Mount Everest

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

cwbullet

Obsessed with Rocketry
Staff member
Administrator
Global Mod
Joined
Jan 24, 2009
Messages
38,522
Reaction score
16,216
Location
Glennville, GA
Quite a few people die every year climbing Mount Everest. You pay 11K for a permit but thousands of dollars for gear and a guide to climb into a known deadzone. This risk of your life just to say you did it?

https://www.foxnews.com/world/everest-traffic-jam-deaths

Not me. I get paid to risk my life and I will not do it just for a bragging point or ego trip.

ponder-on-this-a-moment-every-single-corpse-on-mount-44268453.png
 
My thoughts on climbing mountains that bring one into the death zone are a bit off kilter I think. I'm a rock climber, I've done a fair amount of caving and I've driven open wheel open cockpit road racing cars, so I get the thrill of the challenge and all that. What I don't understand is that climbing something like Everest really isn't the thought of overcoming the challenge that the mountain terrain offers. It's actually attempting to oppose the lack of oxygen at high altitude, fighting the bitter penetrating cold and of course fatigue. I can fight all of those right here at 1500' AGL. It gets 35 below zero where I live with wind speeds high enough to create over 100 below zero wind chills. I could walk up and down the street on a windy wintery day in my best winter clothing and partially choke myself the whole time to achieve the same effect. The only thing lacking would be the view. Sorry I'd rather be warm and enjoy the scenery from that aspect......
 
Having survived near 130 degrees F in the desert and nearly 50 below without the windchill, the only good place to be in those environments is in a temperature controlled indoor environment.
 
Agreed cwbullet. I guess I haven't been exposed to 130 degrees F outside, but I've worked in boiler rooms at that temperature and one heck of a lot more humidity than the desert has.
One thing nice about the desert is when a person sweats, the moisture actually evaporates almost instantly and cools the body. You just need to drink lots of water.
Under high heat and high humidity conditions (like 90% plus) all sweating does is cause the sweat to collect in ones underwear and socks and make you miserable....
So the opposite of that is when the windchill gets to those exceedingly ridiculous levels below zero, exposed flesh freezes in a matter of seconds.
 
I cannot imagine training for the time it would take to climb that mountain, paying all the fees, and taking the time off work only to wait behind hundreds of people when you can finally scale the summit. I do most of my hiking and camping in Indiana and Michigan and the only mountains I have spent much time in are those around Asheville, NC. We go to the forest and mountains to get away from large crowds and enjoy views along with peace and quiet.

Risk/Reward assessment is quite subjective. I have a dangerous job, and enjoy some hobbies that give me a thrill (and a few ER visits) and some consider dangerous, but I don't feel they are an unacceptable risk for the enjoyment I get from them. I can see why someone desires to scale deadly mountains, but that isn't for me.
 
Here are two examples or stupidity at its best.

I'd be praying too!! Such an idiot!!



And this guy



opps one bad hand hold and you're dead!!

Welcome to the dead opps I mean "Dumb Zone"
 
It's a mystery to me. My wife and I are avid hikers here in Colorado for the last 15 years. But hiking above tree line just isn't something that we like to do.

Every year, multiple times a month, folks are killed by lightening, or get lost, and the local search and rescue teams go out and find them at great peril to their own lives. And 9 times out of 10 it is folks that aren't experience or prepared, they are way over their heads.

These folks come here like it's Wally World and their focus is on "Conquering a 14 teener". Then they can tell their friends and post on social media that they "climbed a fourteener".

Be safe out there.

DSCF9269.JPG
 
I thought this image was amazing (copied from this article https://www.scmp.com/sport/outdoor/...e-everest-deaths-including-odisha-mountaineer):
30abdd40-7e97-11e9-8126-9d0e63452fe9_image_hires_173440.jpg
 
The ratio used to be one person climbing the mountain died for every 10 people that reached the Everest summit. 10 people died on the mountain this week, but it looks like the ratio is getting better. My brother considered doing it many years ago, or at least he talked about it. Then again, he talked about reenlisting in the Army at the age of 63, so I consider his judgement suspect!
 
They need to ban people from climbing this mountain. I saw a program where it talk about efforts that being made to haul all the trash and human waste left behind from these climbers who apparently don't care about the negative impact they are making on the environment.
 
Last edited:
I used to be a mountaineer. Nothing huge, but I spent a fair bit of time in the cold, high peaks. It's been many years since I've been on the sharp end of a rope though.

I do have friends, and/or have worked with folks, who are "names" in the big-boy mountaineering world though. Pretty much all of them are of the old-school, alpine-style tradition. What they do (or did, more accurately) is almost entirely different than what modern day Everest climbing has become. And they, along with myself, are generally appalled at the state of things these days. Trust me, there are MANY folks in the mountaineering world who see what you are seeing with an even deeper sense of disgust and disbelief.

