Watching a movie about it just now. Pay $65,000 (then - or as much as 125 grand now) for the privilege of freezing a limb off, taking a swan dive down a bottomless crevasse or becoming a permanent landmark on the mountain when you die of altitude sickness or the other things that kill people up there? No thank you, please.
Sherpas make big $ hauling oxygen bottles, food and climbers that can no longer climb due to frozen extremities. There's a lot of junk up there, too. I understand there are measures in place for expeditions to clean up after themselves, but I have doubts how effectively that's done. Nepal makes BIG money from expedition licenses.
There are other peaks within sight of Everest that are even more hazardous - K2 and Anna Purna, to name a couple of them. But there are long lists to make the climb, even though there's no guarantee you'll summit.
I hiked (no actual climbing with ropes) Laramie Peak in Wyo - 11,000' - and that was plenty for me. But it was a nice day, and we could see forever. Cost? A tank of gas from home to there and back. (We can see Laramie peak from here.)
Even when I was young and in shape, Everest wasn't on my bucket list. Plenty of other people want to go, though. SW
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