I don't the get attraction of climbing Everest

That's nice, dear.

Told you I was hardcore!

Could you imagine shitting on snow and ice and knowing it will be there for eternity? And how creepy it would be to walk past other people's shit and dead bodies.

The rich do not shit. They have sherpas for that.

I'd love to go to the Himalayas, OP, but not Everest as it is these days. By all accpunts, one of the most amazing places on Earth has turned into a trash-strewn nightmare, while losing none of its intrinsic dangers.

This from someone who's going to Antarctica next year! Because my idea of fun is standing on the deck of a freezing ship, looking for whales and albatrosses. To each their own.

Nepal is going to ban the disabled, old and very young from climbing Everest, and people wanting to climb the mountain need to prove that they've climbed mountains of at least 6,500 metres. Seriously, they let disabled and pensioners climb that mountain? It's bizarre to think that any hipster off the street can think they can climb Everest, after the likes of Mallory and Hillary either failed, or barely made it to the top. It's not a fucking nature walk.

R6, There was a post on another DL thread about the dead bodies on Everest about one of the bodies being that of a 30ish Canadian woman who wanted to climb Everest but had no climbing experience. She practiced by climbing a hill near her home every day.

R7 That's just pathetic. She really thought a hill compared to one of the biggest mountains in the world?

I think the MD who almost died in 96 practiced for Everest on his StairMaster

Yeah..they're holding onto old propaganda from the past when climbing everest was considered a life long trophy. It's so ego driven and old timey achievement. I hate to say it but it really is Darwin At Work

[quote]Nepal is going to ban the disabled, old and very young from climbing Everest, and people wanting to climb the mountain need to prove that they've climbed mountains of at least 6,500 metres

All they have to do is ban oxygen tanks, and that would be the end of all the crowds.

Yup, R11. It became big business after that...Nepal and their loose restrictions on licenses were also to blame. It wasn't until after the last two years that brought about numerous Sherpa deaths that Nepal has changed its tune.

Nepal is a third world country with high levels of poverty. Of course they're going to allow westerners to risk their lives for cash, even if it means Nepalese sherpas die with them. Also, you can access Everest from China and we know they couldn't give fuck about what happens to anyone who isn't Chinese.

I don't know if they ever installed that ladder on the Hillary Step, but if they did (to ease "congestion") they can take it down again.

Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, said the new rules had been frequently discussed in the past.

He added: “So I doubt this will be implemented. Earlier such plans were aborted because of pressure from human rights organisations and foreign embassies.”

Ang Tshering said he would support “anyone disabled [who] can go on his or her own” to the summit of Everest but “those who need personal assistance or to be carried to reach the top should not venture on the peak.”

He believed the age bar would be positive.

“This can be a good move,” Ang Tshering said, pointing out that China did not allow climbers below 16 years of age or older than 75 to climb Everest from the northern side.

[quote] Nepal is going to ban the disabled, old and very young from climbing Everest, and people wanting to climb the mountain need to prove that they've climbed mountains of at least 6,500 metres.

This is so not fair!

No thanks, I'll go for a beach walk in Maine.

Before the 80s, it was just a couple of rich people every year who gave the mountain a go. Once Western guides decided to operate professional trekking companies to lead anyone with the cash to the top, the problems started.

6 people summited in the 1950s

18 people summited in the 1960s

78 people summited in the 1970s

In the 1980s, 871 climbers set off from Base Camp; 180 made the summit; and 56 died

In the 1990s, 3,017 people set off from Base Camp(s); 881 reached the summit; 55 died

It's surprising to see that most of the climbers are in their 30s, 40s, or 50s. It makes sense I guess from the standpoint of needing a good amount of cash to fund a climb, but my stereotype of a climber is a young, impetuous person with few responsibilities and no family to support.

It's also weird to think it's been almost 20 years since the "Into Thin Air" climb, and a lot of those folks (including Jon Krakauer and Sandy Hill) are now in their 60s.

Technology has given us many wonderful gifts, but it, more than anything else, seems to have also enabled a extra virulent form of Gresham's Law.

Rich white hedge fund douchebags.

More DL reading

Even more DL reading

OP probably lives in Florida.

Webcam

Another who longs for a career in Motivational Speaking

8000M peaks stats:

Annapurna (8,091 m) In total, only 130 climbers have summited Annapurna, while 53 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus 41%.

Nanga Parbat (8,125m) 216 climbers have summited Nanga Parbat and 61 have died. The overall fatality rate thus 28.24%.

K2 (8,611 m) Fewer than 200 climbers have summited the world's second highest peak – 198 total. 53 have died. K2's overall fatality rate is 26.77%. **

Kangchenjunga (8,586 m) To date, only 185 climbers have summited Kangchenjunga and 40 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus about 22%.

Manaslu (8,163 m) To date, 240 climbers have summited Manaslu and 52 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus 21.67%.

Dhaulagiri (8,167 m) To date, 313 climbers have summited Dhaulagiri and 56 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus 18%.

Makalu (8,485 m) To date, 206 climbers have summited Makalu and 22 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus about 11%.

Gasherbrum I (8,080m) Since 1958, only 195 climbers have summited Gasherbrum I and 21 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus 10.77%.

Shisha Pangma (8,027m) To date, 201 climbers have summited Shisha Pangma and 19 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus about 9.5%.

Everest (8,848m) Today, Everest has hosted close to 2,000 successful summits. 179 people have perished giving a fatality rate of 9.3%.

Broad Peak (8,051 m) A mere 255 climbers have summited Broad Peak and 18 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus 7%.

Lhotse (8,516 m) To date, 243 climbers have summited Lhotse and 11 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus about 4%.

Gasherbrum II (8,034 m) As for GII, a total of 650 climbers have summited the peak and 17 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus 2.62%.

Cho Oyu (8,188 m) To date, about 1,400 climbers have summited Cho Oyu and 35 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus 2.5%,

I'm surprised at those numbers, r28. Annapurna is one giant fucking avalanche chute.

I thought the successful summit numbers would be fewer, and the death toll higher.

In 2013 one team used a helicopter to fly from South base camp to Camp 2 to avoid the Khumbu Icefall, then reached the Everest summit. This team had to use the south side because the Chinese had denied them a permit to climb. Ultimately, Chinese reluctance may have been beneficial to Nepalese interests, allowing the government to showcase improved local hospitals and the opportunity for a new hybrid aviation/mountaneering style—which sparked controversy in the mountaineering world

Tell me about the dead people. Do they bury them under rocks or something?

See r23 for Dead People

R23, the sequel:

Some climbers still have PTSD from the experience and regret ever doing it.

I never understood how they knew who was the first to summit Mt. Everest or the first to reach the North Pole. I mean History tells us that Hillary & Norgay were for the former and Peary & Henson for the latter, but how do we know for sure they reached their destination? I mean, since no one had ever been to those places before, how can we certain that they didn't just turn around lie about making it? Who was gonna argue with them? Did historians just take their word as gospel?

"I don't the get attraction of climbing Everest"

The thread title suggests you're at the top of Everest and refusing your supplementary oxygen.

I love climbing, but I'd probably never do Everest. Too risky, too expensive, too crowded and too much garbage. There are so many amazing climbs out there, I really don't care about the fact that it's the highest. Most of the people who do Everest are loonies going through mid-life crises and trying to prove something to themselves.

R35: Hillary took photos and left stuff at the top. You can see the photos on Google.

The sherpas should build a small amphitheatre in a lower base camp, and sell TV rights for the Darwin Awards.

There is a drug called Diamox that helps people with altitude sickness, though it has limits and causes a number of uncomfortable side effects. Most climbers use it after 6000 ft. or so...or even before the climb altogether. It makes your feet tingle and soda doesn't taste fizzy. Weird drug.

[quote]Annapurna (8,091 m) In total, only 130 climbers have summited Annapurna, while 53 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus 41%.

Annapurna is a BITCH

Very few even attempt it.

Watching her go over that crevasse at r27 made me freeze up a little. There is no way I could do that.

Many expedition leaders drug the hell out of their clients before they start to climb, so much of the achievement of Everest is merely pharmaceuticals and bottled oxygen with Sherpas carrying not only the packs, but the clients, too.

r35 Peary declared the spot he happened to be standing as "The North Pole" and Cook as well, but some (the Norwegians) believe it was Amundsen who really got the the right place first.

In 1926, Amundsen and 15 other men (including Ellsworth, Riiser-Larsen, Oscar Wisting, and the Italian air crew led by aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile) made the first crossing of the Arctic in the airship Norge, designed by Nobile. They left Spitzbergen on 11 May 1926, and they landed in Alaska two days later. The three previous claims to have arrived at the North Pole: Frederick Cook in 1908; Robert Peary in 1909; and Richard E. Byrd in 1926 (just a few days before the Norge) are all disputed, as being either of dubious accuracy or outright fraud.[16][17] If their claims are false, the crew of the Norge would be the first verified explorers to have reached the North Pole. If the Norge expedition was the first to the North Pole, Amundsen and Oscar Wisting were the first men to reach each geographical pole, by ground or by air.

As Mallory responded to someone who asked about why he wanted to climb Everest, "Because it's there".

For the real gung-ho, batshit climbers, there's the Seven Summits challenge, summiting the highest mountains in each of the 7 continents.

The Movie:

Climb every mountain. Such is the impulse that drives the dramatis personae of “Everest,” who spend their days, and their dollars, tramping uphill until they run out of air. The bulk of the movie, grounded in fact, is set on and around Mt. Everest, during an attempt on the summit in 1996. The man in charge is Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), who heads a company called Adventure Consultants. Leaving his pregnant wife (Keira Knightley) at home, in New Zealand, he leads a bunch of climbers to Nepal and onward to their destination—or, as they might think of it, their destiny. They’re not rookies, by any means, but neither are they professionals, and one strength of the film is the tension that springs from this uneasy status. If you’re nearing the top, and the clouds are closing in like an army, and all your instincts are telling you to turn back, but the fellow beside you has paid sixty-five thousand bucks and is damned if he’s giving up now, what do you do?

The mountaineers are a mixed bag. We have Doug Hansen (John Hawkes), a scrawny type who almost conquered Everest once before, and who treats this effort, like a high jumper, as his final go. Asked what he does the rest of the time, back in Seattle, he says that he delivers mail. Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) is a Texan so mountain-mad that he hasn’t even told his wife where he is, just as a boozer will deny his presence at the bar. Then, there is Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori), who has climbed six of the Seven Summits (comprising the highest peak in each continent), and has left the tallest till last. Any of them could merit a whole movie, as could Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), a friendly rival of Rob’s, who is conducting his own clients toward the roof of the world. The one thing they all have in common, I noticed, is an indomitable urge to use the word “summit” as an intransitive verb. That takes guts.

The dilemma of “Everest” is that the director, Baltasar Kormákur, can’t quite decide which of these people—some brave, some deluded, others both—belongs at the heart of the tale. I wanted more of Boukreev (Ingvar Sigurdsson), who is so coolly acclimatized, in body, soul, and breath, that he can amble up the mountain without oxygen. Other viewers, I suspect, will be crestfallen to get so little Gyllenhaal for their money, not only because he’s the brightest star in the cast but because his dudeish character—the Imperturbable Snowman, shaggy but chilled, first seen sunbathing at seventeen thousand feet—has so much more to give, and therefore so much to lose. Just to add to the pile, Knightley and Emily Watson, who plays the coördinator at base camp, are given substantial scenes on the telephone, during which their expressions betray a dread of mortally bad news, plus the intense concentration required to maintain a New Zealand accent.

“Everest,” in short, suffers from the same problem as Everest: overcrowding. If Rob and Scott join forces, melding their groups for the climactic ascent, it’s because of the crush on the slopes, with not enough gaps in the roster to reach the top. There is plenty of material for tragedy here, yet the impression given by the film is less one of suffering and sorrow than one of sheer implacability, and we are left, as it were, with a caution: never bank on any hero for long, because Everest will glance at human beings, with their baggage of presumption, and dust them off like crumbs. At one point, a small herd of them comes to a crevasse. A steel ladder, only just long enough, is placed across it. The spikes on their boots slip on the frozen rungs. Below, waiting to eat them, is the void. If that sounds almost unbearable to watch, get this: “Everest” is in 3-D.

[quote] Diamox

It's a frequently prescribed diuretic used for many things.

I climbed it under sniper fire and then was named after myself.

Me too, Hill.

I remember Brian. I always wanted to thank you for giving my immigrant grandparents the job as your sherpas. It was a great start for them!

R37 - ".Most of the people who do Everest are loonies going through mid-life crises and trying to prove something to themselves."

This reminds me of, but is not comparable to, the middle aged men who watch the Emilio Estevez movie THE WAY starring Martin Sheen and are inspired to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostella in Spain. They anticipate green pastures, cheese, olives and intellectual company and are greeted with shit and loo paper on the trails fries at every dinner, day old bread with jamon at every lunch, homeless people in the hostels, young people who don't bother flirting with them and a 3 day long stretch over a flat barren hellhole. They also end up with flat feet and arthritis in the knees. My least favourite colleague only made it 5 days before hotfooting it to San Sebastián.

