Ever since 1984, commercial expeditions have been a popular way for amateur climbers to conquer Mount Everest. Commercial guiding expeditions have led to many deaths and have led to pollution of the mountain. In this essay I will discuss a brief history of Mount Everest, what commercial guiding is, how commercial guiding started and how it is affecting Mount Everest. Sources say that Nepal and China should limit the number of guide companies on Everest and make efforts to clean the mountain and its surrounding ecosystems.
Mount Everest is the world’s highest mountain and the fifth tallest mountain from the base to the summit. The altitude of Mount Everest is 8,848 meters or 29,029 feet. Everest is located in the Himalaya Mountain Range, which is located in Nepal, China, India and Pakistan. The Himalayas is the tallest mountain range in the world. Most of its peaks exceed 7,200 meters or 23,600 feet. Mount Everest is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The south side of the mountain is in Nepal and the north side is in China. The peaks that neighbor Everest are Lotse (the 4th highest mountain in the world), Nuptse and Changste. There are two main routes that commercial expeditions use to reach the summit of Everest. The first route is called the South Col which is located in Nepal. Some of the challenges that climbers face with this route are dealing with the Khumbu icefall and traffic jams on the Lotse face and on the day when climbers try to reach the summit of Everest. The other route that expeditions use to reach the summit is the North East Ridge which is in China. Although there are fewer crowds on this route and expeditions can drive up to base camp, climbers have to deal with harsh winds and camps at higher elevations. The first three major attempts to reach the Summit were made between 1921-1924. The first expedition was a reconnaissance mission. The expedition's goal was to locate a route to the summit. After five months of trekking around the mountain to find a route to the summit, a member of the team finally discovered the hidden east Rongbuck glacier which led directly to the North Col. A year later, the second expedition was able to climb above the altitude of 26000 feet, or 8000 meters, but they stopped because they ran out of bottled oxygen. The expedition ended in disaster when an avalanche killed 7 porters. The third expedition ended when George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared near the summit. There is still a debate whether the two reached the summit. George Mallory’s body was discovered in 1999 but the remains of Irvine have not been found. Between 1925-1951, many expeditions attempted to scale the mountain but none of them succeeded. In 1952, a team from Switzerland attempted to climb Everest using the South Col route since Nepal opened its borders to foreigners. Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay turned back 250 meters short of the summit due to oxygen problems. The same team attempted to summit in the autumn of 1952 after the monsoon but was forced back due to extremely cold temperatures. Mount Everest was first conquered in 1953 by a British Expedition. The climbers who reached the top were Edmund Hillary who was a New Zealand mountaineer and Tenzing Norgay, the same porter who was on the Swiss Expedition the year before. Tenzing’s experience was useful to the British when they hired him. They reached the summit via the South Col route in Nepal. Ever since the early 1990's, commercial companies have been a popular way for amateur climbers to summit Everest. A commercial expedition is when a company provides guide services for clients who do not want to organize all of the logistics of an expedition. When clients pay 65,000 to 100,000 dollars US, the company provides the clients with food, gear, transportation, permits, accommodations, support Sherpas and, most importantly experienced guides. Even though climbers pay that large amount, they are not guaranteed to make it to the summit. Commercial guiding started when mountaineer David Breashers guided many clients to the top of the mountain in 1985. Wealthy American billionaire, Richard Bass, was among the clients who reached the top of Everest. Bass had only four years of climbing experience. In the 1990's, multiple companies were offering guided expeditions. One of the most successful and well equipped companies was called Adventure Consultants. The company was run by two experienced New Zealand mountaineers named Gary Ball and Rob Hall. The company was really successful for the first two years. In 1993 while climbing another 8000 meter peak called Duaulagiri, Gary Ball died due to high altitude sickness. After Gary’s death, Rob was still determined to keep the guiding company going. After a getting most of his clients up to the summit and all of his clients down to base camp safely during the 1994 and 1995 seasons, Rob added more clients on to his roster for the 1996 expedition. During the spring climbing season of 1996, the worst disaster in Everest history occurred. That year there were six small expeditions and two large commercial guiding expeditions using the same route. Adventure Consultants was one of the companies that was on the South Col with twenty six clients. The other company was called Mountain Madness. The company was led by experienced American Himalayan mountaineer Scott Fisher. It was the first commercial expedition for Mountain Madness and they had a roster of twenty three clients. It is believed that there may have been competition between the two companies. Mountaineer Ed Viesturs was concerned that there were too many climbers on the South Col route because it would pose as a safety concern. In his book "No Shortcuts to the Top", he said, “The most exposed and dangerous part of the South Col route comes up high, on the final ridge, at tricky spots such as the Hillary Step, only two hundred feet below the summit. Too many