Adventurer criticizes mountains of garbage First blind Mount Everest conqueror: "I am appalled"
He was the first blind person on the roof of the world. For US adventurer Erik Weihenmayer, today's onslaught of mountaineers in the Himalayan region has its downsides.
28.04.2025, 07:12
28.04.2025, 07:37
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- Erik Weihenmayer was the first blind person to climb Mount Everest.
- He criticizes the massive environmental pollution in the Himalayan region.
- Weihenmayer also criticizes the rising costs of Everest climbs, which are increasingly turning the adventure into a privilege for the rich.
The American Erik Weihenmayer was the first blind person to climb Mount Everest in 2001 - and is now particularly appalled by the littering of the Himalayan region.
"Mount Everest has a terrible environmental problem," says the 56-year-old adventurer in an interview with the German Press Agency. In view of the masses of mountaineers in the region, however, this is not an isolated case.
When he climbed Ama Dablam a few years ago, people threw bags of garbage off the side of the mountain, Weihenmayer reports. When he asked why they were doing this, he was told: "It's a valley where nobody goes, so it's okay." This horrified him greatly.
Weihenmayer went blind as a teenager
Weihenmayer was born with an eye disease. He went completely blind as a teenager. Today he lives in Colorado. Among other things, he has crossed the Grand Canyon by kayak and climbed the highest mountain on every continent (Seven Summits).
When he conquered the 8849-metre-high mountain back then, it wasn't about the record. "The record was just a by-product," says Weihenmayer. "The summit is just one part of the mountain. I climbed it, every edge of the mountain. That makes me proud."
The cost of the ascent continues to rise
It's not just the garbage in the region that worries him - it's also the fact that the cost of the ascent continues to rise. "It's becoming a kind of game for rich people," says Weihenmayer. At the beginning of the year, the Nepalese government announced that it would be increasing the fees for foreign mountaineers to obtain a permit to climb Mount Everest by more than 35 percent.
The official fee of 11,000 dollars, which is currently charged for climbing the world's highest mountain during the peak spring climbing season from March to May, will increase to 15,000 dollars (around 12,400 Swiss francs) per person, said Narayan Prasad Regmi, head of the tourism department at the Ministry of Tourism. This is to apply from September.