Idiocy on Everest

[BroDeal]

The article's picture says it all.

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/mountaineering/everest-2012/Take-a-Number.html?page=1

 

[Nick C.]

You have got to be kidding me. Mallory, Irvine, Tenzig Norgay and Hillary must be rolling in their graves at the sight of this.

 

[FitSsikS]

Aside from the "rush hour" pics there are a couple of shots of the unfortunate Canuck, Shriya Shah.

 

[mewmewmew13]

This has been going on for YEARS Bro...

I know Lakhpa Rita...my husband used to be a Himalayan mt guide..and the atrocities commited on the big peaks have always been astounding by a few with thin scruples.
There is too much money involved and intertwined with folks with huge egos and ambition....a dangerous combo.

This is sad but certainly nothing new...
what really makes my blood boil are the Sherpas who are hired to do the dirty work of setting up the ropes, then get killed by icefall or avalanches because the rich clients insisted they do the job without regard to the conditions...

Don't even get me started...we have lost dear friends.

 

[AlpineClimbr]

You have got to be kidding me. Mallory, Irvine, Tenzig Norgay and Hillary must be rolling in their graves at the sight of this.

How is the idiocy of climbers today different than the idiocy of Mallory and Irvine (who are both still on Everest)?

 

[hrotha]

How is the idiocy of climbers today different than the idiocy of Mallory and Irvine (who are both still on Everest)?

It's not the actual climbers who are being called out here. It's the amateur non-climbers and the people who take their money to put them on the Everest.

Climbing is a risky sport by itself, but this is taking it to ridiculous extremes.

 

[the delgados]

I dunno.
The latter saved $71,000 to kill themselves?

 

[mewmewmew13]

How is the idiocy of climbers today different than the idiocy of Mallory and Irvine (who are both still on Everest)?

It's the reckless manner of some of the so called 'guides' and agencies that put clients at risk when there is no reason.

Many of these clients are not really climbers, no experience...
They pay their huge fees and the Sherpas do the grunt work...then the paying 'climbers' are clipped into ropes and led up into the wilds of altitude and dangerous terrain.

It is a very 'circus-like' atmosphere at times with the trains of people shuffling in lines as if on an elevator. Some reach the summit only to stand in line with dozens of others waiting to 'jug' back down the mt...usually much harder to go down after depleting everything to have gone up.

There is a HUGE difference between experienced climbers who have trained and climbed for years and go a peak using their own skills and judgement..vs the people who want to 'tick' Everest off their bucket list and pay a huge fee to have someone drag them up.

As the article tries to clarify...there are reputable guide services and then there are the shady ones in it for the money..no respect for the mountain or human lives.

 

[AlpineClimbr]

Sandy Irvine was 22 yrs old with minimal mountaineering experience when George Mallory chose to lead him to the top of Everest. He was selected because he knew how to fix the oxygen sets they were carrying. He paid the ultimate price for the experience.

 

[kielbasa]

Reminds me of Lotoja and just about every IM triathlon. Ah, the humanity!

 

[FitSsikS]

Sandy Irvine was 22 yrs old with minimal mountaineering experience when George Mallory chose to lead him to the top of Everest. He was selected because he knew how to fix the oxygen sets they were carrying. He paid the ultimate price for the experience.

If you ever have the chance to watch The Wildest Dream* do so.

*Unfortunately just the trailer.

 

[FitSsikS]

How is the idiocy of climbers today different than the idiocy of Mallory and Irvine (who are both still on Everest)?

Mallory is 'down' now.

 

[AlpineClimbr]

Mallory is 'down' now.

Nope. Still there.

 

[BroDeal]

Reminds me of Lotoja and just about every IM triathlon. Ah, the humanity!

Don't get me started on Lotoja. Now days if I bump into someone "training" for Lotoja it always turns out they are doing the relay and their other big event is the MS150 in Cache Valley. After doing the freaking relay these clowns will put a Lotoja sticker on the back window of their vehicle. It is just sad.

