Mountaineering has not even begun to live up to its economic promise in the Himalaya. Decades of publicity about difficult climbs by elite mountaineers has kept 'holiday climbers' away. Encouraging easier, more commercial climbing, could prove lucrative to Himalayan countries if their governments, tourism industry and native climbers took advantage.
But for most Nepalis, fed only on Radio Nepal's curt announcements of deaths, ascents and expedition failures, mountaineering has not yet come to life. It is a great divide that separates the native population and the climbing world — a chasm of history, culture, economy and socialisation between the local who is content to look up at Gauri Shanker (7134m) in reverence, and the mountaineer who would gladly set foot on (or near) that corniced summit if only the Ministry of Tourism would allow it. Spiritual distance, indeed, marks the attitude of most of the Himalayan peoples towards the snow peaks.But if they remain blase about the mountains, they cannot remain so about mountaineering. Developments in technology, information, geopolitics and economics together are changing the face of Himalayan mountaineering and the regions people and policy-makers can no longer afford to overlook its economic importance.
In early October, as every year, the people of I Kathmandu Valley enjoyed the festival of Dasain largely unaware of the dramas being acted out high above them, on the snow, ice and rock of the Himalayan massifs. Autumn brought 750 mountaineers employing thousands of native support climbers and porters from among 76 officially registered expeditions. Some were climbing alpine style, others were doing it solo with or without oxygen. Yet more engaged in the classic seige-style assault. As in every season, there was triumph and heartbreaking tragedy in the High Himal.
Even while alpinists stretch the limits of what is possible, however, the "coffee table climbers" continue their seige on the peaks. An example was the much-hyped British Telecom-supported team on Makalu in spring 1992. This expedition— a "dinosaur of an earlier age" as one magazine called it — failed on the planned West Face and again when it shifted to an easier route. Ultimately, as consolation, it cleaned up the mountains base camp of garbage and helicoptered sackfulls to Kathmandu.