That said, it's a insanely dangerous thing to do with your time. That "death zone" is no joke (though it's being treated as such by the "climbing tourist" folks you see in that line to the summit). And that's only one of the (very many) risks.

One of my friends was part of the first Australian ascent of Everest in 1984. They did it in style....."alpine" (essentially meaning a small self-supported team), a mostly new route, no oxygen, and no high fixed ropes. They also, by the way, carried out "all" their trash (except for the last high camp, which was a rescue situation at the time). They were in fact only the second (after Reinhold Messner) ascent that summited via a new route with no oxygen. A pretty big deal. Andy did not summit himself though, but rather turned back just 50 metres below the summit, due to frostbite. He was cognizant enough to turn around (after an ENORMOUS amount of effort to get that far) which meant that he came back alive. He did, however, pay a price....had pretty much all of his fingers amputated. (I won't post the photos here, as quite frankly they are pretty disturbing, but if you care to see what real frostbite looks like, do a google image search for "Andy Henderson frostbite").

"Real" mountaineering is a fascinating world. Luckily, for those of us that might want to experience it in a more "armchair" manner, there is an extremely rich trove of literature on the subject. (for some reason, a lot of mountaineers are very good writers). Andy's expedition is recounted in the excellent book "White Limbo" by Lincoln Hall (who also turned back before the summit). Another "must read", and written by another climber I know, is Joe Simpson's famous "Touching the Void"...a truly harrowing account. Joe's other books are excellent as well. There are tons of other great mountaineering books if you want to read more.

But these guys that are buying their way up Everest these days?........I couldn't be less interested.

s6
 
They need to ban people from climbing this mountain. I saw a program where it talk about efforts that being made to haul all the trash and human waste left behind from these climbers who apparently don't care about the negative impact they are making on the environment.
Yeah, me too. Pretty amazing how much stuff gets hauled up, and little comes back down..
 
I always wanted to try sky diving. But then I had a wife and kids, so I never did. I used to ride a motorcycle, but then I had a wife and kids, so I got rid of it.

I think rocketry is a great hobby that is challenging but has very, very, very little risk of death. :)
 
I have wanted to try skydiving as well, and even have the opportunity to take a tandem dive with a display team we work with on some events. My wife wasn't excited about that and definitely not after our son was born, so that became a "maybe someday" thing.

I was in a beer league GS skiing league for a few years several years ago, but quit racing when I tore a rotator cuff and had to have a few months off work. I still ski, but not as often and not as fast. It isn't worth it to me when my livelihood depends on being able to lift and move around without restrictions.
 
There are two aspects of Everest climbing that I find very disturbing:

The risk to the climbers is obvious, but what very few people know or think about is the extreme risk to the Sherpas who facilitate the climbs and who regularly lose their lives but are rarely mentioned by the media. An Everest Sherpa has, easily, the most dangerous job in the world. It has been said that Sherpas actually run across the Khumbo Icefall on the return trip from carrying up gear & equipment because it is so incredibly dangerous to spend a single unnecessary moment on it. A Sherpa can make as many as 20 trips across the perilous icefall carrying gear so some oral surgeon from San Jose can eat a hot meal in an insulated tent made by a chef on his way to personal glory.

Second, is the single-mindedness and egregiously poor, almost criminal, judgment of the climbers in the Death Zone. In one particularly disturbing & horrifying story a husband/wife team were in a group nearing the summit when the wife slipped and slid down a shallow gully, winding up not more than a few yards from the group. At this point they had a simple choice: Expend what little time & energy they had to use their ropes to access and rescue the uninjured woman, which would mean that they would have to immediately turn and descend, abandoning hopes of reaching the summit while so very close. Or, they could abandon her and continue, knowing full well that she would be dead by time they returned.

Her husband and the group continued to the summit. Her husband took the usual selfies - smiling & triumphant - at the peak, knowing full-well that just a short distance away his wife was freezing to death, alone, on the slopes of Mount Everest. Many of the bodies on Everest are people who simply stopped for a moment to regather their strength, but were abandoned by their fellow climbers in their single-minded focus on attaining the summit; leaving them to die.

I'm sorry, but that's so amoral and disgusting I can't have any admiration or respect for someone who would do such a thing.

48ac16753fcf7ad1fa9b9e8c93179b93.jpg
 
...

Second, is the single-mindedness and egregiously poor, almost criminal, judgment of the climbers in the Death Zone. In one particularly disturbing & horrifying story a husband/wife team were in a group nearing the summit when the wife slipped and slid down a shallow gully, winding up not more than a few yards from the group. At this point they had a simple choice: Expend what little time & energy they had to use their ropes to access and rescue the uninjured woman, which would mean that they would have to immediately turn and descend, abandoning hopes of reaching the summit while so very close. Or, they could abandon her and continue, knowing full well that she would be dead by time they returned.

