Himalayan Visitor Totals

The Sagarmatha National Park in the mountains of eastern Nepal is a very popular destination for adventurous hikers to tour the Himalayas. The region is known as the Solukhumbu and is home to Mt. Everest on the border of the Chinese Autonomous Region of Tibet. The Nepalese government gave the region national park status to intitute conservation and preservation of the pristine wilderness and to help the Sherpa people in the village in the highlands to utilize their natural resources better.

The Nepali Department of tourism maintains an entrance point to the park at a checkpoint between the village of Monjo and Jorsale on the main trail along the Dudh Kosi river valley. The small office serves as an information station about safety and conservation in the park, but it's also to place for a "park ranger" to collect a fee of 1,000 Rupees (now about US $14) from each tourist that enters. The attendant gives you a receipt, and he'll want to see it again on your way back out, or he'll charge you again. There is another entrace to the park from the northwest that is not monitored, so you'll have to pay the fee when you exit to Monjo.

Posted on the wall of this small office is a chart giving the total number of visitors each month to the park, or at least the number of people who have stopped to pay the fee. There is no guard at the gate, or even much of a gate to stop you, and I saw the occasional person walk through obliviously without paying. The following is an approximation of the chart posted in the office. I am transcribing from video, so a few of the numbers may be wrong, but this gives a good indication of the patterns of the months of how many people visit. October and April are evidently the busiest months each year.

 

Monthly Visitors to Sagarmatha National Park

	98	99	00	01	02	03	04	05
Jan	553	594	474	573	235	434	532	264
Feb	708	781	876	632	496	518	762	524
Mar	1863	2255	2883	2540	1998	1868	2396	2393
Apr	2784	3440	4338	3834	3313	2459	3924	2453
May	1108	1408	1299	1313	692	1628	2372	2453
Jun	142	115	63	145	90	235	187	205
Jul	94	153	39	114	78	78	160	204
Aug	195	315	145	203	186	252	183	260
Sep	1103	1523	1196	1160	877	1253	976	1036
Oct	5367	7263	7539	6440	3520	5492	6390	- - -
Nov	3964	4533	4862	3479	2488	3424	3203	- - -
Dec	1513	913	1681	1085	866	1183	1097	- - -