Mount Everest Overcrowded after 60 Years of Climbing

Sixty years after the first ascent of Mount Everest, the latest National Geographic contains a series of articles on what it calls "the mess at the top of the world." Conrad Anker, who has climbed in the Himalaya for 25 years, ascended Everest three times and has lost friends to what he calls "the vicissitudes of the high alpine environment," describes looking up at more than 100 other climbers, roped together and moving at exactly the same speed, passing the bodies of others who have fallen to their deaths. He says that friction between foreign climbers and local sherpas has led to outright fighting.