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Into Thin Air
Posted on 05/20/2012 3:33:08 AM PDT by LibWhacker
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- A 73-year-old Japanese woman climbed to Mount Everest's peak Saturday, smashing her own record to again become the oldest woman to scale the world's highest mountain.
Tamae Watanabe reached Everest's 8,850-meter-high (29,035-foot-high) summit from the northern side of the mountain in Tibet on Saturday morning with four other team members, said Ang Tshering of the China Tibet Mountaineering Association in Nepal.
Watanabe had climbed Everest in 2002 at the age of 63 to become the oldest woman to scale the mountain. She had retained the title until she topped herself a decade later.
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That, and a dollar and a half will get her a cup of Coffee at Starbucks.
Japan has a lot of Alpine Clubs for seniors, but the highest mountain in Japan (the famed Mt. Fuji) isn't even half of Mt. Everest's height.
76? I would think this could be broken as well, especially in this day and age where men are much more physically fit in their later years?
Impressive for her age, no doubt. However, this is hardly the feat it was in Mallory’s or Hillary’s time. Adventure climbs book people like cattle, chopper them up to established camps and they lick the frosting from the cake without any other struggle or mess. Impressive feat for a 73 year old, but none of the honest meaning of a real conquest can apply - only the faded cache for telling in a bar someplace.
I read the book, but it still isn’t the same deal. Hard to do, yes - it’s not a trip to Yellowstone. However, it isn’t anything like it was for those who actually conquered these ranges in the first place. Given the clothes, they still don’t hump it all the way and they are supplied - two huge factors. In addition, they play by proven routes and navigation equipment. Communication excels. Aside from the physical effort of the final assault, these deals are adventure vacations. Similarly, guys like Steger and the lesbian chick are making careers out of this stuff with political agendas. They have nothing, nothing , in common with the men who launched themselves into the unknown with guts and a prayer. Today’s monied class need stimulation and this is a cool thing - a bucket list item.
I climbed Mt. Fuji with a Boy Scout troop in 1960.
I used to have a climbing stick from the trip somewhere but it was lost over the years...
I’ve been a climber for many years, been around climbers too numerous to count. I have NEVER heard a single one speak of “scaling” anything but a fish. Reporters universally speak of “scaling” a mountain. The people who actually get to the top speak of CLIMBING it. That aside, this lady is awsome.
We had a woman mountain climber speak at our annual sales kickoff meeting in January this year. Her first attempt at Everest failed about a half mile from the summit due to weather. Her second attempt succeeded. Her stories were spellbinding. I cannot imagine a 73 year old woman doing this. Good for her!
I understand, but expectations that 2012 will be like 1953 is not real.
As for money and politics, even idiots have money and trust funds. How they spend and what they say as long as it is legal, freedom allows stupid too.
Also, Hillary had Norgay, and the local people.
I’m sorry but you are wrong. Even if flown to base camp, which I don’t know if can happen, but I will give you that one, climbing everest is a two month process of successive climbs up and down the mountain. Everyone who summits will have actually climbed the mountain just short of summiting several times. At that altitude there are no reserves for someone else to pull your weight. Everyone who stands on top of everest has earned it.
Actually, there is very little technical climbing required to summit Everest, especially from the Northern Route. The most demanding is at the Second Step and even there, earlier parties have actually installed ladders.
It's an extremely demanding hike, no doubt. But it demands little in the way of technical climbing skills.
My wife’s family has lived on/off in Nepal for over 50 years (some still do) and she met Hillary as a girl. We went back quite some years ago and walked a trail down and up about 4,000 feet and, yep, it was punishing and I was in decent condition for a 40+ male. Today, the adventure tourists chopper up to high camps with ex-Soviet machines - the sherpas were up in arms because it cut into their trade. A whole tourism industry exists to ferry people & equipment up. Yeah, they need to be in shape and all that, but they aren’t what the originals were by any stretch at all.
Seeing as 3 people dead on the side of the mountain in the last few days, and 1 was just a German doctor doing mountain cleanup, not even trying to summit. The folks on here trivializing a walk above base camp seem to be out of touch with the impact of someone growing up near sea level being that high, the mountain top is below where most airplanes fly.
Techincal climb or not, this is a deadly little stroll, serracs sound like hell to me. Crossing the ice fall with ice things the size of city blocks is insanity. I would have everyone re-examine what is dangeerous. Hypoxia, altitude sickness, crevaces, and a ladder above camp 2, any one could kill you, having to survive all is a serious challenge.
Hillary did this and that was a miracle, a one in a million shot.
But at 73, this lady did what most posters here could not do, even on their best year. It takes months of preperation, you spend more than a month to just climb up and down above base camp for a very tight window to do a summit attempt.
As I expected, my response was misinterpreted. I did NOT “diminish” the lady’s accomplishment. I merely said that Everest via the Northern Route is NOT a particularly TECHNICAL climb. It is an extremely demanding hike — one most people likely could not make. However, one does not need any advanced knowledge of mountaineering to accomplish an Everest summit.
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