[All foreign climbers are required to obtain
an $11,000 permit that allows a mountaineer to climb Everest. Those caught
climbing without a permit face a fine of twice the fee they were trying to
evade. Fees are less for other mountains.]
By Rajneesh Bhandari and Nida
Najar
 |
|
Climbers
passed a glacier at the Mount Everest base camp in Nepal last year.
Credit
Tashi Sherpa/Associated Press
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KATHMANDU,
Nepal — A South African
filmmaker who tried to climb Mount Everest without a permit has been arrested
by the Nepali police in Kathmandu, officials there said on Wednesday.
The climber, Ryan Sean Davy, 43, was
apprehended by a tourism official near the Everest Base Camp earlier this month
and sent to Kathmandu, where he was arrested on Tuesday. He was prevented by
the police from speaking with reporters.
In addition to the charge of climbing Everest
without a permit, Mr. Davy was accused of a public offense after a verbal
altercation with the police.
All foreign climbers are required to obtain
an $11,000 permit that allows a mountaineer to climb Everest. Those caught
climbing without a permit face a fine of twice the fee they were trying to
evade. Fees are less for other mountains.
Mr. Davy, a filmmaker, now faces a $22,000
fine and possibly more, if he is found to have climbed any other mountains in
his time in Nepal. He could also be barred from the country for five years or
from mountaineering in Nepal for up to 10 years, while facing jail time if he
fails to pay the fine, the Nepali authorities said.
The arrest is the latest evidence of the
great lengths some mountaineers go to reach the peak of Mount Everest. Several
hundred climbers obtain the permits every year.
Mr. Davy arrived in Nepal on March 17, and
received a $55 permit to climb to the Everest Base Camp. He took a bus to Jiri,
east of Kathmandu, and hiked about 50 or so miles to Everest Base Camp, a
process that takes days.
But he did not stop there. Though he had no
permit, he climbed up through the Khumbu Icefall, a dangerous pass toward
Everest from the base camp.
“I had reached 23,000 feet after a six-hour,
fascinating, thrilling, magical, fantastical and awe-struck experience up the
Ice falls, it’s everything I imagined,” he wrote on Facebook. “I could have
stayed in there all day.”
He evidently returned to camp, because on May
5 he caught the attention of Gyanendra Shrestha, an official with the
Department of Tourism.
“He was walking down to the Everest Base
Camp, and I was suspicious of him as he was walking with all his mountaineering
dress even below all the tents,” he said.
Mr. Shrestha wondered why he was not camping
with the other climbers and stopped him. Mr. Davy admitted climbing without a
permit and tourism officials then confiscated his passport and ordered him to
report to the tourism department in Kathmandu.
Mr. Davy began his arduous journey back to
the capital. On May 8, he wrote a Facebook post apologizing for what he had
done, saying when he arrived at base camp, it became clear he lacked the funds
for a permit.
“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. “So I took a chance and
spent the little money I had on more gear to climb and practice on the
surrounding peaks for acclimatizing in preparing for a stealth entry onto
Everest.”
He was arrested after refusing to give a
written statement and arguing with the authorities, said a police inspector,
Tulasa Khatiwada.
“He has given us a three-page written
statement and we are investigating it,” said Dinesh Bhattarai, the head of the
tourism department. “He will be punished according to the law.”
Nepal set the price of climbing permits quite
high both to dissuade mountaineers from swarming the garbage-strewn site and to
provide much-needed revenue.
Rajneesh Bhandari reported from Kathmandu,
Nepal, and Nida Najar from New Delhi.