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".
I don't think that's even the issue, the guy needed help getting down. I'm not buying all the rationalizations offered here: 40 people just walked by the guy. No one can make me believe that some combination of 40 human beings couldn't have gotten this guy down.
They're all nuts to be there in the first place, and I really don't care what they do or don't do, or whether they survive. Just to get to Mt. Everest, and buy all their supplies and their permit, they all flew over thousands of dying third world people (including many children who are starving or dying of easily curable ailments and could be saved a dollar a piece) and spent gobs of money that could have saved many of those lives that they flew over. Why do people suddenly get upset when a few of these egomaniacs walk past another one dying in expensive pursuit of his egomania? If you're going to take huge risks with your life, you should do it for something worthwhile -- join the military and fight to liberate a country from a brutal dictator, or join a group that infiltrates North Korea and gets people out or gets documentary film out, etc. But climbing a stupid mountain???
Absolutely.
It's a human being, for Pete's Sake! What is wrong with people today?
Even if you can't save a person you should do your best to give them comfort.
I'd be more comfortable telling friends "No, I never made it to the top, I had a more important task that day" than trying to explain to them that I made it, but I was almost distracted from my goal because some pesky human had the audacity to die on my path.
This is a very sad, egotistically driven revelation of man's capability for lack of compassion. People like these, who pursue extreme mountain climbing, and who easily put success ahead of any normal act of compassion, disgust me.
This story simply confirms that uneasy feeling.
Actually, in the larger scheme of things, that's a positive contribution...
I just can't get all worked up about this one way or the other. If you are stupid enough to risk your life like that I am not going to stress about the exact circumstances under which you died. In addition, I don't think you really have any expectation in such a situation that everyone else should have to risk their lives (above and beyond the dumb risk they are already taking) to save you.
In the boonies yes, but on Everest? Are you trained in mountain rescue?
I'd bet that few if any of the 40 that passed him were either.
He's high on the side of a mountain, not on the side of a road. It would be extremely difficult to evacuate him. Extremely dangerous to the rescuers especially if they weren't trained and didn't have the right equipment. Not to mention the physical problems they already have themselves at that altitude.
It's a truly unfortunate event.
Well, I don't think this debate is about whether others have the obligation. It's about whether you appropriately asign priorities, with respect to human behavior. But maybe I'm wrong.
Sure it's a verb. "I just summitted my manuscript to the publisher." Sheesh!
Unfortunately, climbing the
highest peaks is not a mere
jaunt up the mountainside.
There is real peril involved
for everyone, including the
sherpas when that weather
turns bad. In the story I read,
the ascent was made, but the
descent was as taxing for the
climbers as the trek up and
the weather far worse.
Catastrophe hits and idividuals
have to face a difficult decision:
try to save your fellow climber,
who is so far gone already that
he will probably die anyway,
or put your own life at stake
and possibly both of you lie
down for the last time.
One can only imagine the horrible
emotional pull that entails. You
have an obligation to return
to your loved ones in as good as
condition as possible, not missing
parts of your body to frostbite, but
at least return alive.
Sorry, I see this story as
comparable to the other situation
of extreme isolation wherein
survival depends upon eating
your friend's body. As repulsive
as cannabalism is, IMO no one can
judge another person's actions
until he's been there. Even
then, it's a personal call.
And I have no idea what I would
do under either circumstance.
Just curious. What is the point of those three and four word sentences?
These self-absorbed jerkoffs who "have to get to the summit" of something are not reflective of any culture outside its own narcissism.
I heard this very evening on the radio that Sir Edmund Hillary is appalled with this tragedy. And he has stated for the record he would in no way leave a person to die on the mountain. I think this is all that need be said on the subject.
And I'm apalled, that this point is even argued on here.
You are supposed to leave people to die in Fort Marcy Park.
Oops. Wrong Hillary
The book, Into Thin Air by Krakauer, covered all this. It's been going on for some time. The surgeon mentioned in the book was left to die twice and both times got up on his own willpower and walked to safety. Krakauer said everyone was surprised to see him both times as they had already wriiten him off.
"Into Thin Air" was an amazing book.
If you liked that one, check out "Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest", by Anatoli Boukreev.
You make good points; have you read Jon Krakauer's book, Into Thin Air, about the 1998 Everest disaster? The Russki climber was up there on his own and safely at base camp several thousand feet below the summit; despite this, he left his secure position to rescue several of the climbers who were trapped on the summit in a howling storm (I imagine there aren't many types of storms on Everest that don't qualify as "howling"). Compare him to this bunch: now, I don't know what I would have done in this situation but I do know I have too much common sense to have been there in the first place.
Everybody who attempts Everest should know what's in store for them. Unfortunately, there's been an overe-commercialization of Everest. People who have no business being there are making the trek, relying largely on their guides. They get a very rude "awakening".
Other climbers, who spend years of training and tens of thousands of dollars to make the climb, have no interest in delaying or denying their dreams and goals because of a few climbers who should have known better.
If they were my friend, I'd definitely stop and do everything I could.
If they were another "tourist" making the trek, they're SOL.
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