On May 21, Pastenji Sherpa, 23, and Briton Daniel Paterson, 40, fell to their deaths near the Hillary Step – a narrow ridge close to the summit – after reaching the top. The search for their bodies has been complicated by the fact they fell on the Chinese side of the mountain. (Incidentally, China reopened the much less busy Tibetan route to foreigners this year for the first time since closing it in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.)
Nepali climber (although not a Sherpa) Binod Babu Bastakoti, 37, also died after summiting that day.
A large traffic jam formed as climbers returning from the summit met a line of others heading for the mountain’s highest point.
It is an improvement on last year, when there were 18 fatalities on Everest, including two from Malaysia and one each from China and Singapore, but how many other leisure activities come with such a high mortality rate?
Horses for courses, but for the life of us we can’t understand why people are so desperate to get to the top of this particular rock, even if it is, at 8,849 metres (29,029 feet), the world’s highest.
“Because it’s there” – the famous quote by George Mallory, who himself lost his life on Everest, in 1924 – cannot be the only reason driving the hundreds of climbers who set out for the summit each year, Sherpas on hand to guide them up.
We understand the sense of achievement Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay must have felt in 1953, when they became the first people confirmed to have reached the summit of Everest, and that of the Chinese team (Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua and Tibetan Gonpo Wangyal) who were reportedly the first to reach the top from the northern side seven years later.
We can even understand that of the few who repeated the feat in the following years, including Japan’s Junko Tabei, who became the first woman to reach the top, in 1975.
But nowadays, in the brief periods when the weather is favourable, there are so many folk popping up for a quick summit that a long queue is often filmed inching its way up the South Col.
A video posted on X by the Everest Today account, captured on May 20, shows just such a line of climbers at the Yellow Band – a prominent layer of rock at about 7,700 metres – that is painful to watch.
And it was such overcrowding that apparently contributed to the deaths of Paterson and his guide.
“The accident happened […] at 7am, near the section of the route formerly called the Hillary Step, a steep, razor-thin ridge of rock and ice located at 28,839 feet, just a few hundred feet from the top,” recounts the Outside website.
“A large traffic jam formed as climbers returning from the summit met a line of others heading for the mountain’s highest point. As the groups navigated the bottleneck, the ice ledge they were standing on broke free and tumbled down the peak’s northern side.
“Eyewitnesses told Base Camp officials that six climbers fell on the mountain’s sheer Kangshung Face, which towers over Tibet. Four were saved by a rope.”
After those climbers were saved, guides realised that two climbers fell down the peak
Outside quoted Nga Tenji Sherpa of The Summit Force expeditions as saying the climbers who were clipped into safety ropes dangled some 35 feet below the route on the exposed slope.
Hanging from a crumbling ice ledge above a sheer drop and certain death may one day make for a wonderful after-dinner story for those who made it back down the mountain, but I bet they had other things on their minds as they dangled there, waiting – hoping – to be rescued by brave Sherpas.
“Guides from Summit Force Expeditions and other companies worked together to pull them to safety. After those climbers were saved, guides realised that two climbers fell down the peak,” reports Outside. “Whether or not they were connected to the rope is not known.”
Pastenji Sherpa and Paterson fell into thin air, which just so happens to be the title of the 1997 bestselling book by Jon Krakauer that details his experience of an Everest disaster the previous year, in which eight climbers were killed and others were stranded by a storm.
So why do people do it, Jon?
“There were many, many fine reasons not to go, but attempting to climb Everest is an intrinsically irrational act, a triumph of desire over sensibility,” writes the American author.
Someone who must be bubbling over with that desire is the oh-so-appropriately named British climber Kenton Cool, who this spring achieved a record (for a non-Sherpa) 18 Everest summits.
Eighteen times! Surely there must be diminishing returns to climbing the same thing over and over again.
Something to ponder ahead of the post-monsoon Everest climbing season, which runs from late September to early November.
Trumpet call
Sometimes you just have to give people a nudge.
On May 27, World Animal Protection handed a petition signed by more than 172,000 concerned global citizens to Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin demanding his government commits to end the exploitation of elephants in the country’s tourism industry.
The charity is asking Srettha and his lawmakers to stop delaying the draft Elephant Protection Bill, which is before parliament in Thailand.
Every year, thousands of elephants are subjected to cruel handling and training methods that force them to give rides and perform outdated “circus” tricks for fee-paying tourists.
World Animal Protection Thailand led the drafting of the legislation, working with politicians, experts and the public to create a law that forbids captive elephant breeding for commercial purposes.
The bill received support from Thai voters in 2022, leading to its introduction into the legislative process.