Rather than simply celebrating a mountain that Nature has brought forth as the highest peak on earth, some humans must conquer it. Stake claim.

This is a hot take, but it has always been hard for me to feel remorse for the death of wealthy people that spend way too much money on their fatal hobbies. Rich folks will acquire more money than God then proceed to either crawl or climb the depths of the world’s more dangerous places… for fun? Clout?

Or maybe just for the ability to say, “Been there, done that.”

I’ll section this essay off into three questions: what is risk, what is sacred, what is justice?

01. what is risk?

I recently read an article that argues that the risk management approaches to tourism at Sagarmāthā have not included social and cultural circumstances around the climbing expeditions and the support staff (who complete most of the work within the expeditions).

In my academic and Black-ass experience, this is what I have to say in response: The grass is also green, the sky is blue. Tell me something I don’t know.

Schweinsberg and Hall do bring up an interesting theory, which is mainly what I want to discuss. Tourist sites like Sagarmāthā can and should be considered on the “edge of chaos,” meaning that the environment is constantly subject to a drastic triggering event that can change the entire landscape in an instant. They argue that tourist environs like Sagarmāthā will always be subject to major disruption and change, however, they lost me when they quoted another scholar describing how the climbing industry must, “…embrace the complex nature of the physical and social world; recognising that Sagarmāthā is ‘a place of intense learning, innovation and creativity where change can occur easily and spontaneously as the system breaks with the past and new systems of order emerge.”

I just think white people should stop trying to climb dangerous mountains for fun, putting themselves and the community at risk.

My definition of “risk” is anything that can cause harm to someone or something, both in the immediate present and the future. The problem lies in the fact that tourist destinations like mountaineering in remote mountain ranges are the direct reason for the tourism itself, so it’s a never-ending cycle. Tourist bring money to the local Nepali and Tibetan towns, but the direct consequence of that tourism ranges from water pollution to death. This is too broad a spectrum for a gal like me to even comprehend.

I don’t think it’s completely fair to say that there is a net loss for the people that live in the valleys of the Himalayas, because the tourism might be invaluable to their economies. However, how important is an economy when your drinking water is possibly tainted by the 200+ bodies on a mountaintop? The tourism economy seems of little importance then.

There is also the ideology of risk and risk management for the wealthy class. The edge of chaos phenomenon does not just exist in dangerous landscapes, it is felt by most poor people around the world every single day. At any given point in a poor person’s life, they can be subject to a drastic event that can change their entire life trajectory. One bad accident, one lost job. A payment missed one too many times, and there is a chain reaction that can be absolutely devastating. Much like an avalanche.

Wealthy people that travel to the Himalayas do not know true risk. Therefore, they seek out their own fabricated risk as means to feel what the average human feels when they lose their only source of income.

This class divide isn’t just a Western thing, though mainly Western climbers are the culprits. Poor people exist all over the world. And we all, at any given point, can experience an “edge of chaos” event that topple the fragile systems we create. Like Sagarmāthā, the poorest are subject to constant shifts in environment that can alter reality.

02. what is sacred?

The common Tibetan name for the highest peak in the world is Chomolungma, which means “Goddess Mother of the World” or “Goddess of the Valley.” The Sanskrit/Nepali name for the same peak, Sagarmāthā, literally means “Peak of Heaven.” And white people decided to name the same peak after some British guy that didn’t even want the mountain named after him. But just like any imperialist habit, they occupied the mountain by asserting a name never even uttered by the Tibetan or Nepali people at the time.

Sagarmāthā is widely known as a sacred mountain for the indigenous people of the Himalayas. This mountain, and the range as a whole, has supplied the people with clean water for centuries. The Himalayas has also kept the people within the valleys of the range relatively self-governed in its remote nature, meaning they didn’t succumb to the plight of colonization due to their isolation from the rest of the world. Although one could argue that’s what’s happening now, in the guise of a tourist destination hub.

There is a sacred journey carried out by Tibetan Buddhist called kora, in which they perform a circular pilgrimage around sacred sites, ultimately leading them to the base of Goddess Mother of the World. Though I can’t speak too much on what the journey might mean for those that pursue it, I think it represents a beautiful sense of connection of the self to the natural world above our heads and beneath our feet.

And wealthy “mountaineers” have the audacity to litter this hallowed mountain with flags, oxygen tanks, tents, and bodies. Not to mention the indigenous guides that carry most of the supplies that these sovereign parasites must then employ so they can go back to their families in Perth or Seattle or Buckinghamshire or some other stupid, “safe” location all just to tell their good friends and acquaintances about their experience facing hardships and challenges on a mountain in Asia named after a white guy.

03. what is justice?

I don’t know. It wish it could be as simple as, “Stop taking the white man’s money.” Maybe it is, but I don’t know what systems need to be in place for that to happen. I think this a universal issue among non-white people around the world, but it’s magnified in locations like Sagarmāthā and the Himalayas, as a whole. However, community can be insular. If the means of production can be circular for a community, without help or guidance from outside sources, then maybe isolation from the capitalist hellscape that is Everest tourism is the right answer. But again, I don’t know. I’ve never been to the Himalayas and likely never will.

I think justice, for now, might look like rainbow valley. This is a crass, dare I say somewhat vindictive, take on justice. The area commonly referred to on the mountain as “rainbow valley” is a section where the bodies of climbers wearing colorful clothing litter the white, snowy mountain face. This might be a form of cosmic justice.

There is also a justice in the ever-growing long lines of climbers waiting to summit the peak of the mountain during the shriking summit season window. Imagine standing in a TSA line, nearly vertical, waiting your turn to stand atop a littered mountain peak while your oxygen levels deplete by the second! What a stupid and completely avoidable reality.

04. conclusion

The essay is titled dilemma of the conquered, if you couldn’t already guess, is not in reference to conquering something as unconquerable as Sagarmāthā. This is a nod to all the very real bodies that lay frozen and unmoving on a mountain so vast that it is impossible to locate and retrieve every single person. We are the conquered, the fallen. Because even at the end of humanity, Sagarmāthā will remain. And yet, we all stand divided, trying in vain to challenge our bodies rather than challenging our beliefs.

Although I do not believe the Goddess Mother of the World a brutal deity, I believe She is transparent in her severity. What She lacks is ease, she gains in beauty from afar. We must honor acts of nature that are so cruel and so sublime as Sagarmāthā, much like any god. And like all gods, the Goddess Mother of the World cannot be conquered or claimed by any mortal being.

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