HAHN: Well, you know one of the things I think happened with the '96 publicity on the mountain, was that people started to be aware of the amounts of money that are involved in Everest climbing. But I think that they only got part of the story. The story back then seemed to focus on the fact that people were paying $65,000 and the implication was that they were buying their way up Everest with that kind of money.

But, that's an impression in a lot of people's heads that that money went straight into somebody's bank account and it doesn't for an Everest expedition. No, Everest climbing is very expensive, by being on the other side of the planet and all the logistics involved, a responsible trip to Everest can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. To employ good Sherpas, a strong team for the length of the trip, to get oxygen in place, to have some kind of back-up, maybe some access to medical care, etc. etc.

So it is a very expensive enterprise, and when people look to do it on the cheap…we all know of advertisements, and people taking them up on it for $6,000, $10,000, $20,000 per person, and that's ok if all you need is the permit and the barest framework. If you're an experienced climber maybe that's all you need.

The worry for all of us is to see somebody less able to take advantage of that cheapest trip, yeah, and actually going for the absolute cheapest trip—then sure enough, there are no resources.

As an upward-end, people are still citing $20,000-$60,000, but you can tailor a trip to your needs and perhaps it can be more expensive than that. If you have less experience, and want to stack the deck in your favor, have more safety, it can go higher than that.

JENKINS: Guy, do you also want to pitch it here? Because I remember our conversations two years ago were fairly lengthy about this issue, and I think it's important for people to understand kind of what they're getting in the range of services on Everest.

COTTER: Yup, for sure. It's obviously something that all of us involved in the discussion of sourcing the different levels of service available, and interestingly enough, the guided expeditions—the more expensive ones—are more expensive because you're bringing in western guides Y you're paying them western guide fees. It is very difficult to fill expeditions like that. there are only a certain number of us who can operate guided trips and they're the ones obviously with all the services in place.

You can have a guided trip, which can be a ratio of one guide to three people. Tthe likes of what we offer—and I think what Alpine Ascents offers is similar—compared to what can be offered as a guided trip, that is one person who calls himself a guide whose in a permit on the north side with up to 29 people on one permit.

So therefore, the definition of "guided" is a little bit blurry, but the real definition of guided is a good guide-to-climber ratio, and therefore they are gonna be more expensive expeditions.

Then you've got different levels, you've got a commercially-led expedition, or a commercially-organized expedition, which is one which has a guide perhaps running the expeditions, but all the members are independent climbers. There's a lot of expeditions offering that level of service, and they are sort of in the $40,000 range. And then you've got the bottom level—the bottom-feeders that are out there—that are offering the real cheap-o trip, which really has not much to offer at all, and what has really been of concern. I believe, in the last few years is that there's been some Nepales trekking agencies that have seen that this can really be a cash cow, so what they're doing is offering trips at the bottom-end, which is services-only, so people get a permit.

They get perhaps a tent and often they can get some additional services on top of that, such as oxygen, maybe some food even, and get to go on these trips. And it's interesting to see the proliferation of these types of bottom-rung trips because there's a lot more of these than there are guided groups at the more expensive end.

And these are the likes of the trips that David Sharpe was on, for instance. And as Dave mentioned, they don't have any back-ups or services, these are just selling seats, and they're selling them often to anyone who's prepared to come along and throw some money down.