Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only when it comes to suicide, better preparation means a higher chance of dying.
Yes, that was intentional.
+1 for you then. :-)
Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
151–160 of 266 posts
Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
#152I 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…
I'm going to go ahead and judge. 1 in 10. Your have a 10% chance of dying if you attempt a summit, right? How much pain is your untimely death going to cause if it happens? How many everest orphans and widows are there? Include in that the considerable cost and time investment to do this when you could be creating something, exploring something that has a conceivable chance of helping humanity, or just plain investin…
It takes all kinds. People with the balls to summit Everest are rare, and they provide great stories to humanity, just the same as astronauts, deep sea divers or spelunkers. I can admire that because it's unusual and inspiring, something that can not be said for people playing it safe.
I won't judge you for your judgement, and I might even share it for people mountaineers who have kids, etc, but I can not agree with your premise that risking death is automatically bad because of how others might feel about it. There's more to life than staying alive.
Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
#153I 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…
I'm going to go ahead and judge. 1 in 10. Your have a 10% chance of dying if you attempt a summit, right? How much pain is your untimely death going to cause if it happens? How many everest orphans and widows are there? Include in that the considerable cost and time investment to do this when you could be creating something, exploring something that has a conceivable chance of helping humanity, or just plain investin…
Your have a 10% chance of dying if you attempt a summit, right?
10% of people who attempt a summit die, but that does not mean that attempting a summit necessarily has a 10% chance of death. That 10% figure is not conditioned on your individual preparation, your guides, and your fellow climbers. I would guess that with the right preparation, the chance of death is much less than 10%.
Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
#154I 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…
I'm going to go ahead and judge. 1 in 10. Your have a 10% chance of dying if you attempt a summit, right? How much pain is your untimely death going to cause if it happens? How many everest orphans and widows are there? Include in that the considerable cost and time investment to do this when you could be creating something, exploring something that has a conceivable chance of helping humanity, or just plain investin…
As reasonable as your assessment is, humanity has not gotten so far in the fields of ideas, philosophy, technology in general or any other field you can think of by being purely altruistic. Inspiration is a powerful feeling that drives progress.
An example that comes to mind is how Galileo chose to defy the powerful figures of his time and was, admittedly, willing to die for it. He had children.
Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
#155Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about just running a marathon instead? How about just taking whatever drugs are necessary to stimulate the same neurotransmitter production?
I'm a big fan of inexpensive hobbies that allow me to keep both feet at sea level.
It's unclear whether you're in favor of recreational drug use for this purpose.
Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
#157I 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…
I'm going to go ahead and judge. 1 in 10. Your have a 10% chance of dying if you attempt a summit, right? How much pain is your untimely death going to cause if it happens? How many everest orphans and widows are there? Include in that the considerable cost and time investment to do this when you could be creating something, exploring something that has a conceivable chance of helping humanity, or just plain investin…
10% is the wrong statistic. According to the article, for every 10 people who reach the summit, 1 person dies in the attempt. So, already, that's somewhat less than 1/10, because not every person who dies does so after reaching the summit.
But it also doesn't count the many people who start climbing the mountain but turn around before the summit and make it down alive.
The true statistic is likely much less than 10%.
Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a big fan of inexpensive hobbies that allow me to keep both feet at sea level.
It's unclear whether you're in favor of recreational drug use for this purpose.
I was referring to nothing more recreational than hiking and guitar playing, trust me.
Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
#159Earlier 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…
> 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…
I have tremendous respect for the abilities of the climbers, they are obviously among the best in the world in several categories of physical prowess, but it still seems that mountain climbing is one of very few disciplines where you can do everything right and still, with a reasonable probability, get killed due to some random circumstance.
Re: Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
#160I 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…
> You are never warm, the food sucks, camping for long periods at high altitude sucks rather a lot, you are never clean, altitude sickness sucks, pooping in an 8" hole in the ground sucks, not eating much protein sucks, but… the views are spectacular, the people you meet are amazing, the place itself is awe-inspiring, the wildlife is interesting and diverse, the peace of the place is fantastic, and the mountains… wel…
Do you have any links or just perhaps some Google terms to search for? This is pretty interesting.