 

[FitSsikS]

Nope. Still there.

My memory has failed me...again. I thought that after they went through all of his 'stuff' and examined his injuries they brought him down.
'Nope' as you said, they buried him there on the mountain.

 

[silverrocket]

The thing that bothers me, as a mountaineer, is that I've spent my life dreaming about climbing Everest, to follow in the footsteps of the legends, but also accomplish something significant, but now that dream has evaporated because of too many pseudo-climbers. Going up Everest on a fixed rope, or with supplemental oxygen, isn't climbing Everest, but there isn't any room for those that want to climb the highest mountain "just because it's there". It is now just a mountain to climb for the ego trip.

K2 isn't the same, because it's not the tallest, but while it does remain the domain of "real" mountaineers, I do have to admit it is beyond my skill and comfort level.

 

[cyclingwombat]

Yes and unlike Everest - with the vague exception of Hillary's step - K2 actually has to be climbed rather than walked.

Like you I grew up dreaming of Everest but even with all my years of guiding rockclimbers I never considered I was technically good enough. Now however even I a middle aged fat ******* could get on it and kill myself pretending I was good enough to be there

 

[the asian]

It seems that the people haven't learnt their lessons, specially after the tragedy of 96.

The problem of these amatuer climbers are also exists on Kilmanjaro.

The Nepalese govt should restrict the no of expeditions per year and restrict these novices from attempting suicide.

Unfortunately because of the financial benefit they gain from allowing these climbs means, they will never do it.

 

[Le breton]

It's the reckless manner of some of the so called 'guides' and agencies that put clients at risk when there is no reason.

Many of these clients are not really climbers, no experience...
They pay their huge fees and the Sherpas do the grunt work...then the paying 'climbers' are clipped into ropes and led up into the wilds of altitude and dangerous terrain.

It is a very 'circus-like' atmosphere at times with the trains of people shuffling in lines as if on an elevator. Some reach the summit only to stand in line with dozens of others waiting to 'jug' back down the mt...usually much harder to go down after depleting everything to have gone up.

There is a HUGE difference between experienced climbers who have trained and climbed for years and go a peak using their own skills and judgement..vs the people who want to 'tick' Everest off their bucket list and pay a huge fee to have someone drag them up.

As the article tries to clarify...there are reputable guide services and then there are the shady ones in it for the money..no respect for the mountain or human lives.

Very nicely said mewmewmew13.

A long time ago, when i worked and lived 35% of the week hours at 5200 meters altitude I climbed a peak in the Andes just to accompany a friend who didn't want to do it alone. He had a fair amount of experience in the mountains, I had none whatsoever. The experience showed me how dangerous snow and ice can be, in particular on the way back down, far more than any bicycle racing.

Physically, I found climbing that mountain incredibly easy, like going 25 km/hr on a bike on a falt road with no wind - my friend though was at the top of what he could do.

He wanted to reach the top, I didn't care, one way or the other. We had not yet reached the summit at the time he had said we should start going back down.
I gave him a 15 minute grace period, he agreed. ( It turned out the very top was far less steep and we reached it within those 15 min.)

 

[Le breton]

.............
Going up Everest ............. with supplemental oxygen, isn't climbing Everest,...........
.

I totally agree, physically, it's exactly equivalent to bicycle racing on EPO.

 

[sigreg]

Andy Kirkpatrick sums up Everset.
"if you have to step over dead bodies then it's not a climb".

If I could climb anywhere i would go to Patagonia.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

This has been going on for YEARS Bro...
what really makes my blood boil are the Sherpas who are hired to do the dirty work of setting up the ropes, then get killed by icefall or avalanches because the rich clients insisted they do the job without regard to the conditions.

This

Going up Everest on a fixed rope, or with supplemental oxygen, isn't climbing Everest, but there isn't any room for those that want to climb the highest mountain "just because it's there". It is now just a mountain to climb for the ego trip.

