70 years after the first two climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest, it's high time to advocate for more responsible and sustainable mountaineering practices, say these academics.
A sacred mountain for some, for others the world’s highest peak represents a challenge and a lifelong dream. Seventy years ago, on May 29, 1953, that challenge and dream became reality for two members of a British expedition: New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the 8,848.86m summit.
From our vantage in the present, it also represents a high point, not just in climbing terms, but in what we now think of as the modern era of mountaineering. Since then, mountaineering has become massively popular and commercial - with serious implications for the cultures and environments that sustain it.The early mountaineering era began in 1786 when Jaques Balmat and Michel Paccard reached the summit of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the European Alps at 4,808m.
Shishapangma, the last of the world’s 8,000m peaks to be climbed, was scaled in 1964, marking the start of contemporary mountaineering. Since then, all of the world’s 8,000m peaks have been climbed in winter, culminating in the historic winter scaling of the 8,611m K2 by a Nepalese expedition in 2021.in 2019 set the stage for a new period of commercial mass mountaineering - involving expectations and conditions that would have stunned the likes of Hillary and Norgay.
And yet the number of people attempting to climb famous peaks such as Kilimanjaro in Tanzania or Aconcagua in Argentina has increased dramatically. In 2019, there were 878 successful summits on Everest alone.The days when true mountaineers were looking for new routes and climbing with minimum support have almost disappeared from commercial peaks like Everest. And many of these commercial climbers would not have a chance without professional support.
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