Only the Camino is a reasonably straightforward walk with quite a healthy survival rate.

Finally, this story is being told.

Anyone following this year's crop of wannabe summitters?

If I met someone who told me he'd climbed Everest I would conclude the same thing I do when someone tells me, unbidden, that they're a member of MENSA: What a desperate asshole.

Thanks R53 that's a great article and the follow-up is also extremely interesting

Because it's there.

Before, DL would start following Everest in March and continue with post-mortems to June.

A different DL, now.

"When things do go awry, media frenzies ensue, and the typical reaction is to analyse what went wrong and then distill a handful of lessons learned. A few business schools even use the 1996 Everest disaster as a teaching tool. But some experts believe that there simply is no making sense of what transpires above 8,000m."

" “Climbing Everest looks like a big joke today,” says Captain MS Kohli, a mountaineer who in 1965 led India’s first successful expedition to summit Mount Everest. “It absolutely does not resemble the old days when there were adventures, challenges and exploration. It’s just physically going up with the help of others.” "

[quote]“It absolutely does not resemble the old days when there were adventures, challenges and exploration.

And they did it without oxygen tanks.

Wang Jing, a 40-year-old Chinese woman, was the only person to climb Everest in 2014 but her ascent sparked controversy amid reports she took a helicopter over the Khumbu Icefall, in what many Everest climbers saw as a violation of their code.

[quote]Before, DL would start following Everest in March and continue with post-mortems to June....A different DL, now.

I used to love the Everest threads. And I agree, the tone of DL has seemed to have shifted. It's not just the election year, it just feels as though there's been a huge turnover in contributors bringing about a significant change in style and content.

Today is the 18th anniversary of the "Into Thin Air" disaster.

I don't either, OP. Cray

You go out of your way to reach the summit, then what...? Oh, you have to get back down...

Narcissism at its highest level. I had a family member who did it.

That article at r53 was hilarious. Palijor is a hero and his love of roast chicken and singing will be greatly missed.

The End for many:

I never got the attraction of climbing Hillary

That Canadian woman from 2012 showed that anyone reasonably fit can get to the top, but the trick is getting down again.

Even Rob Hall couldn't get down.

How the fuck else would I have gotten to the Valley of the Dolls?

NO.

ALTERNATIVE.

ROUTE,

asshole.

OP, The same reason plenty want to go to Mars. Don't they realize they'll probably die of suffocation? More money than cents (sense.)

"Fatal Altitude Tragedy on K2." One of the climbers explained you do not find bodies on K2. You find body parts.

On K2:

Well I don't understand people who do marathons and ultra marathons.

What are they compensating for?

Why are bragging rights for doing marathons so important to them?

'I'm a runner!'

So what asshole if that's how you define yourself.

They age and harm the body terribly for no reason whatsoever.

They force you to get joint replacements much too soon.

And your face turns to shit. Like you're sucking on lemons all the time.

I worked with a triathlete R77 and I can tell you that when it comes to being egotistical they are completely in a class by themselves. She was a complete cunt and even though I disliked her there were people who fantasized about running her down if they ever spotted her running or on her bike.

I don't know how to post links but one day I became fascinated with the people that climb Everest. Some research led me to Marco Siffredi. I don't know how I had never heard of him. He snowboarded down Everest successfully. He felt the side he went down was not challenging enough so tried it again. He of course died on the second attempt. He must have had a serious death wish. I still wonder at people who decide to do the climb. I don't get it but I find the people that do interesting.

We had a long, fascinating thread about Everest attempts a couple of years ago. It was interesting to see how many posters were engaged by the topic.

You don't have to go all the way to Everest to get fucked and die --

r23 and r24 are a couple of links; I don't think it's the main one you mean, but they're also good reading.

"The Rainbow Valley". Tragic hubris.

I used to think that climbing mountains was cool until I found out about all the frozen dead bodies and piles of shit all the way up and down the mountain. fucking tourist scum

[quote]never bank on any hero for long, because Everest will glance at human beings, with their baggage of presumption, and dust them off like crumbs

That's poetic for a film review.

I looked up Marco Siffredi, his story is interesting to me mainly because he was from a family of climbers and his brother was killed at age 2 in an avalanche. It seems like the natural conclusion of daredevils breeding with daredevils; eventually their offspring will push things too far and the family line just ends. I tried to look up more info about his family and see if there were any surviving siblings but couldn't find the info.

[quote]I tried to look up more info about his family and see if there were any surviving siblings but couldn't find the info.

They are probably hiding because they don't have the daredevil gene and just want to be unremarkable and boring and quiet.

The life Odysseus craved when it was time to choose his reincarnation.

Climbing K2 is like being a Pip. Who cares.

Sandy Hill:

sandyhillCrossing the Khumbu Icefall on an ascent of Mount Everest, 20 years ago this week. Photo by Scott Fischer, who remains in my thoughts, especially at this time of year.

I remember hearing a boastful Westerner say that the sherpa themselves were introduced to the thought of climbing by a Westerner. One way to look at it is that Westerners conquer, are adventurous. Another perspective though is that someone who reveres the mountains wouldn't be such a dick as to think I'll conquer it, you know? It's majestic, look, but don't feel like you gotta drag your stupid ego up and down it. I would rather leave mountains alone to dazzle me from afar. It looks like a miserable undertaking.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

She proved that vegans are weak. Oh well.

From what I've read, even with oxygen you feel disgustingly ill the whole time you're climbing. Or are there drugs you can take to ease the pain of the altitude sickness and all the other sicknesses?

Anyone know?

[quote]She was an experienced climber who previously conquered Kilimanjaro

Isn't Kilimanjaro basically an uphill stroll?

Many guides pump their clients with dexamethasone and diamox to combat altitude sickness.

[quote]Isn't Kilimanjaro basically an uphill stroll?

Yeah -- I was surprised she'd use that as a "feat."

So they are all high in two senses of the word lol

Just looked up 'dead bodies on Everest' on Google images and am really regretting it.

Why doesn't an experienced team do an extraction of the frozen dead dudes and let their families bury them?

The Chinese cleaned up Rainbow Valley, Green Boots Cave, and many other corpses in 2014 by moving the bodies out of sight, but I don't think getting them down is an option.

I'm surprised there haven't been expeditions specifically intended to bring down rich dead climbers, paid for by the family. Is it just too tricky or do the climbers make a will saying they're happy being left on the mountain as they love it so dearly?

I think it is too tricky -- there is that one part that can be crossed only by walking across ladders that are lashed together.

They do have to sign a disclaimer saying that the guides are not responsible for bringing their dead body back down for burial - it's simply too dangerous.

I believe it is illegal to leave a dead body up there. So anyone left behind are just not retrievable. There have been expeditions to recover bodies where people have died in the process. One very famous body that has now disappeared was Hannelore Smaltz. I may have spelled that wrong. Any way she died sitting in front of her back pack with her husband near by. She was described for yrs as having hair blowing in the breeze. Her husband did try to retrieve her but they lost one of the guys trying to recover the body. Another couple lost each other and the husband arrived at camp and was told his wife was dying on the trail. He went to help her and was killed. There is actually video of climbers that stopped to talk to a dying guy in greenboots cave as he was dying and they could do nothing for him.

Interesting thread. I worked with a woman who did it back in 1998. When she got back from her trip, everyone in the company was in awe of her. Every time she was introduced to new employees, someone would say, "She climbed Mt. Everest"! Personally, I thought it was one of the coolest things I had ever heard of anybody accomplishing. Even cooler than her law degree from Stanford.

Did Hannalore die of altitude sickness?

Yes r105.

Here's a list of the causes of the more famous deaths:

Maybe the families can climb up themselves and at the bodies hold services and then bury them where they lie.

It's least they can do for family members whose noble attempt can only burnish the family escutcheon.

This is an educational thread for me. I thought the deaths were because climbers got into difficulty or ran out of oxygen or froze accidentally - I didn't realise they could drop dead of altitude sickness.

Jesus, who would even attempt the climb knowing that could happen? I got altitude sickness on the lower slopes of Mount Etna lol.

Now going to read R106's article.

I read about bringing the bodies back down - they don't do it because the bodies become frozen onto the mountain and would have to be cut out, which would take hours and use up a lot of oxygen due to exertion. Also, the bodies, once frozen, can weigh 150kg which makes it very dangerous to try and lug them back down. The families can pay, but it costs an incredible amount of money, because it is hard and risky.

Every year a team go up to collect up as much shit and rubbish as possible and they try and cover bodies with stones, if the family requests it and if there are stones nearby.

So, it's not just because nobody cares.

Just read the article at R106. One guy died trying to snowboard down from the summit. Unbelievable.

'At 2:00 PM he and his Sherpa helper’s reach the summit after a 12 hour climb through chest deep snow. Marco tells his Sherpa he is “tired”. His Sherpa is elated at reaching the summit, but then his Sherpa doesn’t have a 3,000 foot of descent by snowboard at 45-55 degree angles yet to do. It is late in the day, 3:00 PM and his Sherpa’s urge him not to go, but Marco has come too far to not give his dream a try. So he tells his Sherpa he will ‘see him tomorrow” and pushes off down the face of the Hornbein Couloir. The last the Sherpa’s see of him is when he hangs the left away from their descent route to snowboard down the Hornbein Couloir. Later they believe they see a figure sliding down the face of the North Col. But there is nobody else climbing Everest at this time of the year, they have the mountain to themselves. Who could it be? The Sherpa’s descend to the bottom of the Hornbein Couloir.

Marco should be there as it would only take him two hours to snowboard the route. The Sherpa’s reach the point on the North Col. where they are certain they saw the man. There are no snowboard tracks. It appears Marco has fallen to his death. With no radio to even try to contact him, Marco has disappeared. A search party finds his snowboard tracks end about 1,500 feet down the Hornbein Couloir from the summit where he set off. His body has still not been found.'

Yay someone just died on the way down. Darwin award!

In addition to the two deaths, a 45-year-old woman from Norway, Siv Harstad, suffered snow blindness and was helped down from the summit on Saturday by two Sherpa guides, the Norwegian news agency NTB said.

More than 330 climbers have reached the summit from Nepal since May 11, and several more have done so from the northern routes in Tibet.

The climbing season runs from March through May, after which the monsoon season makes the Himalayan peaks too dangerous.

[quote]She was an experienced climber who previously conquered Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro is quite literally a cakewalk compared to climbing Everest.

Is altitude sickness basically just suffocating to death? I felt so ill when I was on Mount Etna, fairly near the top and that was only 8000 feet. Really bad headache and just general breathlessness. Husband was fine. Took my codeine migraine tablets but they didn't work until we came off the mountain. I would never attempt a higher climb after that experience.

Spinal fluid builds up in your brain.

There is also the type where fluid floods your heart and lungs.

Apparently it starts at 2500 metres (8200 feet) so you probably did have a mild version R114.

Apparently it starts at 2500 metres (8200 feet) so you probably did have a mild version R114.

I had one of the worst migraines ever going to the summit of Mount Teide (in Tenerife) on just an ordinary day trip (coach plus cable car, no climbing required). No meds touched it until we got back down to sea level. It is only 3,718 m and no-one warned about altitude sickness but that must have been what it was. I remember sitting in the café at the top and taking lots of different pills and none of them working.

Altitude can also trigger Rheumatoid Arthritis

Anyone who would want to climb Everest is mentally ill. It should be against the law for ANYONE to be allowed to climb mountains like that, but on the other hand, the argument that the thinning of the herd is a good thing has a lot of merit to it.

[quote]Anyone who would want to climb Everest is mentally ill. It should be against the law for ANYONE to be allowed to climb mountains like that, but on the other hand, the argument that the thinning of the herd is a good thing has a lot of merit to it.

You can't do it for charity.

You can't do it for pay.

You can't do it to "prove" things.

You can't do it with oxygen.

That would stop this crap.

R64 20th.

[quote]"It seems that people have this warped idea of vegans being malnourished and weak," Strydom was quoted as saying. "By climbing the seven summits we want to prove that vegans can do anything and more."

[quote]She had already climbed Denali in Alaska, Aconcagua in Argentina, Mount Ararat in Turkey and Kilamanjaro in Kenya, the post said. Strydom said she felt well-prepared for her attempt to climb Everest, and that depending on whether she reached the summit, her mind would likely turn to her next adventure.

Are those mountains difficult?

Tthey just don't do it right.

Sherpa: They Die, We Go Home

I think it's weird too.

Once you get to a certain height, your body is essentially already dying. Unless another climber can at least walk on their own, you cannot bring down disabled climbers, much less dead bodies. You cannot carry someone else, although you can aid people who are mobile. That is why it is called "The Dead Zone".

