The idea of reaching the summit of Mount Everest is recognized around the world as one of the greatest feats a human being can accomplish in nature. As of 2018, estimates were that some 4,000 people had ever made it to the summit since Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first to do so. That may sound like a lot, but considering Hillary and Norway reached the summit in 1953, it works out to just over 60 people per year managing to climb the most famous mountain in the world.
Clearly the pure height and difficulty of Everest are its most unique features, so to speak. However, the argument can also be made that the exhaustive focus on its summit actually keeps the mountain from being advertised or recognized internationally as a place that can be enjoyed. Consider the following….
Online Content
When you look up the average world wonder – natural or man-made – you tend to get pages and pages of results about history, tourism recommendations, interesting new discoveries, and the like. Google “Stonehenge” and you’ll see guides, histories, facts, and theories; look up Victoria Falls and you’ll see videos, World Heritage Site listings, and tourist reviews. Search for places like the Amazon rainforest or the Great Barrier Reef and you’ll see more troubling results – but they’re at least meant to call attention to conservation needs.
When you look up Mount Everest, you’ll still see some basic facts, but you’ll also run into stories like this one, focusing on scary numbers about how many climbers perish trying to reach the summit. You might see news stories about the most recent deaths, or suggestions that you search for data on the same subject. Now, this is not intended to belittle those statistics, nor to make Everest seem safer than it is. Any attempt to reach the summit is extraordinarily dangerous and should be treated as such. However, the relentless focus on this single aspect of the destination does paint it in a different – and perhaps slightly unfair – light.
Video Games
World wonders don’t have quite as much of a presence in video games as one might expect, but when they do pop up here and there they tend to be approached playfully, or else almost mythologized. The Northern Lights, considered a natural wonder, are mimicked as a feature of a fantasy world in the popular game Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls. In Assassin’s Creed: Origins, the Egyptian pyramids are presented in all of their fantastic glory. The free pokies at New Zealand’s casino game platforms display places like the Nile River, the Sahara Desert, and the Roman Colosseum as fun, cartoonish slot reel backgrounds.
Mount Everest is seldom if ever presented in a similar fashion. It is instead, for the most part, left alone by the gaming industry altogether. Everest doesn’t have its own slot game or really any noteworthy online arcade. The closest we can think of to its appearing in a major console game would be in Far Cry 3, which takes place in a fictional Himalayan-esque land but only shows its highest mountains in the distance. Some Everest gaming experiences have emerged on virtual reality in recent years, but they’re almost more like virtual tours than games. It seems that for the most part the mountain – likely because it’s so closely associated with danger- isn’t viewed as suitable for more playful gaming content.
Film
Mount Everest does have a place in film – but here again, the focus is almost exclusively on how dangerous it is, or on people who are trying to make the summit. Perhaps the most well-known example – 2015’s Everest – is a dramatized true story about a climbing party caught in a fearsome blizzard. The Climb, a 2007 documentary, tells the story of Laurie Skreslet and Pat Morrow, the first Canadians to summit Everest, who did so again 25 years later – but it also covers the fact that four of their original fellow climbers died in the effort.
Again, we don’t mean to discount any of this information. The summit of Everest makes for a dangerous climb that only well-prepared experts should consider attempting, and even then it can be perilous. There’s no reason, however, for these factors to keep Everest out of pop culture and mainstream attention the way they seem to because there are ways of visiting the mountain that doesn’t entail trying to reach its peak.
Per this guide, as well as others, you do not have to be an expert to trek to the Everest base camp. While it’s not quite the pure feat that reaching the summit is, the base camp still makes for extraordinary achievement, a lifelong memory, and a good challenge. One does need to be in relatively good physical condition to make this trek, and thorough preparation is still in order. The danger is not entirely removed. But the base camp offers a more reasonable travel option that is far too often overlooked as all eyes naturally drift upward toward the peak.
We’re not suggesting a particular ad campaign from any particular entity. But it would be nice to see more travel sites and guides focus on the distinction, such that Everest could become more accessible, and perhaps present a more approachable face to the world.
