Posted on 05/24/2006 1:58:55 PM PDT by Mr. Brightside
'Raise hell' over Everest deaths secrecy
25 May 2006
By KENT ATKINSON
An explorers' group which runs a news website monitoring attempts to climb Mt Everest says it has been battling to provide more transparency on the way some climbers die on its slopes.
The group said on its website said that New Zealand double amputee Mark Inglis' disclosure that as many as 40 mountaineers continued climbing past a Briton who was in trouble two hours above Camp Four on the north (Chinese) side of Mt Everest had broken some of the secrecy.
Inglis who climbed with professional expedition leader Russell Brice, said the Briton, David Sharp, was left on the mountain, still alive. Inglis said the mountain was littered with bodies, at least nine on the route he took.
"You have to physically step over so many," he said.
The New York-based ExplorersWeb said on a news site written by climbers, it had been fighting the silence surrounding some deaths in the mountains.
"Death is a fact, but silence is the cancer," the group said on its website yesterday. "We must all speak up, ask questions and raise hell.
"Each time, we have been told that the secrecy is only a concern for the victims' families and (that) we have no respect", it said.
"Climbers on the mountain say they don't want to upset the families."
"Time after time, it has turned out that the hush has served much less noble agendas: to cover up foul play in mountains without law".
Ten climbers have been confirmed as having died on Everest so far this season.
This leaves the 2006 season running second, in terms of fatalities, behind the disastrous 1996 season which killed 19 climbers.
Then, the toll included eight in a single day, May 12, when New Zealander Rob Hall died on the slope looking after an ailing client. Another New Zealander, Andrew Harris, 32, of Queenstown, died trying to reach Hall.
Rob Hall's wife Jan Arnold said no one should be pointing fingers of blame at Mark Inglis and his climbing team for not attempting to rescue a dying British mountaineer.
Mrs Arnold who summitted Mt Everest herself said on Campbell Live last night the chances of rescuing a climber stranded above 8000 metres in the "death zone" were extremely slim.
Mrs Arnold said she understood Inglis sought help by radioing to base camp and was instructed to leave Sharp.
This action has brought criticism from Everest's first conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary.
Mrs Arnold said: "This is extrememly difficult to judge from any of us who weren't actually up there and I would not point the finger at anyone in this situation."
" When you are up there you can barely breath, you can't eat, you can barely drink – all you can really do is plod on upwards with this one thing in mind.
"What it would involve to launch a rescue would almost be beyond the brain capacity of a person at high altitude."
Mrs Arnold recalled the moments when her husband Rob called her from the summit shortly before he died.
She said she knew there were attempts to rescue him by the Sherpas and that was what mattered the most.
"It's the trying that counts," she said.
"You would never point a finger, and I feel sorry for Mark (Inglis) to have to face these many fingers and I congratulate Mark on what he's done – I sympathise with him." Mrs Arnold said climbers at the high point are carrying the bare minimum for themselves to survive.
"They're battling right to the very edge of their own ability."
"Rob, my husband, used to say the chance of you being able to be rescued above 8000m is like as if you're on the moon – it's virtually impossible."
The world was alerted to Sharp's death on May 15, the same day he was seen by Inglis, by a blog entry by Brazilian Vitor Negrete.
Since then, Negrete died climbing alone without supplementary oxygen.
Details of Negrete's death were widely known within a day but the Everestnews.com website said nobody would talk about Sharp until Inglis and fellow New Zealand climber Wayne Alexander disclosed that he was left to die by 40 climbers who went past him while he was in trouble.
Sharp had climbed alone after two previous unsuccessful attempts in 2003 and 2004, without oxygen. Both times he was forced to turn back at 8470m.
This time, he apparently reached the summit with the help of two oxygen bottles from his trekking company, which took him only to base camp.
Climbers would normally take Sherpas and four or five oxygen bottles for a summit bid, according to the trekking company which outfitted him.
ExplorersWeb said the China Tibet Mountaineering Association which takes the money for permits to climb on the northern side was "embarrassingly out of control".
"The ignorance of Chinese authorities for anything but to charge permit fees has led to an over-crowded, lawless and dangerous situation on Everest's north side, adding to the risk of the climb itself," the explorers said.
"Commercial budget expeditions are signing up clients by the dozen and base camp has a bar and a mobile brothel. Individual climbers are robbed in high camps, which this year has contributed to at least one climber's death".
Put yor money where your mouth is and sign up to go next year.
Don't worry. There will be bodies on the route to the summit that you can bring back. This year there were ten.
No kidding. What were the biggest problems we had while reading this story and judging these climbers?
Coffee was stale? Breakfast bagel got burnt? Person in the room was playing music too loud? Paper cut?
I'm a grammar purist and a language Nazi.
Hey, a person's got to do what a person's got to do. Got to get the top and get back down.
I'm a multi-published author, professional writer and publishing consultant.
Pretty profound.
Then you should be as well.
I have zero interest in going to China.
But you seem willing to condemn them solely on the basis of their having spent that money on a foolish pursuit having overflown destitute and starving people in the process who could have put that money to better use. That's a value judgement on your part and when people render judgement about how others live and spend their money it indicates at least a willingness to insist that they spend it on something more "worthwhile".
Your expression of disgust at their choices is more in line with those who wish to use government and taxation to enforce on others their idea of what's right. If you don't believe that's what you imply with your sentiments then you need to more closely examine your own beliefs.
You'd think stepping over nine dead bodies and walking by a dying man might clue them into the inanity of their goal. Then again, mountain climbers seem to prefer thinking with oxygen-deprived brains.
What I've read is that he paid Asian Trekking to get him to Base Camp, that he was attempting Everest solo, had no sherpas, no guides and two bottles of Oz. And that he had made two previous attempts in prior years, both without oxygen (that he was a 'purist', regarding Oz.). Have also read that he did some guiding in the Alps.
Only a handful of elite climbers have done Everest w/o oxygen and some of those are/ were suspected to have suffered brain damage as a result of going extended periods w/o supplemental Oz.
Man v Mountain. Mountain wins. Again.
You have a very vivid imagination. Disapproving of certain activities does not carry the faintest implication of endorsing government interference with those activities. There are much better ways -- more effective, and with fewer evil side effects -- to urge people towards what one regarrds as socially responsible behavior, than to pass laws and dispatch government agents to enforce them.
I also disapprove of people stuffing themselves with junk food all day, but I have no interest in seeing the government interfere with them. However, I will not hesitate to pipe up when I hear other people whining about what a "disgrace" it is that these self-stuffers aren't getting all the medical care they "need" for their self-inflicted ailments.
You think that sooner or later there will be a tramway on Everest? That would offer an easy way to get up and down.
But if the situation were reversed, I'd guarantee you that David Sharp would continue walking also -- and probably has.
Yes, sorrow and one would hope they would give comfort in the time of dying.
Nahh.. Can't eat at that altitude. Your digestive track shuts down as do other bodily functions as your entire body begins to fail. The human body has so much tolerance, but still it is only a matter of time before it succombs to exposure once you are within the "Death Zone". In many cases training is irrelevant. Your body can either take it or it can't.
It's horrifying to think about all this. People seem have a morbid fascination with this subject. It's like a combined slow-motion train wreck and a memorial to mountain climbers who fail to summit.
Insight into thinking / difficulties: "Disappointed, but no regrets"
http://www.everestnews.com/everest2006/coupleeverest2006dis05312006.htm
Nope, not for me. I'm quite content with my paper cuts and ... where's my tea?
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