Is it me or does climbing Everest sound nothing short of horrific?
The stories, deaths etc. and grim reality of actually being on the summit in those conditions just sounds absurd.
Completely unappealing.
Maybe it is just me? Seems that there are people out there who would pay tens of thousands of pounds to get up it...
unfortunately money talks and average climbers pay poor but skilled climbers money to go up, which as you have stated sometimes results in there death. I can see the appeal though being at the highest point of the whole wide world. think smee might have been to base camp.
Depends what you like really, if you want a challenge, enjoy near death experiences then yep its great.
Do some thing every day that scares you it will make you feel so much more alive !
have a friend who did base camp. think he went out for 3 weeks trekking or so including base camp, where he apparently violently ill for the duration.
sounds horrible to me.
even more bizarre as apparently you can drive to the elevation he trekked to.
not to take away from anyone's acheivement. dont get me wrong, hugely impressive. i just can't see the appeal???
hmmmm
I would do it if I had the chance. No question and I know about the death zone and the risks. Actually I'd probably do one of the less popular peaks. Its completely impossible to explain - you eithr want to or you don't. There is nothing rational about it.
Is it me or does climbing Everest sound nothing short of horrific?
Sounds very appealing to me. I can't explain why, but putting myself through that would seem like hell at the time but well worth doing just for the experience.
maybe it is just me, praps it will come with age.
things like this (polar expeditions etc.) just sound too harrowing to be enjoyable.
A friends dad attempted it a few years ago. I think with all the kit, the permits, the visas, flights etc that he had to get it worked out at about £200,000.
It was one of the worst years on record weather wise, I think only a few dozen people summitted and he wasn't one of them.
Id definitely do it given the opportunity. Like TJ I've read plenty and seen many documentaries about it. (Including where Rob Hall is dying and calls his wife who is at home to name their unborn child - truly moving and the last time I shed a tear in a film!) I don't know why, and I do know it's hugely selfish, but I'd still go.
Personally, I've always had issues with paying someone money to guide me up a mountain, In that I've always felt it would give me little sense of achievement. Being lead up on a leash and having no input into route finding, navigation, decision making, solving problems and doing no lead climbing - not my idea of climbing a mountain. Hense, I've never climbed to a particularly high standard, but the climbs I have done have been fantastic experiences with friends. Like FunkyDunc says, boy, do you feel alive, whilst at the same time sh1tting your pants.
I'd like to climb a really big peak one day, but Everest just sounds too crowded, commercialised and frankly pretty scummy with all the waste and rubbish etc.
You read stories of climbers passing dying members of other parties and they have to just climb past because to try to save them would put their team at risk and would reduce their chances of reaching the summit. It all seems a little inhuman to me.
precisely grum.
apparently (and ill readily admit im not a climber) its not even particularly hard. its merely the conditions that will kill you...
and being roped the entire way on ropes put in place by someone miles (or days) ahead surely isnt proper climbing?
Mallory and Irvine...
@grum the garbage man wentup to empty the bins but hasn't been seen since 1974...
apparently (and ill readily admit im not a climber) its not even particularly hard. its merely the conditions that will kill you...and being roped the entire way on ropes put in place by someone miles (or days) ahead surely isnt proper climbing?
Yup, the only bit that would be a technical challenge has a ladder up it. It's just a question of endurance, your body's tolerance to altitude, not making any silly f ups, and being lucky with weather etc
I would far rather get myself and my mates up a much smaller peak unaided, as B.A.Nana says.
Same as Grumm. All the crap and rubbish round the place is embarrassing, and the selfish attitude required to succeed there has no part in any mountaineering activity i'd wan't to participate in.
I just finished reading Chris Bonnington's account of his team getting to the summit of Annapurna via the South face, and I'd agree that it sounds grindingly hard, dangerous and unpleasant. There's no way I'd do it but then I will pay to bury myself riding a bike in mud for fun, which to others might sounds like their idea of hell.
I suppose if you have the goal the pain is worth it, but the risk of death is a whole other level with high altitude climbing. I cannot understand the mentality of people who leave a wife / husband and children at home to take their chances...
is this another 'Puffer thread? 
I cycled to North base camp and thats as high as I would want to go. Plus the greedy chinese charge you 12,000 US dollars to go past base camp. Even getting there is not so arduous now as the chinese have paved most of the route from Lhasa (dont know about teh south side)
Altitude sickness puts a bit of a dampener on things too 
Theres way more interesting and fantastic places to go in that part of the world, and much more interesting climbs to do so not on my list.
Its one for the braggers
edit - just re-read my first sentence and, yes, i'm a bragger!
tracknicko
You been reading Dark Shadows Falling by Joe Simpson?
