IN 1953, just before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the Second, Sir Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing conquered the highest mountain on earth, Everest.
It was a splendid moment for them, for the young queen-to-be, for Britain and for all of us, rather like Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon just 16 years later.
Today, American travel agents are offering a package tour to the summit of Everest for $65,000, that’s a little over R1-million.
The package includes one personal Sherpa (a Nepalese expert mountain guide) per tourist, fresh meats and vegetables flown in daily by helicopter, ‘nutritious’ Western menus and snacks throughout, propane braais and ovens, carpeted, heated, a solar-lit toilet and shower tent and a cocktail hour with appetisers.
On the actual mountainside, there are guide ropes for the ‘climbers’ to hang on to and oxygen cylinders placed at handy intervals.
Here’s a quote from an Indian journalist who has seen it, “So, you have these bunches of adrenaline-high, overwhelmingly white, rock-star climbers thronging the foothills of Everest to tick off another ‘been there, done that’ box on their impressive bucket lists.
“The atmosphere at Base Camp (5,364m) is annoying, with hordes of climbers lounging about on deck chairs, asking stupid questions like ‘Do you speak English?’ to the Sherpas, swigging liquor, dancing to lounge music and worrying about espresso coffee”.
He concludes by saying, “The world’s most astonishing natural phenomena have long been turned into arenas where dollars can create a messy hash of Disneyfied tourism, jingoism and machismo”.
It would seem that money really can buy anything, including the summit of the world’s highest peak.
We had a friend who had been to Base Camp and further, obviously not on a R1-million package deal, and she said the most outstanding feature of being on Everest was the litter.
She had climbed and trekked in the Himalayas many times before and she said that wherever she went and wherever she looked there was rubbish. How incredibly sad.
When we were in Nepal many years ago we took a special flight from Kathmandu which flew along the Himalayas to Mount Everest, where it did a U-turn and flew back.
Needless to say, it was spectacular, but from up there one saw none of the bad side of things, just the extraordinary beauty of it all.
I wonder what Hilary and Tenzing would think of it now? Cheers.
PS: It may be too late, but a report to hand says that the government of Nepal is considering a ban on inexperienced climbers on Everest. They are thinking of making it a stipulation that only climbers who can prove that they have scaled a peak of at least 6,500m (Everest is 8,848m) will be allowed on the mountain. Maybe too little too late, but good luck to them.
Sources: Third World Resurgence, Third World Network, Penang, Malaysia, and The Week: The Best of the British and Foreign Media, London.
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