Two more deaths on Mount Everest
There have actually been seven deaths on Mount Everest this week, but this article discusses the two most recent ones. Both were of climbers who were 55 years old, although I have no idea (and the article does not explain) whether their age was a factor. Most of the people who try to climb Everest are very very fit, but “fit” is a relative term when:
At the summit itself, conditions quickly become intolerable for climbers. At 8,848 meters (29,029 feet), the air itself contains only one-third of the oxygen found at sea level. Additionally, the human body begins to rapidly deteriorate at such an altitude — especially without proper supplemental oxygen supplies.
I freely admit that I don’t understand the high-altitude climbing mentality, although I’ve read tons about it and am familiar with a great many of the explanations. I just don’t share any element of it. I’m sure the thrill (and the view) is a spectacular and nearly-indescribable and unmatchable thing, but the risks are so great and the physical anguish so terrible that the desire to actually do it (rather than just imagine it) is somewhat opaque to me.
Plus, it’s gotten very very crowded, and the article contends that was a factor in the deaths on Wednesday. For example, this purports to be an actual photo of the summit line that day, which shows 320 people waiting on a ridge leading to the summit:
RIP.
If reaching this summit is the most important thing to you, and you’re willing to die trying, then, well, it’s a choice.
While I am not much of an “environmentalist,” it’s my understanding that all these climbers and guides are leaving tons of disgusting trash on the mountain, plus dead bodies. This is not treating “nature” with respect.
I guess I’ve seen too many movies, because the image I had in my mind of climbing to the summit of Mt. Everest had a roped together guy or two gasping for breath and struggling up a desolate, deserted, windswept mountain side, not a traffic jam worthy of a Monday morning rush hour backup on 95, inching past the Pentagon and heading into Washington, D.C.
I saw a documentary about that incident from a few years ago where several climbers were killed. Left wives and young children without their husbands and fathers.
Just seems way too risky and borderline irresponsible to me but I obviously don’t have the mindset of these people.
Somewhere, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are shaking their heads.
Hillary was a great man who lived a life of great highs (see what I did there?) and unimaginable lows (his first wife and daughter died in a plane crash on the way to Nepal to visit him).
New Zealand television made a decent biopic on him a few years ago that many PBS stations also aired int he US.
Has Mr. Edit Function left us for good? I haven’t seen him around in awhile.
After they’ve reached the summit, what then shall motivate them?
Those who need outward signs of achievement to validate self-worth, will never find inner confirmation of that which they seek.
Geoffrey Britain–perhaps the next high would be to have one of those flying suits with wings on–a la a flying squirrel–under your parka, ditch the parka, and try to jump off the summit and glide back down to base camp.
Griffin:
Yes, the edit function has departed and I can’t seem to fix it. I have someone working on a few things for me, that problem among them, and although so far it’s still unfixed there might be some hope for the future. I can’t find another plug-in that does what the defunct one did, either.
In my younger years I climbed 13,000 and 14,000 footers in Wyoming and Colorado; that is as high as I want to get without a parachute. This compulsion to climb Everest by people without the necessary skills and required physical fitness is obviously thrill seeking. But losing your life over this pursuit of thrills is sort of sad to me.
There is a big difference between 55 and 25. Heck, at company softball games I noticed a big difference between 25 and 35. And it isn’t just strength and reflexes, it is recovery time, which ties into endurance. An older person might think of attempting something on the edge, but they best think twice.
More on those queues in this article: Mount Everest: Why the summit can get so crowded:
It’s not the view. There are no queues on K2, and I doubt the extra 200 m of height make that much difference to the view.
It’s not the difficulty. Annapurna and K2 are apparently more difficult.
It’s an ego thing. “Ive climbed Everest” is a better boast than I’ve climbed K2.
My favourite bit is where climbers are complaining about the queues. As they make their third, fourth — or in one guy’s case — 14th climb up it.
Climbing Mt. Everest has become a silly, expensive and dangerous stunt, instead of a challenge for only the most skilled climbers.
Worse than that, the entire route has become a littered eyesore.
The thing about Everest is, like the sea, she holds her dead.
I bet you hate me.
Climbing Mt. Everest has become a silly, expensive and dangerous stunt, instead of a challenge for only the most skilled climbers.
Thanks for the status-jonesing. Been an education.
