Sherpas on Everest: ‘This Is a Sacred Mountain. We Need to Respect It.’

Eleven deaths. Dangerously long lines to reach the summit. Piles of garbage. Melting ice revealing the tombs of frozen bodies.

Those are the images from Mount Everest this climbing season, triggering calls for new restrictions on who can ascend the world’s tallest peak.

The Sherpas, an ethnic group from the Himalayan region near Everest, have been watching as the mountain they revere—and which is a source of work for many of them—slips further away from sanctity with each passing year.

Dr. Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, a cultural anthropologist now based in Seattle, tells The Daily Beast she believes there is a way for the sacred mountain and the mountaineers to co-exist.