And this.

I used to be into mountaineering some years ago. I don't write much about it here, because this is a cycling forum. Plus it was a personal thing to me. But that photo and story is no shock, and was predictable. We used to see it on Mt. Rainier. There were two ways up the mountain: The easy way, where you follow the trench and row of people and RMI guided teams to the top, which to me wasn't climbing, merely a glorified stairmaster. The hard way was to climb one of the less traveled routes that saw 99% less traffic, often no footprints, and you were faced with your own decision making, your own judgment, your own skill. It was day and night to me.

Not to toot my horn, but I shot this video, in the St. Elias Range along the Canadian/Alaskan border. Four of us flew in and were dropped off, where we lived for almost two weeks. No routes, most of the peaks unclimbed, it was just us and the mountains. (Link here). Take any of those guided people on the Mt. Everest escalator and put them there and they would be mystified what to do. Because to me, they're not mountaineers.

 

[knewcleardaze]

I've enjoyed reading about Everest for some time.
I think the first book I read was Walt Unsworth's Everest, A Mountaineering History.

As to the current state of affairs regarding Everest today, I am surprised more "climbers" don't lose their lives.
I like Rheinhold Messner's approach to mountaineering.
No Sherpas, no supplemental oxygen, no help.

 

[MarkvW]

Mew makes the best point, seems to me. Utterly corrupt guides (like the late jerk Scott Fischer) and rich fools with too much money to spend wave a whole bunch of money in the faces of third-world poor people and that money induces them to join in the folly. The Ugly American in action.

Otherwise, there's no big deal. If morons want to trudge up a mountain staring at a guide's backside, as one clown amongst a huge circus of clowns, then let them have their "experience" of trudging up a mountain staring at a guide's backside amongst a huge circus of fellow clowns.

Mountaineering shouldn't be anything at all like competitive bike racing. Idiots that compete on the mountain are fools in another way. The only legitimate "competition" is the competition of the man against the mountain, or the man against himself--but even that competition has to be wholly subordinate to the safety of the group.

I say let the idiotic fools have their Everest, but only because there isn't any way that we can stop them. But it isn't a tragedy when one of the morons dies--it's just a farce.

 

[joe_papp]

Old enough to bleed, old enough to butcher...

This has been going on for YEARS Bro...

I know Lakhpa Rita...my husband used to be a Himalayan mt guide..and the atrocities commited on the big peaks have always been astounding by a few with thin scruples.
There is too much money involved and intertwined with folks with huge egos and ambition....a dangerous combo...

I dunno, these ambitious, wealthy (or at least big-spending), unfit novices w/ unrealistic expectations to summit a peak like Everest sound like delicious prospective clientele that are simply ripe for the picking. Setting up a "cut-rate" outfitting co. to lead these lambs to slaughter...I mean guide them up the mtn...allows one to fill a void in the marketplace and simply scoop up piles of cash left behind by soon-to-be-dead climbers who have no business strapping on crampons - let alone climbing Everest - in the first place.

Old enough to bleed, old enough to butcher I say. As long as they don't cause the deaths of any experienced climbers whose skills and abilities actually "qualify" them to climb Everest...well, there are certainly worse, less dramatic ways to die - like slowly poisoning yourself w/ processed foods as you sit beached on your couch in front of a 50" flat-screen for 6hrs/day.

The thing that bothers me, as a mountaineer, is that I've spent my life dreaming about climbing Everest, to follow in the footsteps of the legends, but also accomplish something significant, but now that dream has evaporated because of too many pseudo-climbers...

Doesn't really make sense to me. Why should those "pseudo-climbers" have the power to spoil your life-long dream of climbing Everest? If they don't belong there in the first place and only are on the mtn b/c they basically bought there way up on the back of a Sherpa, then I would hardly think you'd consider them legitimate "competitors" for the honor of summitting Everest and you could pay them no mind except to speak as disparagingly and cruelly about them as I have in the post.