climbers strung out along that ridge can create a bottleneck, even a true traffic jam, with the slowest moving clients dictating the pace. If one climber would try to unclip from the fixed rope and try to pass another climber, he would risk falling from either side of the ridge.” On May 10th, Rob Hall decided he and his clients would try to reach the summit because it was his lucky day because it was in the middle of the weather window when winds are calm enough for climbers to reach the summit. Once Rob decided on May 10th, Scott Fisher decided that his expedition should join forces with Rob’s team. Another team from Taiwan also decided to join forces with the two commercial expeditions. Thirty- three team members from three separate expeditions left their high camp on the South Col at midnight on May 10th. The expeditions quickly encountered problems on the mountain. The guides and the Sherpas who had set out from high camp an hour before the rest of the teams left hadn’t completed fixing ropes on the balcony and on the Hillary Step. The clients were forced to wait for an hour while the guides fixed the ropes. Most of the clients and guides got to the summit after the 2pm turnaround time. Suddenly at around 4 pm, a surprise storm hit causing havoc along the route. In total eight people died that night on the mountain and fifteen people died during that climbing season on Everest making it the deadliest year on the mountain. Among the dead were the leaders of the two expeditions, Rob Hall and Scott Fisher. A modern difficulty about climbing Mount Everest is dealing with the mob of climbers that are trying to reach the summit during the weather window before the monsoon hits. Before the 1990's, Nepal and China were only selling one permit for each route every year before the monsoon and one after monsoon seasons. Since the 1990's Nepal and China realized how much money their tourism industries could make by selling more permits. Subsequently, it is easier to obtain a climbing permit for Mount Everest than it was in the 1920’s. In 2012 for example, there were approximately 64 expeditions on the mountain. Approximately 528 climbers reached the summit, 150 of them on May 25th and May 26th. If a sudden storm hit like the one in 1996, another disaster would have occurred. But during the 2012 season, ten people died. Among the dead was a Nepalese Canadian. Many of these climbers were clients of commercial companies and they died because they ignored their Sherpas about turning around and not making to the summit. On the Hillary Step on May 25th and May 26th, it was reported that climbers had to stand in place waiting to use the fixed ropes for more than two hours. It goes by the saying "One can only move as fast as the person that is ahead of you because he is dictating the pace". In recent years, Mount Everest has been called "The World's Highest Garbage Dump". Not only is there tons of trash at the camps, but there are also many human remains which haven't been accounted for. Waste disposal has been a major problem ever since humans set foot on the mountain. The growth of tourism in the Himalayas has produced a lot of rubbish from base camp to camps along the two major commercial routes. According to estimates made in 2011, there were nearly 120 tons of litter and 120 dead bodies on Everest. The reason why there is so much waste high up on the mountain is because after conquering Mount Everest or attempting to summit, teams leave behind their high tech gear, plastic items, food tins, aluminum cans, clothes, papers and especially oxygen bottles. Some commercial expeditions have a leave no trace policy. There is also a threat that human feces are polluting the water streams in the area near the camps. It is important to keep these water streams clean because more than a billion people rely on the melting snow from the Himalayas to get fresh drinking water.
Another big problem on Everest is the number of dead bodies that are still on the mountain. When a climber dies on the glacier, it swallows the body up because the glacier is always moving and after time, the bodies start popping up again after the ice melts. The last problem is the rising temperatures in the Khumbu and Rongbuk areas due to global warming. Hundreds of small glaciers at the lower altitude are starting to disappear. When the Imja glacier melted, it turned into a lake which contributes to glacial lake outburst flood. If there is an earthquake or section of ice coming down from the mountain Chumlung, it can create a surge wave which can turn into a small tsunami. If the Imja Lake does overflow, it could kill hundreds of people, destroy several villages and hurt the economy of the Khumbu Valley.
There are many ways to repair the Mount Everest experience. The first way is to issue fewer permits to limit the total number of climbers on the mountain. The second way is to have smaller teams to reduce dangerous traffic jams on major sections of the route. The third way is to require experience to climb Mount Everest because it will ensure that the climber will be prepared for the high altitude challenge. The next step is to have a leave no trace policy because it is important to remove human waste and garbage from the mountain. The last step is to remove all the dead bodies because it is important to show respect not only for the dead but also for the living who encounter corpses on the main climbing route. Admirably, some organizations are creating ways to reduce some of these problems.
In conclusion, Nepal and China should use the steps that were mentioned in the previous paragraph to preserve the mountain as it was over half a century ago. This will let climbers have the opportunity to climb the mountain in a true mountaineering fashion. Lastly the ecology of Everest and even the Himalayas should not be ignored by the governments who control the Himalayan mountain ranges.

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