Featuring original interviews with Everest mountain guides and climbers, this is âa fast-moving, nuanced account of the peakâs transformation from the ultimate mountaineering challenge into a booming business opportunityâ (Joshua Hammer, New York Times bestselling author).
Anyone who has read Jon Krakauerâs Into Thin Air or has seen a recent photo of climbers standing in line to get to the top of Everest may think they have a sense of what the worldâs highest mountain is like. Itâs an extreme landscape where bad weather and incredible altitude can kill; an overcrowded, trashed-out recreation destination; and a place where the rich exploit local Sherpas while padding their egosâand social media feeds.
Thereâs some truth to these clichĂ©s, but theyâre a sliver of the story. Unlike any book to date, Everest, Inc. is the definitive account of how a few daring entrepreneurs paired raw courage and naked ambition to get paying clients safely up and down Everest. Until the late eighties, such a thing was considered impossible. Within a few years, Everest guiding was a burgeoning industry. Today, ninety percent of the people on the mountain are clients or employees of guided expeditions.
Studded with quotes from original interviews with more than a hundred Western and Sherpa climbers, clients, writers, and filmmakersâincluding Jimmy Chin and Conrad AnkerâEverest, Inc. foregrounds the colorful voices of the people who have made the mountain what it is today. As professional climber and author Freddie Wilkinson says, âWhether you are thinking about taking a crack at the worldâs highest peak or are simply an armchair mountaineer trying to make sense of the complex dynamics driving the modern Everest industry, Everest, Inc. should be required reading.â