison officers not turning up to work or staying at the mountain. Nepal is gearing up for Visit Nepal Year in 2020 and looking at how to manage jams on Everest, but perhaps it’s also the responsibility of the climbers. Everest used to be a taxing challenge, and people aspired to climb it, but now it’s been reduced to just another tourist trap, and people are paying with their lives to make the journey.