The book, “Into Thin Air” and the movie made from it are pretty good in explaining what is happening. A friend of mine, an anesthesiologist, traveled to Nepal and spent some time at the base camps to study altitude sickness. He was a Marathoner, not a climber. He has since died of Parkinson’s.
Art Deco,
“Thanks for the status-jonesing. Been an education.”
What does that mean?
jonesing
to have a strong need, desire, or craving for something.
see also: jones https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jonesing
“status-jonesing” strong need status? , or to show one’s status?
I got the meaning of “jonesing”. It evolved from the expression, “Keeping up with the Joneses”.
But, I still don’t understand what Art Deco was saying. It felt like a mild put-down, but maybe it wasn’t.
I wonder what the view from the top of Olympus Mons on Mars would be? Tallest known mountain in the solar system. Absolutely dwarfs Everest. Of course you would need a spacesuit at the bottom , too. There are likely some sheer cliffs on lunar craters that dwarf any cliff on Earth. With no appreciable atmospheric distortion of light, it would be hard to get a sense of visual scale.
“I freely admit that I don’t understand the high-altitude climbing mentality…”
I’m with you sister. I’m scared of heights.
This was reinforced by my hunting partner who used to rock climb in his younger days.
Until the rope broke while he was on top of rock and then he was like, “Now what the (blank) do I do?”
Note to self: always make sure you have a good rope. I have since done some things that someone who is scared of heights has no business doing. Unless he has a good rope.
“jones” I think in this connection means “addiction”, it has long been used as a reference to heroin addiction. But yeah, I have no idea what AD was talking about either.
“Most of the people who try to climb Everest are very very fit, but “fit” is a relative term …”
You’d be amazed, friends. The Sherpas will haul your fat butt up to the top of the mountain. Some people have been ruined by this. I know, several.
It seems like just yesterday me and my Alaskan friends were begging him, begging (once more for emphasis) not to try MT. Whitney aka Denali alone. He didn’t have the skill. What was worse was he was taking his girlfriend with him.
We begged her not to go with him. But she thought at the time we were just jealous of her incredibly studly boy friend. Like the only thing we were interested in was getting inside her pants.
Let’s cut to the chase. They were roped together and he passed out due to hypoxemia. So when he dragged her down the mountain a few thousand feet he killed her. I so, so wish she had as much regard for her life as she did apparently for the integrity of her pants.
He should have died. That would have been poetic justice. He lived thanks to the good graces of an Italian doctor climbing with a group of experienced European climbers LIKE HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN WITH ALL ALONG.
But he lost all his fingers and nine of his toes.
One of my Alaskan friends visited him in hospital. He didn’t want to punch down, to say, “I told you so.”
So after the initial niceties and the ensuing silence he said, “Hey, dude, can I have your climbing gear? You won’t be needing it any more.”
He looks at me and says, “[Arminius], I didn’t know what else to say.”
I didn’t visit him him in the hospital. Because I knew we would get to that point. Where he would not admit to doing anything wrong, HE KILLED A GIRL!!
I’m a better mountaineer than this guy. I’ve done a lot of things wrong in my life but I’ve never dragged a girl down a mountain to her death. Have a meaningful Memorial Day.
I keep emphasizing the fact of my Alaskan friends so that it’s obvious where I get my social skills. Bureau of Land Management surveyors and major west coast fire departments.
“Oh,” my buddy sez to his supervisor, “Did you want me to promote the black woman? I would have promoted the black woman if you told me to.”
Naturally the people who want you to promote the black women will never put it in writing. And I like black women. A lot of black women should be promoted.
But I don’t need a bureaucrat to tell me who needs to be promoted.
Steve — I spy a slip of the fingers. *g* Denali’s Mt. McKinley, not Mt. Whitney.
Your story is tragic, and it seems you’re still rightfully steamed. I’m very sorry.
A well know lawyer in Slovakia tried to climb it – got very high, but not the summit; frostbite on fingers and toes. Was in bandages and ointment for weeks before losing a couple of fingers and many toes. He was quite fit — but not fit enough. Usually not so foolhardy.
Men, especially, want to feel “accomplished” — by achievements. Mt. Everest is one such.
There WILL be a big future in space tourism, and unlikely to become common place enough to lose allure for 2-5 decades.
“I freely admit that I don’t understand the high-altitude climbing mentality. The best answer is the one George Mallory gave – “Because it’s there”. In other words, you either understand or it can’t be explained to you. (he vanished on Everest a few years later)
I thought this was very cool –
https://twitter.com/Chris_arnade/status/1132004714307096577
Patrick, from your Twitter link:
Heh.
