A man caught climbing Mount Everest without paying the £8,500 fee has been placed in custody following an argument with tourism officials after he climbed down.

Nepalese officials discovered South African Ryan Sean Davy in his hideaway after he had climbed more than 20,000 feet up the world's highest mountain.

He was ordered off the mountain, had his passport confiscated and now faces s £17,000 ($22,000) fine. Davy handed himself in to authorities in Kathmandu on Tuesday after being caught last week.

The 43-year-old began swearing and threatening officials from the tourism department during questioning and was arrested under Nepal's strict public order laws, Tourist Police Inspector Tulasha Khatiwada told AFP.

Nepalese officials discovered South African Ryan Sean Davy (pictured above) in his hideaway after he had climbed more than 20,000 feet

He is now in custody and will appear in court next week to face charges related to his Everest attempt and possible additional offences over his conduct during the investigation.

'He will be fined and deported as per the Tourism Act of Nepal. He may face further penalty for misbehaving with the police,' director of the tourism department Dinesh Bhattarai told AFP.

Foreigners have to pay the Nepal government $11,000 for permission to climb the 29,029ft peak - a major earner for the impoverished country.

Under Nepali law, climbers caught without the mandatory permit are fined $22,000.

He could also be blacklisted from the Himalayan nation for five years, or face a 10-year climbing ban when he appears in court next week.

The South African - who describes himself on social media as a film director and producer - was caught a short distance from Everest base camp and was ordered off the mountain.

He had pitched a tent away from the other climbers to try and dodge government officials who monitor all Everest ascents.

He told officials he had climbed alone as far as camp two - at 6,400 metres - to acclimatise in preparation for a solo summit bid.

His antics have angered many in the close-knit climbing community, who say the South African would have put himself and others in danger if he had attempted to reach the summit alone.

Mr Davy told officials that he didn't have enough money to buy a flight from the Everest region to Kathmandu to collect his passport

Davy was caught not far from where more than 1,000 mountaineers and support staff have gathered for the busy spring climbing season.



In a Facebook post after he was caught, he claimed to have been 'treated like a murderer' after being discovered and thought he was 'going to get stoned to death right there.' He now fears he will be jailed in Kathmandu.

He wrote: 'Unfortunately the system caught up with me and I was eventually captured by the mountain Orks after two entries into the Ice Falls and managing an ascent of 24,000ft.

'Expedition companies have no time for wanna be Everesters with no money so someone turned me in.

'I was harassed at basecamp to a point that I honestly thought I was going to get stoned to death right there. I'm not even exaggerating.

I was treated like a murderer. A true testimony of how money has become more important than decency.

HOW MOUNT EVEREST'S PRICEY PERMITS HELP NEPAL'S TOURISM INDUSTRY Foreigners have to pay the Nepal government $11,000 for permission to climb the 8,848 metre (29,030 foot) Mount Everest - a major earner for the impoverished country. Nepal's lucrative high-altitude climbing industry nets the impoverished Himalayan country more than $3 million a year. Nepal, home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, has more than 2,000 Himalayan peaks and 326 are open to foreign climbers. Mountaineering is an important component of tourism that makes up about 4 per cent of the impoverished nation's GDP. Along with the pricey climbing permit, Nepal's Department of Tourism requires Everest climbers to be at least 16 but there's no upper age limit. It is highly unusual for a foreign climber to attempt to scale Everest alone - most do so with the help of at least one sherpa guide and a large support team at base camp. There are 373 foreign climbers currently on peak who will attempt to summit in the coming weeks with the help of at least one Sherpa guide each. Nepal's Tourism Act bans climbers for up to ten years from visiting the country for mountaineering purposes if they violate mountaineering regulations in the region. Advertisement

'My passport has been confiscated and I am being sent to Katmandu where I will face penalties, apparently I'm in for jail time.

Foreigners have to pay the Nepal government $11,000 for permission to climb the 29,030 foot peak - a major earner for the impoverished country.

Gyanendra Shresth, a government liaison officer at the mountain's southerly base camp, said: 'I saw him alone near base camp so I approached him and he ran away.

'I followed him with my friend and found him hiding in a cave nearby. He had set up camp in an isolated place to avoid government officials.'

