professional mountaineers in the Capital are calling it a sham, and a shame. The photograph on your right tells why. No limit on the number of permits to scale Mount Everest being issued by authorities in Nepal coupled with a deluge of hobbyists and thrill-seekers have led to a 'traffic jam' on Earth's highest point.
Worse, 11 people (three of them Indians) have died in a span of ten days due to altitude sickness, the sheer exhaustion of waiting in a queue in that kind of terrain and frostbites, sending alarm bells ringing across the world. For 88-year-old Captain (retd) MS Kohli, among the first Indians to scale Mount Everest, the picture of the queue at the once-insurmountable peak came as a shock. "Those days we would get to go once in three years. And today, looking at the picture, it seems like everyone is going there for a picnic," said Kohli, who led a team of nine mountaineers in the first successful Indian expedition to the summit in 1965 - a record that lasted for 17 years.
While sources told Mail Today that over 800 people, many of them inexperienced, have visited the mountain this season, a Nepal government statement put the figure at 381 people. But as fine weather window didn't last for long, the number of people on the routes had been higher than expected, the statement added.
The Nepal government also denied that the deaths on Everest were 'solely' due to overcrowding. "There were many factors like adverse weather conditions that led to the deaths," said Meera Acharya, Director, Tourism Department, Government of Nepal.
Experts told Mail Today that even 381 climbers - add to that an equal number of guides - is abnormally high for Everest in one season.
The decreasing cost of expedition has opened the Everest to even hobbyists and adventure-seekers. All they need is to show up with a doctor's note and $11,000 - the fee, per climber, that the local government authority charges.
From that (known as royalty), Nepal's federal government gets 50%, the provincial government gets 25%. Everest lies in the Khumbu Pasanglhamu Rural Municipality, which stakes its claim to the balance 25%.
Padma Shri Sonam Wangyal, 76, a renowned mountaineer who accompanied Kohli in 1965, said, "This is preferring money over human life. This should stop. They (Nepal government) are just doing business, risking lives of people and also disturbing nature. This place (Everest) is not a selfie destination. You need to have a hell lot of experience and a good guide to climb Everest. The people climbing now are depending totally on Sherpas." Wangyal served as the Principal of the Sonam Mountaineering Institute in Gangtok (Sikkim) from 1976 to 1990.
Ashwagasho Ganju, former director of Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment, DRDO, agrees: "Rise in temperature due to climate change, which is melting the snow fast and the growing obsession for reaching the peak are the main reasons. Then there is also the revenuegenerating aspect."
Indian Mountaineering Foundation's East Zone secretary Debraj Dutta told MAIL TODAY: "Indian Mountaineering Foundation has no control over who all Nepal permits to scale the Everest. But we always have maintained that only experienced mountaineers with advanced-level training should be given permits. The deaths are not caused by natural calamity, but due to climbers' exhaustion and inability to adapt to adverse weather." An avid climber, who did not want to be named, explained in detail.
"You can't climb Everest daily. When you get a clear window, only then can you go. In the month of May, you get seven to eight days. Nepal government this time gave hundreds of people permission to climb. The Sagarmatha National Park Authority is taking $11,000 per climber approx. So you can imagine how much they'll be earning," he said. He added: "If one is taking an oxygen cylinder with him, then normally two litres per minute of oxygen is what one should use. But what many people do is that they open up the valve and consume four litres per minute. That means the oxygen is available only for half the time. And nobody is there to tell them that they are doing it wrong. "
As a result, while people manage to climb fine with all the oxygen, they struggle at the time of descending. "The recent deaths happened because of this. Traffic is slow and oxygen requirement increased," the mountaineer said.
"I would request Nepal government to put a restriction on the number of permits they issue. And also allow only fit people to climb. Or else tragedies will keep happening," Captain (Retd) Kohli said.
