High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed

Very depressing read. I cannot concur on the expeditions, but the amount of people heading into Everest, their total disregard for the environment and their supreme egos make even being around the area from Namche into Everest a very unpleasant experience.If it were not for the views and the wonderous mountains I think one would do better to climb more isolated mountains with fewer groups, less garbage closer to home. I wouldn't even want to be around most of the unbounded egos described in this book. Seems to defy the very notion of why one mountaineers in the first place.Having been the Himalayas a few times over the past 20 yrs I was immediately struck by the fact that the carrying capacity of environment is out of balance with the number of people there. It has reached the point where you are seriously hindered by large groups of tourists with their own agenda and their own egos to assuage. At times I have stood beside the trail into Everest base camp and had to wait 30 minutes for the crowd of German tourists to pass by me.The attitudes are a problem as well. Mr. Kodas describes the cold egotistical distance that surrounds some camps, literally camped beside one another, yet who do not talk to each other. This state of affairs extends to the mountain where common courtesy is ground into the dust as the desire for profit for the expeditions and the desire for a fully placated ego for the new urban-corporate-sports-gym climber dominate the mountain. Greed. Money and sex are never far beneath the service as Kodas relates.I personally could relate to the attitudes of some of the people Kordas describes. I will never forget the lady we deemed the "Canadian Cow" from Montreal, who severely reproached me for washing a child's parasitic wounds with soap and then bandaging her legs, giving her teh soap and telling her to wash regularly.... "ohhhh, you shouldn't do that with them, it just encourages them... besides, who knows... they might have HIV" (???!!). Needless to say, this spirit of outright meanness is not only profoudly depressing, but seems, according to Kordas, to be getting worse and worse.Everest is still the highest, but there are greater challenges in the outback of Australia, or the nether reaches of so many unclimbed peaks of Canada, or Russia or South America or other places in the Himalayas... but no longer on Everest.Very nice book, but depressing at places.

I may be on the fringe of popular opinion here but I find it difficult to feel sorry for Dr. Antezana and his fate. I think his guide Gustavo has serious psychological issues and needs to be be dealt with legally, but seriously......Dr. Antezana made some very poor choices. He was suspicious, distrustful of Gustavo and unhappy with his level of support but ignored all of his intuition and climbed anyway. As an athlete (but not an extreme one) I understand how you can be driven toward an objective and blind to ominous feelings and in that regard, I'm empathetic. Nonetheless, the victim must accept the responsibility for being foolish. Climbing Everest is not a walk in the park!I feel badly for the people who felt guilty because they didn't say something to encourage Dr. Antezana not to climb; thinking they could have avoided his fate. To me, no one could have avoided his fate but himself. He was not an 18 year old giving into peer pressure, he was a 69 year old, intelligent, successful man who made a deadly choice to climb Everest. All the other examples of poor behavior and bad choices in this book just means there were more foolish people with money and time on their hands who like to participate in extreme sports (snowboarding down Everest, really?). And for each of them, there was someone to sell them the experience based on what they could afford.What is truly sad is that this pathetic side of humankind overshadows the effort serious climbers take to prepare and train for this phenomenal endeavor; the climbers who give up on the dream to help another in distress and/or risk their life for another. This author gave us the darkside.This book is not a positive story of human triumph over adversity; it's a painful and sad story of some ugly human ambition and risk taking, which will continue so long as people push the limits of physical abilities to try to tempt fate. Some folks will "jump on the bandwagon" of the latest extreme craze and end up dead because they will not be prepared and will foolishly put their trust in the untrustworthy just so they can say they did it!Good book, sad book.

It has taken me a while to get round to reading this book but once i'd started it was very difficult to put it down. The author certainly pulls no punches, names names and is forthright in his allegations. This is all good. I don't know how many mountaineers or those interested in the mountains themselves will get out of this book though. It is mainly about the personalities concerned rather than a "hard" climbing book so this needs to be borne in mind if choosing to purchase it. I did also find the author's trait of jumping the narrative back and forth in time, and between different viewpoints sometimes a bit irritating. Perhaps a straight forward chronological account would have suited me better but nevertheless this is still a very informative and valuable book.

This is a very well written book even for those who like me don't use english as their native language. I'm not going to say I loved every single part of it but I'd rather say is an ok book to bring along for an intercontinental flight. The author keeps the "crime" thing at a minimun and focuses a lot more on the "romantic" part of the story. Towards the end the book starts finally to get more interesting as the true stories of greed,robberies and deaths starts to pop out but until then it's more or less a bunch of names followed by their own more or less romantic or tragic adventures. Bottom line an ok read but if you're looking for the "wow" factor or the "head nod " factor look elsewhere.

Fascinating, personal and horrifying view of the Everest expedition industry. You would accept the dangers inherent in climbing but the lack of regulation around guides, equipment, who climbs and the impact in lives lost and injury is shocking. My only criticism of the writing is that it jumps around somewhat between stories - however it’s not really hard to follow.

With the ever increasing popularity of the huge Himalayan mountains, we shouldn't be surprised at the greed and avarice that is creeping into the industry of guiding and climbing. Once commercialism rears its ugly head in any enterprise, social ethics are cast aside. Not to mention safety as we see how the desire to get as many clients on the summit as possible clouds judgement and even a leaders own rules.The author has obviously done a lot of homework to uncover the story behind many of the issues and incidents that have occured particularly in the last 15 or so years and the unfolding of these incidents.This book, like every other mountain climbing book I have read, kept me reading well into many nights.

Normally this subject would interest me, but I found the book very hard to read. It jumps from story to story and you really have todig for the facts and any timeline. I was interested, but gave up on page 70 because it was so disorganized and confusing.I am sure this writer knows much , and has researched , but perhaps a good editor may have been a huge help to make thebook more accessible.