Some climbers suffer hypoxia due to a lack of oxygen for too long. They become disoriented and confused. This happened to one of the climbers during the 1996 climb and he disappeared. Some people think he walked off the side of the mountain.

Sometimes, dead bodies are simply lowered into a nearby crevasse as a means of burial.

In May of 2006, Sophia Danenberg became the first African American woman to summit.

I'm surprised that an African American did this. Yes, I know she's 1/2 Japanese, but still. You never ever hear of African Americans summiting. I personally do not even know a black person who skis or snowboards.

Has anyone ever heard of other African Americans summiting?

[quote]I personally do not even know a black person who skis or snowboards.

Or swims. Seriously, I thought that was a terrible stereotype, until I moved around and met/befriended some black people/colleagues. I'm sure there must be some who can swim, but the ones I met surprisingly didn't know how.

R128, I was going to mention the swimming thing, but I didn't want to sound like a total asshole. But you are right. After college, I went to work at one of the largest companies globally. I was there for 4.5 years, and I met a lot of well educated African Americans. The one thing most had in common, within a certain age group, was their inability to swim. Their kids knew how, but not them. It was the weirdest thing, because I had never even considered that an entire group of people couldn't swim. It had to do with lack of financial opportunities, and segregation, I'm sure. Think about it, poor blacks did not have swimming pools, and there were not public parks that allowed blacks to swim with whites during the segregation era, or resources allocated for "blacks only" swimming pools, so it makes a lot of sense. The end result is generations of American blacks who never learned to swim.

R128, you don't sound like a total asshole, btw. I was just afraid that I would Lol! ;)

Oops! I meant both of those posts to be directed at r129. I need some coffee.

Interesting but I went to boys' summer camps in the late 60s and there were certainly blacks and Hispanics swimming.

Hispanics do swim. I'm Hispanic on my mother's side, and there isn't one relative that I can think of that doesn't swim. Interestingly enough, many of us learn in a natural body of water, rather than pools. I learned when I was 7, and it was at the beach, with aunts and uncles and a bunch of my cousins. My uncle who taught me said he learned as a kid in a river.

Which natural body of water would that be?

The Atlantic, r135. Miami Beach. Love my uncle to pieces. One of the funniest men I ever met, who is now riddled with Alzheimer's.

Three black physicians decided, since they were fit and had the money, to attempt Everest and started training around the time the black gal went up, but I never heard anything about them again.

Life insurance for climbers. It's probably the same kind of insurance pro surfers or sky divers get.

Are you guys familiar with Alex Hannold? He does a lot of free solo climbing. That means no ropes, no cords, no safety net. Several years ago, 60 MINUTES did a segment on him. They actually show him free soloing. My palms got sweaty.

This is some of the scariest footage I have ever seen. 2015 quake.

R130, thanks for posting. I know a lot of people talk shit about these climbers, because everyone agrees that it's a crazy and dangerous pursuit. But I actually admire people that do this sort of thing. I don't see anything wrong with it. People engage in crazy behavior all the time. Smoking, drug addiction, unprotected sex. Fuck it. If you're the type of person that loves high risk behavior (and some people really are built that way), then I think this is a helluva lot better and way more fun, than smoking, shooting up or carelessly not using protection.

R129, R130, Guess you've never known any Blacks that grew up in my hometown of San Diego. With the beautiful beaches seen as a free way to cool off during the summer, and to have hot dog and marshmallow roasts around the fire pits at night, it wasn't just the wealthy kids of La Jolla Shores that swam in the ocean.

Knowing the potential risks of drowning San Diego County Community Pools that thankfully then limited their chlorine and chemical saturation offered extremely low cost and even free swimming lessons to kids 6 years old and up. Pushed on parents as a way to get their kids "out of the way" for the summer," and on children as a fun alternative to gym classes, almost everyone participated. Success stories ended up on the more competitive swim teams.

R142, you are seriously trying to tell me that black people who grew up in La Jolla represent the average African American? Bitch, I don't know about today, but when I hung out in La Jolla, people who lived there were mostly white upper middle class, or working class Mexican. And if blacks lived there, then they were most definitely better off than most African Americans in let's say, the South. Of course they learned how to swim. If you grow up with white people, you will probably learn how to swim! You yourself say that there were community programs advocating learning how to swim. That is not the norm in most working class, African American heavily populated urban areas.

Pat Conroy's The Water is Wide took on this problem.

Can we just agree that coloreds can swim and climb mountains?

R145, I do agree. Of course blacks can swim, climb, ski, whatever. I'm in no way disputing that. It's just that they are not taught how.

My black friend is middle class but she found it hard to learn to swim and gave up eventually. She swears blind that her body type - slender legs and arms compared to torso - makes for less buoyancy. I have the opposite body type and learned to swim very quickly.

I read the dead people page. The funniest one is the summit frau who celebrated for 25 minutes at the top then ran out of oxygen on the way down.

More people die on the way down than on the way up, due to brain bleeds and water on the lungs. The longer you stick around at 8000 metres, the more likely those elements of mountain sickness are to manifest themselves.

This guy is amazing. He climbed Everest solo without oxygen.

The story that always angered me was about Canadian Shriya Shah-Klorfine who climbed Everest in 2012. She was very, very inexperienced.

She even needed to be shown how to put crampons on her boots!!!

Despite being warned repeatedly after she arrived that she could die, she just kept saying "I can do it".

She made it to the top and spent almost a half hour there, another stupid move.

On the way down, she ran out of oxygen..

She had been climbing for 27 hours before she died.

I didn't realize that there was a time limit for staying at the top. What is the cut off point?

[quote] I didn't realize that there was a time limit for staying at the top. What is the cut off point?

There are no rules.

The point is that prudent, knowledgeable, experienced people know that the longer you stay, the more oxygen you use. You are essentially dying a bit for every minute you spend at those very high altitudes. Also, going down is when most people die.

They are tired, going downhill, frequently short of oxygen, and deflated after the push to the top.

In the 1996 catastrophic year, again you had climbers staying way, way too long as well The problem that year was that team leaders Rob Hall and Scott Fisher had problems that prevented them from proper monitoring members of their team. Hall and Fisher both died on the way down and they were very, very experienced.

Yes, Hall wanted to go down by 2pm, but he was guiding a guy called Doug Hansen who had tried and failed to reach the summit the previous year. The clients pay $60k each so the guides must feel a responsibility to get them there. Doug eventually got up there at 4pm and then a blizzard blew in and they were both stranded and died. I read a gripping book about the 1996 disaster when 18 climbers were killed - think it was called Into Thin Air.

And it seems as if Scott Fisher, who had climbed to the top in previous years, was suffering from some physical problems that day. Apparently, getting sick on the mountain can happen even to experienced climbers who made the top before with no problems at all.

In "Into Thin Air" (great book), on days before the Summit push, team members from both Hall and Fisher's teams were told that they would be told on the day what was the "turnaround time", meaning the time at which a climber should abandon their climb if they have not already made it to the Summit. Apparently, they were never told on the day. Hall was focused on helping Hansen, who was not making good time, and Fisher was not in the best shape that day (I think he had had to go down to a lower camp for some reason and then climb back up earlier).

There were 2 men as a part of that group of climbers who looked at the time in the afternoon and decided to turn back, that they felt they were never going to make the Summit in good time. They convinced a 3rd man to go back down with them. As a result, these 3 completely avoided being a part of the catastrophic events that happened that day/night.

Another scene I remember from the book involved another climber, a man from a different team, who was an airline pilot. He was a good climber who made it to the top in good time and was there when the other climbers arrived. As he was awaiting his chance to climb down past those climbing up, he saw clouds and weather that he recognized as an incoming problems because he had seen such weather at the same altitude as a pilot. He knew the importance of getting off the mountain as quickly as possible and made it back to camp before the bad weather hit. The members of Hall and Fisher's teams stayed partying on the Summit way too long.

I would imagine if you were to take an average height of people who either want to climb or have attempted/succeeded it would be around 5'6"

I always wonder why there is admiration for people who do the most pointless things.

Like greeting marathoners at the end of a marathon.

Simply because they set a difficult goal and achieve it seems nothing to celebrate when it serves no purpose except to feed ones ego and it is to be despised when it can turn out to be so destructive and counterproductive.

Is there a decent documentary on Netflix or YouTube that I can watch based on the 1996 disaster? This is really fascinating.

If you do it right, all that time money, danger and efforts gets you maybe three minutes at the summit -- enough for a photo and a quick look at the view through groggy, altitude-compromised eyes processed though a groggy, altitude-compromised brain.

R157, I would rather do a climb than a marathon. People probably do it for ego, but I would do it for the majestic views and scenery. I bet there's not else like it. That being said, I'd rather get a helicopter tour and see it that way, if I had a choice and the money.

Question: how do they get those make-shift bridges from one side of a crevvace to the other side within the ice falls? I'm assuming that's done with helicopters, yes?

How do people feel about the latest trend of aviation climbing, where half the ascent is done on a helicopter?

The rich Chinese like it, r161.

They should just build an escalator to the top, or better, force people to survive K2 before they are allowed on Everest -- without oxygen.

R158 here's a 2-hour Frontline documentary from that time.

People have already died on Everest this year. This is the first real season since 2013 and the routes have been altered significantly. The earthquake apparently caused Everest to move 3cm !

R143, WTF? Did you ACTUALLY READ everything I said? Why do you have such a tremendous problem with reading comprehension? NO of course there aren't many Blacks living in La Jolla by the beach. In any case I was describing low-cost and free ORGANIZED swimming CLASSES taught by a TRANED INSTRUCTOR not access to a body of water.

Repeating myself once again, there are beaches up and down the entire CA coast which offer a free way to cool off during the summer, and not just the wealthiest parts of San Diego County. Therefore fearing a problem with potentially unsupervised kids rich and poor drowning, community pools offer very low cost and free swimming lessons to kids living in San Diego County from the ages of 6 on up. Children of all races take part. End of.

Latest:

KATHMANDU, Nepal - Some 30 climbers have developed frostbite or become sick near the summit of Mount Everest, a mountaineering official said Sunday, after two deaths from apparent altitude sickness in recent days highlighted the risks on the world's highest mountain.

Additionally, two Indian climbers have gone missing on the mountain, an expedition organizer said.

Paresh Nath and Goutam Ghosh have been missing since Saturday, said Wangchu Sherpa of the Trekking Camp Nepal agency in Kathmandu. They were last seen near the Everest summit.

Two of their companions who fell sick were being helped down the mountain, Sherpa said.

Most of the sick climbers suffered frostbite while attempting to reach the summit or on their descent, Mountaineering Department official Gyanendra Shrestha said. Favorable weather has allowed nearly 400 climbers to reach the summit from Nepal since May 11, but the altitude, weather and harsh terrain can cause problems at any time.

Several Sherpa guides carried one sick climber from the highest camp, at nearly 26,240 feet, to camp two, at 21,000 feet, where attempts are being made to pick her up with a helicopter, said Pemba Sherpa of the Seven Summit Treks agency in Kathmandu. Seema Goshwami of India had frostbite to her hands and feet at the South Col camp and was unable to move.

"It took a big and risky effort but we were able to save her," Sherpa said, adding that an Iranian climber identified only as S. Hadi had been brought to Kathmandu and was recovering in a hospital.

Third Death:

On Thursday, crew member Phurba Sherpa (no relation to the journalist of the same name) fell to his death. The 25-year-old had been working to fix a route about 150 meters near the summit when he fell, according to Mingma Sherpa, the Nepal rescue team leader who was at the Everest Base Camp.

Everest site poll:

Is using Helicopters to ferry loads (ropes, ice screws etc NOT personal gear) from BC to Camp 1 on Mount Everest seen as cheating?

Yes its cheating (53%, 129 Votes)

No its not cheating (38%, 92 Votes)

Not Sure (9%, 21 Votes)

Total Voters: 242

‏@endlesssblues 1 minute ago

reinaldo azevedo climbs mount everest to prove brazilian democratic institutions aren't weak, dies

‏@JohnJohnsonson

My vegan cousin climbed Mount Everest and took THE MOST AMAZING photo of his lunch.

@Beyond_72

First @Snapchat from the summit of #Everest? We think so! 29,029ft above sea level! Not a bad view.

The vegan

Thanks for that , R163 - nearly all the people from the Thin Air book were in that film. Very spooky seeing Beck Weathers without his hands in that - he must be one of the luckiest guys ever to climb Everest. Left for dead twice and he still came back down to tell the tale. The Taiwanese guide had also had all his fingers amputated.

R165, I was being a cunt, so I apologize.

The vegan woman who died said that she wanted to climb Everest to prove to the world that vegans can do anything. I have to Google this, so I'm not sure what the answer to this is, but aren't most Tibetans or Buhdists vegan? If so, then Sherpas have proven that vegans can climb Everest many times over.

R163, thanks!

Everest death: Maria Strydom's family hope to retrieve body

Most are vegans.

