About The Book

Combining travel writing with an insight of the social and environmental problems caused by climbers, Douglas examines a region that is struggling to develop and change. It is the story of resourceful and cultured people finding a balance between the new and the old, who rely on the work Everest provides. But nearly fifty years on, there are scores of ascents nearly every season. There are stories of bodies and heaps of garbage abandoned on the slopes, of the loss of cultural identity among the Sherpas and Tibetans who live at the foot of Everest. Ed Douglas spent parts of 1995 and 1996 travelling in Nepal and Tibet, talking to politicians and environmentalists, to mountaineers and local people. He found a poor region struggling to develop, and encountering environmental problems far greater than rubbish left by climbers. Local people are resourceful and cultured, reliant on the work the mountaineers and the mountain provide, but striving to find a balance between the new and the old.

Editorial Reviews

“Ed Douglas has written a book, not so much about the mountain – the Chomolungma of the title – but about the whole are of the surrounding territory as it is nowadays: overrun, garbage-ridden, packaged, ‘spoiled’, but still dangerous, still throat-catchingly beautiful. Douglas is a sparkling writer, with a great turn of phrase.” -- Katherine Whitehorn, The Observer

“I had no prior interest in Everest or mountaineering, until I read Ed Douglas’ Chomonlungma Sings the Blues. Well written, it is particularly insightful on the damaging effects of adventure tourism.” -- Russell Celyn Jones, ‘Summer Choice’, The Times

“A wise and useful book, which has been asking to written ever since Hunt’s successful expedition in 1953. Douglas is a first-class journalist, whose interest in the Himalaya and its people enables him to get in close.” -- David Craig, Literary Review

“A very accomplished climber and noted commentator on climbing-related subjects, Douglas is here more interested in the resonance that Everest has both for the local peoples and the visitors to Nepal and Tibet. He writes elegantly and perceptively with a light and informed touch.” -- Jon Tinker, The Guardian

“Instead of gazing up at the mountain, Douglas does something which hardly anyone else bothers to do: he looks down, at the people and the life around it.” -- Charles Arthur, The Independent

“The authority and balanced judgements of this book will make it essential reading for those contemplating a trek to Tibet and Nepal.” -- Terry Gifford, Yorkshire Post

About Author

Ed Douglas

Ed Douglas is an award-winning journalist and author of thirteen books about mountains and their people, including the first full-length biography of Tenzing Norgay, who climbed Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953. He covered the Nepali civil war for The Observer and National Geographic, has interviewed the Dalai Lama for The Guardian and made over forty visits to the Himalaya, including a dozen mountaineering expeditions. He is a regular contributor to radio and television and was a consultant on the recent BAFTA-nominated film Sherpa. A contributor to The Guardian for thirty years he writes a column for the paper’s Country Diary. He lives in Sheffield with his wife Kate, a science editor.