Everest victim was out to prove 'vegans can do anything'

Foxnews ^

[Red in Blue PA]

A fourth person has died on Mount Everest, and further details about the deaths are slowly emerging. Subhash Paul of India was being assisted overnight Sunday by Sherpa guides during a descent when he died of altitude sickness, the AP reports.

Dutch climber Eric Arnold passed away Friday of the same malady, while Australia's Maria Strydom succumbed to it on Saturday. A 25-year-old Sherpa was the first to die this climbing season: Phurba Sherpa fell to his death Thursday while trying to prep a route for climbers just 150 feet from the top, CNN reports.

[imfbi]

“Experts do not know who will get it and who will not”. I worked regularly on the summit of a 14,000 foot tall volcano
in Hawaii.
You need to add “you never know on a given day, if you will get the sickness, even after years of working at altitude”. I worked with guys that had been on the summit for years and then one day, Plop! down they go, sometimes they have to be hospitalized. You just never know. There are a lot of things you can do to adjust, such as pressure breathing, lots of liquids, don’t get excited, but you will get very little warning, if you go down. I knew fat guys that smoked several packs a day, do just fine, and I’ve seen marathon runners, go limp and collapse, just talking to them. You are right about fitness level not being an indicator.
Personally I think a lot of it is attitude. People that really like the altitude do far better than the ones who are disturbed by what is happening to them physically.

[knarf]

Thanx fat but intelligent ...

(Sorry ... it was a guess)

don't taze me, bro

/8^)

[bgill]

$30K+ is a nice chunk of change.

[dhs12345]

Good point.

[dhs12345]

Sugar, candy, etc. seems to help too.

[Hot Tabasco]

I suffered the beginning stages of hypoxia a number of years ago when I went on a skiing trip to Vail.

I was with my nephew and his friends and we headed straight to top of the mountain, which is approx. 11,000 ft., to do our skiing.

By lunch time I was dead, had a headache and all I wanted to do was lay my head on the table and sleep.

I struggled thru lunch then afterwards, headed down the mountain with another guy to ski at a much lower level where I finally recovered. I had never experienced that before........

[Red in Blue PA]

At that altitude, you are lucky to get yourself down. One simply cannot assist others when oxygen is 33% what it is here. I have been to 18,000 feet; that is over 3 miles straight up......cannot imagine these altitudes.

[rightthinkingwoman]

I really hope this is not the man but the name seems too coincidental.

http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web16b/newswire-the-making-of-the-movie-sherpa

Sherpa us on demand on Comcast and is a very good watch. Both the Nepalese government and mountaineers take advantage of these people.

[MoochPooch]

“There are old climbers, and there are bold climbers, but never any old & bold climbers.”

[Hot Tabasco]

One simply cannot assist others when oxygen is 33% what it is here.

Sure you can, pack them on a sled and go down the mountain........

But that will never happen since their own personal narcissism and the desire to make the hike up the mountain takes precedence over the life of a fellow walker.........

[Tijeras_Slim]

You can acclimate but it takes time. I live at 7500’ and when I go to sea level it feels like breathing oatmeal.

[imfbi]

Microwave popcorn, pretzels, salty things even better!

[imfbi]

Oxygen is still 20%. The air pressure is much lower. I remember ~623 millibars at 14,000 ft. Sea level is ~1013 millibars. What gets to you is the lack of Cellular level pressure differential. Oxygen won’t move into the cells as efficiently. We used one of those things they put on your thumb to read heart rates and Oxygenation levels. My best reading on the sumit(14,000 ft)was ~78%, my worst was 72%,
same body, different days. You are in danger of passing out at <70%. Sea level is generally 99% - 100% for a healthy person. They generally need oxygen to get to the summit of Everest. I can only imagine the ones who die ran out of supplemental Oxygen before they got down.

[SMGFan]

News that the Nepalese government is lowering the fee for climbing Mount Everest has set the mountaineering world abuzz. Last week, Nepal’s Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation announced that it would cut the fee it charges during the spring season from $25,000 to $11,000 per climber

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140219-mount-everest-nepal-climbing-fees-adventure/

Critics Say Could Add to Crowding

Yes and no, say veterans of the Nepal climbing scene. For experienced alpinists who want to climb Everest as a part of a small, well-acquainted team, the change keeps costs down, although all teams—no matter their size—will still be required to hire a government liaison officer for $2,500 and pay $500 to $600 per climber for the “ice doctors,” specially trained Sherpas who install the ladders and fixed lines up through the treacherous Khumbu Icefall.

[Red in Blue PA]

You try carrying a sled up a mountain 4 miles in the sky. My guess is you have never experienced altitude like this.

[Grams A]

CBS covered the deaths on their news tonight. Not one word about any of them being vegans - imagine that!

[Hot Tabasco]

You try carrying a sled up a mountain 4 miles in the sky.

Call it a "Rescue Sled"........Really light and really cheap.

With that being said, not even our military leaves our injured and deceased behind.

There is no reason why a climbing party can't abort their self obsessed mission to help a fellow walker in distress and take him/her back down the mountain.

The fact that they don't, they should be charged with accessory to murder or some other such charge for not helping the dying individual.......

Do you actually find it noble that a climbing party ignores the distress of a fellow climber and instead of helping him/her back down the mountain, leaves him/her behind just so you can achieve your own personal goal of climbing to the summit of Everest?

Is that what your accepted view of humanity is all about?

And please, don't even try to cite all the legal documents they would have to sign off on in order to contract with these idiot outfitters...........

[Patriotic1]

I went to a dude ranch in CO at a higher altitude (9000 ft) and had altitude sickness. A doctor staying there said it would probably pass. It didn’t. I was easily exhausted and head-achey the whole time.

[Patriotic1]

From what I've read (a couple of books), the climb down is perhaps more difficult than the climb up. People really are on their own up there. It's a very dangerous and difficult thing to bring someone ill or dying down. And of course, it falls mainly to the Sherpas.

Plus, I would think that people get their judgment clouded during that experience.

It's really every man for themselves.

There are several good books about these expeditions and nearly all address your concerns at least once during the writing.

[Thank You Rush]

This was an excellent book and it was a storm that killed these climbers but explained quite clearly what altitude sickness could do to the climbers and how important it was to acclimate before going on up to higher elevations - up and then back to base camp and out again for days on end. Very interesting to me.

“”Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a 1997 bestselling non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer.[1] It details the author’s presence at Mount Everest during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, when eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a “rogue storm”.””