Back in 2013, we did a mocking piece on the potential for a McDonald’s atop Mount Everest. 13 years later and the mountain is now plagued by rich tourists on an ego trek, with some businesses offering luxury suites at base camp whilst handholding to the peak.

Thusly, we’re here to explore the topic and why if you pay us $200,000… we’re not going up the thing.

The 5 Star Capitalist Joys of Mount Everest

Mount Everest has turned into a fairground ride for rich people eager to spend up to $200,000 a trip. As you can see with the above business (one of many) called Seven Summit Treks. That includes a:

• Stay at a luxury base camp (with personal on-site barista)
• Followed by lowly paid sherpas carrying all their gear up the mountain for them
• Whilst the rich person (often an inexperienced climber) is frogmarched to the top
• If they reach the peak (and many don’t, even after spending all that money) they can then complete their ego exercise and pretend they’re an intrepid adventurer

Now, we’re sure Seven Summit Treks delivers a great service and all that. But this disconnect from reality the people paying for this service is just everything wrong the world.

It does intrigue us, though, with many of these trips marketed as a “luxury” experience. Keeping in mind Everest is a hellish dangerous place with a notorious “Death Zone” where at least 346 people have died. But! For a sweet $200k you can get access to all kinds of fancy pants stuff.

There’s one called Rugged Luxury Expeditions that offers a Everest Base Camp Trek & Stay:

“Two nights in insulated geodesic domes beneath the Khumbu Icefall. A champagne welcome on the glacier. A barista-made cappuccino at the highest camp on earth. An ice climbing clinic on the same ice the world’s great mountaineers train on. And a shared helicopter out, tracing the valley back over every village you walked through.”

There’s also a personal 60-minute massage provided post trek. And that helicopter flight out of there as they’re too lazy to complete the trek out on foot. Spending $200k to go up Everest and treat it like a luxury resort.

Now, a certain political sect would read these criticisms and accuse of being “just jealous” or whatever, but where is the moral conscience in all this? Wasting all that money on a bragging exercise so you can pretend you defeated nature and scaled the daunting, impossible magnitude of Mount Everest.

This isn’t the politics of envy, it’s about injustice. The wealth inequality across the world is desperate and these people can piss away this money on another ego exercise. Even though it’s the low paid sherpas who do all the work.

To top this off, there’s no guarantee the customers will reach the peak.

Everest is now so crowded with tourists, there are often big queues to get to the top. The weather conditions up there means there are select times when it’s safe to reach the peak. There are these famous pictures from 2019 of the queue to the top. Some climbers wait there for hours (and a bunch died whilst waiting).

On the plus, side if they do make it back they’ll get a glass of champagne and a massage. So, there’s that.

But it is darkly absurd. The capitalist sense of worldwide domination, anything is possible (for the right price), go to a 5-star base camp, get a base camp $200k massage and cappuccino, then freeze to death in a queue of 200 people waiting to reach the peak. Life goals.

The Pollution Problem

Another big problem here is the mass tourism on the mountain has led to between 30 and 50 tonnes of waste. That means discarded tents, oxygen canisters, climbing gear, and human crap.

The Nepalese government sets rules for climbing the mountain and in 2026 has made these much more strict. That includes a new regulation demanding proof tourists do have mountaineering skills (previously, you could just pay the money and then expect to saunter up).

There are fines in place of $4,000 if tourists didn’t back rubbish. National Geographic notes:

“Anyone visiting Mount Everest has to pay a $4,000 deposit and the money is refunded if the person returns with eight kilograms (18 pounds) of garbage—the average amount a single person produces during the climb.”

But being rich people, that’s kind of like buying the Sunday paper for them, so they often leave the stuff behind and pay the fines.

2026 regulations (see Nepal’s new Mount Everest law) aren’t in place yet, though, which has led to a pre-new-rules surge of tourists eager to get up the mountain. All before it becomes much more difficult and, you know, they have to actually be decent mountaineers before trying.

Then we look at the marking spiel for Seven Summits and vomit a little bit inside.

“Our spa is fully stocked with a massage table, heater, electric blanket, relaxing music, and of course our very talented massage therapist to help cure the aches and pains from upper mountain climbing exclusively for our CTSS team.”

As remember, dear readers, that if you’re poor you should work harder.