R174 the Sherpas are acclimated to the mountains. Some little vegan from the states is not.

She was from Oz

[quote] Question: how do they get those make-shift bridges from one side of a crevvace to the other side within the ice falls? I'm assuming that's done with helicopters, yes?

No. Not with helicopters.

Every year, the ropes, etc have to be redone. Usually, the work is done by the Sherpas. I think the various teams of climbers try to decide among themselves whose people will do the work.

One year one of the first teams to arrive started working to set the ropes. But the whole team (climbers and Sherpas) left the mountain without any Summit bids, leaving the ropes unfinished. That may have been one of the two years past (one year had the earthquake) and I think the other year had bad avalanches and deaths. (Not sure about the details here.)

And then of course it's possible to have the more experienced, better financed teams doing the work and others taking advantage of their ropes, etc.

The fact is that virtually all of the current day paying climbers could never hope to reach the Summit without all the ropes and ladders in place.

Mallory and those early expeditions, along with Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed without all that help.

Crazy dumb fuckers. "Ooh, I"m going to spend a shitpile of of money and climb to see what? Spend a few minutes and see bunch of other mountain tops".

There are a couple of other documentaries on the 1996 events:

Here is one.

Here is another of the 1996 Everest documentaries:

Beck Weathers' face made a remarkable recovery. That's when plastic surgery is really useful.

Few helicopters can operate as high as Everest. They aren't made for 30,000 feet.

To put it in perspective, 30000 feet is only 7000 feet lower than the cruising height of the average passenger jet.

I get the appeal of the climb but from everything I've read on the subject, those who get to the summit are usually feeling too ill to appreciate it, even with the oxygen. Maybe if you could be 'coptered in with plenty of oxygen, primed against altitude sickness with meds, you might be OK. That Khumbu Icefall sounds treacherous and horrific. I can understand people wanting to avoid it.

r185 the Indian and Nepali military Heli-vac pilots who perform the rescues don't get nearly enough credit for their skill and bravery. IIRC, one successful attempt was the second highest altitude rescue ever recorded.

r187, that's exactly what happens now: clients are plied with meds and oxygen. Sherpas do the actual work of affixing ropes and ladders, all of the tasks at Base Camp, and many clients don't start the climb at the base of the mountain, they are ferried up to Base Camp, which is quite high up.

Is the latest thing to copter them over the Icefall area where they need the ladders and it's really treacherous?

r189 that was only one Chinese climber AFAIK.

The Khumbu icefall is treacherous and lately unstable. The Sherpas were concerned about it before the avalanches forced them off the mountain. Seracs (overhanging ice formations) are dangerous in 'good' conditions, let alone after major seismological events.

I'm more interested on who is climbing K2 and Annapurna this year. I did a quick search the other day & didn't find any mention. Because of the multiple storylines, Everest gets all the attention.

K2 is a summer climb, so we will be hearing about this years ascents soon.

Annapurna is supposed to be more difficult than Everest.

During that same 1996 climbing season, there was a film crew on Everest making an IMAX film about climbing Everest. As I remember it, the climbers making the IMAX film decided to summit 2-3 days later because of the crowds and weather, but then basically suspended their film to help with the rescue of the other climbers. So the first half of the movie is more of a traditional documentary about climbing, the second half about the '96 tragedy.

I remember seeing the film in the domed IMAX theater at the Museum of Science in Boston, and it was breathtaking. Probably not quite as thrilling if you were to watch the movie in your living room, but would recommend it nonetheless.

"Everest" (1998)

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

"Disaster Porn"

On May 11, 1996, eight people died during summit attempts. They included guides Rob Hall, a well-respected and experienced mountaineer, and American climber Scott Fischer. Both ran their own adventure companies offering commercial clients the chance to summit Everest.

It has been widely believed that an unexpected and freak change in the weather on May 11 caused the climbers to get into grave difficulties. They battled against 150mph blizzards and temperatures as low as -40C.

This ultimately led to the deaths of both Hall and Fischer and six of their clients.

A Day to Die For reveals for the first time that the two guides were warned in advance that a storm was forecast. Graham uncovered evidence that both the Met Office in London and authorities in Denmark sent out detailed daily weather forecasts before the teams left for the summit, warning a storm was on the way. This information was shared between the two guides.

Why the guides chose to take the climbers on the final ascent and why the detailed forecasts have never been revealed in the numerous accounts of the disaster, Graham leaves to readers to reach their own conclusion.

“Why people have never moved to correct the facts I can’t say, it would be wrong for me to do that,” says the softly-spoken grandfather from Whitley Bay. “I just put the details and facts out there and leave that difficult question to other people.

“It is not for me to decide what’s right and what’s wrong.

“Rob Hall and Scott Fischer had such excellent reputations and were two really good people but on this occasion they got it terribly wrong and they made decisions which were uncharacteristic.

“It looks highly likely that they were both competing for the same business. Their clients were paying them $64,000 each to go up there. It was very lucrative. Rob had Jon Krakauer, who was reporting for Outside magazine, on his team and Scott had Sandy Hill Pittman, who was co-founder of MTV and reporting for NBC. When the accident happened, NBC had more than one million hits on the website that day and that was in the early days of the internet.

“Those were the stakes they were playing for. Money is a terrible thing when accidents happen.

Get off me.

r196, the truth didn't fit Krakauer's tragic hero narrative; it was much more lucrative to blame the rich female and the foreign climber (a Russian, to boot).

Is it really a tragedy when somebody dies in such a foolhardy act?

You really want to say, 'Well they were asking for it.'

And then there's that whole competitive Darwin thing going on.

But the relatives do get to dine out on the whole my son/daughter/wife/husband died on Mt Everest(the irony!) story for the rest of their lives. And then they get to add the ghoulish compelling fact that the body is frozen and will remain on the mountain for as long as it exists.

r196 fits with the WPI study on the disaster, Death Zone A Study of Narcissism and Regression in the May 1996 Everest, that guessed the guides felt pressured by money/their businesses, and that many clients, such as Beck Wethers, suffered from, and hoped the climb would heal, Narcissistic Wounds .

What I find really horrific is that people who climb Everest know full well in advance that they're going to be climbing over dead bodies to get to the top and they still go ahead with it, they are nothing more than sociopaths.

Are there no predators that survive at 26k feet to clean up the bodies or are they all lower down?

They just eat the soft parts, r202

Below is a link to an article about the dispute over the events from the 1996 climb through the 2 books on the subject: "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer and "The Climb" by guide Anatoli Boukreev.

The article seems a bit biased in favor of Boukreev's book, but there are important points raised by posters in the comments, so be sure to read those too.

For the unfamiliar, one of the points of dispute concerns guide Bookreev's decision to climb without oxygen (as he was an expert climber) and his consequent decision to leave the Summit early after he was first to the top, leaving guide Neil Beidleman (who was also one of the first to summit) as the only guide up top to handle the clients. Boukreev was all the way back to Camp 4 when the climbers were descending and the storm hit. However, no one disputes Boukreev's bravery that night as repeatedly left his tent and saved people who were stranded in the storm.

From what I understand, all guides are now required to use supplemental oxygen when climbing with clients.

r202 there are vultures, but they will fly over and take something on occasion; they don't spend a lot of time up that high. Ravens exist but I think they're lower down.

r204 the decision to climb without oxygen was OK'd by Scott Fischer. He also knew about weather according to r196's link. It was not a freak storm, as Krakauer wrote.

I'm not saying Boukreev was blameless, but I think Krakauer is not an unbiased journalist regarding the events.

I personally think Boukreev disagreed with both leaders' timings and the decision to attempt and stay at the summit as long as they did, and that's when he said fuck it! and went down to Camp 4. If his leader is contradicting what he thinks is safe practice, and the clients want to summit and stay too long, I can see why he got frustrated, especially if he didn't have O2. He couldn't do much in that case if he was climbing without it. I would've stayed, but I think ultimate responsibility rests with the leaders.

Brashears and Viesturs are on my list of guys I'd like to have a chat with. I'd love to ask them 'off the record' what they really thought of the situation.

According to one of the comments to the story at R204, Messner, Viesturs and Breashers disagree with Anatoli's decision to go back to Camp 4.

And it's not like Boukreev was just a climber up on Everest. He was a guide, surely with responsibilities to the clients of the team he was employed by. If you hear Neal Beidleman's comments about his reaction on Boukreev's decision to leave him as the only guide on the summit (it was in one of the documentaries linked above ...I think the one at R182,), it's plain that he is not happy.

Climbing without oxygen if you are climbing alone is one person's choice.

But if you are being paid to be there to guide others, it seems unreasonable to use the lack of oxygen as an excuse to leave those clients you are supposed to help on the summit and go back to camp.

Yes, he was brave in his rescue of people from "The Huddle", but would they have even still been there if he had been up higher on the mountain helping them with a speedier descent, rather than at Camp4?

[quote]sandyhillCrossing the Khumbu Icefall on an ascent of Mount Everest, 20 years ago this week. Photo by Scott Fischer, who remains in my thoughts, especially at this time of year.

Ah, Sandy Hill, with her Dean & Deluca coffee, planned party with Martha Stewart, fashion magazines, and the younger guide she was fucking on her way up the mountain.

I still chuckled over the NY Observer's pre-climb headline about it: "Sandy Pittman Social-Climbs Mount Everest."

R139- Jared Leto just did a climb w/ Alex Hannold.

I believe Jake G. lives on the summit, so that's the primary reason many make the attempt.

More than the coffee (which was blown out of proportion, anyway) was the fucking. But no one has really proved that either. The point was the Sherpas thought they were "making sauce" on the mountain, and this set off their superstitions.

I wouldn't think it would be easy to get it up when you're chronically hypoxic.

Lene Gammelgaard who was on Fischer's team in 96 has just published a book about the disaster. It's available on Kindle Unlimited and is an odd, uncensored, seemingly unedited account with lots of detail about Scott and Anatoli's personalities. Scott was apparently a known womaniser who often hooked up with one of the clients on each tour, despite being devoted to his wife and two kids. Lene G seems very attracted to both men.

Only got half way through the book as the style and poor English is really off putting. I'm wondering if it was self-published, but it may be more revealing for that. Scott had many health problems, including liver problems.

r207 I totally agree about Boukreev re: climbing with O2 as a guide. The issue is poor leadership that allowed it. That and not having radios were a team leader decision.

I'm still ambivalent about him leaving them, but it's also been a while since I've read the accounts. To me, both expedition leaders bear ultimate responsibility, especially with the new weather information.

KATHMANDU, Nepal -- An Indian climber who had fallen sick and was being helped down Mount Everest has died, becoming the third summiter to die in recent days while attempting to scale the world's tallest peak, an expedition organizer said Monday.

Subhash Paul died overnight as he was being helped down the mountain by Sherpa guides, said Wangchu Sherpa of the Trekking Camp Nepal agency in Kathmandu.

Two other Indian members of Paul's team -- Paresh Nath and Goutam Ghosh -- have been missing since Saturday. Sherpa said it was unlikely they would be able to survive Everest's hostile conditions.

An officer in the Indian Army, Maj. Mirza Zahid, who is at Mt. Everest Base Camp leading a team of soliders also attempting the summit the mountain, told CBS News on Monday that the bodies of Nath and Ghosh had also been found. If confirmed, their deaths would bring to five number of climbers killed in just four days

Many had hoped this year's climbing season would bring success and restore confidence in the route, after deadly disasters canceled climbing the previous two years.

But as hundreds of eager climbers, joined by local Sherpa guides and expedition experts, scrambled to take advantage of good weather to make it to the peak, the reports of tragedy began trickling down the mountain.

[quote]I would imagine if you were to take an average height of people who either want to climb or have attempted/succeeded it would be around 5'6"

What's the point of this supposition?

I kind of like the fact that the mountain has had enough and is zapping all these idiots.

Beck was an obnoxious little git -- but even the Mountain couldn't get him.

He really fucked up by not coming clean about his eye surgery.

You just know the Indian army is not very keen on conditioning.

What's not to like?

[quote] Seriously, they let disabled and pensioners climb that mountain?

Absolutely, people are so narcissistic that they want to be the first person with an artificial leg or the oldest person from China to climb Everest.

An idiotic Canadian woman insisted on being the first Female Indian-Canadian to climb Everest. She practiced by walking around Toronto carrying a backpack. ( ( I shit you not)

She was, I think, the first successfully retrieved-by-helicopter body in the Death Zone

Oh wait, I think she was Nepalese Candian, not Canadian Indian. Her family hired lawyers who started a PR campaign to make it look like the Sherpas fault that she died, and tried to paint her as some kind of brave soul who was taken advantage of, rather than just a plain old narcissistic idiot.

[quote]it serves no purpose

Says you.

If anyone has Amazom Prime and is interested in watching a really good documentary on climbing, I highly recommend "Meru." Can't say enough good things about it.

Touching the Void, yo.

It's on Netflix.

