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".
Most of these people (the climbers) are arrogant and selfish. They lacked the proper flow of oxygen before they left home. However, in some way it seems like God's way of kulling those that attempt this.
I don't think we have nearly enough info to judge - there certainly are times in the final 1,000 - 2,000 meters of a climb on mountains like Everest or K2 where one person cannot possibly 'save' another because the first person is already stretched to their absolute limit of human endurance. It may not be just a matter of giving some oxygen - if someone has collapsed at that elevation and in that extreme terrain it may (in many cases) be impossible for others to help them survive. I don't know what the case is here, the article simply does not provide enough info to really know the facts.
Mrs Arnold recalled the moments when her husband Rob called her from the summit shortly before he died.
You can't breathe or eat or drink, but you can make a phone call.
This is going to sound harsh but it's not intended that way.
It's my understanding at that altitude it is physically impossible to carry someone down the mountain whose not able to walk themselves. Climbers know that once that last push to the summit starts either they get themselves back down to the highest camp and their tents(usually around 26,500 ft)or they die on the mountain.
That altitude is called the zone of death and for a good reason. It takes a superhuman effort to get yourself up and down. Having the strength to bring someone else down is not in the cards.
If they had tried there'd have been one or two more dead on the mountain.
Correction: "Play some SKYNARD, baby!" LOL
The Eiger's North Face has claimed about 50 since 1935. I think Ranier gets about 10 per year. The Mountains have a weight advantage.
Years of training, years of conditioning, saving up $35,000+, being lucky enough to get a permit to climb on a certain day in a very narrow window, possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity -- and you're going to throw all that away to MAYBE save some stupid jagoff at 28,000 feet who didn't properly prepare, risking your own life in the process?
Rent the movie Into Thin Air.
Gee, lets all jump off a bridge.
But we all could die.
OK, but survivors can just swim away and try to die again tomorrow.
Let's go mountain climbing.
But we all could die.
OK, but survivors can just climb down and try to die again next year.
Lets ride motorcycles in traffic.
But we all could die.
OK, but survivors can come back and try to die again later.
Right or wrong, Mountain Climbing is about to be tear jerked into oblivion.
Large thread on this...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1636848/posts
What do you mean, "we"?
That grabbed me right off. To summit.
I summit
You summit
He summits
She summits
We all summit.
gag
I know it's unimportant in the big scheme of things, but it seems so pompous.
See post #24
I think the key pieces of information are "40 people" and "two hours from camp". Maybe another key piece of information is that most of the climbers in question are accompanied by several sherpas.
I hope if I'm kicking around in the boonies, and I find someone dying there, that I'll find it in myself to stop what I'm doing and either evacuate him, or stay with him and nurse him until he's gone.
You can't breathe or eat or drink, but you can make a phone call.
...and then die.
No thanks, read the book.
Yeah, silly me, I DO think rescuing a human life is more important than climbing a hill. I don't have a lot of sympathy for anyone who can blow $35k on a mountain climb, and I value even a stupid jagoff's life. But then, I'm pro-life.
Sure, I'm not blind to that. But 40 people pass him and they couldn't figure out a way to help him? FORTY people?
I'm not buying that. It's not like we're talking one man trying to help another dying man. We're talking 40 people who passed a man.
Summit is widely used as a verb, and can be found as such in many dictionaries. It's mostly used by climbers, but then they're the ones who mostly have need for the verb, aren't they?
BTW, as a long-time climber I'm utterly disgusted by this story. Every climber I've ever known took it for granted that you always helped those in trouble as your first priority. I've participated in rescues even of the idiots who think $500 of brand-ndw equipment makes them climbers.
The idea that they left him to die not to save themselves but to finish their climb is appalling!
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