Sherpa Page #2

Man #4:
These archive images

show how lineups

cause long

and unnecessary delays.

Man #5:
More than 4,000 climbers

have been to the top of Everest.

600 people do it in a good year.

It has become a very necessary

part of the nepalese economy.

Man #6:
Expedition companies

charge up to $100,000

to clients wanting

to make the ascent.

Man #7:
Climbing Everest has

become a bucket list ambition

and a multi-million-dollar

industry.

Douglas:
This is a, you know,

big employer...

Lots and lots of people.

There are more sherpas

working on the mountain now

than there ever

have been in history.

But they only get

a small fraction of the pie.

Man #5:
The sherpa guides

earn up to $5,000

for a two-month expedition,

10 times the average annual pay

in their isolated homeland.

Douglas:

The whole Everest circus.

Just seems to get

bigger and bigger,

and this season is no exception.

Russell Brice's team

is just one of 38 expeditions

on the mountain this year.

All these people have to be

looked after,

and all their equipment has

to be moved up the mountain.

You have Google maps

photographing the route

to the summit.

There's a Hollywood

feature film.

There's even a guy in a wingsuit

trying to jump off the top

and fly all the way down.

Flisler:

So, we're here to put on one.

Of the most

ambitious television projects

in the history

of the media world.

So he'll be flying down here,

and we're gonna be

broadcasting it all live.

There's a reason

that superman movies

or Batman movies

and spider-man...

All these superheroes

are so popular.

I can do what those guys can do.

Wardle:
It's kind of daft,

but you know,

in the world of adventure,

people are always thinking

of new crazy things to do.

Douglas:

It's part of the deal now...

Is that they're all kinds

of strange notions

of what can be done on Everest

simply to attract attention.

One, two, three.

The way these commercial

expeditions climb Everest

is to establish a series

of higher and higher camps,

stocking them

over a period of weeks

with everything required

to give the clients

the best chance

of reaching the summit.

The government

doesn't permit equipment

to be flown up the mountain,

so everything that goes into

building these camps

has to be carried.

Douglas:
And it's the sherpas

that do that work,

including going through what is

its most dangerous section.

If you want to climb Everest

from the south,

you have to go

through the khumbu icefall.

It's the route up Everest most

commercial operators prefer,

partly because of

political uncertainty

on the northern side

of the mountain in Tibet,

which they'd rather avoid.

Mckinley:
The khumbu icefall

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