Guy Cotter

Part of that is the Nepalese operators, the agencies that we used to work through, then decided they were going to be

able to offer expeditions um to paying clients just like we do but many of them went through this period and some of them still do where they haven't actually grasped the concept of the responsibility required to um to guide somebody and look after their well-being because you've got all sorts of people from around the world who are quite happy to pay to go to everest but they have got no idea what they're doing up there and it's our responsibility

to not enable these people to go and kill themselves it's a dangerous enough place as it is even with the best management in place but you layer on top of that people who have no mountaineering experience or very very little they're there for a different reason i think from what people used to be and this social media has changed a lot there were incentives for say for example the

People of Indian nationality would get, if they worked in the civil service, they would get a pay rise and a bonus and a promotion.

If they climbed Everest, people from different states in India would get a land package or money if they climbed Everest.

And so whole families would put money together to send one of the family members off to Everest so they can climb it and then bring fame and fortune back to the family.

India isn't the only country that's done this.

And to a degree, it's been effective.

Some of these people I've watched it with from Asia and Indonesia.

These are a lot of the things that have gone on in the background on Everest that nobody ever really hears about.

But it's one of the things that I've always liked about Everest.

You go there and you meet people from different countries, different cultures, and they've got a very different mindset about why they're there and what they're getting out of it.

And it's very, very interesting.

This is one that we've been grappling with since I first went there in 92.

We would like to see standards being set, prerequisites.

People should have a certain amount of experience before going to Everest.

You really should earn your access onto the mountain by having climbed various peaks at gradually higher altitudes so that you can learn how to be safe and look after yourself in that environment.

Now, Nepal has been...

throwing ideas around about how to address that and they've come up with the brilliant idea that people should have climbed a 7,000 metre peak before going to Everest.

But they've said, oh, but it's got to be a 7,000 metre peak in Nepal, which is clearly wrong.