Everest, Inc.

Since the 1980s, climbing Mount Everest has changed from a rare feat of elite mountaineering into a commercial service anyone with enough money and fitness can attempt. Will Cockrell traces how that happened, interviewing more than a hundred Western and Sherpa climbers, guides, clients, writers, and filmmakers. He follows the guiding industry from its improvised early years through the era when Western companies dominated and into the present, when Nepali-owned operators run most of the business. Everest, Inc. gives full weight to the Sherpa know-how, imported technology, and permanent infrastructure that made the modern climb possible, and it reckons honestly with the crowding, risk, and commerce that came with it.