I wish I had a Sherpa just to help me get through my regular day.

[quote]An idiotic Canadian woman insisted on being the first Female Indian-Canadian to climb Everest. She practiced by walking around Toronto carrying a backpack. ( ( I shit you not)

Even worse. She had never before hiked a mountain. Also, the company she booked with were also newbies and none of their guides had ever brought customers to the top. It was a recipe for disaster all around.

R223 she was born in Nepal but grew up in India. She then met and married a Canadian, which is how she ended up here.

R225: I loved that documentary

The elephant in the room here is the fact that more and more cut rate trekking companies are being allowed to operate by the local government. Many are owned/run by Sherpas and not the 'global white male adventurer' types that used to have them.

The GWMAs have a lot of faults, as the 96 disaster shows, but they also have some good points; they oversee a lot of the work other companies take for granted. They are also in a better position to set and enforce rules with rich, foreign clients. Russell Brice takes a lot of shit, but he will and has said no in dangerous situations.

In 1996, it cost $65k per person to join a commercial expedition to Everest.

Any idea how much it would be today?

$65k in 1996 would be worth about $100k today.

The price has dropped to around $12K, which is why there are so many traffic jams.

OK - so $12 is affordable for most people and good value really. Two weeks in the Maldives would cost about the same.

*$12k lol

Base Camp is like how the NYC central bus station always is...

I'd rather have two weeks in the Maldives.

I keep hoping that they will find the camera of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine and discover from photographs that THEY really were the first to make it to the Summit.

Apparently, Kodak provided a set of instructions as to how to preserve the camera and film should it be found, so that the film can be developed.

They found Mallory's body in 1999 (although there is a claim that his body was found years earlier in 1933 and the discovery kept secret to avoid ugly publicity). Supposedly Irvine's body was found years back on a part of the mountain not explored these days, but there is a question as to whether this is true.

But what happened to the camera?

Me too, R238. The ocean there is spectacular and if you're a decent swimmer you come back alive.

Paying $12k and having a 1/10 chance of dying isn't a stat which works for me.

I've been meaning to post, but wanted to make sure I had enough time to make a good post. My father-in-law is a recreational climber who has climbed in the Himalayas. He's by no means an elite climber, but he does have a lot of solid experience climbing in various places. This is what I've gathered/heard from him...

He hasn't climbed Everest, but he did attempt another mountain nearby, Ama Dablam, two years ago. It's more of a "climber's mountain" than Everest in that it's more technical and demanding. While Everest is obviously still an accomplishment, it's seen as more tourist-y and the complete novices that attempt it are looked down upon.

Climbers going to Ama Dablam stay at Everest Base Camp. My FIL did say there's some major partying going on there, which I was surprised to hear. He said that people don't realize it but actually climbers have a lot of downtime. Most of the time you're there you're just acclimatizing and there's lots of shooting the breeze in between climbs. There's drinking and smoking. Often climbers sleep together, however that's majorly frowned upon by the Sherpas..... Lots of climbers choose not to participate in any of this, but it is something that goes on.

A previous poster mentioned a drug that's supposed to be used as a last resort nicknamed "Dex," and my FIL said some climbers talked about wanting to use it recreationally while they were on the mountain. A woman who was in his group to climb Ama talked about doing this. She eventually left and went home which everyone was happy about. Apparently she seemed crazy and no one really wanted to be forced to rely on her during the climb.

There's no telling how the altitude will effect you. On a previous trip to climb some other mountain in the Himalayas my FIL was forced to come home because he got altitude sickness, however this past trip he was absolutely fine. Altitude sickness can happen very fast, so you have to be very careful.

I have to go for now, but I'll be back later and will try to write more. Luckily my father-in-law has decided he's done with Himalayan climbing. The day before they were going to attempt the summit of Ama Dablam, his group called it off for a variety of reasons (some weren't feeling well, etc.). There was an avalanche the next day and they definitely would have died. This creeped my FIL out enough that he finally got a much-needed reality check and swore he was done... With the Himalayas at least. We cheered. Obviously we all don't get it and think it's incredibly stupid

It's described in the autobiographies of climbers as an addiction - nothing seems to deter them, not pain, not corpses, not amputations, not near death experiences. Maybe age deters them as their passion seems to diminish post-50.

The drive to climb Everest seems insane to me, but it's absolutely fascinating to read about. Keep the posts coming!

When you climb Everest, you have to fly from Kathmandu to a small village called Lukla to begin the ascent to base camp. Lukla's air strip is incredibly short, and it ends on the side of a cliff. Looking at planes landing there, I'd be more afraid of the flight than of Khumbu Icefall,

They have tours that you can take that have you hiking to base camp, even if you have no interest in actually summiting. If memory serves, Scott Fischer arranged to helicopter his clients closer to camp, which robbed them of the ability to acclimatize, and may have contributed to what happened.

I think it would be an interesting experience even to do that, but then I'm one of the cheesy people who'd like to do Camino de Santiago.

In the Thin Air book, the author Jon was with Rob's team and they spent weeks acclimatising just at base camp, before he took them up to Camp 2 and back down, then to Camp 2 to stay the night and back down, then to Camp 3 etc. Jon H was generally critical of Scott and said that he left the Clients at BC to their own devices and didn't have such a rigorous programme.

r245 Krakauer had a quid pro quo with Hall that gave him unfettered access in exchange for advertising and publicity (one assumed it's implied positive publicity) from Outside magazine, who commissioned the article and hired JK. He is in no way an unbiased observer. Both leaders made crucial mistakes, but Krakauer totally glossed over them, especially in the initial run of the book.

Even Brashears and Viesturs, whose credentials are excellent, and aren't afraid to criticize (especially the former) are still dependent on the whole system. I don't recall either of them ever addressing the Sherpas' concerns about how things were done until things came to a head decades later.

It seemed to come down to competition. Scott was American and just starting out featuring the Everest climb in his programme. Ron was from NZ and feared that once Scott got established, he would corner the US market. He poached Jon H who was originally signed up with Scott's expedition by offering Outside a better deal but he then seemed to become paranoid about getting clients to the top.

Hall spent too much time with Doug without 02 on the Hilary Stepp and the brain damage going on meant he couldn't think clearly about what to do. Amazingly, Rob survived a whole night up there in a terrible storm but even he couldn't survive two nights. He must have been a tough customer.

[quote]Ron was from NZ and feared that once Scott got established, he would corner the US market.

Why would he automatically assume that?

Because he assumed the Americans would want to be guided by another American rather than a New Zealander.

I'm so glad I don't like to travel. As I live out in the country with the most unbelievable nature around me I don't have to travel to do that. I like my nature when it's not trying to kill me.

Can you believe it? This year, they returned to using Khumbu Icefall!

Mount Everest's Icefall Doctors have established the route through the Khumbu Icefall for the 2016 spring season. The icefall, the chaotic section of the Khumbu Glacier, divides Base Camp (17,500 feet) from Camp I (20,000 feet) on the South Col route. In an effort to avoid avalanches, the workers made the passage similar to that of 2015, running up the more technical center of the fall, rather than the classic push up the western shoulder. Each year, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee—an NGO in the Khumbu region that acts as the de facto governing body of Everest—commissions a team of Ice Doctors to pick and establish a route through the ice flow as part of Everest’s popular South Col route, as well as the approach to Annapurna. On April 10, eight Sherpas finished placing 23 aluminum ladders and many fixed ropes along the fall to aid climbers ascending the glacier.

Soon, climbers hoping to summit Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse will pass through this labyrinth of ice. “At least 385 climbers, including 72 on Mt. Lhotse and 34 on Mt. Nuptse, will use the icefall route,” said Gyanendra Shrestha, speaking for the Nepalese Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Aviation to the Himalayan Times. Each climber will pay roughly $600 for passage through the icefall.

The 2016 season is a litmus test for the future of Everest’s guiding industry. A series of bizarre and tragic events has brought a cloud of bad press to Everest, threatening the economic security of the local Sherpas.

The costs of climbing Everest, by line item:

For what you get, line by line Everest is much better value now than a fortnight in the Maldives. Even in the Maldives you need to be careful - dozens of Chinese tourist have drowned there in the past few years, trying to snorkel before they can properly swim.

R250 where do you live?

Maine. We've got everything outdoor related. But I don't want to derail thread. ....sorry...

Maldives?

Too dangerous in a tsunami

Now that's friggin incredible R255!

Who the needs the hellish insanity of climbing Everest when you can enjoy that?

The central route isn’t really new — it has been used by mountaineers climbing Everest’s south face since 1953, according to National Geographic. But the path was changed in favor of the more dangerous “West Shoulder” in the 1990s. The new route skirted the left-hand side of the icefall, avoiding the pocked and arduous path through the gut of the glacier, but passed right below massive towers of ice that loom over the icefall’s edge. This is where Krakauer trekked during his 1996 trip up Everest, and where the 16 Sherpas were killed last year.

By shifting toward the icefall’s safer center, the change in route addresses some of the safety concerns that have dogged Everest hikes — but not all of them. Last April’s disaster sparked two separate but related discussions about problems with Everest’s climbing culture: One about the impact of climate change on the mountain, the other about the treatment of the Sherpas who make most outsiders’ Everest ascents possible.

Sherpas are not forced to guide foreigners. They choose to do it. They could easily say, "Fuck it. You're on your own."

But they don't because it's good money.

Everest training

Supposedly when you hit the top, you automatically cum harder then you ever came before.

This is my favourite Maldives island. The house reef is just metres away from your beach or water bungalow and the sea temperature never falls below 28c. The sea is the most stunning neon turquoise colour.

That's because Colby Keller is at the top.

That's why they only stay 20 minutes.

Imagine staying here.

Is Sherpa a race? How do they differ from regular Tibetans?

bragging rights -- starting with Hillary and everyone else since

His name was ROB Hall.

Not Ron.

One of the points of Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" was the different dynamics of a group of paying customers (who are strangers to each other) with paid guides climbing Everest vs the traditional teams of climbers who were familiar with each other and each other's skills. If you were just a paying customer, for example, you tended to be more passive as far as the workings of the climb.

This was reinforced for me when watching the PBS Frontline "Storm Over Everest", linked above.

More than one person remarked that Scott Fisher was sick that day. He told people he was sick. He was still struggling toward the Summit after his clients had already been to the top.

And yet, in the video, there is no mention of anyone stopping him and encouraging him to go back down with them.

I think if he had been climbing with a group of his peers, they would have understood how much trouble he was in and been much more proactive in getting him turned around.

Instead, his team waited for him on the Summit so that he could celebrate with them and when they were strongly urged to leave the top and they encountered him still heading up, they seemed to just let him go, apparently because he was the LEADER and supposed to be the one in charge.

Even the guides who were experienced deferred to him.

Sad.

Maybe a guide should or shouldn't climb without oxygen, but the simple fact is that Boukreev climbing without it in 1996 contributed zero to the tragedy and the deaths. His agreement with Fischer as to climbing without it, included CARRYING one or two bottles, and there were one or two reserved for him at the South Col for the trip down if he needed it. He stayed up at the summit about ONE HOUR. That's, ONE HOUR, waiting for climbers to arrive, in order to accompany them back down. That is like, FIFTY MINUTES LONGER than anyone, guide, expedition leader, or anyone, should stay up there even WITH oxygen. The fact that the team leaders declined to turn back the late summiters was not Boukreev's fault. And it was not his fault that people who summited late were then permitted to hang around up at the summit for OVER FORTY FIVE MINUTES, super-late in the day, with a storm coming in.

When Boukreev started down, he GAVE the oxygen bottle he was carrying, to Neal Beidelman, who consumed his own at a great rate on the way up, and was out by the time he got to the summit. He just so happens to leave that out in his current cycle of bad-mouthing Boukreev. He was quiet about what happened for many years, but lately has started hand-wringing and tsk-tsking about Boukreev not using oxygen, and going down the mountain without the clients. Plus, there was a fiasco with the bottles that were supposed to have been waiting for people to use on the descent--no one ever found out whether not enough were delivered, or some were stolen, or what. But the number that were supposed to be on hand, were not there. So to the degree there WERE some there, some desperate climber got oxygen because Boukreev did not take his on the way down. If Boukreev had stayed on the summit for hours using oxygen, that bottle would not have been there for Beidelman, who was out. Facts are really, really inconvenient things.

Both Boukreev and Beidelman can be faulted for not being more aggressive and assertive with Scott Fischer about letting people summit late and not turning them back. But there's no guarantee you won't get cerebral or pulmonary edema from waiting for hours up at the summit even with oxygen---Boukreev did more than enough staying up there an hour waiting for clients. Being an Everest guide does not obligate you to throw your life away to hand-hold reckless fools who have chosen to summit way, way, WAY past safe turnaround times, and who have lingered up at the summit screwing around rather than kissing the Blarney Stone, getting their selfie, and getting the hell off there. Krakauer and Beidelman were both like two hero-worshipful children in their reluctance to call a spade a spade about Hall and Fischer's gross negligence as the proximate cause of the deaths.

