Climbing Mount Everest can be costly in terms of human life, with 288 fatalities recorded since 1922. But the world’s tallest peak can be costly in a financial sense, too, as a South African man learned this week.
South African filmmaker Ryan Sean Davy was caught earlier this month climbing Mount Everest without an $11,000 permit. He was arrested this week in Kathmandu, Nepal, USA Today reported. The 43-year-old had his passport confiscated and was told to report to Kathmandu after a tourism official discovered him climbing alone near the Everest Base Camp without a permit, which is required for all foreign climbers, the New York Times reported.
Davy could be fined up to $22,000, the Times reported.
In a Facebook post on May 8, Davy wrote that when he arrived at the base camp he realized that he could not afford a solo 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," Davy 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."
Davy said he climbed 24,000 feet alone before government officials spotted him.
"Expedition companies have no time for wannabe Everesters with no money so someone turned me in," he said. "I was harassed at base camp to a point that I honestly thought I was going to get stoned to death right there."
Davy traveled mostly on foot from the mountain's base camp to Kathmandu to turn himself in, the BBC reported.
"He is in good [health] although worried about his finances and the scale of the punishment he will receive," Davy's friend, Mohan Gyawali, told the BBC.
Credit: HO, AFP/Getty Images
Credit: HO, AFP/Getty Images
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