Commercialization of Mount Everest: Money Well-Spent or Foolhardy at Best?.
"Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better." - Richard Hooker.
In this modern age, there's no part of this world that hasn't been duly explored, surveyed, and claimed. Western explorers have reached every corner of this earth, and some beyond. Wherever we explore and eventually settle, modernization is usually not far behind. Only a very small portion of the world lags behind when it comes to modern conviences, and Nepal, home of Mount Everest, is one of those places. Due to its relative isolation from the outside world, Nepal is seriously lacking in most of the creature comforts we in the western world are accustomed to. In fact, electric power and running water are relatively new to this area, two things that most of us couldn't dream of living without. The only reason conviences are making their way, albeit slowly, to this rugged terrain, is basically because of people whose desire to tackle the world's tallest mountain is so big that they are willing to shell out $70,000 US apiece to have a chance. Guided expeditions are the wave of the future for Everest, and they are changing the face of it and the people who surround it - for better or for worse, depending on your viewpoint. .
In his story of the ill-fated expeditions that attempted to climb Everest in the spring of 1996, Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer writes of the primitive conditions he and his team faced in the small hamlet of Lobuje, one of the waypoints they rested at before making the push to Everest. "The three or four stone toilets in the village were literally overflowing with excrement. The latrines were so abhorrent that most people, Nepalese and Westerners alike, evacuated their bowels outside on the open ground, wherever the urge struck. Huge stinking piles of human feces lay everywhere; it was impossible not to walk in it.