[quote] ...the simple fact is that Boukreev climbing without it in 1996 contributed zero to the tragedy and the deaths.

Wow.

That's quite an assertion.

Not sure why you have such an axe to grind here, but I can't agree. I can think of at least 2 people who are dead who might very well be alive if Anatoli had been using oxygen and had not gone down to Camp 4.

Can I swear that it is so. No.

Neither can you.

The fact that guides are now required to climb with oxygen pretty much indicates the attitude on the importance of not having a guide's behavior on the choice of using oxygen dictated by his own personal whim.

r270 I agree with your point re: the poster's certainty, but not with your last sentence. His own personal whim? No. Scott Fischer OKd it--that makes a huge difference, and it speaks to the poster's point about Fischer's (and Hall's) bad judgement being a major reason for the deaths. As the previous post stated, he did carry canisters and had them available for his use, i.e. he fulfilled all the requirements of his agreement with Fischer to go without 02.

The culture itself is often not accurately reported, either. All extreme environment people, climbers, divers, ultimate trekkers, etc. have common traits. The hook up culture is typical. Brice's parties were legendary within the community, but Sandy Hill, a female client, is the one Krakauer calls out for 'offending the Sherpa' for sex at Base Camp? Really? What about Fischer?

Krakauer has had professionalism issues around his other books, specifically around shoehorning events into his narratives. Given that and the comments at r204's link, he might be an interesting longform subject himself. His accounts pose a lot of interesting questions about non fiction writing as a career.

On his way down from the top of Mount Everest, Indian mountaineer Nava Kumar Phukon saw the woman sway from side to side - a classic sign of severe mountain sickness - as snow and fog reduced visibility to less than 10 feet (3 meters).

Phukon's sherpa guide later told him the woman was 34-year old Australian Maria Strydom, who died last Saturday on the high slopes of Everest after making a failed push for the summit.

"The sherpa who was trying to help her told me: 'She is going to die'," Phukon said after returning to Kathmandu from his own exhausting but successful summit bid.

"I did not have any extra oxygen, clothes or food, not even water to offer to her," Phukon said. "I was so weak myself."

Interview with Reinhold Messner on the Jon Krakauer / Anatoli Boukreev controversy:

I don't get the attraction of climbing out of bed.

Anatoli did leave his tent in the 100mph blizzard and save the lives of Sandy Hill and Charlotte Fox, who were huddled in the snow at the edge of the campsite. having failed to find their way to the tents.

The poor guy did not last long anyway. Jon K accused him of 'arrogance' because he would not admit he was wrong or apologise (unlike Jon). The very next year, Anatoli was killed in an avalance on Annapura.

R275 so he survived the "Into Thin Air" tragedy, but died just a year later in similar circumstances? Talk about FINAL DESTINATION.

[quote]Are you guys familiar with Alex Hannold? He does a lot of free solo climbing. That means no ropes, no cords, no safety net. Several years ago, 60 MINUTES did a segment on him. They actually show him free soloing. My palms got sweaty.

I just watched a doc on Netflix called Valley Uprising, about the history of climbing in Yosemite through the present day, and he is featured heavily in it. It's an excellent doc that also had some nice footage of John Bachar in his prime (and in short shorts). I could never do what they do, but it's certainly fascinating to watch.

As for the Maldives, I had a boss who went there on his honeymoon and came back with some mystery illness that kept him out of work for months. Shit can certainly happen anywhere.

What's this year's death toll? Four or six? I know two were missing.

Six, including the Sherpa who was fixing ropes.

I thought Sherpas never died there 'cause their bodies have adapted to the extreme conditions. I thought they were fearless like the Mohawk, who were used to build the skyscrapers in the early 20th century, because they had great balance and didn't seem to have a fear of heights.

Women are flogged in the Maldives for having premarital sex

Men aren't

[quote] Sherpas didn't see to die in the numbers they do today.

This is due to inexperienced climbers they sre guiding staying too long on the mountain and new guiding businesses popping up with inexperienced Sherpa guides.

Fourteen Sherpas died on he icefall in an ice avalanche in 2014 as they were affixing rope anchors on the icefall.

It's gotten safer for non-Sherpas to climb Everest, but more dangerous for Sherpas

Many, many Sherpas have died. They are the ones who are given the most difficult tasks, like fixing the ropes before the others climb or checking out whether a new route is safe.

Lopsang Sherpa was Scott Fischers's loyal guide, a 23 year old father who at first refused to leave his friend and employer when Scott collapsed on the mountain. He only departed after Scott threatened to throw himself off the mountain. Lopsang was killed by an avalanche in September of 1996.

The most tragic thing about the text quoted in the post at R110 is that the writer doesn't know the difference between "sherpas" and "sherpa's."

Away, punctuation troll!

One of the main reasons people die is because they press on to the summit and don't leave enough oxygen to get back down again. Guides can only carry so many bottles - they're quite heavy. Once climbers are without 02, altitude sickness sets in and they can die instantly of pulmonary or cranial embolism, which is what happened to the female vegan climber this week.

A survivor from "The Huddle" writes about the day.

Only assholes do it.

Thanks R286 for that link.

Very smart woman with thoughtful reflections on that climb.

Do the people who experience altitude sickness know they're dying? What does it feel like? Are they terrified?

R211, I wouldn't want superstitious people in charge of my being.

R253, why would you think we don't know how to properly swim? The Chinese don't know how to ride bikes in some areas.

R289, altitude sickness is described as being a bit like being sedated with a roofie, but without the pleasurable sweeps of euphoria. The lizard brain is operating and all your focus is on the summit; some climbers have described it as having the mental capacity of a five year old. That's why so many people make wrong decisions and sit gazing at the scenery and slowly freezing to death instead of moving on after five minutes. The exhaustion you feel means that it takes you four hours to walk a distance that would only have taken 30 minutes at sea level.

Severe altitude sickness with the pulmonary and cranial embolisms just overcomes you and, in the latter case, death comes very quickly.

High-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE)

High-altitude cerebral edema (HACE)

Altitude sickness—also known as acute mountain sickness (AMS)

Chronic mountain sickness (CMS) is a disease that can develop during extended time living at a high altitude. It is also known as "Monge's disease"

Lene Gaamelgaard has just this week self-published a second book about 1996 on Kindle. It's a very raw revealing and emotional account, which I found a little difficult to read in places due to grammatical errors (obviously English isn't her first language and no-one seems to have edited this book for her).

She seems almost in love with both Scott and Anatoli and describes in detail how sick Scott was and had been for months and how Anatoli was furious when they returned to the tents without alerting him that others were left in 'the huddle'.

Worth downloading - it's only $3.50 or free if you have Kindle Unlimited.

Why do people climb Everest? To say they climbed Everest. But a lot of people who go up there DON'T climb Everest. They're rich fucks who hire somebody to haul them up the mountain "like a sack of potatoes", as one guide put it. But they pay the big bucks to do it, so there are always guides and Sherpas willing to risk dragging them all the way up the mountain.

I don't want to read about those sicknesses. Even though all I climb is out out of bed I'll convince myself, by morning, that I have at least two of them.

R299 are you a hypochondriac?

R298 literally drag them? Like by a sled?

They drag them by using a process called "short roping." The client is tied to a Sherpa with a short rope, and the Sherpa drags the client along.

Trouble is, they can't be dragged. Everything seems to weigh much more at 8000 metres. They can be short roped but not dragged on a sled - no-one takes a sled up there. If they could breed a big dog or a horse that was Ok at 8000 metres, I'm sure they'd take them along.

I watched that Frontline "Storm Over Everest", and according to that, Sandy Hill Pittman collapsed on the way down. She was given someone else's oxygen (Lene Gaamelgaard) who was in better shape and Charlotte Fox had kept a dose of Dex inside her climbing suit and she gave Sandy the shot.

Before these 2 things happened, Sandy was lying face down in the snow, totally "collapsed" according to Lene Gaamelgaard. Sound as if she would have died up there if not for those 2 women. The Japanese woman was not so lucky as she too had collapsed, but there is no record of her getting the same kind of treatment. Yasuko was also the one who died in The Huddle.

Has there been any mention of the fact that the 2 people left for dead in The Huddle were both members of Rob Hall's team? And the people who were rescued were all members of Scott Fisher's team?

Yep, Anatoli was looking after his own as he was paid to do. Beck certainly could have been helped to safety as he managed to walk into a tent soon afterwards.

Since 1996, they've discovered that people can seem very far gone into hypothermia and still be revived, rather than left for dead just because they are icing over. David Sharp in 2006 should not have been left alone by 42 climbers.

Here's a link the Outside Magazine's article from one year after the 1996 events.

Prior to those events. Rob Hall ran an add reading "100 percent success rate" and Scott Fisher claimed

[quote] ...We've got the big E figured out, we've got it totally wired. These days, I'm telling you, we've built a yellow brick road to the summit."

But Doug Hansen didn't reach the summit the year before, so how could that be 100% success? Did he mean by success that someone in the team reached the summit?

The presence of the journos on the teams definitely seemed to make both men reckless. Rob did seem to behave out of character. I don't think Scott did particularly; I think he was genuinely sick and had been for months, and shouldn't have attempted the summit.

Did they ever say what exactly was wrong with Scott's liver?

R308 Scott who?

Anatoli had climbed 8000 metre mountains so many times that I wouldn't be surprised if he knew what those storm clouds meant and high tailed it to Camp IV to save his own skin. Rob Hall had never experienced storms high up on Everest; he'd been lucky in all his summit attempts.

[quote]Scott who?

Scott of the Antarctic, Rose.

Scott guided a Climb for a Cure expedition to Denali in 1993

One of the comments in the article at R306 compares the public response to the 1996 Everest events to the public response to the sinking of the Titanic.

I can see why that might be somewhat true.

It's certainly not as well known as Titanic, but the events of people being really beyond help or trapped by events of nature, hubris involved, people saying goodbye to loved ones when they know they will die, etc.

There have always been issues for Westerners around that mountain, about who should go up and who shouldn't:

Who saw the Gyllenhaal film about the disaster? I missed it. Is it worth seeing?

Everyone hated it

I love the thrill-seeking types. I'm tired of scared people who follow the pack, don't trust their instincts and always play it safe. The world is a herd except for a small and vibrant sector of risk-takers.

It seems the climbers are exactly the ones who are following the pack.

Here is a link to an old review of David Breashears's book "High Exposure" with additional details about the 1996 climb. The quotes from some of Rob Hall's radio calls (which I had never seen before) are very sad.

But Beck Weathers sounds like quite a guy in the way he reacted in the aftermath of his "return from the dead" and while moving down the mountain (with help) ...having a sense of humor full in the knowledge of how serious his injuries were and what lay ahead of him.

R316 EVEREST was a hit. It had a $55 million budget and grossed $203 million.

R315 EVEREST got favorable reviews. It has a score of 73% at RottenTomatoes.

I like to see thrill seeking types get squashed.

It is so extremely satisfying.

Like for a brief moment there is a God saying 'You're a fucking asshole and if there's anything I hate it's a fucking asshole.'

I read a book about a guy who summited via the North side of Everest today. He had a 'summit Sherpa' who was literally with him every step of the way on Summit Day, shoving him up rocks when he froze and making sure his oxygen regulator wasn't frozen up. He seemed to have a much less traumatic climb than any of the people I've read about who summited via the Nepal side. Much of it was trekking and there was no equivalent to the treacherous Khumba Icefall, plus the Chinese had put ladders up the last few Steps.

Beck survived and Yasuko might have too, if someone had helped her to a tent and warmed her up with tea and hot water bottles and given her oxygen. She was very slight and would have been easy to drag. I bet Anatoli would have come back for her if she'd been in his team.

Since 1996, they have discovered that people who are in AMS related comas can be brought back from the dead and they don't stop trying quite as soon as they did with Yasuko.

Info about and quotes from those who were there... 10 years after

Sandy PIttman...God, what a cunt. She fucked a boy toy at base camp, which spooked the Sherpas. They thought that such nasty behavior was disrespectful to the mountain and could bode ill for them all. And it did! Pittman also brought a lot of unnecessary junk with her ("I wouldn't dream of leaving town without an ample supply of Dean & DeLuca's Near East blend and my espresso maker.") that the Sherpas had to carry and basically acted exactly like she is: a rich, entitled.cunt. After she got back from the event where several people died what happened was a tragedy, but didn't she deserve some kind of homecoming celebration, like a party? Horrible woman.

I haven't read this thread yet (I will), but DL had a fantastic Everest thread a couple of years ago. With 325 replies here, I'm betting some of that discussion is repeated (the deaths over the years, the Krakauer book, the sherpas, etc.). I've read multiple Everest books and the whole ordeal sounds miserable. I do understand humans pushing the limits, but why not move on to something else? It's been done.

