These tourist trips need to be shut down.
Yeah, the climbing of Mt. Everest should be reserved exclusively for people who yearn to do it "because it's there."
Seriously: If we were to ban every dangerous activity that crazy thrill-seekers engage in... the gene pool would be a lot cloudier.
Regards,
How ironic that the sherpa's name is "Mr Sherpa." I mean: What are the odds?
On a related note: "Sedlacek" is Czech for "unlucky mountaineer."
Regards,
I don’t know what it is that makes people take on these extremely risky attempts, but it must be something innate in us as every year people keep trying it despite knowing the risks. And Mallory’s ‘because it’s there’ is not an sufficient answer.
freemarket.
Can we really ban people from dangerous activities because they might die? What is the red line on that? Motorcycles? Diving? Parachuting?
The spirit of challenge is built into humanity. Are you pretending the wisdom to decide when a risk is unacceptable? Hell, a lot of people die on freeways too!!!
I take personal risks in what I do, and they're often of deadly potential. I have to balance what I might learn and accomplish against the risk of a fatal mistake upon occasion. NOBODY really knows when death is going to bite. You can bet that virtually every one of those you decry and died in the attempt had life insurance policies for their families.
There are much worse ways to go. What you think is for only ego is usually far more complex than that. As a teen, I dreamed of climbing an 8,000m peak. I read the accounts of Annapurna, K2, and Everest's West Ridge. There were a good many instances in which I had to climb to get to where I wanted to go, solo, with the absolute assurance I wouldn't be found alive if I made a mistake. What intrigued me about the Himalaya was the challenge, the discipline and commitment involved, not to mention the beauty of those enormous peaks. Having climbed a good many in the High Sierra, they're always bigger than they look. And I always came away with a unique experience that has enriched my whole life. Ego? How dare you?
The climbing industry in the Himalaya has funded many a Sherpa family that might otherwise have endured death in hopeless poverty. To work with those magnificent people is a privilege for which the fittest among us happily pay dearly for an experience both will cherish. Try broadening the perspective just a little, please?
Live and let die.
People should have the freedom to follow their own path in life... I’m sure all these climbers were doing just that. They died doing something that meant the world to them, something they loved. Who are we to tell them they’re wrong?
-- Robert Browning
Everest has been collecting bodies since 1922. More than half of the 300+ people who've died trying to climb it are still there, either left in a spot that's too precarious to recover their remains without risking more lives, or buried at the bottom of an avalanche.
Some of the bodies have even been relocated either to keep routes clear or to move them someplace less conspicuous. I guess you wouldn't want the sight of dead climbers spoiling the experience for your paying customers.
Some Chinese climbers moved the infamous corpse known as "Green Boots" for esthetic reasons. Then again, the Chinese clearly have no respect for the traditions of the mountain because it was they who installed an aluminum step ladder on Everest's Second Step. It wasn't long before everybody who climbed that route was using the Chinese ladder as a 'normal' part of the route. It even was replaced in 2007 because after 32 years, the original ladder was getting a mite rickety.
Still trying to figure how you still can call it "climbing a mountain" when there's an aluminum step ladder involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Boots
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Steps
The government first launched the clean-up campaign in 2019, which included removing some bodies of dead climbers. But this year was the first time that authorities set a goal to retrieve five bodies from the so-called “death zone”, above an altitude of 8,000m (26,247 feet).
In the end the team - who subsisted on water, chocolate and sattu, a mixture of chickpea, barley and wheat flour - retrieved four bodies.
One skeleton and 11 tonnes of rubbish were removed at lower altitudes after a 54-day operation that ended on 5 June.
If 8 died and 5 were retrieved, it sounds like they are losing ground.
It’s helping thin the herd. Mt Everest is a cesspool of garbage now from all the idiots. I’m surprised they don’t have a Dollar General at base camp.
My sister has a wooden sign in her house that says “Every dead body on Mt. Everest was once a highly motivated person. Stay lazy, my friends.”
“These tourist trips need to be shut down.”
It’s an important source of income for the Sherpas along with the Sherpa Guide Lodges.
I’m surprised that the “cost” of a climbing team doesn’t include someone who collects the trash and brings it back down.
They won't sink from poverty to absolute destitution simply to satisfy Western aesthetics.
I would add it's not just "tourists" who die: if you examine the history of Himalayan climbing there are many experienced climbers who die. It's simply inherently dangerous.
There is always somebody quick to criticize others for what they consider foolish.
Life isn’t about insulating yourself from any danger your whole existence.
Some of us like to push the envelope, as they say. YOU may think it is too dangerous, but others aren’t content to simply EXIST in the world.
It is true, that I would NEVER want to even think about climbing Everest, but I do not criticize those that do, as I have done many, many things that many others would think as foolish.