hora – Member
We dont ‘get it’ as we arent the sort to even attempt such a harsh and very dangerous trip.
Therefore we cant cast judgement. Sorry.

I think that’s a cop out.

That link was truly grim, and I regret clicking on it. I’ve seen some online carnage in my time, but it’s the abandonment that’s disturbing. I realise removing or burying them isn’t an option, but what a hellish place it must be.
Though it has stimulated some interesting discussion. Seems to boil down to the fact that none of us (I hope) would want to ignore a dying person – but Everest’s such an extreme environment it wouldn’t be practical to try and help them.
And for those reasons, you can keep it.

jambourgie – Member
Is it still an achievement to “climb” Everest? Genuine interest. I always imagine Sherpa’s pushing fat, rich westerners up in wheelchairs or up ladders. Are there any shops at the top?

For those that don’t think it is or state it’s ‘easy’, give it a go and see. I predict a rapid change of opinion… Even the wealthy socialites are putting it all on the line to get up it and tho this may not be a purist mountaineers cup tea, they demand some recognition for this. Remember, even Bonners took several attempts and needed supplementary oxygen to get up it (albeit at 60).

FTR, I haven’t done it but I have done a couple of smaller Himalayan bumps.

I don’t get it, to ignore a person dying so you can get a sense of achievement doing something that’s already been done thousands of times is completely beyond me..
It strikes me as a selfish fools folly..

Best everest book ive read.. into thin air, touching the void, no way down (k2) etc are all good too but nowt on this one.

It is a fascinating mountain. Is there anything else like it in terms of “adventure tourism” where people pay tens of thousands for the experience yet 1 in 10 don’t make it home? I suspect the grim realities of the mountain is a big part of the draw for some of the fee paying clients and that seeing dying/dead tourists just adds to the experience and makes for a better story when/if you get home 😕

khani – Member

I don’t get it, to ignore a person dying so you can get a sense of achievement doing something that’s already been done thousands of times is completely beyond me..
It strikes me as a selfish fools folly..

Let’s change the scenario.

You’ve trained for a year to run the Safaricom* Marathon with a respectable personal best of, let’s say 3 and a half hours. You’ve invested hours, days of your time in training, and incurred plenty of cost both in terms of personal life and financial.

You are just a mile from the end and well within your target time and the bloke in front of you collapses. He’s having a heart attack.

Based on a some of the above you’d be within your rights, morally, to just run past and let him die and achieve your target. You don’t know him. He’s not part of your team. He’s just a stranger.

Of course, if you could blame your lack of help on the altitude…..

*I picked the Safaricom as there won’t be any spectators a mile from the finish.

Nope, I still don’t get it..
Though I’d trample your granny to make the bar for last orders…

If there was a strong chance of you dying rather than just failing to complete a race in a set time if you stopped and helped, it would be a fair comparison.

I don’t think there is any moral justification for not helping in your scenario, but that doesn’t necessarily apply to some circumstances in which you come across someone in trouble at high altitude, and while
I’m sure some people have ignored people struggling when they could have helped in order to get to the top, others have done so because they are already in extremis, and barely able to get themselves down, let alone someone else who cannot stand up or walk, cannot tie in, is snowblind etc.

Sorry khani – I was vaguely agreeing with you! 😀

“adventure tourism” where people pay tens of thousands for the experience yet 1 in 10 don’t make it home?

That’s not really an accurate figure.

Since 2000 there have been 69 deaths and 5048 successful summits

So more like 1.4 in 100 rather than 1 in 10

And that’s not counting all the many many unsuccessful summit attempts that aren’t included in the above numbers.

It’s still pretty harsh, but 1 in 10 is a bit off.

Oh.. 😳 it’s hard to tell on here sometimes..

mrblobby – Member

Is there anything else like it in terms of “adventure tourism” where people pay tens of thousands for the experience yet 1 in 10 don’t make it home?

Glentress black. You buy your Orange Five and your Audi but nothing prepares you for the redemption climb. Place is littered with corpses. I had to kick an accountant in the face to complete my lap the other day- I’m sure he’d understand.

Glentress black.

The similarities are surprising. Middle aged men sat by the side of the trail desperately removing layers and looking bewildered.

And queuing to enter the more technical sections.

I think that’s a cop out.

No its not. You are in a very savage and cruel part of nature. Everyone who goes up there KNOWS its very dangerous.

Just as when a ready supply of food runs out in a natural disaster, people suddenly become more primitive. You have to.

We can sit in our warm offices though, throwing scorn by the shedload at those who don’t fit our idea of chivalry and justice.

Glentress black. You buy your Orange Five and your Audi but nothing prepares you for the redemption climb. Place is littered with corpses. I had to kick an accountant in the face to complete my lap the other day- I’m sure he’d understand.

😆

reminds me of that change a movie title by one letter thread:

Rusty Spanner:
Ride & Prejudice – The tragic tale of a man who turns up at Llandegla in a Lada with an Apollo on the roof.
He is shunned.

