Terrible news from Mt. Everest today: its single largest loss of life. Twelve guides are dead and at least four are missing, after an avalanche that hit while they were fixing guide ropes.
That’s sad 
I wonder what they mean by “unsteady path” - would that have been a warning to them of the impending avalanche? Or was it just loose snow underfoot or something?
If my memory serves me correctly, the accident occurred in a region due to various factors (location, terrain, etc.) that is always unstable and always prone to avalanches, crevasses, and other hazards.
As mentioned in prior threads, Everest is a dangerous place. It seems the mountain is claiming sacrifices early this year.
If only there were a safer way to get up there. Maybe a ski-lift or something…
After reading the early accounts, when Tenzing Norgay was guiding climbers up the mountain, you couldn’t get me anywhere near the place. The gear has gotten far better and knowledge of the mountain is encyclopedic at this point, but it’s still a killer, along with the even more murderous K2. A sad day for those families.
If I was an engineer, I’d enjoy making a big robotic spider and just drive it up the side in my nice temperature and oxygen controlled bubble of comfort.
I don’t have a problem with Everest being dangerous as long as those who attempt to climb it are fully informed of the risks. Right now, no one is on that mountain by accident, which is as it should be.
If I have any concern it’s for people like those killed in this accident, local people who are in truth the most at risk, as they spend the most time there, and might be exploited by wealthy foreigners. I hope they’re getting a nice paycheck for the risks they run. I’d like to see them guaranteed medical care when injured, and some sort of disability and life insurance. Make paying for it part of the climbing fees charged to all those foreign climbers.
2 to 6K over three months, cash. It was on Anderson Cooper today, which may not be bad money in that part of the world.
6k over three months is actually more than I’ve made for several years, presumably it’s a good wage in those regions but it would also be highly seasonal, they wouldn’t be able to do it year round. Then again, it might sufficient to carry them through a year. I’d be interested if anyone has solid information on that.
This is pretty sad. When foreign climbers get whacked on Everest, I tend not to be very sympathetic. They went to do a known to be dangerous activity in a known to be dangerous place, for recreation or bragging rights. You pays your money, you takes your chances. But these guys were regular schmoes, doing their jobs, in a place that doesn’t offer a helluva lot of choice in manner of employment. I’ve known exactly one Nepalese in my life, and if these guys were anything like him, they were very sweet guys.
The whole Everest industry is kinda creepy, too bad this happened though.
The day before I was watching the documentary called The Summit, it chronicles the 2008 expeditions to K2 that resulted in 11 or so deaths. Pemba Sherpa, a soft spoken articulate individual spent something like 90 hours in the death zone trying to rescue people amid avalanche and ice fall dangers. A bad bad situation up there. Cannot imagine seeing someone fall to their death and have to keep climbing up or down. Cecilie Skog from Norway saw her husband get hit and taken away by an icefall after she summited and they were on their way down. And they had to do it without ropes to get to camp, they were torn off the mountain by avalanche. Resulted in more danger for the climbers…it’s a must watch TV
i am really looking forward to Joby’s attempt to wingsuit it off the peak of Everest.
I feel very bad for the climbing community what a catastrophe.
Edit: initial reply was to thelurkinghorror’s ladder link.
They already lash down ladders in some tough places. And of course there are the sherpas who install guide ropes for the teams, which is what these poor guys were doing when this happened.
Still not the deadliest year - that was the 1996 season when 19 died and various books (most famously Into Thin Air) were written - but the deadliest single incident IIRC.
And I agree, I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for climbers except when their also-not-Nepalese ‘expert’ tour leaders lead them astray in some fashion. But these sherpas are doing amazingly dangerous things as their job, and it was fitting that Edmund Hillary’s team refused to indicate whether Hillary or Tenzing Norgay had put his foot at the top first (it was portrayed as being the two together), and that Hillary spent years helping the Sherpa through a trust he set up.
I recently binge watched the Discovery Channel series Everest: Beyond the Limit (and I also watched* The Summit* after that, as the series led to a minor mountain climbing craze on my part… all in the comfort of my living room, of course, there’s no way I’m going up on one of those things). It gives you a pretty good impression of what the Everest industry is like. I found the whole thing part fascinating and impressive, part very creepy and disturbing. K2 is at least still a mountain for mountaineers, Everest seems like it’s turning into a theme park… well, one that might kill you.
The focus of the series is mostly on the “adventure tourists” who have their asses hauled up the mountain by the various expedition teams, but you do get some idea of the work the Sherpas do, and those guys really are pretty amazing. They drag gear up the mountain and pull injured climbers down. They go up in the beginning of the season and fix the ropes for the climbers who come later (which of course was what the poor guys were doing when the avalanche hit). You may think summiting Everest once makes you a badass, but some of the Sherpas go up and down the thing every year, sometimes multiple times per season.
The record holder for most summits is Purba Tashi, with 21 summits (at the time that Wiki article was last updated, it’s probably more now). He’s the Sherpa that’s featured the most in the Discovery series, and he’s a pretty fascinating guy (and he also seems to be slightly superhuman). He’s the one I immediately though of when I heard about the avalanche. I don’t even know he still works on the mountain, the Discovery series is a few years old, but I really hope he’s OK.
There is something really off-putting about sherpas risking their lives so that inexperienced wealthy foreigners can cross Mt. Everest off their bucket lists. Not to mention how the mountain is turning into a big garbage dump.
Heard on the news today that the sherpas working on Mt. Everest make in two months the equivalent of 10 times the average annual local income. So it would be sort of like an American making 400,000 in two months time. I can see where a strong, healthy man might be motivated to take the risk for the benefit of his family. After a couple of years (assuming you survive) you have a hefty nest egg and might be the wealthiest family in your village.
Well, yes and no. Wealth can be relative, but not until around $7000 a year or so. Less than that and you aren’t really getting ahead, you are just a little less likely to actually die from a minor setback.
They’re making 5,000-6,000 in two months, plus any tips they might receive. Then they have 10 more months of the year to earn more money. Seems to me there’s a potential for them to, indeed, “get ahead”.
Also, there is apparently a government-mandated life insurance required for sherpas employed on Everest that pays out $11,000. Not great by first world standards, but apparently 20 times the average annual income for the region they come from. At least the families aren’t being left penniless.
Looks like the climbing window is in May and September. Will wait for a climber to come along and tell us more.
The Discovery Channel has cancelled their coverage of this jump attempt. Never seemed like a good idea in the first place.
Read this list for a while and the thought of climbing on the highest peaks loses a lot of the attraction. At least for me it does.
On the other hand,the view is nice…
[thread=679181]Enjoy the View[/thread]