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This is mostly trekking related evacuation, which is far easy and lower impact. EBC is about 100x cheaper overall per person than summit attempts, if not 500x.

And Sagarmartha national park and the whole valley up to EBC is an amazingly beautiful part of the world.

The "Everest Economy" is worth around $500 million annually.

Thats surprisingly low.

to be fair, the approach is usually covered in snowpack for most of the year, so impact is minimal by foot traffic. However, most of the protection is fixed, which could have lasting effects if something were to rip out.

For other mountains with dry summits in the summers, I would agree: the effects of erosion are frightening

Do people still leave oxygen bottles up there? And what do they do with all of their excrement?

The saying is that the snowpack gives back everything you put in it.