"New" Hillary Step

r327 that's a great link, thanks.

r326, now it's promoted as part of the Seven Summits challenge amongst the upper middle class, and the 8,000m challenge amongst actual adventurers/technical climbers. Most of the problems come from the former, with assholes like Ueli Steck being the exception to the latter.

R100, attempts have been made, but multiple people have dies during those attempts. I think some bodies have been brought down, but retrievals are even more deadly than simply ascent-descents. One web site claims that the pasty white man with his back exposed and partially buried in rock is Mallory's body from the 1920s. It's not that no one cares to move them or pay for moving them, it just will result in yet more loss of life.

Another sad aspect is the local loss of life. All the sherpas that die. When you root around online for Everest articles, you come across photos of people breaking the news to the sherpas' wives.

[quote] One web site claims that the pasty white man with his back exposed and partially buried in rock is Mallory's body from the 1920s.

It was George Mallory.

I believe the film crew were on the mountain expressly to try to find what happened to Mallory and Irvine.

The gear, boots, clothes were all from the right period. At first, they thought it was Andrew Irvine, but when they examined his clothes they discovered there was a label on the inside back neck of his shirt which read "George Mallory".

They hoped to find the camera (which might indicate whether Mallory and Irvine had reached the top of Mount Everest). No such luck.

They took some of his personal possessions to pass along to his family and covered the body with rocks and said a prayer. They exact location has not been revealed for obvious reasons.

There are other 8000 metre mountains far more difficult than Everest and some that are easier. It's a thing amongst certain moneyed types to try and summit all of them.

(CNN)The body of one of two Indian nationals who went missing on Mount Everest last week has been located, the managing director of Trekking Camp Nepal said Friday.

Paresh Chandra Nath is the fifth person to die climbing the world's highest peak this season.

A team of Sherpas located Nath's body Friday morning but were unable to carry it to base camp because of weather conditions, Wangchu Sherpa told CNN.

Another member of Nath's climbing team, Goutam Ghosh, is missing, Wangchu Sherpa said.

The two men were part of a team of four Indian climbers and four Sherpas. Indian national Subash Paul died at Base Camp II -- at an elevation of about 24,600 feet -- Sunday from altitude sickness.

Dying from altitude sickness at Base Camp - that's really scary, especially with the medical facilities they have there.

I got altitude sickness on a 3700 metre mountain. Friends have said that's too low but I had all the mild symptoms like the severe headache that painkillers wouldn't touch, breathlessness, wooly head. Anyone know if that's possible at that height.

R336 who is that?

Sandy Hill

Sandy Hill had climbed other 8000 mountains. People act as if she had no experience at altitude.

R339 yeah, she wasn't like that Canadian woman, who perished in 2012. She had never hiked a mountain or hill before. Plus, her guide firm was also a rookie that year, never having attempted Everest before.

Krakauer'sxsexism and classism was showing regarding Sandy Hill (I just realized what a weird name that is). If she were a man getting it on with some hot female, they all would have been high fiving.

It's better to have climbed another, easier 8000 mountain before attempting Everest. Cho Uyo is one they suggest. You need to know how you cope with oxygen and if the altitude sickness incapacitates you.

Krakauer was a rock/ice climber really. He liked difficult, technical climbs but he'd never even gone up a mountain as high as Everest Base Camp, let alone 8000 metres. He'd never used oxygen. He suffered from altitude sickness from the moment he hit Base Camp, needing codeine for headaches etc. Nevertheless. on summit day he was in the lead and climbing quickly with the guides, although when he topped out he didn't appreciate the view at all and was just desperate to get back down again before he ran out of oxygen.

A great article about the search for the bodies of Mallory and Irvine, what was found and when and the possible scenario of their climb:

On the Titanic everyone who died was an innocent victim of man's hubris and nature's indifference.

On Everest everyone who dies a miserable death is begging for it.

Yes r335. People routinely got sick at low altitude on Kea on Hawaii Island. The issue was going from sea level and going up too quickly. It's not necessarily the altitude, it's how fast you ascend. It's like getting The Bends. It doesn't affect everyone the same, and not feeling symptoms doesn't mean you're a healthier specimen necessarily.

And it's very very easy to get sick going up Kea because it's a drive, not a hike. It doesn't feel like you ought to stop and rest.

NOVA episode on the2015 Nepal quake

>On Everest everyone who dies a miserable death is begging for it.

They've chosen their (snowy not Sandy) hill to die on, so to speak.

We did drive up the 3700 mountain from sea level so that will be why I was suffering, I guess. It didn't affect anyone else on the coach. Knowing how bad I felt there, I wouldn't be in any hurry to try anywhere higher.

Lots of athletes go up thinking it won't be difficult because they are mega fit, but it's all about how well the body adapts to the lack of 02 by creating new red blood cells to optimise what o2 there is. That might happen efficiently in anyone. It doesn't matter if you're athletic.

The air is so thin up there, they'd have to do some modifications, but I would think it would be a good way to look for Irvine.

A drone, that is...

[quote]On the Titanic everyone who died was an innocent victim of man's hubris and nature's indifference.

What man?

[quote]What man?

Old Man River, Rose.

Is it going to be more acceptable practice now for the dead to be brought down no matter the expense nor danger?

Climbers have to apply and pay for summiting permits, correct? There should be a box on the application that specifies that your remains will be left in situ if recovering them presents a risk to anyone else. Simple.

Are you thinner in thin air?

Yes, R357 - the average weight loss between entering base camp and getting back down again is 30 pounds. Some with fast metabolisms lose much more. In the Death Zone, the body can't metabolise food so it gobbles up muscle.

They should have a fat camp up there.

That's exactly what I was gonna say, R359. The brochure would say "you'll get thin or die trying."

Trouble with that would be that the giant pies would not even be able to trek up to base camp, let alone navigate the Khumbu Icefall. It would be helpful for people who just couldn't lose that last 20 pounds

Climbers tend to decompress by going home via Thailand or the Maldives so they can warm up and eat plenty of good food.

Nepal Honors 9 Sherpas Who Paved Way for Everest Climbers

Nepal celebrated Everest Day on Sunday by honoring nine Sherpa guides who fixed ropes and dug the route to the summit so hundreds of climbers could scale the world's highest mountain this month, following two years of disasters.

Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli praised the men at the ceremony in Kathmandu, where they were presented with bouquets and given checks for 50,000 rupees ($460).

"The secret behind the more than 400 climbers ascending Mount Everest is the successful rope fixing and successful route fixing," Oli said. "There was no confusion because the route fixing and the rope fixing made it possible for climbers to reach the summit."

Everest Day honors the first successful climb in 1953 by Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay. Since then, thousands of climbers have scaled the peak and some 280 people have died on Everest's unpredictable slopes, including at least four this month.

The nine Sherpas who were honored Sunday were the first to reach the summit this season, reaching the peak on May 11. Since they fixed the ropes and dug the route, more than 400 people have climbed the mountain.

The Sherpas first fixed aluminum ladders and tied ropes over the dreaded Khumbu Icefall, just above the base camp. They then fixed ropes for climbers to hold onto for much of the route.

Nepal needs those tourist dollars.

First, the Sherpas cancelled the entire 2014 climbing season

Then the mega quake of 2015 did serious damage to the country.

Nepal is gonna stay on the good side of Sherpas from here on .....

My 2 co-workers did this, but not all the way up. It cost $$$$$$

The Sherpas are paid so much less than the Western guides for doing virtually the same job.

In 'Into Thin Air', Anatoli Boukreev was paid $25k per expedition and the chief Climbing Sherpa, Lopsang, only $2000. Eighteen months later, both had died in avalanches.

In Lene Gammelgaard's account she says 'Scott was sick and had been sick for months...he wasn't getting any better.' This was early 1996 and Scott was known to be promiscuous, as were many in the climbing world. Maybe he had AIDS?

I'm thinking Hep C, r366. Others have described it as problems with his liver.

[quote[I don't the get attraction of climbing Everest

You mean you don't want to be able to say you shit and pissed on the ice while climbing past dead bodies and other peoples' shit and piss and trash that's been there for decades?

What's not to love?!

Holy smokes. This is the Khumbu Icefall. I kept thinking these photos were dramatic art for some film. I thought the real ladders were much shorter. Do an image search. It's freaky.

R369 that almost gave me vertigo when they showed that scene in the new EVEREST film.

The ladder pictures always get me. I hate looking at them, but I always feel compelled to.

Has anyone died from falling off those ladders (like Josh Brolin almost did in EVEREST)? Or are all the deaths related to altitude sickness and the elements?

It's like a BBC waiting to be conquered

This guy just summited the other day. He has some beautiful pictures from last year.

R371 I just realized that long ladder is actually FIVE stacked, individual ladders. Eek! Imagine if they unsnapped or came undone?

It's just another Monday for Pem Dorjee Sherpa, very ho hum at one of the Khumbu crevasses. IT doesn't look like that whispy aluminum ladder (my local hardware stores don't sell ones this crappy) is secured by ropes. Just throw and go!

AWAY WITH YOU, OP!!!!

Yes, R372, absolutely. People have fell do their death in the Khumba Ice Fall. And, been taken out by falling seracs - huge columns of ice which regularly break off the glacier that's on top of a portion of Everest.

I just watched the IMAX Everest documentary from 1998. It's on Netflix until June 1st. I was amazed by Araceli Segarra, the Spanish woman in the film, she made climbing look so easy and effortless. She's summited K2 as well.

I think I watched that too r379, and the Disney one. IIR Disney's version made little mention of the human corpse piles and metric tons of litter.

A climber had a camera strapped to his head in the IMAX doc. It was so steep, I got an adrenaline rush just watching it.

Not even the good aluminum ladders r375. If you've ever bought a ladder you can see those ones are rinky dink.

You'd have to be pretty fit. I wouldn't make it 20 feet off the ground without turning around and going back to the lodge to watch Netflix and have a nice mug of Nescafe.

Watching someone else do it is excitement enough, though the same could be said by some of these climbers who are whisked around by sherpas.

[quote] Sherpas are paid so much less than the Western guides for doing virtually the same job.

The Sherpas live in a part of the world where the dollar (or the pound or yen) goes a lot further than in other countries. $2,000 in Nepal is mad money. It's the equivalent of $25k in a more developed country.

Nepal is a filthy country. The people don't just throw their garbage in the river (which they do quite regularly). They will throw any kind of wrapping on the ground at their feet. I remember when I was a kid and someone gave me a piece of gum. I took off the wrappers and threw it on the ground.mmy mother said,m"No, you cannot do that. You have to ball up the wrapper and throw it in the garbage when you get home. Put it in your pocket."

In Nepal, when westerners try to tell kids not to throw food wrappers on the ground, the kids just laugh. The parents don't carre.

People rub dirt on their faces as sunscreen.

Such a beautiful and unspoiled place.

I will be ascending Mt. Everest next month. My sherpas will rouse me from my propofol induced nap for photos when we have conquered the summit.

There are snow spiders, leopards and yaks, but I think even they only go so far up.

The accepted wisdom certainly may be that guides need to use oxygen, but that is irrelevant to the question of whether Anatoli Boukreev carrying oxygen and not using it, was the proximate cause of any of those deaths in 1996, which it was not. To take but one scenario, if Neal Beidelman had not been surviving on Boukreev's oxygen, there would not have been an extra helper to get people back if Boukreev had lingered on and used his own O's.

Out there on the internet can be found more than one article or PowerPoint for a lecture, in the field of risk management. Everest 1996 became and remains a case study in human failure and disasters of this kind. The field is inter-disciplinary, and is kind of science made up of statistics, psychology, etc. These risk management eggheads have no agendas and no axes to grind in the E1996 controversy. There are some fascinating conclusions in these articles. And I assure you, the perfidious Russian Guide so beloved of the Krakauer crowd, is not present as a causal element. The focus of the questions, the analysis, and the conclusions, are the gross recklessness of the expedition leaders. The interest was in studying and analyzing what would account for the gross recklessness in leadership which was the proximate cause of the disaster.

Beck Weathers is a character, and Americans love characters of this type without being particularly analytical about what's coming out of their mouths. He was also an incompetent clown who endangered himself and his fellow climbers by going on an expedition he was not qualified or conditioned for, after insufficient recuperation period from eye surgery. And when he went snowblind and was unable to climb further, he refused to turn back when told to do so by his expedition leader. He then passed up multiple chances to descend and continued standing on that ledge or wherever until he was completely useless and an extra burden on the equally foolhardy climbers who had ascended criminally late, lingered criminally long at the top, and were now caught in the storm on the way down. He should be apologizing and expressing shame, but instead he's been playing the "inspirational hero" for decades. It's almost comical.

Yasuko Namba was struggling before she even reached the summit. She should have been turned back, and she was not. Her expedition leader did not do his job. He was too busy abandoning all common sense and responsibility, to accompany---and by some evidence, egg on,---that postal guy, who also was not in any shape to continue, to HIS death.

