IMAGE: PEMTENJI SHERPA VIA THE KATHMANDU POST
ON MAY 20th 274 climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest via its southern face, the highest single-day total ever recorded from the Nepali side. Photographs posted by climbers showed a caterpillar of headtorches queuing in the death zone above 8,000 metres, each person tethered to the same fixed rope, each burning through oxygen, strength and luck at an altitude where the body begins consuming itself. The images resembled a rush-hour commute conducted at the edge of survival.
Nepal issued 495 climbing permits for Everest this spring, according to the Department of Tourism—the highest number since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent in 1953. At $15,000 apiece (a fee raised from $11,000 last September), that generated some $7.4m in royalties before accounting for expedition fees, logistics contracts and the wider guiding economy that sustains tens of thousands of Nepalis across the Khumbu region. Remittances remain the country’s largest source of foreign currency, far outstripping all others, while tourism—and Everest in particular—sits as the most publicly prominent earner. By every metric the government tracks, this has been the mountain’s best commercial season.
It has also, by May 22nd, killed five people. Three were Nepali mountain workers: Phura Gyaljen Sherpa, Bijay Ghimire Bishwakarma and Lakpa Dendi Sherpa. The other two were Indian climbers, Arun Kumar Tiwari and Sandeep Are. The deaths, in other words, are not exclusively a Nepali worker’s burden—but the workers are dying at a disproportionate rate given that they represent a fraction of those on the mountain.
Phura Gyaljen Sherpa was 21 years old, from Thame village in Khumbu. On the evening of May 11th he left Camp 2 loaded with gear and began climbing towards Camp 3. About four hours later, in the dark, he slipped on the Lhotse Face at around 7,000 metres. He was the grandson of Ang Rita Sherpa, the only climber to have summited Everest ten times without supplemental oxygen. His grandfather was known as the Snow Leopard. Phura Gyaljen was carrying equipment up a mountain in the middle of the night and did not come back down.
Kami Rita Sherpa summited Everest for a record 32nd time on May 17th, then flew back to Kathmandu. On May 22nd, speaking to reporters at the airport, he said the mountain had been more crowded than he had ever seen it. “There is a need for authorities to control this number,” he told the assembled press. “They should let in only climbers of quality; there should be a limit.” He has more hours above 8,000 metres than almost anyone alive. His government gave no indication it was listening.
Nepal’s Supreme Court had already told the government to act. A division bench, led by justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Sushma Lata Mathema, ordered the Department of Tourism to determine Everest’s carrying capacity and set permit limits based on safety. The department’s response this week, offered by spokesman Raut, was unambiguous in its helplessness: “We are well aware of the Supreme Court order. But until now, we don’t have any law controlling permits. There are no limitations.”
The government has had two years since the court order. It has not yet enacted a permit-limiting law. However, it is not entirely idle: the Integrated Tourism Bill, which includes stricter mountaineering regulations, passed the National Assembly in February and is awaiting final approval. It remains to be seen if that bill imposes tight caps or merely dresses up the status quo. For the moment the incentive runs largely the same way as before: each additional permit is $15,000. And each additional death, while not exclusively Nepali, still falls hardest on those who fix ropes and haul gear for the lowest pay.
China closed the Tibetan northern route this spring, pushing more climbers onto the Nepali face than in any previous season. The official reason for the closure has not been announced, but multiple reports attribute it to a controversial high-altitude fireworks installation by the brand Arc’teryx and artist Cai Guo-Qiang, which prompted a backlash from Chinese authorities. True cause or convenient pretext, the effect is the same: Nepal’s already crowded southern face absorbed the overflow.
That windfall arrived at a convenient moment for Balendra Shah’s government, which swept to power in March on promises of economic transformation and is discovering, as all Nepali governments eventually do, that transformation is expensive and permits are immediate. The budget debate for 2026-27 is grinding through parliament in Kathmandu next week. The finance ministry will note the record mountaineering revenues.
The previous record for single-day Nepali-side summits was 223, set on May 22nd 2019. Nepal has now beaten it by 23%. That counts as progress only depending on what Everest is for—and whose safety the answer is meant to protect. ■
