Nepal protests at Everest video call by climber Hughes
Nepal's tourism ministry has demanded to know why a British climber made a video call from the summit of Mount Everest without permission.
Daniel Hughes reached the top of the world's highest peak on 19 May, and spoke live to BBC News from there using his smartphone.
Nepalese officials have summoned his expedition leader, David Hamilton, to be questioned by a committee.
An official said Mr Hughes had broken the rules on broadcasting.
Dipendra Poudel from the mountain section of Nepal's Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Aviation told the BBC: "The mountaineering rules say if you want to make a live telecast from the mountain, which is a restricted area, you have to get a permit first and inform us early about what you're going to do.
"It costs around $2,000 (£1,324) to get this permit."
Ministry officials said mountaineers found guilty of violating Nepal's tourism laws could be banned from obtaining climbing permits for 10 years or banned from entering the country for five years.
Mr Hughes, who has now left Nepal, aimed to raise £1m ($1.6m) for the British charity Comic Relief by climbing Mount Everest and carrying out what he said would be the world's first video call from the summit.
During the call the climber wore an oxygen mask as well as a red nose, which is the Comic Relief symbol.
'Grey' rules
The expedition leader told the BBC that he was trying to reach an amicable settlement with the ministry. Mr Hamilton said he had been operating in Nepal for the past 20 years without infringing local laws and sensibilities.
"If we realised this filming was going to be an issue, we would have tried to head it off at the beginning.
"As far as we see it, the rules are a little bit grey about shooting short video clips and putting them on websites."
The BBC's former Nepal correspondent, Joanna Jolly, says the incident demonstrates that the country's broadcasting regulations have not kept up with technological progress.
May is the most popular month for climbing Everest due to favourable weather, and the past weeks have seen several firsts on the world's highest mountain.
They include a record 11th ascent by a British mountaineer, the first by a Saudi woman and the ascent of the oldest person yet to conquer the peak, 80-year-old Yuichiro Miura, from Japan.
Here is Joanna Jolly's full Analysis that inhabits the articles sidebar.
The problem is the rules and regulations regarding broadcasting in Nepal haven't caught up with developments in technology.
In the past, if you were a film crew making a commercial film, this would be clear from the amount of equipment you had with you. All film crews are required to pay for a filming permit and also inform the government of their activities.
Now many people, like Daniel Hughes, are filming short video clips and posting them to personal websites. They're also making video calls on smart phones. The question is whether this also qualifies as commercial broadcasting, and where do you draw the line.
The Nepali government were no doubt embarrassed that Daniel Hughes made the first ever live video broadcast from the top of Mount Everest without their knowledge.
It seems the laws will have to be rewritten to keep up with the advancements in technology.
Witness egg cascading down the features of the brutish Nepalitano parliament, that cant even legislate abreast of the iPhone release schedule. In a more enlightened age, ceaseless broadcast of the mysterious and unattainable to our fat, undreaming fingertips would be welcomed. For this webisode of "BBCs Top 10 Serious Climbs" marks a heroic act of journalism undertaken on behalf of a stone age society. For who does not reach Everest's wicked high summit, and gaze down into the depths and distance of their physical accomplishment, and think, "I wonder how many likes this will get on Facebook?"? Thanks in advance for your thoughtful and heartfelt replies.
littlegreenpills posted:climbing mount everest is pretty pointless now
When i hear someone tell me they just got back from their everest ascension my first reaction, unilaterally, is to scream "Played. Out." into their flinching fucking face.
Expeditions that try to reach Everest's 29,029-foot peak in a typical year. "There were just people everywhere," one climber, Ayisha Jessa of London, tells the International Business Times.
3,500
Conservative estimate of the number of people who have reached the top in the past 60 years. Everest is no longer "a wilderness experience," says mountaineer Graham Hoyland. "It's a McDonald's experience."
234
Climbers who reached the top of Everest in just one day in 2012.
13
Tons of garbage that the annual Eco Everest Expedition has cleaned up between Everest base camp and the summit since 2008. The refuse littering Everest's slopes includes empty oxygen bottles and torn tents — and lots and lots of human waste. "The two standard routes, the Northeast Ridge and the Southeast Ridge, are not only dangerously crowded but also disgustingly polluted," climber Mark Jenkins writes in National Geographic, "with garbage leaking out of the glaciers and pyramids of human excrement befouling the high camps."
4.4
Tons of garbage picked up this year by a joint Indian-Nepali team, the first of its kind.
2.5
Tons of that garbage classified as "bio-hazardous waste."
1.5
Tons of garbage that was brought down the mountain by climbers and collected by 15 artists from Nepal. They used the haul, which included oxygen cylinders and scraps from a helicopter that crashed into Everest in the 1970s, to make 74 pieces of art. The work is being sold (at prices ranging from $17 to $2,400), and some of the proceeds are going to the Everest Summiteers Association, which collaborated on the project and was the first group to organize an Everest clean-up in 2005.
240
Approximate number of people who have died trying to reach the top. Most of the corpses are still on the mountain, frozen in the "death zone" that starts 26,000 feet up.
4,000
Deposit, in U.S. dollars, that the Nepalese government now requires climbers to pay before heading up the mountain. They risk losing the money if they don't bring down all of their trash.
10
Tons of garbage experts estimate still remains on Everest. "You can't necessarily blame the climbers, especially inexperienced ones, for their littering habit," Jenkins writes in National Geographic. "Even under the best conditions, climbing the tallest mountain in the world is exhausting, dangerous work. Dropping used supplies on the mountain rather than carrying it with them can save vital energy and weight... But the accumulated trash is still steadily ruining one of the most unique places on Earth."
I'm just saying that we should reserve knowledge of Everest's peak for the fucking rich tourists who get sherpa'd up and down in a cascade of oxygen tanks and poop each day... and using concepts like holiness to mask my intentions. Its called shilling.
gastarbeiter posted:I thought this thread would be about Femen pulling some new stunt in a cathedral/church/mosque
That doesnt make sense because Femen is ideologically correct.
roseweird posted:why do so many people want to climb everest, there are so many other very tall mountains
because it sounds cooler to brag you went to everest then some other tall mountain.
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roseweird posted:why even climb any mountain though really
this is how people turn into Posters
lol
guidoanselmi posted:ive climbed mt logos, mt everest, and my mother's womb - but never livecast from any of those places. the nerve.
im climbing mt gox right now. the ascent is giddying but there are hazardous drops all over
littlegreenpills posted:especially if it's one of those tamed+civilized mountains e.g. Mount Fuji or anywhere in the Bavarian alps, with a well-engineered, minimum-grade, handrail-equipped and wheelchair accessible asphalt footpath running from foot to summit with benches every 100 yards and comfort stations every half mile
cable-tram or gtfo
As the scoriac rivers that roll -
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole -
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.
daddyholes posted:Counterpoint: Julius Evola was a dumb shit who proved incapable of grasping the basics of his pet topics
haters gonna hate. many enemies = much honor
Julius_Ebola posted:daddyholes posted:Counterpoint: Julius Evola was a dumb shit who proved incapable of grasping the basics of his pet topics
haters gonna hate. many enemies = much honor
see thats what i mean, no it doesnt