Everest: Superhuman achievement or package holiday on a rope ? Author Will Cockrell dispels the mountain’s biggest myths in his new book on how Everest was opened up to paying tourists by Kiwi mountaineers New Zealand is the only country in the world with an Everest mountaineer on its bank notes. The portrait of Sir Edmund Hillary on top of the world looms large in the imagination whenever Everest is mentioned. Else, it’s the mountain guide Rob Hall, whose final moments were immortalised in the definitive book on Everest, Into Thin Air .
New Zealand is painted large in the history of the planet’s tallest mountain . However, it’s an image that bears little resemblance to what the Everest season is like today, says author Will Cockrell. “What’s happening on Everest now, and even by the 80s and 90s when my story begins, these are the kind of expeditions that would have Edmund Hillary spinning in his grave.
” The death knell of the romantic myth of explorers alone on Everest came in 2019, the year of the ‘Everest traffic jam’ photographs. More than 70 mountaineers were shown queuing for the summit like chipolatas on a string. It was clear that Everest was no longer a solo pursuit.
It was an industry. Cockrell’s book Everest Inc. is the story of how the sausage factory was made.
And it might be far more interesting for it. The book is about “the minute it stopped being a mountaineering challenge and started becoming a guiding challenge”. The veteran American.
