People who talk about Mt Everest NEED to start acknowledging the ACTUAL issue, which is it’s been turned into a TOURIST trip (endangers the native people who work as sherpas (a well paying job for the area)). The Death Zone is a space that even with supplemental oxygen, THE BRAIN IS DYING. And now with over 100 people trying to summit at once when the weather allows, which means HOURS in line at the summit, an extremely narrow and common path of which gets backed-up (Hillary Step) and already has to handle reverse flow for people descending, there’s the inevitability of tragedy. This of course has resulted in many notable tragedies and the problem that needs to be acknowledged instead of “these idiots climbed a mountain” or “nature/the mountain doesn’t care” is the INDUSTRY. They’re giving out more passes to more people INCLUDING people who have no business climbing such a mountain because they haven’t the right training! There is NO excuse for MANUFACTURING this death via overbooking so many people that death is inevitable. Also, I’ve no doubt that this is gentrifying the area at the base (making it worse for sherpas and their family’s, and pushing more for people to become sherpas). Hours in a death zone isn’t something that can be trained over. All to my knowledge.
