Educational purpose only. This post documents historical events and social issues related to high-altitude mountaineering and aims to raise awareness about safety, ethics, and the human cost of commercialization. We do not glorify risk or exploitation.
Hundreds of Frozen Bodies, 300 Desperate Families, and the Excuse “Too Dangerous to Bring Them Down”: How the Commercialization of Everest Has Turned the Mountain into a Horror Tourism Site
Mount Everest has become the highest graveyard on Earth . Since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first summited in 1953, more than 7,000 people have reached the peak. But over 300 climbers have died on the mountain — and 132 of them were working Sherpas . To this day, around 200 bodies remain on the mountain, frozen in ice and snow.
This documentary examines the grim reality behind the Everest industry — the commercialization that has transformed the world’s highest peak into a macabre tourist attraction, the hundreds of families left without closure, and the brutal arithmetic that leaves bodies frozen on the slopes because bringing them down is considered “too dangerous” — and too expensive.
1. The Highest Graveyard on Earth: Numbers That Tell a Story
The statistics are staggering. Between 1990 and 2019, more than 300 people lost their lives attempting to set foot on Everest . In 2023 alone, a record high death toll was recorded, with at least 12 climbers dead and an additional five missing or assumed dead . On average, six people die every year while ascending and descending the peak .
The toll on Sherpas is particularly severe: 132 Sherpas have died on the mountain — roughly one-third of all Everest fatalities . In 2014, an avalanche killed 16 Sherpas in the Khumbu Icefall, the deadliest single incident in Everest’s history . The 2015 earthquake killed at least 19 people at Everest Base Camp and about 9,000 others across Nepal.
Yet despite these grim figures, the number of climbers continues to rise. Nepal issued a record 463 permits in 2023, bringing the total number of people attempting the summit that year to approximately 900 . Climbers can pay anywhere from $32,000 to $200,000 for a guided expedition — a price that buys a summit attempt, but no guarantee of safety, and certainly no guarantee that their body will be brought home if they die.
2. The Macabre Landscape: Bodies as Route Markers
On Everest, the dead have become part of the scenery. Some bodies are visible along the climbing routes and have become macabre landmarks, earning nicknames for their plastic climbing boots, colorful parkas, or final resting poses . “Green Boots” — the frozen body of Tsewang Paljor, an Indian climber who died in 1996 — has been a grim landmark on the Northeast Ridge for nearly three decades .
Everest filmmaker Elia Saikaly described the scene: “I couldn’t believe what I saw there. Death, scenes of death, chaos, long lines of people, corpses by the roadside” . Above 8,000 meters in the “Death Zone,” the corpse persists in an atelic, unbounded state — suspended in a liminal phase, with none of the rites of separation, transformation, and incorporation normally accorded to the human body after death .
The situation is now being exacerbated by climate change. As global warming melts the ice sheets and glaciers, bodies that remained buried for decades are becoming exposed . Scientists have found that the Khumbu Glacier contains “warm ice” — a full 2 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean annual air temperature — making it particularly vulnerable to melting . A full two-thirds of Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2100 at present rates of warming.
3. Why They Can’t Come Down: The Brutal Arithmetic of Rescue
The decision to leave bodies on the mountain is not born of callousness but of brutal arithmetic. Recovering a body from Everest is one of mountaineering’s most dangerous operations . The cost can reach $70,000, and sometimes the recovery mission results in additional fatalities . In 1984, two Nepalese died while trying to bring a climber’s body down .
The logistics are staggering. A recovery team of eight to twelve highly experienced Sherpas must carry oxygen cylinders and specialized equipment through steep, icy routes above 8,000 meters . It often takes three days for a team to move a frozen body from the Death Zone to a location accessible to helicopters . The bodies are much heavier because they are frozen and covered in ice . Once the team reaches the body, they must break it from the surrounding ice, wrap it, tie it with ropes, and slowly drag it down in high winds .
