Everest, Inc. The Renegades and Rogues Who Built an Industry at the Top of the World

Featuring original interviews with Everest mountain guides and climbers, this is “a fast-moving, nuanced account of the peak’s transformation from the ultimate mountaineering challenge into a booming business opportunity” (Joshua Hammer, New York Times bestselling author).

Anyone who has read Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air or has seen a recent photo of climbers standing in line to get to the top of Everest may think they have a sense of what the world’s highest mountain is like. It’s an extreme landscape where bad weather and incredible altitude can kill; an overcrowded, trashed-out recreation destination; and a place where the rich exploit local Sherpas while padding their egos—and social media feeds.

There’s some truth to these clichés, but they’re a sliver of the story. Unlike any book to date, Everest, Inc. is the definitive account of how a few daring entrepreneurs paired raw courage and naked ambition to get paying clients safely up and down Everest. Until the late eighties, such a thing was considered impossible. Within a few years, Everest guiding was a burgeoning industry. Today, ninety percent of the people on the mountain are clients or employees of guided expeditions.

Studded with quotes from original interviews with more than a hundred Western and Sherpa climbers, clients, writers, and filmmakers—including Jimmy Chin and Conrad Anker—Everest, Inc. foregrounds the colorful voices of the people who have made the mountain what it is today. As professional climber and author Freddie Wilkinson says, “Whether you are thinking about taking a crack at the world’s highest peak or are simply an armchair mountaineer trying to make sense of the complex dynamics driving the modern Everest industry, Everest, Inc. should be required reading.”

Will Cockrell has spent more than twenty years as a senior editor, writer, and consultant for national magazines including Men’s Journal, Outside, Men’s Fitness, and GQ. His work has been awarded by the American Society of Magazine Editors and Professional Publishers Association UK. A former outdoor guide, Cockrell has covered Everest throughout his career, and has visited Everest base camp in Nepal. He lives with his family in Los Angeles, California. Find more at his website, WillCockrell.com.