Rich Tourists Blamed for Everest's Decline

The son of Tenzing Norgay, the legendary Sherpa who, along with Sir Edmund Hillary, was first to climb Mount Everest, attacked novice climbers yesterday and said that 50 years after his father's epic ascent the world's highest mountain had "lost its spirit of adventure".

Jamling Tenzing, who climbed Everest in 1996, said that his late father would have been shocked to discover that rich thrill-seekers with no climbing experience were now routinely reaching the summit.

"You still have to climb this mountain yourself with your feet. But the spirit of adventure is not there any more. It is lost," Jamling told the Guardian.

"There are people going up there who have no idea how to put on crampons. They are climbing because they have paid someone $65,000 (£40,000)." He added: "It is being very selfish. It endangers the lives of others."

Jamling's outburst comes days before Nepal embarks on elaborate celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's historic achievement on May 29 1953.

Lost mystique

Dozens of veteran celebrity mountaineers, including Reinhold Messner, who became the first person to reach the summit without bottled oxygen, have gathered in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. Sir Edmund, 83, will arrive in Nepal next week from his native New Zealand to be guest of honour at the celebrations.

But the anniversary takes place amid widespread disquiet among the world's elite alpinists that climbing Everest has lost its mystique and become banal.

A record 25 teams will attempt to reach the 29,028ft (8,848-metre) summit this season from Nepal. About 40 teams are getting ready to set off from the Tibetan side of the mountain.

Bad weather and strong winds have so far delayed any attempts and the Chinese have closed the border to Tibet because of the Sars virus.

None the less, the first teams are likely to set off next week. Dozens of climbers are hoping to reach the top at 11.30am on May 29, precisely 50 years after the first successful ascent.

Earlier this week Peter Habeler, the celebrated Austrian climber who reached the summit in 1978 without bottled oxygen together with Reinhold Messner, said this year's Everest expeditions had "nothing to do with real adventure". Before setting off for base camp, as part of the anniversary celebrations, he declared: "Alpinists don't think very highly of them. I'm sorry to say that but it's true."

He added: "It's peanuts, climbing surrounded by Sherpas and using oxygen. You cheat the mountain. People are now racing to be the fattest, the thinnest, the youngest, the oldest up Everest. This has nothing to do with alpinism any more."

Habeler, 60, claimed that what he and Messner had done was "real adventure". "There were more people telling us it couldn't be done than there were people believing it could," he said. The Nepalese government should start promoting other lesser-known Himalayan peaks instead, he added.

Since the pioneering ascent, about 1,200 climbers have reached the summit. About 175 people have died on the slopes of Everest. The Nepalese government has invited all surviving summiteers to the celebrations and says it expects about 400 to turn up. Also likely to attend is 84-year-old Gyalzen Sherpa, one of four from the original 1953 British Everest expedition who are alive.

As part of the festivities, Sir Edmund and his wife will process through the streets of Kathmandu in a horse-drawn carriage in a repeat of their "felicitation ceremony" of 1953.

The British embassy in Kathmandu is hosting a cocktail party, and Nepal's King Gyanendra is throwing a gala dinner. The King will also make Sir Edmund an honorary citizen.

About 200 journalists from New Zealand are flying in to cover the event, and dozens of international television crews are trekking through heavy snow up to the base camp.

Nepal is hopeful that the anniversary will help boost the country's flagging tourist industry, which has been badly affected by the war between the government and the kingdom's Maoist rebels.

Three months ago both sides agreed a ceasefire. But fewer visitors are coming to Nepal than ever: tourist numbers dropped from 500,000 three years ago to a little over 200,000 last year.

The kingdom's main climbing body, the Nepal Mountaineering Association, agreed that there were now too many amateurs trying to climb Everest but said Nepal needed the money.

"Edmund Hillary recently said Everest needs a rest," Bhumi Lal Lama, the association's general secretary, said yesterday. "He's right. But we are not in a position to give Everest a rest. We will be missing out on royalties. We can't afford that."

Yesterday Jamling Tenzing said that his father, who spent most of his life in the Indian hill station of Darjeeling, where he died in 1986, would have been dismayed by the situation.

Into the unknown

Along with Sir Edmund, he had climbed the mountain wearing ordinary woollen clothes and weighed down by old-fashioned oxygen cylinders. They also carried heavy wooden logs used by the expedition for fuel, he pointed out.

"They were climbing into the unknown," he said. "People didn't even know if you could exist above 29,000ft without a pressurised suit.

"They were two people from entirely different worlds. Hillary did not speak Nepali and my father hardly spoke English. They communicated just by signs and by understanding."

He said he respected the "experienced climbers" who wanted to follow in his father's footsteps but had nothing but contempt for "Everest tourists" who had not served an apprenticeship slogging up lesser peaks.

"My father would be shocked to see what is going on. Climbing Everest should be a passion."