No dice for this would-be Everest climber who tried to avoid paying the $11,000 climbing permit. Photo: Facebook
In what might be the most dirtbag maneuver of all time, a climber hoping to summit Mount Everest skipped out on paying the $11,000 climbing permit and evaded officials by hiding in a cave high on the world’s tallest peak.
In an apparent effort to avoid being caught, the South African climber and filmmaker, Ryan Sean Davy, 43, bolted from base camp after spotting Nepalese officials. The government climbing officers eventually detained him at his hideout, though. Davy apparently had his sights set on an unassisted ascent, a rare feat that’s led some to question his judgment.
“I saw him alone near base camp so I approached him and he ran away,” one of the climbing officers told reporters.
Fellow climbers didn’t take kindly to Davy’s attempt to dodge the permit, either. On Facebook, he wrote that he was “harassed at base camp to a point that I honestly thought I was going to get stoned to death right there,” adding that he was “treated like a murderer”. He believes an expedition outfitter turned him in to officials.
Davy has told the story from his own perspective in Facebook posts, explaining that he realized he didn’t have enough money for the permit because of “hidden costs,” and “even if I did they would have declined it because I had no previous mountaineering experience on record,” he wrote. Nevertheless, Davy reportedly made it to camp two, at an altitude of 21,000.
“I was ashamed that I couldn’t afford the permit after all the help, preparation and what everybody had done for me during my training, it would have been a total embarrassment to turn around and accept defeat because of a piece of paper,” he wrote. “This news is probably going to make a lot of people upset with me and I really hope you’ll all forgive me.”
This video purports to show Davy training for his Himalayan expedition by wearing a high altitude-simulation mask:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLZhg4ujMU8
The government officials ordered Davy to head to Kathmandu to pay the fine, but has yet to do so. Davy is now facing a fine of $22,000. “He was telling us that he didn’t have enough money so he would take the trekking route to reach Kathmandu,” one of the climbing officers told the BBC.
Nepal earns $4.5 million a year in climbing permits, which are just one of the costs of nabbing the summit of the world’s highest peak, an undertaking that can cost $75,000.
Despite Davy’s limited record of high-altitude climbing, recent social media posts he made suggest he climbed to 1,000 feet below the summit of 23,000-foot Pumori Peak, and summited 20,000-foot Lebuche Peak.