Was the folly and recklessness human, in a there-but-for-the-grace way? Sure. But it was still, folly and recklessness.

[quote] Beck Weathers is a character, and Americans love characters of this type without being particularly analytical about what's coming out of their mouths. He was also an incompetent clown who endangered himself and his fellow climbers by going on an expedition he was not qualified or conditioned for, after insufficient recuperation period from eye surgery.

Typical narcissistic conservative from Texas.

Beck didn't have a nose for bad Weathers.

How the fuck did Beck Weathers survive? He was left for dead TWICE. He was also in a hypothermic coma for about 15 hours, winds of 100 miles/hour and -100 degrees. Yet he eventually got up and stumbled back to camp. The other mountaineers must've thought they saw a ghost or something. Did anyone read his book?

R385 actually, that looks like a landfill. Unless you were being sarcastic.

God protects drunks, enlisted men, and Texans.

[quote] [R385] actually, that looks like a landfill. Unless you were being sarcastic.

Wow. Another genius heard from

Has anyone seen the doc The Summit (on Netflix)? It is about the K2 Avalanche which killed 11 climbers in 2008. Quite a fascinating watch and a very stark accounting of what occurred. Very refreshing to hear varying points of view, versus the novelization of what happened up on Everest in 1996.

For me the takeaway from The Summit was that Wilco guy is a borderline sociopath. He may as well have been stepping over dogshit instead of the bodies of dead and dying co-climbers on his way down for all the empathy he displayed. The Irish guy could have used a little of his selfishness.

R396, I got the same sense, but at least Wilco was unapologetic about his behavior. Overall, I came away with a lot more respect for the climbers who attempt to summit K2 vs people who do Everest.

R397 you're just being contrarian. If K2 was the biggest peak and most famous, you'd go with Everest or whichever peak was't k2.

Big kiss for [R73]

I read Beck's book. He said he had a vision of his (estranged) wife and children and fought his way through the fug of hypothermia and hypoxia to get back to them. He was a big strong guy who'd climbed other high mountains. His autobiog is all about how depressed and suicidal he felt prior to Everest. Oddly, post Everest and sans hands, he seemed much more cheerful about life in general.

Tiny little things like Yasuko stood no chance on Everest.

Scott Fischer was more a victim of undiagnosed hepatitis than of the mountain. He had been feeling sick for months and shouldn't have been on the expedition.

Nowadays they have oxygen cannisters that can release 6 litres a minute and they store oxygen all over the mountain in case people run out. It must seem a bit like deep sea diving.

Then why didn't the vegan woman make it?

But was she trans?

R401 what vegan woman? There was no vegan who died in 1996.

[quote]There was no vegan who died in 1996.

Certainly not me. I love to eat MEAT.

For some reason, I can't stop picturing Sandy Hill as Sandy Cheeks from SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS.

If anyone was to blame for the 96 disaster, I believe it was Rob Hall. He persuaded Doug Hansen to carry on when Doug wanted to turn around with Lou Kasischke and two others. Once he'd done that, Rob seemed to feel that Doug was his responsibility and he waited for him at the summit and continued to stay with him instead of heading down to assist his other clients who had got caught in the storm. Andy Harris died because he felt duty bound to stay at the summit too. Neither guide was around to save his client Yasuko from the huddle and his other client Beck Wethers could easily have died too.

Anatoli Boukreev gets a bad press in Krakauers's book Into Thin Air, but to my mind this is unjustified as none of the Mountain Madness clients died. Indeed, Anatoli rescued two of them but did not have the strength to go back for Yasuko and Beck, who were in any case Adventure Consultant clients.

I think people are wary about blaming Rob because of course he paid the ultimate price, but it was his decision to persuade Doug to try for the summit that set off the chain of events leading to four deaths.

I thought Doug wanted to keep going and it was Hall who was hesitant but relented because Doug said he would not have another chance. (I believe he'd tried the previous year but didn't quite make it.)

From what I've read, Doug had been sick for a while and wanted to drop out, but three other AC clients had already turned back and Hall saw the Mountain Madness clients steaming ahead and started worrying about how many of his team would summit. That's why he felt guilty about Doug being on the summit and decided that he had to stay.

I don't understand why Rob Hall went at all. His wife was 7 months pregnant. He should've taken the year off -- or stopped altogether. I thought that was very selfish of him, to go to a dangerous place and risk death even though he was an expectant father. I think once you have kids (even if they're still incubating) that they should come first and your decisions as a parent revolve around the child. You certainly shouldn't be endangering your life.

[quote]Neither guide was around to save his client Yasuko from the huddle

What's the huddle?

I guess that was how he earned his living so he felt he had to go. The presence of journalists on his team and Scott's made both of them far too competitive about getting to the top.

R410, after five clients got back to Camp IV, the storm was so bad that they couldn't find the tents so they huddled together to try and last out the blizzard and keep each other awake. If they'd kept wandering they'd probably have fallen off the sheer side of the mountain.

R411 is that how Yasuko froze to death? And Beck Weathers almost did.

Yes, once Anatoli had led the others back to their tents, she was left alone to freeze. Had Hall and his other guide, Andy Harris, been around, they might have been able to save her and got Beck W into his tent and saved his hands.

Why didn't they take her first, since she was a tiny little thing?

Probably because it was Anatoli on his own doing the rescuing and she wasn't one of his clients; she was in Rob Hall's team. Plus, she was badly incapacitated and would have had to be carried. I guess he was out of strength, having been to the summit and back and having climbed 600m in the teeth of the blizzard, plus searching the campsite in the storm over and over for the stranded climbers.

I just finished watching 'The Summit'. People who climb mountains are stupid.

The craziest and sort of amazing thing about the group huddled near camp fighting for their lives was that they were only a few hundred yards away. But, the conditions were so brutal, they couldn't find their way. And, if they would have kept on trying they probably would have died of exhaustion (I know a couple died anyway, but they didn't know that at the time).

I love DL's love of this subject. A lot of very informative, intelligent, interesting posts PLUS some snark and shade thrown in. That thread from a couple of years ago was one of the best ever.

I started the 200 Dead Bodies on Mt Everest thread. I had NO IDEA it would go beyond maybe 60 posts. I linked to photos of some of the bodies and thought I would get a lot of "Eww!"s.

There are subjects I find at least as interesting as Everest, but they never take off like that.

Man, R409 you reminded me of a guy at my office in the 90s. He was a fucking FREE CLIMBER who would head off to Yosemite and such places and climb with no ropes, no equipoment, no nothing. His children were both under 2 years old and he had a heavy corporate job that did not allow adequate time for conditioning and rest. I had a sneaking suspicion that he had taken out excessive life insurance and if times got a bit daunting it was his plan not to come back.

The other thread made me realize that the sort of people who would pay to summit Everest are the last people on Earth who should be allowed up there.

The people who are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to summit the highest mountain in the world are driven, competitive, goal-directed, and they won't let anything stop them from achieving something they have set out to do. Having that attitude is suicidal up there in the Death Zone, where a person is likely to die if they ignore weather reports, ignore the guide's cautions, fail to take the time to acclimate, go back to camp instead of summiting if they go over the time limit, etc. These are people who didn't get where they are today without ignoring cautions and believing that all obstacles can be overcome, they don't really get that the Himalayan obstacles will kill them if they get things even slightly wrong.

"There are old climbers and bold climbers, but no old, bold climbers".

To trade on the name, r326. People give all kinds of bullshit answers, but the plain fact is hardly anybody knows WTF you're talking about if you name any other mountain but Everest. "I just got back from climbing [less famous mountain]" doesn't have the same ring to it. Universities trade on their reputations long after the quality has gone to shit. the majority of people are only now starting to get wise.

If it were -really- about some inner transformation, I doubt a climber would jump through all the hoops Everest presents even before getting to base camp. To most climbers nowadays, it's about demonstrating their version of social value, period.

Another K2 doc (Siren of the Himalayas) featured the season that followed the disastrous one seen in Summit. The crew that went up in 2009 included Fabrizio Zangrilli who has made six summit attempts on that mountain and gotten very close, but has chosen to turn around if he has an inkling he can't get down. That's how people live to talk about high altitude climbing.

R422, yep, climbing Everest is a status thing.

It's interesting to note that in 1996 it cost $65k to climb Everest with Hall and that's still the price with Adventure Consultants today, driven down by competition. There are cheaper deals but they usually come at a price, such as you have to pay for your Summit Day 1-1 Sherpa or your oxygen, or there is no doctor on the expedition team or you only get one shot at the summit.

That pic up thread is not the correct Sandy Hiil. The one shown is of a former Seattle newscaster.

I climbed the stairs at work today.

So, what's the latest from Everest?

Sandy Hill is a cunt.

[quote]Last year they made camp at the base of Mount Everest, then had their servants climb it while they held a wine tasting.

I don't understand. I thought once people died on Everest, their bodies remained there permanently. But I just read that the bodies of Maria Strydom (South African/Aussie) and Eric Arnold (Netherlands), who died two weeks ago, were eventually brought down and back to their home countries. Has technology gotten better?

Yes, there are now helicopters that can fly more accurately at altitude and they can extract the body if the money is there, although I think they can only go up as far as Camp 2 and it costs $30k so not everyone will be able to afford it.

The only Everest climber I would be impressed by would be someone who did it, climbed down, went home and never said another word about it for the rest of their lives.

R433 then how would you know?

I was very impressed when that blind guy summited Everest 15 years ago.

What would be the point of it if you couldn't see the view?

R436 I think most people climb Everest for the challenge, status, bragging rights first than for the view. For example, that vegan chick that just died. She and her husband did it to prove that 'vegans can do anything' or some shit.

I do not want to know, R434. Climbing it should be its own reward.

R438 but how would you be impressed if you didn't know?

Scott Fischer was one of those guys who thought he could do anything. He would work out until he vomited. He always overdid it. Until it finally killed him.

A third party would have to tell me, R439--unbidden by the climber. And my respect would stem from the climber keeping his trap shut more than by climbing Everest.

R438/R441 who died and made you overseer? People should do things for their own reasons, not to appease you or try to win your approval.

R427 - so did I... two flights to get to the snack machine.

Read a book about climbing K2 recently. 20 porters are needed for each climber as, unlike Everest there are no shops anywhere near Base Camp so they need to carry all the provisions they'll require for a four month stay at base camp. The climbers stake out the route themselves and they can spend from May-August waiting for a weather window. Once they start ascending, they have a 1 in 4 chance of being killed by avalanche, a fall or altitude sickness.

I don't know why anyone would pay a fortune for a 25% chance of being killed by an avalanche, a fall or altitude sickness. Fuck, if you've got that much money to spend being stupid, then you've got too much money.

There are many fine books out there written by climbers which will help you understand the reasoning behind why people like to climb mountains. Or you can stop at Into Thin Air and never know.

I've read many books by climbers, R446, I've met a couple of climbers in real life (one is a frozen corpse on a mountainside now), and I STILL don't really understand what the hell motivates them to risk so many lives in a cause that achieves nothing useful.

I particularly don't understand what keeps them out there these days, now that all the great peaks have been summited. Why do they want to be the 437th person to conquer K2, when it means a 1 in 4 chance of dying up there?

R447, they have all kinds of world records they strive for - like the youngest/oldest man to summit K2, or the first transsexual to summit Everest from both sides. That kind of endless thing.

R447 who's your friend who's now frozen on the mountainside?

[quote] I STILL don't really understand what the hell motivates them to risk so many lives in a cause that achieves nothing useful.

Where is it said one has to achieve something that is useful? We are born and each one of us does whatever until we die. Some chose to read, others shop, volunteer, sail or sleep. When you die, it doesn't matter what you did biding your time.

A lot more people would probably choose to climb the 8000 metres if they could take two months off work and could afford the permits.

I was the first to pee on the summit!

Try the Eiger, OP.

Has anybody read Anatoli Boukreev's block on the 1996 disaster? It seems Krakauer really was very biased and one sided, esp when you think that he was laying in his tent sipping hot tea when Boukreev went out in the darkness and freezing storm to rescue people and the next day again he climbed up to the south summit to see if he could get Scott Fisher down.

Tenzing Norgay actually saved Edmund Hillary's life on their way back after they submitted Hillary fell into a crevasse in the Khumbu Icefall and Tenzing secured him and pulled him out.

Death at its closest.

Tenzing Norgay never climbed Everest again and he unfortunately succumbed to alcoholism. He always wished he had reached the summit with the Swizz in 1952 because they were nicer to him than the arrogant Brits.

So if not for the Khumbu Icefall Everest would be an easier proposition?

A climber encounters the Khumbu glacier:

It's ridiculous.

It’s halfway through April, surely time for the Everest 2019 thread quite soon?

Posted this video in the other Mt Everest thread but it's relevant to this thread's discussion of whom IMHO should not be risking their lives (and those of the Sherpas) with little benefit to humanity. More money than sense?

There are importrant things to be done right now that require courage, climbing Everest is not one of them.