'Raise hell' over Everest deaths secrecy (Climber Left to Die On Slope)

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.

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.

"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".

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.

"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.

"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.

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".

That story from fellow-climber's perspective:

http://www.everestnews.com/everest2006/coupleeverest2006dis05292006.htm

"Oh No!

Just here at over 8600m we ran into Paul and his Sherpas again. At first I was elated as I thought we'd somehow caught up to them, but then he told me of his predicament with his oxygen, the only option being for him to go down. ... He urged me to go on saying "you've got it in the bag!". ... At the time I was so focused on the reality of seeing whether I could get to the top or not, I didn't really think of any other options but putting my all into getting as far up as I could.

But as I plodded on, I began to think of the disappointment for Paul and the shame in not being able to achieve this together. As well as wondering whether I should have gone down with him so that we could try again together some other time, or whether I should have offered my oxygen and gone down (which to be honest, didn't even cross my mind - maybe the altitude?). We said a brief good bye and good luck and then parted, up and down the mountain."

how do you explain this?

May 28, 2006
'Dead' Climber's Survival Impugns Mount Everest Ethics
By ALAN COWELL

LONDON, May 27 — It has been a lethal and quirky climbing season on Mount Everest, with at least 15 deaths recorded so far.

But no episode seemed quite so strange as the story of Lincoln Hall, a 50-year-old Australian climber, who was a 16th. But only for a while.

His tale, which emerged here on Saturday, offered an inspiring counterpoint to the grim end of a British solo climber, David Sharp, 34, who was left to die on May 15 as some 40 other climbers passed him on their own attempts to reach the 29,035-foot peak.

That case revived a passionate debate over the ethics of high altitude climbing, particularly in what is called the death zone, where conditions, temperatures and the lack of oxygen combine to mean that rescuers may forfeit their own lives in trying to save a sick or incapacitated climber.

Mr. Hall, one of Australia's best-known climbers, was on an expedition whose members paid a minimum of $16,000, according to its Web site. The group included a 15-year-old Australian climber, Chris Harris, who had hoped to become the youngest climber to reach the summit.

He was forced to turn back after having problems breathing, but Mr. Hall and others made it to the top on Thursday.

Accounts on Saturday, pieced together from expedition Web sites and newspaper articles, said that on the descent, Mr. Hall suddenly collapsed. He was pronounced dead by the sherpa guides accompanying him and abandoned at 28,500 feet. The cause was understood to be cerebral edema — a swelling of the brain.

The next day, according to accounts from Mr. Hall's fellow climbers, he was seen by Dan Mazur, an American veteran of many Himalayan expeditions. Mr. Mazur, they said, realized that Mr. Hall was still alive. Almost incomprehensibly, he survived the night.

"Lincoln was motionless, but submitted weak attributes of life," Alex Abramov, the Russian leader of the expedition, said on its Web site (http://www.7summits-club.com/).

The expedition dispatched a team of 13 sherpas to rescue him. Three sherpas with "tea, oxygen and medicines have reached Lincoln," the expedition Web site reported Friday.

"Lincoln has a rest, drinks tea. He in consciousness, however not completely understands what happens," Mr. Abramov wrote on the Web site.

It ascribed his initial weakness on the mountain to an "acute edema and hypoxia," meaning he was not getting enough oxygen.

By 10 p.m. local time Thursday, Mr. Hall and his rescuers were said to have descended to a camp at about 23,000 feet on the North Col of Everest. And by Saturday, "Lincoln Hall was able to walk on his own" to the Advanced Base Camp farther down the mountain.

The fact that he had been able to walk unassisted was taken as testimony to a remarkable recovery and raised the question of what might have happened to the Briton, David Sharp, if he had been helped.

"We will never know the whole story of who helped David and who did not," the EverestNews.com Web site said Saturday, as it published a photograph of the rock cave where Mr. Sharp died. "We will never know the whole story of his summit attempt and descent, where he ended up next to the previously dead climber in the rock cave on Everest. But we do know where he froze to death on Everest."

The climbing season had been an unusual one for records. A New Zealander, Mark Inglis, the first double amputee to reach the summit earlier this month, was one of the climbers who passed the dying Mr. Sharp on his way up the mountain.

Mr. Inglis told New Zealand television: "Trouble is at 8,500 meters, it's extremely difficult to keep yourself alive, let alone keeping anyone else alive. On that morning over 40 people went past this young Briton."

Mr. Inglis said he radioed for help but a fellow mountaineer told him: "Look, mate, you can't do anything. You know, he's been there X number of hours, been there without oxygen, you know, he's effectively dead."

The episode provoked a sharp dispute with Sir Edmund Hillary, the New Zealander who, with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, made the first verifiable conquest of Everest in 1953. Sir Edmund said that "people have completely lost sight of what is important."

"In our expedition, there was never any likelihood whatsoever if one member of the party was incapacitated that we would just leave him to die," he told a New Zealand newspaper, The Otago Daily Times.

2 hours from camp?

Two hours from a tent that was still in the "death zone."

Staying at that altitude for more than 24 hours means death.

//////////

the above is your response to my complaint that someone should have helped the 38 year old man who was left to die in the article you posted

i thought that you were of the opinion that it was ok for the 40 or so others to pass the man and continue on their way to the summit..

so now, only a few days later, we have another man, left to die by his companions, at an even higher altitude. this second man (50 years old) was still alive the next day, and was given some assistance, and survived.

why is it ok to abandon the first man and leave him to die...when now it has been shown that it is possible to survive at that altitude for more than 24 hours?

that is what i was hoping you could explain.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.