For more than a century, Western climbers have hired Nepal's Sherpas to do the most dangerous work on Mount Everest. It's a lucrative way of life in a poor region, but no service industry in the world so frequently kills and maims its workers for the benefit of paying clients. As Grayson Schaffer reports, the dead are often forgotten, and their families left with nothing but ghosts.

Disposable Man

Fifty years ago this month, Jim Whittaker became the first American to summit Everest. Three weeks later, a second party from the same team made an even more stunning assault on the mountain’s unclimbed West Ridge. Using never before published transcripts from the 1963 expedition, Grayson Schaffer takes a new look at a bold ascent that changed everything.

A Dangerous World Waits Above

Senior editor, staff writer, Outside magazine

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