Great book that starts rather disturbingly.
btw I don't know what books you have read but Into Thin Air is one that paints a horrible picture of Everest as it is now. There are other accounts of the same trip that tell a pretty different story though.
just reading ranulph feines (sp? - worrying that i cant spell it after reading it?) book. have just ordered into thin air off amazon.
oh and it was 2p.
top tip. second hand books from amazon!
Sorry about getting the title wrong, it has been a while since I read it. The report of the conversation via radio to base camp along the lines of "can a dead person wave" have stuck with me since, even if the book title has not.
what is the title of it? ill look out for it.
dickydutch wrote
Including where Rob Hall is dying
Although not a climber (my limit has been a few scrambles in Scotland and a couple of easy alpine ascents)I find the whole thing fascinating. The thing that strikes me most is the acceptance of risk and the inevitability that when attempting big mountains or new routes you are going to lose most of your mates eventually and possibly your own life. Having read several Chris Bonnington books, I often wonder how he had anyone left to climb with when he was over 60 !
There is something deeply selfish about that when you consider those who are left behind.
ps. just finished re-reading Stephen Venables, Everest Kangshung Face, now published as Everest Alone at the Suimmit and would thoroughly recommend it.
There's definitely a certain type of person that likes to push themselves to the absolute limit mentally, physically and emotionally. Probably focussed, single minded and driven. If you're not one of them you won't get Everest. I've got a strange fascination with big mountains and can understand the pull, but I just know my limits and haven't got the drive to tackle them myself.
I'll bet, though, you've got a kick out of going for a really tough, grinding, grim rides in the winter. Lots of people think that's mental. Now imagine you're a climber. The fuzzy feeling of satisfaction as you sit down to tea and crumble must be so much more after Everest!
Everest can't be that technical if you can snowboard down it:
http://www.everestnews.com/sb.htm
Bear in mind he had to climb it first! I saw the film of this and Marco was in the crowd. Unfortunately, his next attempt was his last
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/09/0927_020927_siffredi.html
friend of mine did it as part of a team that cycled from the lowest point (dead sea) to the highest point (everest) for charidee. (I don't think they actually cycled the last bit)
He's a pretty good climber and still very nearly carked on top. He'd already summitted and was descending, becoming badly disorientated and needing some convincing not to just bin his oxygen supply and sit down and wait until he felt better before descending, which would of course have seen to him as well (according to the report, there were 4 died on the mountain during the period they were there from other expeditions)
http://www.mounteverest.net/news.php?id=2115
Would I want to do it. Not on your nelly, although i can see why to others it is so appealing. And even though he's an ordinary bloke I was at school with, who I've seen singe his arsehair lighting farts on cadet camp and so on, I have a great deal of admiration for the achievement, which for a climbing sort must be just about the summit of all achievements. Not many of us will achiev that in our chosen careers or hobbies.
im with you oh gravity-slave... but i liken it not to a muddy ride, which is a grind in most parts but often amusing.
and more to trying to ride accross dunes on a beach. just epic trudging, no let up, uncomfortably hard to ride, too easy to fall off, and so so draining, even when descending.
muddy rides ARE fun. beach rides are not.
this is my analogy. there are surely no fun bits at all in such extreme conditions?
which for a climbing sort must be just about the summit of all achievements.
Nah that's K2.
Theres a few books about the events of 1996...
Jon Krakauer Into thin Air
Left for Dead Beck Weathers
Anatoli Boukreev The Climb
Matt Dickinson The Death Zone
The only film/doc I've seen which is quite relevent in this thread, is the one where Alison Hargreaves very young kids walked to K2 base camp to see where she was now living (dead). There is a small cloud over the summit and they think she is in it, they leave some sweets for her.
Alison Hargreaves got massively criticised inside and outside the climbing fraternity, when alive and after her death. she was a wife and mother of young children and climbed the most extreme routes and peaks, many of them 1st ascents.
jonv that link sums it up for me. sounds grim.
and i have a mental picture of lines of dead and dying folks lying around or being carried down the mountain.
grim indeed.
jonv that's a very good account.
I've just reread it myself, had it on an old link. It doesn't sound a lot like fun. My mate = Chris. I had dinner with him and his girlfriend a while back and her version of events waiting for him to call her and say he was safe down is another story. Which to someone else's point above above, is it / was it selfish for him to go leaving a girlfriend behind? Not according to her, it's what he does and she accepts it without question.
tracknicko - Member
what is the title of it? ill look out for it.
I think it's Dark Shadows Falling and Grum says it's Into Thin Air, Both by Joe Simpson. have read them both but think it's the former.
B.A.Nana - Member
That'll be the Alison Hargreaves who did the first female non-oxygen accent of Everest and whose hubby abused here (alledgedly) according to the book by Ed Douglas. She was a really good climber on the Limestone in Derbyshire, had a good climbing shop in Matlock Bath.
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