The pre-monsoon climbing season in Nepal has come to a close for another year and once again it has been a deadly one. The spring 2024 death toll among those attempting to summit Everest stands, at the time of writing, at eight, with other fatalities elsewhere in the Nepali Himalayas. On May 21, Pastenji Sherpa, 23, and Briton Daniel Paterson, 40, fell to their deaths near the Hillary Step – a narrow ridge close to the summit – after reaching the top.

The search for their bodies has been complicated by the fact they fell on the Chinese side of the mountain. (Incidentally, China reopened the much less busy Tibetan route to foreigners this year for the first time since closing it in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.) Nepali climber (although not a Sherpa) Binod Babu Bastakoti, 37, also died after summiting that day.

It is an improvement on last year, when there were 18 fatalities on Everest, including two from Malaysia and one each from China and Singapore, but how many other leisure activities come with such a high mortality rate? Horses for courses, but for the life of us we can’t understand why people are so desperate to get to the top of this particular rock, even if it is, at 8,849 metres (29,029 feet), the world’s highest. “Because it’s there” – the famous quote by George Mallory, who himself lost his life on Everest, in 1924 – cannot be the only reason driving the hundreds of climbers who set out for the summit each year, Sherpas on hand to guide t.