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Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies

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Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies

#121

Post by aplusbi »

jedbrown wrote: post #83
mks wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice story. However it takes place at much lower altitude (around 6000m). Trango is great climbing area with demanding climbs but it is entirely different category than Everest. It is not saying that one can not succeed in saving someones life (even if it is highly unlikely). It is more if you are willing to risk your life to do it. If there weren't people risking lifes in rescue there would be no firefighters or mou…

If you ask anyone who has been both places, they will tell you that the Trango rescue or the 1977 Bainthha Brakk epic demonstrate far more tenacity and competence against far thinner odds than these Everest scenarios. This statement includes one of my climbing partners who went back up from high camp after their own long summit day on K2 to rescue incompetent people who should have turned around when their own team m…

I don't think it's that rescue attempts are more difficult on Everest but rather that they are more futile. If a climber collapses from HAPE/HACE in the death zone it is often too late to help them.

Of course I agree completely that rescue attempts become more difficult when you throw in a bunch of type-A amateurs.

Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies

#122

Post by jedbrown »

johnyzee wrote: post #82
wooster wrote: post #27

I recently got back (almost exactly a month ago) from a month long climbing trip in Nepal with some friends. We had three guides, all three of whom have climbed Everest multiple times. One of our guides, who has summited 5 times, described Everest as his "bad habit". As a relative newbie to high altitude mountaineering (the highest I got was ~19,850 feet), climbing in Nepal was really, really hard. You are never warm…

> These were people who no mountaineer in the world would accuse of being irresponsible, inexperienced, unprofessional, or, even, unsafe. This is what gets me about mountain climbing - you can't really be good at it, at least not in the sense that it will save your life. There are so many unknowable, uncontrollable factors that make the difference between life and death, to the extent that you play Russian Roulette w…

> not in the sense that it will save your life

There are countless counter-examples to this claim. For example, Jerzy Kukuczka's spent three nights out above 8000m on K2 without food, water, tent, or sleeping bag. During this time, he covered substantial technical ground to summit their new route (the South Face) and descended safely without assistance and even without frostbite. His partner, Tadeusz Piotrowski, was suffering more seriously from the exposure and fell while downclimbing ice unroped. Kukuczka was not just "lucky", he was prepared and knew how to last in extreme conditions. His decision-making with regard to batteries (his headlamp never worked when it mattered) and rope (he died when the second-hand 6mm rope he was leading on cut) was not so good.

Touching the Void is a great story and Joe Simpson is an entertaining writer, but he's also notoriously accident-prone and has some peculiar risk analysis judging from his writing about places that I have climbed. Sure, cutting edge alpine-style climbing is dangerous and requires a great deal of competence, but it's still not crazy gamble you describe as long as you make objective decisions.

Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies

#123

Post by dminor »

jvdh wrote: post #94
johnyzee wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These were people who no mountaineer in the world would accuse of being irresponsible, inexperienced, unprofessional, or, even, unsafe. This is what gets me about mountain climbing - you can't really be good at it, at least not in the sense that it will save your life. There are so many unknowable, uncontrollable factors that make the difference between life and death, to the extent that you play Russian Roulette w…

That is exactly what makes mountaineering so awesome, at least for me. In modern society most people have lost their respect for nature. Going into the mountains and climbing them makes you respect nature in all its awesome force. You're walking a very fine line, where you're taking risks but also mitigating those risks by using proper equipment. For the most part this is a skills based discipline, but the fact remai…

> In modern society most people have lost their respect for nature.

So the people who don't risk their lives climbing mountains have lost their respect for nature? I think you might have that exactly backwards :)

Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies

#125

Post by billybob »

dminor wrote: post #123
jvdh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly what makes mountaineering so awesome, at least for me. In modern society most people have lost their respect for nature. Going into the mountains and climbing them makes you respect nature in all its awesome force. You're walking a very fine line, where you're taking risks but also mitigating those risks by using proper equipment. For the most part this is a skills based discipline, but the fact remai…

> In modern society most people have lost their respect for nature. So the people who don't risk their lives climbing mountains have lost their respect for nature? I think you might have that exactly backwards :)

Yeah, I TOTALLY respect Everest. Everest would kill me dead.

That's why I'm staying the heck away from it.

I respect lions, too.

Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies

#126

Post by jedbrown »

aplusbi wrote: post #121
jedbrown wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ask anyone who has been both places, they will tell you that the Trango rescue or the 1977 Bainthha Brakk epic demonstrate far more tenacity and competence against far thinner odds than these Everest scenarios. This statement includes one of my climbing partners who went back up from high camp after their own long summit day on K2 to rescue incompetent people who should have turned around when their own team m…

I don't think it's that rescue attempts are more difficult on Everest but rather that they are more futile. If a climber collapses from HAPE/HACE in the death zone it is often too late to help them. Of course I agree completely that rescue attempts become more difficult when you throw in a bunch of type-A amateurs.

> futile

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beck_Weathers

Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies

#127

Post by jedbrown »

araneae wrote: post #102

The article quotes a 1/50 chance of dying. For perspective, only 1/20 suicide attempts are successful. That means that climbing Mt. Everest is only half as deadly as trying to actively kill yourself.

This is a silly mis-application of statistics. Risk in both scenarios is highly dependent on preparation and decision making.

Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies

#128

Post by araneae »

jedbrown wrote: post #127
araneae wrote: post #102

The article quotes a 1/50 chance of dying. For perspective, only 1/20 suicide attempts are successful. That means that climbing Mt. Everest is only half as deadly as trying to actively kill yourself.

This is a silly mis-application of statistics. Risk in both scenarios is highly dependent on preparation and decision making.

It's not meant to be accurate. In another comment someone claimed that 2% was "low" and I'm just pointing out that climbing Mt. Everest is one of the more risky things you can do. Obviously at an individual level it loses meaning, but people often use death rate statistics that don't apply individually to assess risk in a more general sense.

Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies

#129

Post by alexro »

dminor wrote: post #123
jvdh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly what makes mountaineering so awesome, at least for me. In modern society most people have lost their respect for nature. Going into the mountains and climbing them makes you respect nature in all its awesome force. You're walking a very fine line, where you're taking risks but also mitigating those risks by using proper equipment. For the most part this is a skills based discipline, but the fact remai…

> In modern society most people have lost their respect for nature. So the people who don't risk their lives climbing mountains have lost their respect for nature? I think you might have that exactly backwards :)

I think that to respect Nature you need to understand that it won't kill you 'just because' you get out of your safe house. Nature gives you a lot to take care of yourself. You need to learn to properly understand it's signs, that's where you can start respecting. Otherwise you have fear, but not respect. You can't imagine yourself sleeping under a rain, can't you?

Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies

#130

Post by hook »

araneae wrote: post #102

The article quotes a 1/50 chance of dying. For perspective, only 1/20 suicide attempts are successful. That means that climbing Mt. Everest is only half as deadly as trying to actively kill yourself.

My friend's dad climbed k2. It's like rolling a tetrahedron.
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