When Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first climbed Mount Everest 70 years ago, they paved the way for thousands of foreign climbers to try to follow in their footsteps.
The eight-day trek to the Everest base camp is among the most popular multiday hikes in Nepal, with tens of thousands of tourists making the journey every year.
What were small agrarian villages when the British expedition passed through in 1953 have since been transformed into tourist hubs with hotels, tea houses and equipment shops, boosting the livelihoods of local communities.