Father and sons of Nepalese mountaineer Ang Kaji Sherpa, killed in an avalanche on Mount Everest, wait for his body to arrive at Sherpa Monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 19, 2014. The recent disaster in Everest has shed light on big business and has transformed mountain climbing in the Himalayan nation. (AP Photo)
KATHMANDU, APRIL 27 (Reuters): Blogging from Everest base camp after 16 sherpas were killed by an avalanche, American climber Ed Marzec lamented, “I am shamed by our greed and embarrassed by our lack of compassion.”
Expressions of sympathy were not enough, however, for the Nepali guides who take breathtaking risks to help Western clients scale the slopes of Everest.
There was fury among the roughly 400 sherpas at base camp after the April 18 accident on the perilous Khumbu icefall, the single deadliest disaster on the world’s highest mountain.
Chanting, pumping their fists and threatening violence, a group of young sherpas forced an expedition boycott that now looks almost certain, for the first time, to write off a whole season for hundreds of would-be summiteers.
The sherpa backlash, which had simmered for years as a cut-throat business expanded, could deal a blow to the commercial expedition industry that took off in the mid-1990s - pushing costs for climbers even higher.
At the top of the Everest supply chain are “clients” from around the globe who pay tens of thousands of dollars to Western mountaineering firms. Then there are Nepali middlemen and the government who take a cut, shoestring local agents, and finally the guides, who can earn as little as $1,000 a season. Much of the sherpas’ anger was directed at the Himalayan nation’s government, which receives a $10,000 “royalty” from every Everest climber in a group of seven.
The sherpa resentment is not aimed at the government alone. Three European climbers abandoned their ascent to the 8,850-metre summit last year after a brawl with a group of sherpas during which their tents were pelted and stones and punches were thrown.
The big business that is now Everest stands in stark contrast to the simplicity of Edmund Hillary’s expedition in 1953, when he and sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the highest point on earth.
No one would argue that following in their footsteps along the same South Col route 61 years later is easy. But climbers today can count on bigger teams of sherpas, accurate weather forecasts, sophisticated gear, rescue helicopters, satellite phones and steroids to avert high-altitude disorders.
That has attracted recreational climbers to sign up for expeditions with major Everest guide companies, known as “wholesalers”, which charge clients between $40,000 and $90,000.
Arnette said the most expensive companies provide Western guides - who can command $10,000-$35,000 a climb - and some offer gourmet food, with one promoting its sushi and another a five-star chef.
Jon Krakauer wrote last week that the statistics give Western novices a false sense of security about “a preposterously dangerous undertaking”.
Before he died in 2008, Hillary himself voiced disdain for the modern processions to the top of Everest. Elizabeth Hawley, a chronicler of climbing in Nepal says “Sometimes clients fake their qualifications. And some irresponsible wholesalers will take anyone.”
According to one local operator, a wholesaler that charges its clients $50,000 might typically pay him $35,000. Wongchu Sherpa, an Everest summiteer who now organises expeditions, charges about $37,000 per climber with two sherpas, making a profit of $2,000-3,000 on each client. “Sometimes people think that if they pay more money that means they have a better chance of reaching the summit,” he said.
He said the wholesalers “make a lot of margin”, which is justified because they have marketing skills that local firms lack, but the government has no visibility of money raised abroad that fails to find its way to Nepal.
Mountaineering is a key part of Nepal’s tourism industry, which accounts for about four percent of GDP in a nation whose desperate poverty is hard to miss; even in the capital, a disheveled and polluted low-rise city with potholed roads.
“We are concerned that they are taking more money there and paying less here,” Tourism Minister Bhim Acharya told Reuters. “We would like to tackle it ... but not make an issue of it now.”
“There are very strong and powerful people in the agencies,” said a senior government official. “All political parties have contacts with them for donations. If you have contacts, you can get contracts.”
The government says mountaineering is free of graft, and that it sticks to a rule that 30 percent of the climbing fee is ploughed back into development of the Everest region. Many sherpas, however, believe that the government views the Everest industry as simply “a milk cow” and cares little about their welfare.
Sherpas have always been the backbone of Everest expeditions, fixing ropes and ladders, carrying packs and cooking for climbers. They will often make 20-25 round trips to take kit and supplies to advanced camps, which exposes them to greater risk than their clients. Most sherpas earn between $2,000 and $8,000 per season, and a few with exceptional skills are paid as much as Western guides. However, many operators “at the bottom end of the business” pay sherpas less than $1,000 and insure them for the minimum set by Nepal’s government.
