What it’s really like to climb Everest in 2022

The son of Sherpa Tenzing tells Lucy Aspden how the world’s highest peak has been ruined by ‘overnight mountaineers’ – and the 60 tons of rubbish that gets left behind each season

When Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hillary stood on top of the world on May 29 1953, having pushed their bodies beyond what was thought possible, it was a momentous first. Now, reaching the summit of Mount Everest has become a bucket-list challenge for many, and the Khumbu region of Nepal is a well-trodden adventure tourism hotspot.

The climbing season in the Himalayas is now approaching its peak, with British mountaineer Kenton Cool having reached the summit for the 16th time last Sunday, breaking the record for the most successful ascents by a non-Nepali. Observing all this, Jamling Tenzing Norgay – Tenzing Norgay’s son – says his father would be appalled by the new reality in this once untracked corner of the Himalayas.

“I think he would be shocked by what Everest has become,” he told Telegraph Travel exclusively, “by the number of people, by how the mountain is being treated, and by what type of people are coming to climb here.”

With next year marking the 70th anniversary of the first ascent, and the state of trekking and climbing in the world’s tallest mountains a contentious topic, Tenzing says his father would “want nothing to do with it”.

TOO MANY PERMITS

The Covid pandemic hit tourism and the mountaineering industry hard in Nepal. Annual visitor numbers fell from 1.9million in 2019 to just 230,000 in 2020 – and further still to 150,000 in 2021, despite an attempt to reboot tourism with the granting of a record 408 permits to climb Everest.

“This year almost 360 permits have been issued,” says Tenzing, who believes overcrowding on Everest is a major problem. At its peak, Tenzing predicts that almost 2,000 people – a mixture of Sherpas, support staff and climbers – will be stationed at Base Camp. On the mountain itself, such numbers can be life-threatening.

“Even if I had never climbed Everest and was given the opportunity to do so with 300 other people, I would never go,” Tenzing insists. “I’d choose another season or some other time to do it, but not in line with 300 people – because that is risking my life.”

One or two hours spent waiting on the world’s biggest mountain can be deadly. The human body isn’t designed to survive at such altitude; the cold is immediate; the risk of hypothermia and altitude sickness is dramatic; and there is potential to run out of oxygen.

“The solution is to limit the number of permits,” Tenzing says, “but the Nepalese government won’t do that because it is their bread and butter. They make almost $3.5million (£2.9million) a year from Mount Everest permits [which cost $11,000 per person] and last year made almost $5million.”

For decades, the Sherpas have been campaigning for change. “In 1996 we had a meeting with the government and all the stakeholders to ask them to limit the amount of permits they give. Then, the following year, another 300 were issued. People will pay, too. Even if the government raised the price to $15,000, they would still come. To have a shot at climbing the mountain, people will pay anything.”

There has also been talk of waiting lists and calls for expedition organisers to work together and use two or three different routes, on different fixed lines, to limit traffic to the summit and the risk of queuing. Until such solutions can be agreed, “it will only get worse,” says Tenzing. The fate of Everest is in the hands of those who choose to visit it – and therein lies another problem.

PROFITING FROM ADVENTURE

The boomboxes and disco tents of Everest Base Camp are signs of what Tenzing calls “overnight mountaineers” who arrive in droves every spring. “They are ruining the experience for everyone else,” says the 57-year-old, who first visited the camp when he was 10 years old with his father. He climbed to the summit in 1996, when he was in his 30s.

“I believe these ‘rockstars’, or whatever they are, are doing it for their own benefit,” he adds. “It’s a self-driven, ego-driven exercise and they gain economically from it. The true mountaineers of the world are very humble, very simple people who are not wealthy. They live out of a van, but they have the passion to climb. It’s the same field of mountaineering that fostered my father, Hillary and others – they had the passion to climb but they didn’t do it to blow their own trumpet.”

By its nature, Mount Everest is its own undoing. “There are other beautiful mountains,” says Tenzing, “but nobody cares about K2 or KanchenThese junga because they want to climb the highest peak. They want to say ‘I climbed Everest.’ You always go for number one, that is human nature.”

Unlike in the 1950s, when his father made it to the top of the world after six failed attempts and years of planning, “it has become convenient to go on these mountains,” says Tenzing. “Now it is the business people who have money and think: ‘I want to give it a try, it looks like an easy mountain’ – but it’s not.

are the people I call overnight mountaineers. They have never been on a mountain in their life, they have never even put on a crampon… and they want to climb Everest.”

