Sir Edmund Hillary has demanded that the Nepalese government closes Mount Everest for a few years to ‘give it a rest’ and thereafter opens it only to serious climbers. Tourists who pay £40,000 to be led up Everest by experienced guides are not real mountaineers, he says, and they have no right to be there.
It is entirely logical that Sir Edmund should be happier at the idea of Everest being put out of bounds. Was his ascent of Everest really such a big deal, he perhaps fears people will ask, when pot-bellied American tourists and beer-swilling students are doing it every day? But why Nepal should be expected to decline to make use of its principal asset and deprive sherpas of valuable income is another matter. Sir Edmund, interestingly, isn’t demanding that the tourist industry of another small, remote nation be wound up: that of his native New Zealand.
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