How Everest Was Turned into an Industry
‘Everest, Inc.,’ a new book from veteran outdoor journalist Will Cockrell, documents the mountain’s transformation, first by Western guides and climbers, and now by Sherpas and Nepalis
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When Will Cockrell told me he was writing a book about Mount Everest, he couldn’t see the roll of my eyes. But he’s perceptive enough to have picked up on my lukewarm commitment to being interviewed, and so I felt a need to explain that there are already quite a few Everest books out there. My coffee table is in danger of imminent collapse under their weight; my shelves sag with Everest encyclopedias and memoirs. It’s been done, I told him.
Listen carefully, he said: This will be different. It will be the story of the entire guiding industry that was created on and around the world’s highest mountain. He planned to call it Everest, Inc.