As Alan Arnette, a veteran climber, explained: “What they have to do is approach the body, then they usually put it on the sled, but often just a piece of cloth. They tie ropes to it, then they perform a controlled slide of the body” .
Ang Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association put it bluntly: “It is just not the worth the risk. To get one body off of the mountain, they are risking the lives of 10 more people” .
4. The Commercialization of Death: Money, Ethics, and the Summit Obsession
The commercialization of Everest has fundamentally changed the ethics of the mountain. In the past, traditional climbers adhered to strong norms of pro-social behavior — when members of an expedition died, the expedition was significantly less successful, driven by members halting to bring the dead and injured back down . Today, commercial climbers who have paid a large sum of money for a single attempt (with no refunds for failure) face a very different set of incentives .
Research has shown that commercial climbers weakly identify with “traditional climber,” “mountaineer,” or “alpinist” — but identify very strongly with the more modern, non-traditionalist view of climbing as “adventure seeker,” “adrenaline junkie,” and “someone who looks for challenges” . Climbers who have no relationship with each other and none with their Sherpas are unlikely to expend large amounts of their own energy to drag someone down without a strong motivation .
Expedition leader Eric Murphy, who guided clients to the summit, criticized retrieval missions: “It is a sacred place and a good place to rest. I would really question whether it is appropriate to risk so many to bring down one who is already lost” .
5. The Families Left Behind: Desperate for Closure
Behind every body left on the mountain is a family desperate for closure. When the Indian state of West Bengal financed a $92,000 recovery mission to bring back three bodies, Debashish Ghosh wept as he watched his brother’s body being unloaded from a helicopter . “We are finally able to bring him home,” he said. “After we cremate the body there will be peace for his soul and relief to our family” .
Yet many families are forced to make the agonizing decision to leave their loved ones on the mountain. When Arun Kumar Tiwari, a Hyderabad mountaineer, died on Everest, his family decided against a recovery operation. “He is in Lord Shiva’s abode,” they explained. “The process of bringing the body… it would have been very badly damaged by the time it reaches us. Such operations there are also not known to be successful” .
The costs are prohibitive. Recovery missions reportedly cost over $75,000 — a sum beyond the means of most families . For Sherpa families, the situation is even more desperate — many depend on the income from expeditions to survive, and the death of a breadwinner can plunge an entire family into poverty.
6. A Glimmer of Hope: The Quest to Bring the Dead Home
Despite the dangers, some are determined to bring the dead home. In the documentary Everest Dark, famed climber Mingma Tsiri Sherpa — who has summited Everest 19 times and set a Guinness World Record with his brothers — returns to the mountain one last time to retrieve a body . He believes the mountain gods are angry because Everest has been desecrated by garbage, commercialization, and the abandonment of the dead .
After a 2015 earthquake killed at least 19 people at Base Camp, Mingma had a haunting dream: God warned him that if he ever attempted to climb Everest again, he would die there . Deeply shaken, Mingma swore off climbing forever — but made one exception: to return to restore peace to the sacred mountain .
Others are working to clean up the mountain. In 2010, the Extreme Everest Expedition attempted to clear the Death Zone of rubbish and retrieve bodies . The Nepalese government has imposed strict rules forcing visitors to keep the mountain clean or risk losing substantial deposits . But despite these efforts, the fundamental dynamics of the industry remain unchanged.
Primary Sources:
CBC Documentaries — Everest Dark: More than 300 people have died climbing Everest (2026)
AP News — Risky retrieval of Everest bodies raises climbers’ concern (2017)
Himalayan Database — Mortality records and expedition analysis
Savage & Torgler — Social norms and death on Everest (CREMA research paper)
BBC — Everest’s Death Zone revealed as a global dumpster
Earth.Org — Mount Everest pollution and commercialization
Vietnam.vn — Why are so many bodies on Everest not being brought down?
Northeast Herald — Hyderabad mountaineer’s family decides to leave his body on Everest
Treehugger — A warming Mount Everest is giving up its dead
The Age — Everest’s cleaners have a mountain to climb (2010)