Climb Every Mountain? 2 (Patreon)

One of the key enablers of the summit enthusiasm is the commercialism that has become very big in the world of climbing. We know that you can (or at least, can try to) summit Mt. Everest with a budget of about 50,000 US dollars, which includes the permit from the Nepalese government, fees towards your mountain guide and Sherpa's, and other logistical costs that come with the feat of climbing the world's highest peak.

I'm sure each of the participants means no harm, but as in aggregate you can't ignore the risks and diseconomy that result of cramming an unusual number of people atop high frozen peak that's well into the "death zone." It’s been reported that Nepal issued a record number of climb permits this year to help boost its tourism revenue - the situation looks grim, but let's just pray that we won't see the high altitude human congestions or the mass avalanche related deaths like we saw a couple of summers ago.

This mountain commercialism occurs in Japan as well, at a smaller scale, with it geographically being a country of mountaintops. But there are actually some unique complicating factors in play that give us e.g. the most deadly mountain in the world (Mt. Tanigawa)...but this may be a story for another day.