“But maybe, I thought, the price of climbing Everest is now being calculated in a different way. More and more people, it seems, are willing to pay a cash price for the opportunity, but not a physical price for preparedness: the gradual development of body and spirit as you climb lower-level peaks, moving from the simple to the complex and finally to the 8,000ers. Isn’t there accomplishment to be felt in such a process, I wondered, or has high-altitude climbing forever been changed by the use of oxygen, advances in technologies, and the proliferation of services that allow the marginally prepared to climb higher and higher?”