Her husband and the group continued to the summit. Her husband took the usual selfies - smiling & triumphant - at the peak, knowing full-well that just a short distance away his wife was freezing to death, alone, on the slopes of Mount Everest. Many of the bodies on Everest are people who simply stopped for a moment to regather their strength, but were abandoned by their fellow climbers in their single-minded focus on attaining the summit; leaving them to die...

So I Googled it and found this story pretty fast. She didn't fall, she stopped climbing because she was exhausted. Her husband thought she was OK and only continued on after she said he should. They were 15 minutes from the summit and continued on. They came back down after obtaining the summit and helped her descend. She started having trouble walking and was possibly hallucinating. They think she may have had a stroke. They gave her oxygen and medication for altitude sickness, but she died that night. She was only 34.

A tragedy, but hardly a case of neglect as suggested. Suffering a major medical problem in such an extreme environment seriously reduces your chances of survival; especially when the environment itself is the likely cause of the problem.

They did have to leave the body, but it was eventually recovered by helicopter.
 
That's a different story than the one I heard of. It might be the same filtered through different sources, but i actually had the opportunity to discuss it with a woman who has climbed Everest 6 times after this shoot. and she - and a number of other climbers - are equally disturbed by the story & outcome. She has even arranged meetings with climbing guides and companies in an attempt to set ethical guidelines in an effort to reduce the deaths on the mountain.

At any rate, her story and the stories of numerous others sacrificed and left to die alone, still make the point - the combination of hypoxia, single-minded determination and gotta-get-there-itis (the same thing that kills countless private pilots with continued VFR flight into IMC conditions) is unacceptable; all for the chance of relatively meaningless personal glory.

If someone were to brag to me that they topped Everest the first thing I would think is, 'Yeah? How many lives did you risk to be able to make that statement?'
 
Funny, seems like there would be many much more fulfilling quests than Mt. Everest.

Teach a kid to read.

Help a man or woman without a job get training and job placement to support themselves and their kids.

Make lunches for poor kids to eat at school.

Visit someone who is sick or in prison.

Coordinate with police and with a friend and do night patrols through your neighborhoods.

coach a kids sports team.

People have a hard time remember anyone after Neil Armstrong who walked on the moon. Who cares who the thousandth person is who “conquered” Everest?
 
Exactly.

Memorial Day is ostensibly for those who have fallen in wars, but there are many kinds of battles being fought every day. I tend to observe it by remembering all of my ancestors and the battles they fought.
 
Exactly.

... but there are many kinds of battles being fought every day....

That, right there.

I have friends and acquaintances who have battled back from alcoholism, from homelessness, from cancer, quit smoking, and other similar things. Their stories impress me, and interest me, far more than the guy who spent an insane amount of money climbing Everest.
 
They need to ban people from climbing this mountain. I saw a program where it talk about efforts that being made to haul all the trash and human waste left behind from these climbers who apparently don't care about the negative impact they are making on the environment.

Having a "knee-jerk reaction" to "BAN" things, every time someone gets hurt or killed doing something, is not the answer. Also, using the "environment" as an implement to "justify" the ban, is a typical tactic used by certain people in power and people with various agendas. ( I will not get "political" here ) . . .

The bottom line is that people choose to take risks and, sometimes, those risk have fatal consequences. We do not need a "nanny" to "keep us safe", while impacting the majority over the actions of very few !

Dave F.
 
Having a "knee-jerk reaction" to "BAN" things, every time someone gets hurt or killed doing something, is not the answer. Also, using the "environment" as an implement to "justify" the ban, is a typical tactic used by certain people in power and people with various agendas. ( I will not get "political" here ) . . .

The bottom line is that people choose to take risks and, sometimes, those risk have fatal consequences. We do not need a "nanny" to "keep us safe", while impacting the majority over the actions of very few !

Dave F.

I don't care if they die doing it. In fact I'm glad that they do die. Less idiots on this planet. More power to them just pick up after yourself.
 
If people are turning the mountain into a dump, Nepal may not like that. They would be perfectly within their rights to add restrictions. A hard requirement that all climbers must pack out what they pack in would probably do wonders. Limiting the total number of climbing permits would also be a good idea. Along the lines of the range setup thread, climbers who make non-summit expeditions to retrieve and remove trash would be in the front of the line for the climbing permits.
 
Excepting, of course, the fact that you literally just did.

s6

Incorrect . . . I referenced no specific political party ("people in power") and "environmental" agendas can be found among all groups. Neither did I name any specific person, within any office.

Whatever inference you drew, was solely self-created . . .

Dave F.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top