Everest Bodies

Saw this over on UKClimbing:

Mod: NSFW or the faint hearted

Everest Bodies

Kind of sobering and sad. Would be very easy to criticise peoples behaviour from the comfort of the sofa, but Everest (and other extreme environments) are a different world – very much removed from the comfortable one in which we live, and a true test of survival.

🙁

Heart rending, yet so understandable.

🙁

Sounds like Glasgow

No idea why, but my first thought was “what mess” We should really tidy up after ourselves. (i mean all the abandoned kit/rubbish rather than the dead bodies (nature will eventually re-cycle those)

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could keep this one short and not get all moralistic?

Agreed. Very poignant.

dead bodies (nature will eventually re-cycle those)

Mother nature is doing a crap job with Mallory he`s been there for about 90 years

Grim indeed, most of the issues surrounding this are in Joe Simpson’s book ‘Dark Shadows Falling’. From the look of the photo, the last body isn’t far from basecamp at the foot of the Khumbu icefall, sad stuff.

Fewer people have swam the English Channel than climbed Everest.

that is truly tragic

Even global warming wont make them accessable! I wonder if in the future technology might make it more viable to retrieve them or will they simply become future otzi icemen/women?

I’ve always had a morbid fascination with this.

Mallory’s body is now covered with a cairn, hopefully not all of these bodies are exposed as in these photos now, there’s over 120 up there.

As a side note, between Dingboche to Lobuche there are memorials to those that have died, many are for Sherpas.

I still can’t believe anyone could walk past a dying person.
Must really take the shine off reaching the summit.

I’ve read about these people in a number of different books, but never realised how un-decomposed they are. The person in the campsite is particularly graphic, in that he/she would be in view of everyone at the site. Like zippykona says it must really take a shine off reaching the summit.

I still can’t believe anyone could walk past a dying person.
Must really take the shine off reaching the summit.

You have no option, there isn’t the oxygen available to carry them off.

I still can’t believe anyone could walk past a dying person.

Most folks up there will be right on their limit and certainly not capable of helping an injured or hypothermic climber down.

nick1962 – Member
Fewer people have swam the English Channel than climbed Everest.

POSTED 36 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

The point being?

NSFW

Really?

litter.

@zippykona – you can stop and try and comfort someone but the more time you spend doing it the more you are endangering you’re own life. The climbers know its dangerous, seeing someone in the process of dying must indeed be terrible but that’s the reality of the environment.

I’ve also long been fascinated by this. Death in general in never too far from my thoughts. I release the reality is/was very different but from this distance I think they look oddly peaceful. At least they died doing something they loved and believed in. Better that than cancer or being wiped out by a car on the way home from work.

At least they died doing something they loved and believed in. Better that than cancer or being wiped out by a car on the way home from work.

I understand but am not sure I share this sentiment.

Spin – I asked for the note to be put on as I was expecting a link to UKC (admittedly I should’ve looked at the URL). They are a pretty graphic set of pictures especially when not expecting something like that. It is a horrible state of affairs. In the past few years I had the inklings of an ambition to climb Everest, but looking into it further (admittedly being an armchair mountaineer) being above 8000m is a pretty horrific place to be.

especially when not expecting something like that

I thought the thread title gave notice enough.

I thought it was an article on the subject rather than such candid photo’s.

Edit- Article on the subject when opening from the singletrack forum

It all seems a bit sad and pointless, a bit of a waste really. People die trying to summit other peaks of course but everything I read about the climbing season on Everest these days makes it sound like a zoo and another disaster waiting to happen.

I thought it was an article on the subject rather than such candid photo’s

Reality bites?

I remember going to a talk by Doug Scott, maybe 25 years ago, where he talked about climbing past a body on his way to a summit somewhere (not Everest, as far as I recall). He described the body as though the climber had sat down to have a rest and look out over the view of the surrounding mountains, and just never got up again.

The mental image of it, and the matter-of-fact way in which he described it still stays with me now.

