If people with altitude sickness don’t descend when symptoms appear, it can quickly become fatal for them. However, the steep stairs and rocky foot paths make traveling quickly a daunting task for those who aren’t used to trekking in the area. If someone falls ill, the longer they wait to descend, the harder it will become for them. Due to how hard it is to get into and around the area, these high villages, especially above Lukla, can suffer from social isolation. With many people moving into cities to find work, it splits families and leaves barren mountain villages. The increased tourism also greatly increases the plastic waste in the area. Before tourism picked up, the people living in the area rarely ever had plastic-wrapped products and never needed a waste management system. Now, though, people struggle to keep the mountains clean, with tourists throwing aluminum cans and plastic bags in the area.
A common appetizer in the mountains is garlic soup because garlic helps with altitude sickness. It’s also important to drink lots of other warm liquids and stay hydrated throughout the day to maintain one’s health. Otherwise, people bundle up in their yak wool clothes and blankets to ward off the wind’s sometimes biting chill. Though many people have left the more remote areas to work in the cities, during the tourist season, many people run souvenir and tea shops or lodges or work as porters and guides up the mountain. Guides and porters work in dangerous and exhausting conditions, but many people do it to be able to take care of families because these jobs also pay well. Many of the villages also have loose gravel helipads.
