There, I said it. I’m not ashamed to admit it, and I’m not even a climber.  Everest is a joke. I have no respect for 99% of people summiting it.

You learn a lot through the trekking grape vine, and some of it is actually true. You learn what tea houses have the least offensive
apple pie. You learn what type of baby powder to sprinkle on your body to mask 2 weeks without a shower. And you learn which peaks are climbed for bragging rights and which ones are actually hard. Take for instance, Annapurna, which is 757 meters shorter than Everest, but has a 40-50% death rate. Everest, on the other hand, is a tourist joke for people with far more money than common sense.

After a week of trekking, we ended up staying in Tengboche (or Pangboche or Dingboche or Lobuche… I get all my che’s confused), where we got to hang around a handful of climbers waiting for some sheet of ice to fall off of Ama Dablam so they could summit it. One beer led to another, and we ended up hearing stories from half a dozen sherpas that had each climbed Everest an average of 7 times each.

Everest has become so commercial, that little girls, 80 year old men, and triple amputees can now summit it (albeit with no shortage of uncomfortable breathless nights). Now you can acclimatize on a neighboring peak (?Island Peak?) and then be helicoptered to base camp, where you will be taught how to use crampons for the first time in your life. That’s right, in some of the high end tours, you don’t even need prior climbing experience. All you need is anywhere from $60,000 to $150,000, and you get your own personal sherpas which will push and pull you at the appropriate times.

The average Everest expedition consists of 24 tons of equipment on the back of 600 porters and a similarly absurd number of guides (no, that’s not a typo). All this, so a handful of westerners can be pushed/pulled on kilometers of fixed lines that have been carefully set up prior, all while eating Cliff Bars, connected to supplemental oxygen, and eating sushi at the end of the day (no joke– most expeditions bring cooks).

I’m sorry. No respect. I’m removing an Everest summit from my bucket list, and putting my unicycle attempt on Monte del Estado back on the docket. I’m sure Hadji, Tato and Nuni will not only approve, but volunteer to sherpa up some limbers de coco.