They’ve enjoyed the heights of luxury, with yoga tents, private bathrooms and even flat-screen TVs transported nearly 18,000 feet to Everest Base Camp.
But climbers hoping to challenge the ascent of the world’s tallest mountain will now have to do without such luxuries after a crackdown by Nepalese authorities.
Officials are concerned that the base camp, which sits 17,598 feet high on the Himalayan mountainside, is becoming too crowded amid a surge in visitors.
Luxury holiday companies, offering premium services such as glamorous chalets, Wi-Fi and personalized meals, are overwhelming the space available at base camp.
The dome-shaped tents feature carpeted floors, wooden furniture and private bathrooms, and some are used only for recreational meditation and massages.
Officials are concerned that the base camp (pictured), which sits 17,598 feet high on the Himalayan mountainside, is becoming too crowded amid a surge in visitors.
Luxury holiday companies, offering premium services such as glamorous chalets, Wi-Fi and personalized meals, are overwhelming the space available at Mount Everest Base Camp.
Mount Everest was divided into sections. Hikers typically stay at base camp for several days to acclimatize to the altitude and avoid altitude sickness.
Other facilities created in the camp were purely commercial and included a bar, a bakery, cafes and even a museum.
Hikers typically stay at base camp for several days to acclimatize to the altitude and avoid altitude sickness.
But new regulations from the authorities will restrict the size of tents to ensure space is distributed more fairly and will ban commercial businesses.
The regulations also hope to boost local employment by requiring companies to use yaks to move equipment instead of helicopters.
Under the new rules, helicopters will only be permitted to rescue injured climbers and for emergency evacuation of those suffering from altitude sickness.
Dawa Steven Sherpa, secretary of the Expedition Operators Association, told the Times: ‘The base camp must be comfortable. That is the point. There’s nothing wrong with luxuries as long as they don’t affect other people or the environment.’
There have been some reports of companies placing one-piece pajamas, fresh meat and vegetables, a desk and four personal Sherpas at the exhibition.
A group of hikers on their way to Everest Base Camp.
Mountaineers’ tents are pictured at Everest Base Camp in 2021. Under the new rules, helicopters will only be allowed to rescue injured climbers and for emergency evacuation of those suffering from altitude sickness.
Nepalese climber Kami Rita Sherpa poses during an interview with AFP at Everest Base Camp on Mount Everest in 2021.
A group of mountaineers climbing a slope lined up during their ascent to the summit of Mount Everest in 2021.
The number of tourists on Mount Everest has skyrocketed in recent years.
Simon Lowe, founder of hiking company Jagged Globe, told the newspaper that anyone who needed four Sherpas was “not a mountaineer.”
Some of the luxury holiday packages, which charge more than £100,000 per climber, include a “rapid climb”, where clients sleep in pressurized bedrooms at home to acclimatise before being flown directly to base camp.
The modern luxuries of climbing Everest are a far cry from when the peak was first scaled by Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953, when the New Zealand mountaineer remarked: “when you climb at high altitudes, life can become quite miserable.” . .
Mount Everest, whose summit rises to more than 29,000 feet, has seen a surge in popularity in recent years. In 2021, Nepal issued 408 climbing permits, the highest number in history.
Since 1992, more than 300 people have died on Mount Everest, with many blaming inexperienced and unfit tourists who are allowed to climb to the summit.
In 2019, videos on social media showed long, crowded queues trying to reach the top while walking over dead bodies stranded on the mountain.
One eerie image showed a long line of adventurers stepping over a rope tied to a frozen corpse hanging over the mountain almost 9,000 meters above sea level.
A long queue of climbers caused by overcrowding lines a path on Mount Everest in 2019
In 2019, an image was published showing a still tied corpse hanging from the mountain amid long queues.
Expedition tents at Everest Base Camp in the Mount Everest region of Solukhumbu in 2021
But despite the death toll, the route’s popularity has continued to increase, causing problems due to the large amounts of waste produced.
Experts estimate that up to 50 tons of trash could be left on the mountain, while Everest Base Camp produces 75 tons of trash each season.
The waste problem is now so serious that climbers will be forced to carry their own excrement down the mountain.
Mount Everest itself is located within the Sagamartha National Park in the Khumbu region of Nepal.
This 124,400-hectare UNESCO World Heritage site contains some of the highest mountains in the world, as well as some 200 Sherpa villages.
The number of tourists visiting the park has been increasing steadily for years, but has recently begun to grow extremely rapidly, doubling in the three years between 2014 and 2017.
While the park itself is home to a permanent population of only 7,000, some 60,000 foreign tourists visit it each year along with thousands of other Nepalese guides.
Tourists arriving at Mount Everest and Sagarmatha National Park bring in approximately 1,000 tonnes of waste each year, most of which never leaves the park.
Trash collected from the mountain, as shown here in a 2010 cleanup near 8,000m, is returned down the mountain where it is recycled or dumped in landfills.
But while these tourists bring millions to the Nepalese government and the local economy, they also generate huge amounts of waste.
The problem became so serious that the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) was founded in 1991 to try to bring waste levels back under control.
The SPCC now manages waste collection from Everest Base Camp and the national park trails.
And since 2014, climbers going beyond base camp must bring 8kg (18lb) of rubbish or risk losing their $4,000 (£2,600) deposit.