Death on Everest: The boom in climbing tourism is dangerous, unsustainable

The boom in commercial adventure sports means 'real' mountaineers are often outnumbered by tourists whose ambitions exceed their climbing skills

The last days of Mt Everest’s spring window for 2019 witnessed the deaths of 11 climbers. Images of hundreds of mountaineers queuing to reach the summit and reports of climbers stepping over dead bodies dismayed people around the world, many wondering how human beings had got it so wrong.

After the conquest of Annapurna and Everest in the 1950s, mountaineering became popular among the more privileged. But in the past two decades, mountaineering has taken on a increasingly commercial angle with disastrous results.

Experts report that aside