First have a shoeshine

Call me old fashioned. But for me, the special appeal of expeditions is also to leave everyday’s comfort zone and live a simpler life in the mountains, in the ice or anywhere else. This must not mean that you have to mutate into a caveman. But if, as happened recently on Mount Kilimanjaro, I see Korean mountaineers who, just after arriving at the Kibo Hut at 4,720 meters, first let local helpers dust off their shoes, I can only shake my head. Not as embarrassing, but similarly disturbing, I feel it when a tent camp on a mountain hardly differs from your own apartment. Even on Mount Everest!

Real bed and laptop workplace

Luxury tent for Everest BC

This spring, the Russian expedition operator “7 Summits Club” boasts about a so-called “luxury camp” on the Tibetan north side of the highest mountain in the world. Each expedition member is provided his own spacious and heated two-chamber tent. There is a carpet and a real bed with a wooden frame including down bedclothes in the “bedroom” and a laptop workplace with table and chair in the “anteroom”. “The climber should restore his strength as much as possible, should not get sick, should keep his high moral spirit and desire to go to the end,” the operator justifies the luxury in Everest Base Camp.

Not yet the end of the line

Everest ascent support of tomorrow?

However, this could also backfire. What if the pampered climbers suddenly have no more desire to give up their luxury accommodation? Maybe they even want to add a third chamber to their private tent, for shower and toilet, the latter of course with a heated seat. And why must well-being be limited to the base camp? The hitherto poorly equipped high camps could also be pepped up with floor heating and four-poster bed. And while you’re at it, why can the fixed ropes not be replaced by tow ropes, as they are used in children’s ski lifts? Jumars would be superfluous, struggling on the ascent would come to an end. Also moving sidewalks as used on big airports would be an option. So it’s not yet the end of the luxury line. However, the Chinese-Tibetan authorities would have to raise the Everest electricity fee of $ 50 per climber. Otherwise, they will soon be in the red.