Posted on 07/25/2019 6:09:36 AM PDT by C19fan
Climbers have expressed fury at plans to install ladders on the summit of K2, the second highest mountain in the world which takes the lives of one in four climbers.
Mountaineers fear the peak is set to become a tourist destination if steps are installed making the dangerous peak too commercialised.
Imagine Nepal, a trekking and expedition agency, said that they want to return to the mountain next year with ladders, drills and bolts after being forced to abandon their ascent last week amid dangerous conditions.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I used to climb some in my younger days. There was a time when direct aid was considered to NOT be actual “climbing”.
Next up: escalators.
“Next up: escalators.”
I’ll go when they install tele-transporters.
To avoid discriminating against the elderly or out of shape climbers, they should install escalators to the top. To be eco-friendly, they could run them on ten acres of solar panels on the side of the mountain.
It’s the only inclusive thing to do:).
Agreed, K2 is far more difficult of a climb or so I have heard.
I’ll continue to boycott K2 until blacks and hispanics are carried up on the backs of the privileged. Of course, there need to be firm quotas on asians.
Reminds me of the day learning something new about Cannon Mountain (NH)...
After a 3-4 hour strenuous hike, hiking boots on, 45 pound pack, sweating like a banshee... finally nearing the summit, to bump into a 350 pounder in sandals, eating a hamburger, coke in hand.
What did I learn? Cannon’s ski lift is operational in the Summer.
Looked like they needed them this past spring on Everest from the pics I saw. They also need to get in Waste Management’s route as well. Pigs! I’m not exactly Mr. Ecowacko but if I go out in the vast outdoors, I bring my debris home.
All the people “climbing” Everest when it is the Sherpas who install the ladders, ropes, and other aids. All just one has to do is pony up $60 K and schlep up the mountain.
It already is too commercialized. It’s not the impulse to explore that is driving people to make the trip that thousands before them have made, it has already become a tourist destination. Now it is going to become an uncool tourist destination. That one photo of a string of climbers has already seen to that I suspect.
If 25% of those who attempt the ascent die just trying to get up there, I wouldn’t want to be the contractor hired to install the ladders.
There must be plenty of frozen meat to be had along the way. < Ok, this is really bad. I am ashamed. >
“We’ve got to get ping-pong balls”, Charlie Houston, MD.
Not going to happen.
See, an environmental impact study needs to be done, and after 15 yrs of being in a committee, the group will decide that another committee is needed...and then...
If the locals who actually stand to benefit or be harmed by the tourism are supportive, it should be their call. Everest is one of the only valuable commercial assets in Tibet, I’m guessing K2-related tourism has a similar effect for that area. There’s nothing about a ladder bolted into a mountain that says you have to use it.
I’ll wait for the tram.
But seriously, it’s pretty bad when the plague of global overtourism spreads to mountaineering. They said one of the factors in the traffic jam on Everest was that instead of some rich guy just hiring one sherpa to get to the summit, now he might hire another one to schlep his oxygen bottles and wipe his, uh...nose.
Reading some of the books about climbs to Everest in recent years would indicate that there is already a lot of “help” equipment placed on the climb. I was surprised at that. There are rope lines and ladders across divides which I don’t think were common in years past.
No doubt the entire enterprise has become too commercialized - people signing on with the big bucks for the thrill of it and some paying with their lives. Remember the NYC socialite who paid to have a Sherpa carry her when it got to be too much for her. It was too much for her before she ever got on an airplane to fly there.
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