The more people who climb the Himalayas, the more local people benefit from it, Tenzing concedes. “My father would be happy about that – but the way people are coming, the attitude with which they are coming to climb, is not good. Of the permits issued this year, perhaps only 10 per cent are for people who are genuinely out there to climb the mountain. The rest are on an ego trip, just to get a selfie.”

A BETTER LIFE

Despite Tenzing’s concerns, he recognises that his father’s achievement transformed the lives of the local Sherpa people and the economy of Nepal for the better.

“It was only in 1951, when [Eric] Shipton came [on the British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition], that the Sherpas saw white foreigners for the first time,” he says. Nepal’s borders had been shut before that. “Back then, when people saw strangers they would close their doors, they were afraid. But over the 70 years since the first summit, it has become the opposite. They were very reserved and now they welcome all the strangers.”

The boom in expeditions and trekking has brought rewards for the whole region. “Sherpas have benefited greatly from this industry,” says Tenzing, and the figures back this up. In 2019, tourism generated $801million for Nepal, contributing 2.3 per cent of GDP.

For Tenzing, it is all about striking a balance. Visitors are welcome in Nepal and should be encouraged to visit its mountains and admire its culture – but responsibly. This is the philosophy behind his latest venture, Tenzing Treks (tenzingnaturalenergy.com). Having guided people in the Himalayas for decades, he is launching a series of routes with Tenzing Natural Energy, the drinks firm named after his father. Their focus is on local knowledge, giving back to communities and discovering lesser-trodden peaks and trails.

TIDYING UP AT THE TOP

One area where progress has been made is with Everest’s litter problem. “Until 25 years ago, the garbage issue was huge,” says Tenzing. “Sherpas would go up the mountain with loads but come back with nothing. Now they are expected to collect rubbish on the way down and, when they come back, are paid for each kilo they carry. It’s a good incentive for them and still practised today.”

The effort to clean up the mountain is spearheaded by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), which works in partnership with the national park and brands such as Tenzing Natural Energy. “Now that the SPCC is monitoring everything, if people don’t bring back their rubbish they are fined. They check what goes in and what goes out for every expedition.”

The figures are staggering. “Our record shows that over 65 tons of recyclable garbage alone have been transported to Kathmandu since 2016,” says Yangji Doma Sherpa, programme development and communications officer at SPCC. That is the equivalent of more than six double-decker buses, coming from expeditions on Everest and its neighbours, Lhoste and Nupste. Away from the mountains, the SPCC predicts a further annual collection of more than 250 tons of recyclable waste from the villages of Namche Bazaar and Lukla.

And recyclables are just the tip of the iceberg. In spring 2021 alone, burnable rubbish (nearly 26 tons) and human waste (22 tons) were the two biggest contributors to litter produced by expedition groups on Everest – totalling 60 tons, including vast amounts of food wrappers, cans, packaging, kitchen waste, climbing equipment, ropes and ladders.

The region’s location adds to the challenge. “It all takes time and money,” says Tenzing. “You need money to pay somebody to collect all the rubbish, take it to Namche Bazaar to the recycling centre and have it shredded and recycled.”

Progress has been made, however. Trekkers can now volunteer with the SPCC to carry down 1kg (2lb) pouches of recycled material to Lukla, to be flown to Katmandu for disposal. Within the first three weeks of the scheme running in 2022, more than 800 pouches have been sent down the valley. Tenzing Natural Energy is also contributing, having built two bins (costing $2,000 each) and sponsored 11 more to maintain them at a cost of $500 each over two years. In the past seven years, the number of bins has increased from 90 to 119 and the route to Base Camp is looking cleaner than ever.

These are small changes to tackle a mounting problem, but proof that – when those with power lead by example – the future of the world’s highest mountain looks bright. Tenzing Norgay Sherpa was a pioneer, and now it is the responsibility of his modern-day counterparts to take up his mantle and develop similarly progressive approaches to keeping the roof of the world as sacred and pristine as it should be.

‘There are other beautiful mountains, but nobody cares about K2 or Kanchenjunga’

i Born to climb: Jamling Tenzing with Lucy Aspden on the summit of Lobuche