Mount Everest has gotten so crowded that climbers are perishing in the traffic jams
Anjali Kulkarni, an Indian mountain climber, trained for six years to make it to the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world. She finally fulfilled her longtime goal when she reached the summit this week. But it was the descent that killed her.
Her son, Shantanu Kulkarni, told CNN that she died after getting stuck in a “traffic jam” on the mountain.
“She had to wait for a long time to reach the summit and descend,” Thupden Sherpa, who organized tours on the mountain, told Agence France-Presse. “She couldn’t move down on her own and died as Sherpa guides brought her down.”
Two other Indian hikers, Kalpana Das, 52, and Nihal Bagwan, 27, also died this week. Keshav Paudel, who organized tours on the mountain, told AFP that Bagwan was “stuck in the traffic for more than 12 hours and was exhausted.”
On Saturday, a 44-year-old British man, Robin Haynes Fisher, died shortly after reaching the summit, bringing the death toll for this season to at least 10, as a few days of clear weather attracted huge numbers of climbers hoping to scale the 29,029-foot peak.
“Our guides tried to help but he died soon after,” the company Fisher traveled with told the BBC.
A number of other people have died elsewhere in Nepal’s Himalayan mountains this season. Nepal has issued around 380 permits for those hoping to climb the mountain, AFP reported. They cost about $11,000 each, and hikers are accompanied by local, and sometimes international, guides.
A chilling photograph from Everest shows a long line of mountaineers queuing to ascend a steep ridge to the summit. The photo was shot by Nirmal Purja, an avid mountaineer, who wrote in an Instagram caption that he estimated there were 320 people waiting in line.
Traffic jams create dangerous situations for climbers, who are often already exhausted and carrying heavy loads while battling altitude sickness, which can make people dizzy and nauseated.
Gordon Janow, director of programs at Alpine Ascents International, has been organizing treks to Everest for about 30 years. He said overcrowding often occurs, but “every year seems to be worse and worse.”
When a line starts to back up, “you’re changing your natural pace so you’re spending more time in this high altitude zone than might be necessary if you were climbing 10 to 15 years ago,” he said. Alpine Ascents currently has a group of a dozen climbers on the mountain, he said, and one of the most important skills for the guides who accompany them “is knowing when to turn people around."
“The idea isn’t to push yourself to the ultimate maximum to reach the summit,” he said. “Then there’s no steam or energy left in your body to get down.”
Everest attracts climbers from around the globe, and the victims come from diverse backgrounds:
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