Due to the abrupt cuts USAID, many organizations are suffering, trying to shore up new cash to replace the lost funding. One such not-for-profit is the American Himalayan Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization founded in 1981 by the late Richard C. Blum, husband of former Senator Dianne Feinstein, to help the Sherpa people of Nepal.
At a recent Explorers Club event in New York, I had the privilege of moderating a discussion with two well-known Mt. Everest veterans, Norbu Tenzing Norgay, the president of AHF and son of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Sherpa Tenzing, of course, was with Sir Edmund Hillary on May 29, 1953, as the two famously became first to summit the world’s highest peak. The other participant was renowned mountaineer Conrad Anker, who in 1999 found climber George Mallory’s body high on the north side of Everest. Anker was just back from Nepal where he had been filming a 60 Minutes segment. The 60 Minutes piece primarily centers on the overcrowding of Everest, climate change and the accumulating trash and dead bodies littering the peak.
Following are edited excerpts from the sold-out EC event plus a separate phone interview with following the event. This is Part 1 of a multi-part series.
Jim Clash: What’s the biggest impact to AHF from the recent USAID budget cuts?
Norbu Tenzing Norgay: A children’s hospital we work with in Nepal had a pretty sizable USAID grant. It had bought some medical equipment which USAID was to reimburse it for, but that payment was canceled. So we were stuck with a pretty hefty bill that AHF had to pay.
The others affected are 57,000 people from Himalayan communities in exile in India and Nepal which were heavily dependent on USAID. AHF has had to step in to fill some of the money gap.
Clash: It’s no secret that Everest is infested with climbers now, many of them amateurs who have ponied up six figures to attempt the peak during the March-May peak climbing season. What, if anything, can be done to address this mess?
Norgay: The government of Nepal has full control over how many people climb and how much is charged. Until there is the kind of leadership and foresight that takes into account the benefits for the local people and the health of the mountain, nothing is going to change because the peak is a massive cash cow.
I think Nepal currently charges $11,000 per permit, and it may go up to $15,000. So, as far as the government is concerned, it’s all about cash. Unfortunately, the mountain has become transactional. Most officials have never stepped foot on the mountain. They don’t understand the risks up there that our Sherpa people face, or the degradation of the mountain with the pollution, dead bodies, feces, abandoned oxygen bottles, tents, and the like. There’s also the effects of climate change that the Sherpa had no part in creating, but are bearing the consequences of.
The other thing, as you mentioned, is the more-than-100-people that line up to attempt the summit on a single day. This is a really big danger. If an unexpected storm hits high on the peak, like in the 1996 “Into Thin Air” disaster, many of them, and their guides and supporting Sherpa, will die. Look at 2014, when 16 local mountaineering workers and Sherpas died in an avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall. All of their children were left fatherless.
One thing that allows for false confidence is the sophisticated apps available now that are quite accurate in predicting weather, down to the minute. But unexpected things happen – avalanches, falls, etc.
Some climbers are so selfish, too. Recently a fellow was told that he didn’t have what it took to reach the summit, but refused to leave the mountain. Consequently, he died but so did the Sherpa with him because he had to stick by his client out of loyalty. Also, if he did leave his client, he’d never get another job.
Clash: What would your father say about conditions on Everest if he were still alive?
Norgay: He and Ed Hillary started the whole thing [laughs]. But what they did was something nobody had done, like getting to the moon or something. Knowing my father, he always saw his expeditions as a good time to meet people, face challenges and succeed together. I don’t think he ever would have imagined what the mountain would turn into today. I think he would see it as a great abomination, a sacred mountain having been degraded.