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Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

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Re: Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

#41

Post by RijilV »

1over137 wrote: post #38
TFNA wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good friend of mine is a professional alpinist who focuses only climbing eight-thousanders with no supplementary oxygen. Through him I’ve met others and learned about this whole community. A number of people are as weird and eccentric as us here in computer-nerd circles; one is tempted to armchair-diagnose some as autistic and climbing as their fixation, so something like Green Boots or the death of peers just won’…

Aren't there only a dozen or so mountains above 8000 m? Can you really do that without supplementary oxygen? Amazing.

14 of them. The first person to climb them all did so without supplemental oxygen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Messner

Re: Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

#42

Post by neilv »

krunck wrote: post #21

If you are averse to the Daily Mail, you can try this article instead: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/22/mt-everest-gre...

I thought the Guardian might decide not to show a photo of a corpse of someone probably with living friends and close relatives.

Nope, they do it too, like the Daily Mail, but with a big yellow GUI control to reveal it, like a weird macabre vintage "multimedia".

> Use the slider below to show a picture of the body of the climber known as Green Boots where it lies on Mount Everest. Some readers may find the image distressing

Just because the photo has been shown before doesn't mean it needs to be shown now, especially now that it's been identified, in in this context.

Re: Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

#43

Post by IgorPartola »

blackguardx wrote: post #22
IgorPartola wrote: post #20

Slightly off topic, but I first heard of Green Boots in the book The Climb. I picked it up completely randomly from a used book store six states away from home and wow what a find! It is a riveting story start to finish and I recommend it to everyone who is looking for a great read. My partner got her hyper fixation on high altitude mountaineering from it despite having no interest in ever actually climbing a mountai…

I've only read Into Thin Air, but that book makes Boukreev (author of The Climb) seem like an unreliable narrator. I have zero interest in high altitude mountaineering (I prefer lower altitude rock climbing) but I should probably check out The Climb to get both sides.

The Climb was a great response to it and according to my partner who then read more books about that year’s expeditions it is much closer to what happened than Into Thin Air.

Re: Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

#44

Post by potamic »

snorkel wrote: post #23

I can’t imagine having a hobby that involves passing by, and in some cases climbing over, the exposed remains of others who died doing that same activity.

In some cases leaving people behind to die as well.

https://apnews.com/article/pakistan-porter-death-k2-norwegia...

Re: Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

#45

Post by dhosek »

snorkel wrote: post #23

I can’t imagine having a hobby that involves passing by, and in some cases climbing over, the exposed remains of others who died doing that same activity.

Back in the 90s, I went to see an IMAX film about climbing Everest and at the beginning, I was thinking, “I could do this,” but as it continued my view turned into, “I will never do this. This is insane.”

What’s really scary now is that it’s turned into something where people have to literally stand in line to reach the summit.

Re: Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

#46

Post by dhosek »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #39
snorkel wrote: post #23

I can’t imagine having a hobby that involves passing by, and in some cases climbing over, the exposed remains of others who died doing that same activity.

Is climbing over something that happens? For passing by, that says some about the danger of the hobby and much more about the effort of getting the body back. There's lots of common activities where you might pass by a spot someone died while doing it. Notably, driving a car nearly guarantees it.

Or taking a walk. There’s an intersection two blocks from me where a pedestrian was killed in a hit and run accident shortly after I moved to town. The roadside memorial remained in place for nearly two years (I remember thinking that the people who lived in the house at the corner where the memorial was would probably like to remove it, but didn’t want to appear callous).

The worst part is that even though the intersection has been a 4-way stop for over a decade (the additional stop signs added after the hit and run), I’ve twice nearly been struck by drivers blowing the stop sign after I’ve entered the intersection as a pedestrian.

Re: Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

#47

Post by dreamcompiler »

snorkel wrote: post #23

I can’t imagine having a hobby that involves passing by, and in some cases climbing over, the exposed remains of others who died doing that same activity.

As a firefighter/EMT I occasionally have to deal with death, and I will even put myself in somewhat dangerous situations (that I've been trained for, and for which I have appropriate PPE) if there's a chance I can save a life.

But putting myself in a situation where the likelihood of dying is quite high for no reason other than to say I did it? No thanks.

Nevertheless I'm glad the family of Mr. Morup is no longer wondering what happened to him.

Re: Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

#48

Post by notahacker »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #39
snorkel wrote: post #23

I can’t imagine having a hobby that involves passing by, and in some cases climbing over, the exposed remains of others who died doing that same activity.

Is climbing over something that happens? For passing by, that says some about the danger of the hobby and much more about the effort of getting the body back. There's lots of common activities where you might pass by a spot someone died while doing it. Notably, driving a car nearly guarantees it.

There aren't any common activities where visible corpses serve to remind you that around 1% of participants don't make it back

Re: Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

#49

Post by saghm »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #39
snorkel wrote: post #23

I can’t imagine having a hobby that involves passing by, and in some cases climbing over, the exposed remains of others who died doing that same activity.

Is climbing over something that happens? For passing by, that says some about the danger of the hobby and much more about the effort of getting the body back. There's lots of common activities where you might pass by a spot someone died while doing it. Notably, driving a car nearly guarantees it.

There's a pretty stark difference been "someone died in this spot" and them still being there for you to see. Most people don't react nearly as viscerally to hearing that someone died as they do to literally seeing a corpse.

Re: Mystery identity of 'Green Boots' climber is finally solved after DNA test

#50

Post by somenameforme »

TFNA wrote: post #26
snorkel wrote: post #23

I can’t imagine having a hobby that involves passing by, and in some cases climbing over, the exposed remains of others who died doing that same activity.

A good friend of mine is a professional alpinist who focuses only climbing eight-thousanders with no supplementary oxygen. Through him I’ve met others and learned about this whole community. A number of people are as weird and eccentric as us here in computer-nerd circles; one is tempted to armchair-diagnose some as autistic and climbing as their fixation, so something like Green Boots or the death of peers just won’…

From another perspective, nobody lives forever. And so long as somebody isn't e.g. leaving behind young children or whatever, what would be better than going out while looking at beautiful scenery doing something that you love? And it's not like it's fatalism or whatever. Everest is now up to a > 99% survival rate, and even the really deadly climbs are becoming more manageable over time. Better weather forecasting, gear, knowledge, etc.
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