There were 37 homicides recorded in the four police precincts at the southern end of the Bronx in 2018. That area of the Bronx has a population of about 370,000 and encompasses about 28% of the population of the whole borough. That’s a homicide rate of 10 per 100,000. Which is to say a homicide rate about 2x today’s national average, about 60% above the metropolitan mean of our time, about equal to the national average of 1980, and about 15% below the metropolitan mean of 1980. When I was young, that’s the sort of security threat you’d have found in a mildly sketchy non-slum neighborhood in my home town. The urban glob around New York City has 18 million people living in it while we speak. You might be able to find therein a slice where the people are more impecunious than they are in the south Bronx (Newark, NJ, perhaps, or Ocean Hill / Brownsville). Not many, though.
One telling tidbit: when people die on Everest, the surviving family usually decides not to go to the expense of retrieving the body. “s/he probably would want it this way” is a common explanation.
The amount of trash at the various camps is astounding. And at the highest camp, from which the ascent to the peak is made, there are thousands of discarded oxygen cylinders. Sherpas used to get $50K per climber, but that figure must now be higher. They take on people who’ve never climbed more than a flight of stairs before; capitalism in Nepal!
Mountain climbing routes tend to go from
1. Impossible
2. Finally climbed, but only by the best.
3. A difficult climb requiring great skill.
4. A trade route. Climbed by many often with assistance from a guide.
5. An easy day for a lady.
Everest is a trade route now. It may eventually become and easy day for a lady, though it will take some advances physiology, oxygen equipment, and weather forecasting for that to happen. Everest, with decent weather conditions, can be relatively safe if the climbers use supplemental oxygen. (Only 200 climbers out of over 4000, have made it without supplemental oxygen.)
Most deaths are the result of bad weather overtaking the climbers or altitude sickness. There is no way of knowing who will get altitude sickness. Fitness and age does not seem to be a predictor. Weather forecasting is hard on a big mountain that seems to make its own weather.
My climbing buddy for several years (also 20 years younger than me – he’s still climbing by the way) has been to the summit. He’s also summited three other Himalayan peaks – the most notable, Ama Dablam, because it required the most technical climbing expertise at high altitude.
Many people climb because they love mountains and being in the mountains. Then there is also the love of a challenge. Some people are constantly seeking out challenges in one form ,or another. Some drive race cars, some run marathons/ultra marathons, some swim the English Channel, some climb mountains, etc. I was in that group. But I never had the time (Time off from work) or money to go to the Himalayas, though I would have dearly loved to.
There are bigger challenges than Everest, but it is the highest mountain on Earth, which seems to be a draw. It has a straight forward route to the top, has guides who will help you, and has become a trade route. Why not give it a go?
Thirty years ago, when I was trying to find the time and money to go climb Ama Dablam, not many people had the money to spend on Himalayan climbing. That there are so many today who do have the time and money says a lot about the increase in worldwide wealth in the last thirty years.
We can hope that eventually some money can be found to clean up most of the trash on the mountain. But that may be thirty years away.
Julie -When I read that I had a picture of some unassuming man behind the counter, people buying their Big Gulp from him and never knowing he’d climbed Everest 6 times. You never know about people…..
Cicero – I read a book by a guy who climbed Everest, a semi-serious climber, at least at that time the guide service he used required a decent climbing resume, like at least Denali or Aconcagua, and I think they preferred to see a serious Himalayan peak in there. Maybe that’s changed, but at one point they were trying to be certain they were taking on capable clients.
Julie near Chicago, I tried to get past it. But the the thing was, the only way I could be a father to my son, was to be the father to my lost son. You may think it’s tragic. Maybe it it is. But dammit, i’t’s what I got.
I could see climbing a mountain because it’s a way to discover new territory. I could see climbing a mountain because nobody ever did it before. I can even see climbing a mountain that other people have climbed because few have done it and I want to be among those few. @_@
But in the moment that it’s become so common that you have to draw a number and wait your turn I’d rather go play a video game instead! Maybe that’s just me. >_>
Good advice from this climber, I suppose, but I don’t ever intend to climb Everest or any other mountain.
(I might burst into song, though, if the conditions are right…)
https://nypost.com/video/american-woman-climbed-mount-everest-in-just-14-days/