I think you need to be a different breed to play in the high mountains. A good friend of mine who climbs found two (dead) climbers who’d fallen off something in the Alps. “Heads on backwards stuff” was the way he described what he’d encountered. He and his mate got down off the mountain, informed the relevant authorities, and then got on with the rest of their day. I can say with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t respond in the same way.

Reality bites?

I really didn’t mean that to sound like a jibe but it seems odd that you would see fit to warn people about this thread if you had been considering climbing Everest yourself.

Nobeerinthefridge – Member

I still can’t believe anyone could walk past a dying person.
Must really take the shine off reaching the summit.

You have no option, there isn’t the oxygen available to carry them off.
There is often an option,the rescue of some of the climbers in 1996 by Boukreev?
“

As Edmund Hillary effectively said…..When 30 amateurs who’ve paid thousands of pounds to be molly coddled up by sherpas pass you when your dying on the mountain……you know there’s something wrong with how climbing and specifically Everest has turned out.”

Nobeerinthefridge – Member

nick1962 – Member
Fewer people have swam the English Channel than climbed Everest.

POSTED 36 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

The point being?
It’s a more exclusive club and they don’t leave anyone to die.

TBH I just thought of lemmings.

Brian Blessed agrees.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/blessed-launches-bitter-attack-on-human-lemmings-of-everest-1349787.html

that is truly tragic

Let’s face it, comedy’s a dead art form. Tragedy, now that’s funny. – Futurama

There is often an option,the rescue of some of the climbers in 1996 by Boukreev

Boukreev was an exceptional individual.

The thing that’s hard for me to understand is not that you would choose to save yourself over another climber in extremis. I won’t judge anyone for that.

It’s the seeing someone dying and carrying on with your summit attempt that seems worthy of censure.

Quickly – I didn’t ask for the thread to be taken to down or the link removed, just the note adding. I think it is important to have this kind of discussion as it does highlight what people are willing to push themselves to and the state of affairs.

I had the idea of Everest as a naive sort of aspirational climber/mountaineer and then started to research it by reading books on the subject and the costs involved. In one of Joe Simpson’s books (Dark Shadows falling I think) he has a photo of one of the high camps with the general litter and bodies, which made me realise that it was not for me. I’ve read about David Sharp and “green boots” in a different book about what happened to him, so seeing those photo’s I guess you could say that reality did bite. I have no problem with people climbing or wanting to climb these routes, but it is definitely not for me.

never been in a near death situation, but have once or twice been on a big route on a big mountain in the alps/Scotland in winter where the weather has come in and things have got a bit desperate and found myself near the end of my tether, fearful and physically/mentally exhausted with frozen fingers. The mind and body can become near useless very quickly. I would imagine self preservation takes over and rational decision making falls apart, up there you would be operating at the very limit of everything, mentally and/or physically, not in a position to help others.

nick1962 – Member
Fewer people have swam the English Channel than climbed Everest.

POSTED 36 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

The point being?

If you really want to be cool and everything, swim the channel, don’t climb Everest. That’s where the real niche is. Anyone can climb Everest.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could keep this one short and not get all moralistic?

Indeed. Much like the climbers who pass these bodies on their way to their own personal goal.

I think it’s good to see the realities of death occasionally. We now live such sheltered lives that where death happens, it generally happens behind closed doors. But it’s something we will all have to face up to eventually. I don’t feel sorry for those people who lost their lives on the mountain, as nobody “forced” them to go. They made a choice. On a plant of billions of people, a small number dying on a mountain isn’t really here nor there, and i’d rather go doing something interesting, difficult, and yes dangerous! It does sadden me however to see that beautiful mountain littered with the detritus of the people who have climbed it.

Regarding “walking on past” someone dying, i think it’s impossible to realise what it’s like without being there. “Rescuing” an injured or dying individual(stranger) from the heights of Everest is highly likely to end in both their death and your own. Would you honestly attempt to help them if you knew with better than 80% certainty it could also kill you?? I don’t think you can answer that truthfully until it happens. I doubt a single person could bring down an injured person themselves anyway without significant support etc/