Mount Everest has a big problem on Last Week Tonight

Mount Everest has long been touted as the biggest mountain to conquer. John Oliver examines the real costs of that climbing industry on Last Week Tonight.

John Oliver is going for something really big. While there’s been plenty of political news this week, like a near-miss of war with Iran, he went for something even larger. At least, geographically speaking. On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, Oliver and company urged us to consider the highest peak on Earth: Mount Everest.

Mount Everest is, in Oliver’s words, “everyone’s go-to metaphor for a significant challenge.” You know, proud human achievements like going to the moon or stuffing yourself full of oysters. Everest is now a cultural emblem for doing something that once seemed impossible, a daunting task that, once conquered, lends you a sense of nobility and bragging rights for the rest of your life.

There was once a time when climbing Everest really seemed impossible, until Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary proved that it could be done. Today, however, the picture is very different. While Hillary and Norgay were alone on the summit, now there are crowds of people on the peak. Because of the sheer number of climbers on Everest today, the mountain is also littered with trash, not to mention a “fecal time bomb” of human waste slowly sliding down the side of the peak.

Turns out that overcrowding isn’t anything new to Everest. Climbers have clogged up the path for years now, standing around in dangerous, freezing conditions for their turn to take a selfie. How did it get like this? For starters, there’s only one summitting window, which is typically only 10 days in May. Bad weather can shrink that window even further to only a handful of passable days.

When Hillary and Norgay made it to the top in 1953, they were the only known people to have ascended Everest. Now, there have been 9,000 successful summits, many of them within the past few years. People have been resorting to more and more gimmicks to stand out from the growing crowd, including snowboarding off the peak to making the world’s highest cell phone call. And, yes, you can even go glamping on Mount Everest.

Sherpas

What’s the impact of all that fancy camping? After all, if you’re living it up in a heated tent with WiFi, you’re probably not going to be the person who does the actual work of lugging it all to the campsite. That’s where sherpas come in.

Most expeditions are fully dependent on professional mountain guides, known as sherpas, to do the actual work of setting up tents, carrying gear, and leading thrill-seekers up the mountain. By the way, upper-case Sherpas are an ethnic group, while sherpas are the workers who ferry people up and down mountains.

Sherpas face real danger in their jobs. For instance, some are known as icefall doctors, who prepare one of the most dangerous parts of the climb, the Khumbu Icefall, each season. They undertake the terrifying task of lashing a few ladders together and walking across crevasses to clean it up. Even after all that effort, the Khumbu Icefall remains exceedingly treacherous.

Even if they don’t specialize in this terrifying job, sherpas still have to cross dangerous spots over and over again. Naturally enough, the more they move through these places, the more likely they are to be seriously injured or killed. Unsurprisingly, being a sherpa is one of the most dangerous jobs on earth. Many go ahead with it because it’s a relatively well-paying job in the region, despite the considerable risk.

Technicalities

Everest isn’t the most difficult mountain to climb. If you train enough and have good guides, you can probably make it up there. Meanwhile, there are other peaks, like K2 and Nanga Parbat, that demand far more technical skill and preparation from serious mountaineers.

That doesn’t mean Everest isn’t super deadly. Once you’re past 26,000 feet in elevation, you’ve entered the infamous “death zone” of Everest. That’s where you can experience physical disasters like hypoxia, including a potentially deadly confusion known as “summit fever.” Oh, and your blood pressure can get so high that it can start to push your brain out of the bottom of your skull. That, plus the morbid spectacle of bodies scattered around the terrain, is enough to give any quasi-sensible person pause.

If climbing the mountain is still so dangerous, then how have so many people gotten to it in the first place? For some unprepared climbers, it’s alarmingly easy. Access largely depends on where you start. If you approach from the Tibetan side, the Chinese government is very strict about your ability to climb and tightly controls permitting approval. It’s also the more technical route, meaning you’ve got to know your mountaineering stuff to make it.

The Nepalese side, however, is far less regulated. Basically, all you need is a doctor’s note saying you’re good to go. It’s also somewhat less demanding, at least in terms of climbing abilities. Nepal’s economy relies heavily on tourism, making government officials slow to change these policies. Guiding companies can be reluctant to turn unqualified but paying trekkers away, especially if they’re new or poorly managed.

Solutions

Oliver argues that something must be done. Of course, the inherent risk of Everest means that we can never get the deaths on Everest down to zero. Yet companies and nations like Nepal can introduce stricter standards to control access to the peak. Tourism can remain a major force there without allowing people to die in harsh, painful ways.

That’s not all. While it’s true that more regulations would help, we also have to consider our own obsession with Everest. What does it mean to “conquer” the world’s tallest mountain, risking lives and depositing trash in search of a cool selfie? Do you really have bragging rights if somebody else risked their life carrying all your stuff?

Edmund Hillary himself was very critical of people who climbed Everest only to boast about the achievement. Instagram likes can’t quite make up for the lack of experience, not to mention respect for both the mountain and the Sherpa people who are vital to the entire operation.

The desire for a cool picture has even led to faked selfies at the top, where people have been photoshopped into authentic pictures. Though, when you think about it, why not? Faking a summit may ultimately be the more responsible way of going about one’s conquest of Everest. At least you won’t be leaving trash and human waste at campsites. Neither will you profit off of the risky labor of sherpas.

To that end, Oliver introduced a website that will make it easy-peasy to slap your face into a picture of the summit. So, the next time you think it might be cool to go up the mountain, consider the human and environmental costs, and just fake a selfie instead.