Stuck in a queue to the summit
Eleven people have died on Everest so far this year.
Mountaineers have suggested difficult weather conditions, a lack of experience and the growing commercialization of expeditions as contributing factors to the backlog.
British climber Robin Haynes Fisher was one of those who had warned of the dangers of overcrowding.
“With a single route to the summit, delays caused by overcrowding could prove fatal so I am hopeful my decision to go for the 25th will mean fewer people. Unless of course everyone else plays the same waiting game,” he wrote in a captioned Instagram post on May 19.
He’s one of the eleven; he died on the way down.
During the week beginning May 20, crowds of climbers became stuck in a queue to the summit, above the mountain’s highest camp at 8,000 meters (26,247 feet). The summit of Mount Everest is 8,848 meters (29,029 feet) high.
If there’s any place on the entire planet you don’t want to get stuck in a queue it’s the last few meters of Everest.
Veteran climber David Morton spoke to CNN from base camp on the Tibetan side of Mt. Everest. He had just descended after getting around 100 meters from the summit for a research project.
“The major problem is inexperience, not only of the climbers that are on the mountain but also the operators supporting those climbers,” he explained. “Everest is primarily a very complicated logistical puzzle and I think when you have a lot of inexperienced operators as well inexperienced climbers along with, particularly, the Nepal government not putting some limitations on the numbers of people, you have a prime recipe for these sorts of situations happening.”
I don’t understand why people keep doing this, apart from the narcissistic desire to say you’ve done it. The reason it’s so difficult, the reason so few people have done it, is not because the climbing is ultra-skilled, it’s because it’s too high. It’s about the oxygen, not the climbing. That’s why it’s possible for rich people to climb it with minimal experience, and it’s why so many people die in the attempt. That’s not a test of skill, it’s just a test of how long you can survive at high altitude. Who cares how long anyone can survive at high altitude? It’s like a stunt, but an especially destructive, expensive, wasteful stunt. Everybody just cut it out.
I took a train up to the top of Pike’s Peak, and found the lower oxygen somewhat daunting at a much lower elevation than Everest. Of course, as an asthmatic, I would never dream of trying to actually climb either one of them. But while I was up there, I could see one good reason to go…the scenery is breathtaking. Still, it’s not worth dying for. I’d like to go up Pike’s Peak again someday, maybe when I have time to walk back down and see the vegetation, but I can’t imagine going up a mountain just to brag about it.
(Asthmatics unite!)
I don’t really mind if rich people want to go there to die, but it’s also becoming a trash heap. They really need to limit the number of people on the mountain at any one time, and do more to encourage people to take their trash down.
In 1977 I went to Zermatt, in Switzerland. I watched the town kids herding a mob of goats through the town and up to pasture, then went to a local inn, bought a beer and sat outside for a while just gazing up in awe at the magnificent sight that is the Matterhorn.
In the town cemetery, one helluvalot of nations is represented. One gravestone simply reads “On Breithorn I chose to climb.” Breithorn does not require much in the way of climbing gear or experience, and experienced mountaineers consider it a bit of a stroll. But people still manage to die on it, presumably knowing the risks.
Since the age of 10 I have been a skier. But for my 101st birthday, I want a hang-glider. That and a good updraft on the windward side of a mountain range (NZ has some beauties) would be my pick.
A good stiff and favouring breeze could even take me on and right over the top of Everest.
Maroon, my problem with people dying up there (apart from the intrinsic thing about needless death) is that bodies of people who die way up there are too hard to recover, or that recovery comes at great risk.
As for the trash, including human waste, yes. Totally agree. One way of sorting the wheat from the chaff would be to require any expedition that doesn’t cart all their own staff in and then out again to pay a local contractor to do it for them. this could be by way of a government bond.
It has to be noted that the climbing industry has massively improved the lot for many Sherpas and their communities. Yes, it is dangerous and backbreaking work, but a Sherpa can earn up to NZ$10,000 for getting to the summit. Considering that an average income is NZ$1,000 per year, that is a life changing sum. Add to that the income generated in providing goods and services to the expeditions and tourists and the significant per climber fee paid to the Government for a permit and this is what prevents an even more miserable subsistence living.
Waste of time and money and human life. This is no longer something that distinguishes anyone. Like getting a Mohawk haircut; you will be noticed but it takes no effort.
During my meter reading days, someone once had to give me access to “the landlord’s side” of the house, which was used for storage. It was absolutely packed with serious looking camping and mountaineering gear. The bloke must have seen my face because he told it was all the landlord’s brother’s stuff, from when he worked at Everest base camp. I had no idea that there was such a constant stream of people passing through and that it was permanently staffed, it just seemed absurd. Amusingly though, the chap told me that the brother had been recently and had needed to climb a ladder for whatever reason. When he got back down, he said “God, I hate heights”
I agree that it means nothing and is a foolish risk. Literally thousands of people have reached the summit of Mount Everest. Everyone can name Edmund Hillary, a few can name Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa that climbed it with him, and virtually nobody could name anybody else. Nobody cares who the 3,000th (or whatever) person to climb it is.
As for retrieving the dead bodies, just leave them there as a warning to others. Certainly nobody should endanger themselves trying to get them.
Skeletor, on the one hand I agree with you, on the other hand – as an Environmental Scientist I am generally opposed to leaving dead human bodies lying around. They tend not to be great additions to the ecosystem.
Maybe limiting the climbs is the only way, but I know what would happen. Someone would notice the decreases in income for the locals, and the limits would be seen as a sign of western imperialism cutting into the enterprise of non-Westerners, and the thing would degenerate into a shouting match. Then milkshakes would start to fly, and the whole area is a mess.
The article mentioned that the bodies still there are buried under snow or glacier.
Ding ding ding ding ding!
iknklast@1: I believe that the base of Pike’s Peak is at about 6000 feet, and of course the summit is just over 14,000 feet. The general rule in mountaineering is that any ascent over 3000 feet in one day is risky, if one stays up high for any length of time. I know exactly what you describe, too: I grew up in Colorado Springs. The last time I went up Pike’s Peak (to give a visiting friend the experience), I almost passed out since I now live at sea level, and had only flown in to Denver the day before. So, from 0 to 14,000 in less than 24 hours… whew. Even standing up from that bench outside the visitors center almost did me in. Even today, people fly in to Denver and immediately zip right on out I-70 to Summit County to ski, and find themselves suffering acute mountain sickness for the few days that they allotted for their vacation. I’d note that it’s those exact people who also have the money and inexperience to hire a guide company to steer them up Everest.
The thing about the view from Everest being a reason to go – it isn’t, though, because it’s impossible to enjoy it. It’s not possible to linger because every second you’re there increases your risk of dying on the way down – and in any case you’re way too hypoxic to enjoy it. Jon Krakauer had a lot to say about that in Into Thin Air.