There have been much-publicized cases over the years of people on their way to the summit walking past dying climbers, and it happened again this year. A young Briton collapsed next to the summit route. Many climbers passed him on their way to the top.

Sir Edmund Hillary has been very vocal about this in the past and he had this to say this year: "I think the whole attitude toward climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top. They don't give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress and it doesn't impress me at all that they leave someone lying under a rock to die."

I agree with his view that the attitude of climbing Everest has changed. In his day mountaineers had a code of conduct, and only real mountaineers would attempt the big mountains. You didn't boast, you didn't lie about your achievements, and you helped those in trouble. These were the values held dear by climbers like Mallory.

But there is more to it than that. I listened to one of our team members on the radio weeping as he tried to administer oxygen to the casualty. It was one of the most harrowing things I have ever heard. He did his very best to help.

Everyday Rescues

In fact, it was completely ignored by the press that our expedition had already rescued a fellow climber this season lower down the mountain. An Indian climber had lost consciousness on the descent from the North Col and had the luck to do this right in front of our group on the way up.

Far from climbing past him, our doctor, Terry O'Connor, started treatment while guides Shaun Hutson, Bill Crouse and Mark Wynton improvised a stretcher and organized the team to carry him down the mountain. He spent the night in Russell's tent on our oxygen supplies and the next day he was on his way home. He was seriously ill from cerebral edema (swelling of the brain) and he certainly would have died without our intervention The last I heard from the Indian expedition leader, the climber was "95 percent OK."

I have seen Russell's guides perform this kind of rescue every season that I've been with them, with no mention in the press. Russell Brice never gets paid for the oxygen ($400 a bottle) and rarely gets any thanks. But when a dying climber is encountered high on the mountain there is a storm of criticism.

The simple truth is that it is very hard to rescue someone from near the summit. Everyone is very near their personal limit, everyone is self-absorbed, and it takes a huge effort of will to organize a dozen other people to carry the casualty, prepare tents and safeguard the route down.

And let's be blunt, when people have paid $40,000 for a package holiday they are reluctant to turn away from their goal. In my experience, most climbers are decent people only too willing to help. But near the summit of Mount Everest, up in the death zone, your moral being is stripped away to a self-preserving core.

Money has perverted the spirit of mountaineering as it has perverted so many other things. Real climbers follow their passion well away from Mount Everest. I'm only sad that my boyhood dream of an impossibly remote Himalayan peak has evaporated like the clouds that embraced George Mallory.