The climber's father, David Davy, told Mail Online his son had spent months preparing to scale Everest, but had no idea why he had decided to attempt the feat alone.

Mr Davy said Ryan would have known that his attempt required a permit, but believed that Everest 'belonged to the world'.

Speaking from his home in Johannesburg, Mr Davy - who breeds horses – described how his son had spent months working with scientists, climbing in the Rocky mountains, worked on ice faces and climbed lower peaks in Nepal to acclimatize ahead of his challenge.

Describing his son as 'unique, truly unique', he said he was anxiously waiting to hear from him.

'He is a man who has always chosen the adventurous path but who has always prepared in every way possible to reach his goals,' he said.

'He does not go into any of these things blindly. He researches, he plans and he prepares.

'I am sure he would have known about the licence fees because it would have come up in his preparation.

'I just don't know exactly what happened on Everest but I imagine his thinking was that he was on a solo attempt, an unsupported ascent so he would be up and down by himself without needing the help of anyone else.

'Of course if he had got into trouble and fallen into a crevasse he would have needed to be dragged out by a search team but maybe he felt that was not going to happen.

'We don't know his thinking. All we know is that he is fine, not hurt and heading back to Kathmandu expected to arrive Wednesday morning where he is going to have to face up to the authorities.'

Mr Davy said his son, who is single and without any children, began working in conservation in his teens after leaving school and briefly trying college.

'He is a man – and you will think I am just a father talking up a son but I really believe this to be true – who is unique, truly unique.

'Whenever he sets about something he carries out extensive research and makes all possible preparation.

'His film work meant he had to put himself in risky situations so he learnt how to fly – he has a glider licence and a single-engine light aircraft licence – and he learned other things: he is a base jumper, a volunteer fireman, a lifesaver, a conservationist.'

In a Facebook post, Davy said he was 'ashamed' and now feared jail after admitting his Everest expedition 'has taken a very bad turn'

Last year his son bicycled from across America from the West Coast to the East and is in good physical shape.

'He is not an experienced Alpine mountain climber but he is not a novice either, a person who has taken the challenge of Everest very seriously.

'He just came to believe that Mt Everest, as the world's highest point, well it belongs to the world.

'He got the feeling that he wanted to summit this special place and he wanted to do it by himself, solo, unsupported.

'I really believe his intentions were good. He is not a callous character in anyway, he is a pure boy you know.'

Mr Davy said his son, a pescatarian, lives 11 months a year in Los Angeles but comes home to South Africa once a year because his filming and editing skills are in high demand.

It is highly unusual for a foreign climber to attempt to scale Everest alone - most do so with the help of at least one sherpa guide and a large support team at base camp.

Mr Davy could be banned from Nepal for five years or face a 10-year ban on climbing in the country.

Mr Davy told officials that he didn't have enough money to buy a flight from the Everest region to Kathmandu to collect his passport.

He said he would instead walk and then catch a bus - a journey that would take at least four days.

Explaining his actions in the Facebook post, he wrote: 'This news is probably going to make a lot of people upset with me and I really hope you'll all forgive me.

'I'm willing to be as accountable as I know how but my Everest expedition has taken a very bad turn.

'I am going to be honest in saying that when I arrived at Base Camp it became evident that I didn't have nearly enough money for a solo permit because of hidden costs and even if I did they would have declined it because I had no previous mountaineering experience on record.'

He said he was 'ashamed' he couldn't afford the permit having gone through training with the help of others but that 'it would have been a total embarrassment to turn around and accept defeat because of a piece of paper.'

'So I took a chance and spent the little money I had on more gear to climb and practice on the surrounding peaks for acclimatizing in preparing for a stealth entry onto Everest,' he said.

Davy said his 'main incentive' for being on the mountain was to help people in trouble because of the number of fatalities and said at one point he saw 40 climbers walk past a dying man pleading for help.

'He inevitably died because all the climbers were fixed on the Summit and didn't want to get distracted. If I could at least have helped one person it would have made a difference, that would have been my Summit.'

Ryan Sean Davy's adventure in the Himalayas is not the first time he has had an emergency in the mountains.

In 2006 he and three other paddlers were caught out by a storm surge as they paddled down the Keurbooms River in South Africa and were forced to spend the night clinging to a cliff face above a violent torrent before being rescued by helicopter the following day.