Where Mount Everest stands after sixty years of ascents


Skift Take

The Nepali government used the event to announce coming standards for climbers after criticisms from well-known mountaineers decried the commercialization and overcrowding of the mountain.
Nepal marked the diamond jubilee of the first ascent of Mount Everest on Wednesday with a parade of veteran climbers and a government pledge to demand higher levels of experience, technical competence and fitness from those hoping to climb the mountain in the future. The 60th anniversary of the ascent of the 8,848m peak by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepali Tenzing Norgay Sherpa has been overshadowed by charges that the peak is now overcrowded and overcommercialised. Reinhold Messner, one of the world's most famous living mountaineers, told the Guardian that climbing Everest had now become "high-class mountain tourism". "Everest has bec