KATHMANDU, Nepal – Nepal will increase permit fees to climb Mount Everest by more than 35%, making the world’s highest peak more expensive for mountaineers for the first time in nearly a decade, officials said Wednesday.
Revenue from permit fees and other expenses by foreign climbers is a key source of income and employment for the cash-strapped nation, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest.
A permit to climb the 29,032-foot Mount Everest will cost $15,000, said Narayan Prasad Regmi, director general of the Department of Tourism, announcing a 36% increase in the $11,000 fee that has been in place for nearly a decade.
“It has been a long time since the rights (of permits) have been reviewed.” We have updated them now,” Regmi told Reuters.
The new fee will come into effect from September and apply to the popular April-May climbing season along the standard South East Ridge, or South Col, route, pioneered by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.
Rates for the less popular September-November season and December-February season, which rarely increase, will also increase by 36%, to $7,500 and $3,750, respectively.
Some expedition organizers said the increase, under discussion since last year, was unlikely to discourage climbers. About 300 Everest permits are issued each year.
“We expected this increase in permit fees,” said Lukas Furtenbach of Austria-based expedition organizer Furtenbach Adventures.
He said it was an “understandable step” by the Nepal government.
“I am confident that the additional funds will be used in some way to protect the environment and improve safety on Everest,” Furtenbach said.
Regmi did not say what the additional revenue would be used for.
Hundreds of climbers attempt to scale Mount Everest and several other Himalayan peaks every year.
Nepal is often criticized by mountaineering experts for allowing too many climbers on Everest and doing little to keep it clean or ensure climbers’ safety.
Regmi said clean-up drives had been organized to collect garbage and security measures and rope fixing were regularly taken.
Climbers returning from Everest say the mountain is becoming increasingly dry and rocky with less snow or other precipitation, which experts say could be due to global warming or other environmental changes.
