COMMENT - The outrage over alleged mass tourism on Mount Everest is bigoted

When the Irishman Charles Barrington made the first ascent of the Eiger in 1858, the journey to the mountain itself was an adventure lasting weeks. Construction of the first road to the valley town of Grindelwald only began two years later. Today, every alpinist can reach the base of the face so easily that it hardly matters what they subsequently accomplish on the Eiger: Barrington's exertions can hardly be compared.

On many Swiss mountains, the path to the summit itself has become a walk, as is the case with the Grosser Mythen in central Switzerland: A cable car from Brunni shortens the ascent, the rugged rock massif in the summit area is made more difficult by paved paths and fixed ropes, and a restaurant sits enthroned at the top. The place, which once exuded a certain exclusivity, is now visited by more than 40,000 people a year.

In the Swiss Alps, it's taken for granted that the tourism industry has opened up the mountains to the masses. Nothing is the same as it was in the days of the first climbers, when the exhilaration of standing on exposed peaks was reserved for a handful of daredevil adventurers. Today, almost everyone can strive for personal success.

Looking at Mount Everest, many observers see things differently. There, every technical improvement is declared a sin, every rope ladder a symbol of social decline. In the second half of May, several hundred people again attempted to fulfill a lifelong dream by climbing the world's highest mountain. The season was accompanied by often negative media coverage, by mountaineering greats glorifying the past, and by malice and inflammatory rhetoric in the commentary columns: Decadence at Base Camp! Only tourists on the mountain! Helicopter flights and drones!

By recently attempting to break the speed record, Swiss Karl Egloff and his American rival Tyler Andrews unsuccessfully sought an exceptional sporting feat . The media also degraded this top-level showdown into a crazy duel .

Some criticism from the comfort of one's armchair is shrill, especially since it is consciously or unconsciously accompanied by Western arrogance. In the distant Himalayas, a traditionalism is supposedly being indulged that has disappeared from the Alps for decades. In impoverished Nepal, mountaineering is supposed to forever remind one of black-and-white Luis Trenker films.

It's true that over the past decade, Nepalese expedition companies like Seven Summit Treks have transformed the base camp on the south side of Mount Everest into a wellness oasis, without any discernible nostalgia. They have beds with electric blankets, tents where no one has to bend over, flat-screen TVs, drink bars, and coffee from portafilter machines.

Some things may seem inappropriate at 5,300 meters. However, anyone who considers a halfway comfortable life in the mountains to be generally objectionable should also avoid SAC huts. Between 90 and 95 percent of the approximately 120 staffed accommodations in the country are serviced by helicopter, sometimes weekly . Multi-course meals are standard. Nepalese agencies, which now serve about 80 percent of all mountaineers on the south side of Everest, do nothing less than reject the antiquated notion that mountaineering requires asceticism.

The journey from Lakla to Base Camp takes eight days on foot, but only 20 minutes by helicopter. More and more mountaineers are choosing the air route. This trend is disastrous from an ecological perspective. However, it would be futile to dictate to alpinists that they must travel forever the way the first climber, Sir Edmund Hillary, did in 1953. It would make more sense to have climate-friendly alternatives, such as a train connection.

Everest isn't technically complicated. Nevertheless, the 8,848-meter-high mountain is a challenge, not least psychologically. "It requires mental strength, physical awareness, and patience," says Himalayan chronicler Billi Bierling, who has climbed the summit herself. She has observed how well-trained athletes with marathon or Ironman experience thought they had secured success, but were overtaken by 70-year-old Japanese men along the way. Despite all the support, not everyone manages to acclimatize sufficiently to the altitude, the cold, and the food. Everest teaches humility.

Those who are able to consciously perceive the landscape along the way will experience uplifting moments not only at the summit. Crossing the Khumbu Glacier with its building-sized ice towers is an overwhelming feeling, says Bierling. "It's a magical, albeit very dangerous, place."

In warmer temperatures, the zone between Base Camp and Camp 1 becomes a death trap because the towers can collapse during thaws. Nearly fifty mountaineers have lost their lives there in recent decades, including many Sherpas, who had previously had to do their jobs even in adverse conditions. In 2024, a transport drone relieved them of some of the work for the first time: It transported 225 kilograms of equipment to 6,100 meters. This measure significantly increases safety and is even more environmentally friendly than a helicopter flight.

That today's Everest aspirants are tourists is a correct, but also banal, observation. Reaching the summit is pointless—and that's a good thing. In the first half of the 20th century, a significant period in alpine history, mountains were conquered for the fatherland; those were unfortunate times of instrumentalization and exaggeration. Today, it's all about personal experiences at the limits, about embellishing one's resume, about bragging to one's friends. In other words, about individual freedom.

A carefully cultivated cliché claims that Everest is hopelessly overcrowded. The absolute numbers don't bear this out. In the spring season that just ended, 456 climbers from 57 nations received permits for the south face, while the number was significantly lower for the north face. In good weather in the summer, up to 200 climbers per day attempt the Matterhorn.

The fact that traffic jams still occur in narrow passages on Everest is paradoxically due to increasingly accurate weather reports: Most expeditions attempt their luck within a few days. On May 20, 135 clients and their guides reached the summit. Six years ago, in May 2019, Nepal's mountaineering star Nirmal Purja shocked the world with an Instagram post showing a line of people on the summit ridge .

The photo went viral. However, joining the crush was by no means inevitable. Austrian expedition leader Lukas Furtenbach says: "The picture illustrates an exceptional situation. Our group was up there the day before and the day after, and on both days they had clear access."

Furtenbach is provoking the traditionalists of the scene. He shortened the time his clients spent on the mountain by artificially acclimatizing them in hypoxic tents, and this year also by using the noble gas xenon. Whether the substance worked as hoped remains unclear. While his four test subjects reached the summit just four and a half days after setting off from London , one of Purja's clients was even faster: Andrew Ushakow needed just three days, 23 hours, and 7 minutes from New York . Without xenon, but with more than 400 hours of preparation in a high-altitude tent.

Mountaineering at the limit has always been a contest of ideas. In extreme cases, this has also led to new medical discoveries, such as Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler's 1978 ascent of Everest without bottled oxygen . Some seem to have forgotten that it was once inherent in mountaineering to reject conventions. "Today, there's a culture of rejecting innovations," says Furtenbach, who faced death threats when his xenon experiment became known .

It's high time to see progress on Everest as an opportunity, too—and to recognize that it's no shame if, as a logical consequence, the summit becomes ever easier to reach. Every year, people die on Everest from symptoms of altitude sickness. So far, five deaths have been reported for 2025. Some tragedies could have been avoided.

A particularly striking example: In May 2024, two Mongolians with little mountaineering experience struggled to the summit without Sherpas and largely without bottled oxygen. They apparently didn't put on their masks until it was practically too late. Both paid for the attempt with their lives on the descent .

"Many underestimate the mountain," says Himalayan chronicler Bierling. The online malice contributes to this: The more often observers mock the fact that mountaineers use aids like bottled oxygen, the longer the belief persists that such support is a disgrace. This is nonsense. Because, of course, the world's highest mountain, unlike the Great Mythen, is still no walk in the park, despite all the changes.