Mount Everest Overcome With Thieves, Prostitutes, and Con Men

The growing popularity of eco-vacationing and adventure sports brings with it a commercializing of what used to be a niche industry relegated to professionals and die-hard fanatics. Now nearly anyone can try their hand at summiting the tallest peak in the world, as long as they have the cash.

This is a lesson award-winning journalist Michael Kodas learned first hand in 2004 when he joined local mountain climbers from home on an expedition to Mount Everest. He anticipated an exhilarating and arduous adventure among a group of like-minded idealists. But on the Himalayan mountain, he discovered thieves, prostitutes, con men, and blackmailers.

In his shocking expose, High Crimes: the Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed, Kodas reveals the mountain's dark underside: unscrupulous con men who sell faulty oxygen tanks, drugs and prostitution in Base Camp, and people all but murdered in the cutthroat race to get to the top.

Michael Kodas will speak and sign High Crimes (HarperCollins, $24.95) on Thursday, March 6 at 7:30pm at Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO.

Hear Michael Kodas speak of his encounters with Mt. Everest's dark underside, then join us at Unity of Boulder Church on May 29th at 7:30pm to hear Lincoln Hall's first hand account of how he was left for dead on the slopes of Everest in 2006. (Ticket information coming soon.)