Clash of civilisations on Everest

The fist-fight near Camp 3 on Mt Everest on Saturday between Sherpas and three foreign climbers has been jokingly called the highest brawl in world history, but mountaineering experts say it underlines a growing problem of the commercialization of climbing in the Himalaya.

Jonathan Griffith from Britain, Ueli Steck from Switzerland and Simone Moro from Italy are noted mountaineers, who were injured when high altitude Sherpas who were fixing ropes up the Lhotse face roughed them up and damaged their tents. Steck is said to be injured and being airlifted to Kathmandu Monday.

Jonathan Griffith (r), Ueli Steck (l) on a Facebook picture on the way to Kathmandu.

Mountaineering experts, however, say that the incident highlights the growing clash between commercial expedition-style climbing, and free alpine style climbing on the world’s highest mountains. This year, there are more than 250 mountaineers on Mt Everest including a joint India-Nepal military expedition.

Alpine-style climbers do not use Sherpas and climb in small groups of two or three without oxygen. Griffith, Steck and Moro are the world’s most noted climbers who climb alpine-style and have done first ascents of many of the world’s most difficult faces.

Moro climbed Shisha Pangma South (8008 m) without oxygen in 27 hours in 1996, using skis in the descent from 7100 m. It was during his winter ascent of Annapurna South Face that his climbing companions Anatoli Boukreev and Dimitri Sobolev were killed in an avalanche.

Simone Moro’s Facebook profile picture.

Steck climbed the difficult north face of Eiger when he was 18. He has been called one of the three best alpinists in Europe by Climb magazine for his “Khumbu-express” during which he solo-climbed the north wall of Cholatse (6440 m) and the east wall of Taboche (6505 m). He was part of the daring but unsuccessful rescue bid of Spanish climber Iñaki Ochoa de Olza in 2008, who had collapsed at nearly 8000 m below the summit of Annapurna.

When climbers start punching each other on Mt Everest it is more than just “mountaineering rage”, Sunday’s incident seems to point to a clash of civilizations and two types of climbing styles, as well as between commercial expeditions and purists, that was bound to happen sooner or later.