Often used interchangeably with terms such as “mountaineering” and “trekking”, mountain climbing is generally understood to mean scaling a mountain on foot or with the help of specialist climbing equipment. Many mountains can be climbed across all of the world's continents, some of the most well-known being Mount Everest, K2, and Mount Fuji. The most famous mountains in each continent are not always the
. That being said, Mount Everest, located in Nepal, is the
. Due to the dangers and adventure associated with mountain climbing, it is one of the more well-known mountain tourism activities. Surprisingly, however, it did not rank highly in the
, instead, the more sedate version of mountain climbing - walking and hiking - took the top spot.
Is the mountain climbing industry lucrative?
As of 2022, the
global revenue of the outdoor equipment market, of which mountain climbing gear formed a part, reached 23.04 billion U.S. dollars. Additionally, mountain climbing is also a component of the mountain tourism industry, which is a branch of tourism based around mountain-orientated activities. In a 2022 survey on the
share of tourists visiting a country because of mountain tourism, it was found that mountain tourism accounted for more than 60 percent of tourism in 10 percent of countries worldwide.
Dangers of mountain climbing
While a mountain’s height is not the definitive indicator of how challenging it is to climb, mountains that stand eight thousand meters above sea level are known as being in the “death zone”. This is the point where supplemental oxygen becomes necessary for humans to survive for long periods of time. Icy climbing conditions also add to the difficulty of climbing certain mountains. K2’s Godwin-Austen glacier is particularly hazardous, which was reflected by K2 claiming second place in the
global list of mountains with the highest share of deaths compared to climber summits, with a summit-to-death ratio of 22.8 percent.
What environmental impact has mountain climbing had?
A problem facing communities who live in the vicinity of well-climbed mountains is the human and material waste left behind by climbers. This is especially the case for communities reliant on drinking water sourced from mountains contaminated with this waste. In response, fees have been introduced by some national parks and governments to alleviate this impact. For instance, the Nepalese government took a
garbage management deposit from each expedition team to climb Mt. Everest of four thousand U.S. dollars, which was only returned if a specified amount of garbage was brought back by the expedition.
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