Until now, just about anyone could get a permit to climb Mount Everest. But this year has been marred by pileups at the top and a surge of inexperienced climbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Veteran mountaineers who recently summited described a \u201cLord of the Flies\u201d atmosphere with mobs of people in huge down jackets precariously perched at the top, pushing and shoving to take selfies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least 11 climbers have died on Everest this year, making this season one of the deadliest ever. Many of the deaths were needless, veterans say, and the increasing number of rookie climbers who try to tackle Everest have made it more dangerous for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCertainly there will be some change in the expedition sector,\u201d said Mira Acharya, a senior official with Nepal\u2019s tourism department. \u201cWe are discussing reforming some issues, including setting criteria for every Everest hopeful.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mount Everest is a huge block of ice and rock along the Nepal-China border. China also runs expeditions to the top, but on the Chinese side it appears to be less of a free-for-all. There have been two deaths this year on the Chinese side out of about 300 climbers, compared with nine in Nepal, though almost 800 people climbed from the Nepal side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The path to the top is so narrow and steep, climbers have to step very gingerly around others who have fallen ill or died. Some of the dead had apparently run out of bottled oxygen, partly because\u00a0they are trying to get to the top at the same time caused major delays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Climbers were forced to wait in the snow for hours, at heights of more than 28,000 feet, as their limited supply of compressed oxygen slowly ran out and their energy faded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several mountaineers described a ruthless pursuit of the summit in which other climbers refused to share the essentials of life \u2014 water and oxygen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amit Chowdhury, the president of the safety commission at the International Mountaineering Federation, said that the rules on some other mountains empowered guides to stop a climber from ascending if the guide felt the climber might not make it or was behaving badly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, he said, \u201cat Everest, it is not the same \u2014 you can hire a Sherpa on the streets of Kathmandu, or your travel agent says, \u2018Here is your Sherpa,\u2019 that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is no way to know whether that Sherpa can judge and determine the capability of the person who is climbing,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nepal is one of Asia\u2019s poorest countries, and even Everest, the jewel of its tourism economy, has been marred by corruption scandals and scams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to bilk millions of dollars from insurance companies by pushing trekkers with even minor signs of altitude sickness to use costly evacuation services. In some cases, the owners of the teahouses might have sprinkled contaminants into the trekkers\u2019 food to make them sick so they would need an expensive helicopter evacuation, a government investigation found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under Nepal\u2019s current rules, all climbers must submit a copy of their passport, limited biographical data and a certificate showing they are healthy enough to make it to the top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Until now, just about anyone could get a permit to climb Mount Everest. But this year has been marred by pileups at the top and a surge of inexperienced climbers. Veteran mountaineers who recently summited described a \u201cLord of the Flies\u201d atmosphere with mobs of people in huge down jackets precariously perched at the top, pushing and shoving to take… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3684,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683\/revisions\/3684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}