On Sunday evening The Discovery Channel aired the documentary bit.ly/1shFHLL, which was made following the tragic avalanche on the Khumbu Icefall on Mt. Everest, Nepal. It has taken me a while to write about this tragedy because my thoughts and feelings about the situation are vast and I am not an expert on Everest. I have never trekked in Nepal and the closest I have come to the Himalaya Mountains has been in an airplane.
This tragedy came at the beginning of the peak climbing season and the resulting deaths of 16 Sherpas has been devastating. Many of the expeditions have been cancelled and there has been a mass exodus of the teams from base camp. There is a memorial set up in Thamel, something that is only done for Nepali royalty or influencers.
To quote my good friend Elsie James, who offers a prospective as someone who is both a trekker and a humanitarian, “Over the years, far more of the Sherpas have lost their lives due to cold injuries and Acute Mountain Sickness, than trekkers, because of being overloaded, inadequately equipped, and desperate for work to support their families. For the most part, their deaths and injuries went unnoticed and their families left destitute. The situation has slowly improved but there is still need for much work in this area. To me there has always been some moral question marks regarding paying vulnerable people to take high risks to reduce your own risk level, so that you can accomplish a rather selfish, desirable but unnecessary goal. On the other hand I understand, to some extent, the “drive” that pushes people to dedicate so much to achieving these adventurous goals – but more and more they want to do it without accepting all of the personal risk that goes with it. That seems to have come about by the much criticized “commercialization” of mountaineering on Everest and some of the other big peaks and the addition of climbers that haven’t really earned the right to be there but have simply paid for the privilege. A very controversial subject over here.”
We have been to Nepal during the spring for the past 4 years, and we have met several guides leading expeditions for people who pay thousands of dollars to climb Mt. Everest. On our most recent trip, we spent an evening talking to a guide from Seattle, Washington. He told us about the logistics of bringing inexperienced climbers to Everest and the irony of how when a person is young and fit they cannot afford to take a month out of their life to climb a mountain. It is usually the older person who has the time and money to reach either base camp or the summit, but that incurs it’s own set of risk factors. So, who is going to carry all of the gear and set up the camps so that we can make our dream come true? The Sherpas are the ones who do all of the hard work and unfortunately are the ones who risk the most.
When the expeditions are cancelled and the mountain is “closed” for the season what will happen to all of the small tea houses and shops who make their living during this time? Nepal’s largest economic contributor is tourism. In a country where the average yearly wage is $700.00, and a Sherpa can make $7,000.00 in a season, there is no question why they do what they do. No one can blame them for taking risks for the tourists. As Apa Sherpa says in this article in the Washington Post wapo.st/1kDynE4, this is what the Sherpa do, this is how they support their families.
Mt. Everest will be there next year, and for many more to follow, but will we continue to ask vulnerable and often desperate people to risk their lives for our goals?