High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Kodas
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 4199
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 1401302734
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.522
EAN: 9781401302733
ASIN: 1401302734
Publication Date: February 5, 2008
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Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 gift for friend April 12, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I gave this as a gift and don't know about it. My friend hasn't read it yet but someone who did, loved it. The delivery was expeditios and I'm always pleased with Amazon's good service
Good Book April 12, 2008
This certainly is a must read for anyone interested traveling through Himalayas. The author provides an inside view into some of the concerns that have been building in the region as tourism to the Himalayas has increased. Unfortunately, this reality is often seen in any quest for fame or money. Even though this book details the shadier side of Everest, it provides a realistic point of view that, it's not all that glorious. It's interesting to learn the personal sacrifices that climbers make to reach the top of the world. I guess most of the drama is brought on by the climbers themselves. Not surprising as most of these climbers have to be a little off to attempt Everest to begin with.
Mother Goddess--who are all these people? April 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Base Camp on the North (Tibetan) side of Mt. Everest is situated on the vast flat moraine at the end of the Rongbuk Glacier. In our 1986 expedition, the British SAS camp lay a quarter-mile away. A half-mile across the valley was a California team. And that was it. There was a certain purity to the endeavor. As twilight fell, all the ghosts of Everest seemed to swirl around in the desolate emptiness of this barren plain.
What a difference today. Author Michael Kodas describes a lawless wild-West atmosphere more akin to a gold rush mining town rife with aggressive thieves and prostitutes, delusional amateur "climbers" anxious to buy fame and glory at any price, and--the main subject of this excellent book--the subculture of criminally incompetent hustlers ready to sell it to them.
The author tries not completely successfully to weave several related tales into a single whole: his own attempts to climb the mountain; the abandonment by his guide and death of a 69-year climber. And the numerous hustlers selling dreams they cannot deliver.
The book centers on George Dijmarescu and Gustavo Lisi and the low-budget expedition services they (separately) ran by advertising themselves as Everest summiters, and the holders of various official French and Italian guide qualifications. None of these claims were true (although Dijarescue did eventually summit the mountain). Their low prices depended on using safety ropes put up by others, cheap, defective oxygen systems, and even sleeping in tents placed high on the mountain by other expeditions for their own use. Their concern for their clients in desperate trouble always seemed to be that of leaving them to their fate, or expecting the Sherpa porters from other expeditions to rescue them. After abandoning his stricken 69-year old client near the summit, Lisi descended to his own tent to call his mother on a (borrowed) Satellite phone, assuring her he himself was all right. He made no attempt to rescue his client. Hours passed before he even began making inquiries as to his client's fate. Dijmarescu's explosive temper led to numerous beatings and threats of extreme violence against staff and clients.
"The fate of Everest in an age of greed" is the subheading of this well-researched work. It is depressing beyond words to learn how strongly many wealthy middle-aged men feel the need--the desperate need--to purchase their own Everest summit. The contrast of these dilatants to the real men who over 60 years (1920's-1980's) climbed the mountain "because it is there" could not be greater. And now the field has become even more clogged with the addition of the politically-correct riff-raff: the first one-legged climber, the first blind climber, the youngest climber (15), the oldest climber (71), along with the long list of "first" climbers from each nation. What ever happened to mountaineering for the glorious fun of it?
very good overall view. April 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Michael Kodas gives a good overall view of what goes on Everest, which is sad, because in the end it's just another tourism attraction, and the sport gets lost. Everest is no longer the sacred mountain of Tibetans and Nepalese, everyone seems to want to turn a profit.
 The seamy side of Himalayan mountaineering - Lofty altitude - Corrupt attitudes April 4, 2008
Michael Kodas offers a grim first-person account of malevolence at great heights. It's not enough to fear the altitude, avalanche, hypoxia, pulmonary and cerebral edema, frostbite, crevasse fall, etc. There are so many different ways to die in high altitude mountaineering. We tend to think of lofty heights and lofty human heroics.
Forget about it. Kodas offers vignettes of human evil in the form of indifferent guides who are in it just for the money, neglect of inexperienced clients, theft, assaults, wife-beating, physical bullying, prostitution and drug rings at 8000 meters.
Forget also any exalted view of the pristine elevations. Man has managed to spoil and soil yet another realm as he tries to "conquer" mountains again and again. Kodas paints a rather depressing picture of corruption and man's inhumanity to man at the Himalayan level. Well, it happens enough at sea level - why not at 8000 meters above? Somehow we think that elevated heights will spur exalted behavior.
Kodas reminds us that such is, sadly, not the case. The commercialization of Everest expeditions, the growth of inexperienced climbers who have "conquering Everest" on their life's "bucket list," greed on the part of shyster guiding services - all provide a yeasty recipe for a most unsavory dish.
Kodas is stronger at portraying the problems than in offering any solutions. His book does not pretend to be any kind of policy book, though, purporting to offer specific reforms. Perhaps the era of heroic mountaineering - and mountaineers - is dead, as the almighty dollar becomes the real peak to scale.
Enlightening if somewhat depressing.
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