[kerkeslager]

I'm a climber, who has summitted a few of the world's tallest mountains in South America. That may sound like a brag but it isn't--just as with the people who climb Everest, I had a guide, who did most of the work. Later on I got a lot more skills and fitness, and did some smaller mountains on my own skills (with partners, not with a guide). But really, I'm more invested in sport/trad climbing, and I am, at best, a novice mountaineer. I just know enough to know that the achievement Everest climbers are claiming is basically nothing.

The people I've talked to who have summitted Everest, with one exception (a retired sherpa), know literally nothing about how to mountaineer. They don't know how to fix a rope--literally one of the most basic, easy skills. They can't climb 5.6, and in fact don't even know what 5.6 is. They don't know how to analyze snowpack. If these people attempted, for example, a winter ascent of Long's Peak, which is many people's first summit, they would likely die, because they are even less prepared than beginner mountaineers who usually attempt this mountain.

My investment in this is that beginners showing up with money and claiming reputation because they summitted the world's tallest mountain detracts from the reputation of every other practitioner of the sport. It would be like someone claiming to have run a marathon when they actually were pulled by someone else in a rickshaw--and yes, the colonialist metaphor there is intentional. It's an insult to anyone who actually puts in the work to learn and get fit for mountaineering, and their buying their way to the top makes the mountain inaccessible to real mountaineers.