Responding to recent reports in the media that Everest has become far too easy to climb, the government of Nepal has announced a new set of arbitrary criteria in an effort to limit the numbers and produce a better quality of climber on the world’s highest mountain.
A list of those who will no longer be issued permits to climb Mount Everest in future include:
- People with size 14 feet. Big feet play havoc with the staircase of steps carefully crafted up the Lhotse Face.
- Dentists. Use of electric toothbrushes too close to the West Shoulder has been known to trigger avalanches.
- Banjo players. There is a concern that Banjo music may provoke fights at Base Camp.
- Scotsmen. Following a man in a kilt up a ladder in the Khumbu Icefall is too unpleasant to think about.
- Decorators. Nobody wants a tin of magnolia paint falling on them as they are crossing a crevasse.
- Dwarves. Dwarves have been known to turn up at Base Camp ill-equipped with the wrong sort of axe.
- Elves. Their pointy ears are more susceptible to frostbite.
- Single people. Sherpas have been saying for a long time that masturbation at Base Camp angers the mountain gods, and causes stormy weather.
- Pathologists. There is a danger they may spend too long examining the corpses that litter every square inch of Everest’s summit route, causing queues of up to four hours on the Hillary Step.
- Government liaison officers. There have been complaints about there being far too many liaison officers at Base Camp in recent years and … oh, hang on, where are they?
Responding to criticism that Nepal’s Ministry of Tourism are always making silly announcements about Everest and nothing ever happens, a spokesman said they would be setting up a committee who would adjourn to the newly constructed Base Camp toilet to consider the matter, and a press release would be issued in due course to clarify the situation.
A complete list of those who will be excluded from Everest in future years can be found in the Guardian newspaper.
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