‘Climb Everest For a Discount Rate’
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 08.22.07 | 1:30 PM ET
That’s the headline on a Reuters story about off-season discounts for climbers headed to Nepal. A tourism official told the news agency, “We are working on proposals to give a 50 percent royalty cut in the autumn and 75 percent during the winter climbing seasons.” Now, I’m no climber, but when you’re risking your life to climb the tallest mountain in the world, should you really be that considered with scoring a bargain?
Related on World Hum:
* Everest Base Camp: ‘The Himalayan Version of Burning Man’
* Peace Deal Helps Lure Travelers Back to Nepal
* Everest Base Camp in Tibet: The Himalayan Bangkok?
Photo by Ben Tubby via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Rachel 08.22.07 | 4:21 PM ET
Good point! The number of people trying to scale Everest each year is already dangerously high, and this encourages people to go when the weather is even more brutal than usual. Plus, the environmental damage done by having more people on that mountain is also a factor. I always hate seeing photos of discarded oxygen tanks that are probably going to just sit there on the slopes for eternity.
John 08.23.07 | 9:23 AM ET
I wish that some of the money spent during the high season would go towards cleanups in the off season. Or that there would be more regulations of the climbing teams to keep the mountain clean and free of leftover climbing gear. And agreed with Rachel - it’s going to be pretty dangerous to go at other times of the year, as if it wasn’t dangerous enough already.