The roof of the world in the face of mass tourism

Emmanuelle Ducros 08:44, May 23, 2023

Mass tourism at more than 8,000 meters above sea level, in the Himalayas. The 2023 season of Climbing Everest has just begun. It will last until the end of June. In what promises to be a busy year, we have begun to count the dead.

Six dead last week on the slopes of Everest, two more on Sunday. Since the beginning of the season, 11 people have lost their lives on the slopes of the mountain, two have disappeared. A season that promises to be black. On average, five people die each year attempting the climb.

Is this macabre count a consequence of the ever-increasing number of visitors to the slopes of Everest?

But this is a misleading figure. It deserves to be dissected.

What is certain is that more and more mountaineers are launching themselves on the peaks of the Himalayas and especially on Everest, the highest. There are statistics: Between 1990 and 2005, in 15 years, therefore, more than 2,200 climbers tried for the first time to reach the highest point. For the next fifteen years, from 2006 to 2019, they were more than 3,600. 64% more attendance.

This year, Nepal issued a record 466 permits. With the guides, this means that at least 900 people will attempt the ascent.

But on average, over the last 30 years, the mortality rate is quite stable, between 1 and 2%. The increase in the number of deaths is proportional to the number of climbers, there is no excess mortality.

What do we die of on Everest?

Between 1990 and 2019, 119 people died climbing Mount Everest in the spring. Two-thirds due to diseases (acute mountain sickness, exhaustion, frostbite...), about 25% because of falls and 5% because of avalanches, collapse of stones. And there is an alert: The guides note that climate change changes the physiognomy of the mountain, widens the crevasses, creates more unstable areas and above all, makes the weather even more unpredictable, with mild winters, others on the contrary colder, and all landmarks are upset. It is a source of accidents. Finally more than inexperience, which is often pointed out.

Still, the overcrowding of the place is a problem.

Every year, the same images: the cohorts of climbers with the tail leuleu. The same reports on open dumps at altitude, the same criticisms on the market that Everest has become, with amateur mountaineers overaccompanied by tourist companies chewing on them the climb. The peaks of great solitude have become highways and adventure, a Disneyland of the summits. We are law, far from Edmund Hilary and Tensing Norgay.

Nepal, which handles out most of the permits for the ascent, regularly considers turning off the tap, restricting the ascent to climbers who already have another experience on another Himalayan peak, to prevent the unstable mountain from trapping entire groups.

He has always given it up, because there is a whole economy behind it: tourism companies, Sherpas, locals and then... foreign currency for the country. The permit for Everest costs the equivalent of 12000,<> euros.