I still giggle over that one, best STW post ever.

If 1 in 10 die just trying to get themselves on/off the top that tells you it’s beyond anything normal. How many would die trying to carry someone with them? 9 in 10?

It’s not like having a bit of a walk in the snow.

If 1 in 10 die just trying to get themselves on/off the top

Don’t repeat the false information.

It makes it sound true.

I’m not saying it’s not harsh, but 1 in 10 isn’t true.

5thElefant – Member

If 1 in 10 die just trying to get themselves on/off the top that tells you it’s beyond anything normal. How many would die trying to carry someone with them? 9 in 10?

It’s not like having a bit of a walk in the snow.

Couldn’t you be bothered reading any of the thread?

This is 7 posts above you:

That’s not really an accurate figure.

Since 2000 there have been 69 deaths and 5048 successful summits

So more like 1.4 in 100 rather than 1 in 10

And that’s not counting all the many many unsuccessful summit attempts that aren’t included in the above numbers.

It’s still pretty harsh, but 1 in 10 is a bit off.

Of course, 1 in 10 makes it sound so much more romantic, doesn’t it? (And maybe also gives more justification to those who walk past people who they may be to help..)

I’ve been in a blizzard at 5,500 metres. I was exhausted, confused and disorientated due to the lack of oxygen and visibility. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be at 8,000 metres+.

hora – Member

Just as when a ready supply of food runs out in a natural disaster, people suddenly become more primitive. You have to.

We can sit in our warm offices though, throwing scorn by the shedload at those who don’t fit our idea of chivalry and justice.

My office is currently freezing, so can I get a scorn-throwing pass?

Couldn’t you be bothered reading any of the thread?

Not really, no.

Couldn’t you be bothered reading any of the thread?

Not really, no.

At least you are honest about it I suppose 😐

It does make your contribution a bit pointless though.

So more like 1.4 in 100 rather than 1 in 10

Apologies, my mistake. Sure i read 1 in 10 over the entire history of the mountain somewhere in one of the earlier links. Either way it’s probably more relevant to consider a recent timeframe.

Just for reference Wikipedia says…

There have been 219 fatalities recorded on Mount Everest from the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition through the end of 2010, a rate of 4.3 fatalities for every 100 summits (this is a general rate, and includes fatalities amongst support climbers, those who turned back before the peak, those who died en route to the peak and those who died while descending from the peak). Of the 219 fatalities, 58 (26.5%) were climbers who had summited but did not complete their descent.[78] Though the rate of fatalities has decreased since the year 2000 (1.4 fatalities for every 100 summits, with 3938 summits since 2000), the significant increase in the total number of climbers still means 54 fatalities since 2000: 33 on the northeast ridge, 17 on the southeast ridge, 2 on southwest face, and 2 on north face.[78]

Apologies, my mistake. Sure i read 1 in 10 over the entire history of the mountain somewhere in one of the earlier links.

The figure over the entire history up to last season would be something like 3.8 deaths per 100 successful summits.

I wonder what the figure is for non-Sherpa climbers? Obviously I know that Sherpas do die on Everest, but less frequently above 8000m – and most guided expeditions would include quite a few sherpas summiting as part of the team. I think there was one sherpa recently reported has having more than 20 visits to the top.

Would skew the figures about death rate above 8000m a bit, I suppose, although perhaps not back up to the 1 in 10 figure so often quoted.

Three numbers relate to the period 1921 – 2006 so not totally up to date :

The overall mortality rate was 1.3 percent, the rate for climbers (mostly non-natives) at 1.6 percent and the rate for Sherpas, natives of the region and usually acclimatized to high elevations, at 1.1 percent.

So no, still nowhere near 1 in 10.

I wonder what the figure is for non-Sherpa climbers?

All the stats:

http://www.adventurestats.com/tables/EverestAgeFat.shtml

Wow those stats are interesting:

Everest up to 2007 – 3000 summits and approx 200 deaths
K2 up to 2008 – 300 summits and 77 deaths!

I knew K2 was harder and more dangerous than Everest but I didn’t realise how much more dangerous.

There have been a couple of bad years on Everest since those stats finish so the numbers will have risen a fair bit since then.

Not as bad as Annapurna… from Wikipedia…

Annapurna I has the greatest fatality rate of all the 14 eight-thousanders: as of March 2012, there have been 52 deaths during ascents, 191 successful ascents, and nine deaths upon descent, which means that “for every three thrill-seekers that make it safely up and down Annapurna I, one dies trying.”[7] That same ratio is at or above six-to-one for all of the other eight-thousanders, except for K2 and Nanga Parbat.[7] Climbers killed on the peak include Russian Anatoli Boukreev in 1997, Spaniard Iñaki Ochoa in 2008,[19] and Korean Park Young-seok, lost in 2011.[20]

throwing scorn by the shedload at those who don’t fit our idea of chivalry and justice.

This sentence needs a rewrite.

Cheers Mr Blobby – I need to re-read that Chris Bonnigton book on his Annapurna ascent, it was gripping.