The rest of this year’s season on Everest seems to be cancelled, as Sherpas pack up and leave.
Probably for the best. The deadliest year on record is 1996 with 19 deaths in total, and with a head start of 16 before the season is even properly underway, it wouldn’t take much to beat that this year. I don’t think anyone would want that.
I don’t think anybody cares what the record is. It’s about the fact that all of the people killed were Sherpas and they feel it would be disrespectful to ignore those losses and keep climbing. And they may also think it reflects their concerns about the risks they’re taking.
In more practical terms, the modern day Everest climb relies almost entirely on the ladders and ropes the Sherpas were prepping.
With a few minutes of online surfing and fact-checking it doesn’t take long to learn that since 1921, when Tibet opened its borders to outsiders and someone decided to start keeping a record of those who attempted to summit, well over 200 climbers have died on Everest.
Some records say the death total could be as many as 250, and quite a few (an estimated 189) are still up there because it’s too dangerous for them to be brought down. Or they simply disappeared without a trace like George Mallory and a surprising number of others.
A look at the timeline since the 1970s to the present is chilling. A whole lot of people have died in just 44 years. Aspidistra’s photo upthread certainly shows where the term ‘traffic jam’ came from and why death seems to come to Everest more and more frequently.
A lot of bodies are clearly visible along the climbing routes, and are given nicknames and used as landmarks. Bodies and clothing don’t really decompose very well up there. The story of Green Boots, the body of an Indian climber who died in 1996, and who is probably the most famous corpse on the mountain, really got to me for some reason.
It’s all pretty morbid stuff.
The reason the absolute numbers are so high, though, is because so many people attempt to climb it. On a fatality rate basis, Everest is actually one of the safer 8000m peaks. Only about 5% have died in the attempt. Compare that to K2, which has a 25% fatality rate, and Annapurna, which is a fairly appalling 40%. I’ve read a number of books by career climbers who have summited Everest and the general opinion seems to be that it’s very tall, but as far as the 8000m peaks go it’s not so much a technically challenging climb. Which of course makes it more appealing to underqualified tourist climbers who wouldn’t have a prayer of sniffing the summit of K2.
Mallory’s body was found in 1999, but you are correct that many have never been found.
My bad. I thought it was Mallory. Is it Irvine that has never been found?
Correct, I don’t think they’ve found his body yet although there have been some unconfirmed sightings.
Jon Krakauer writes about the increased risks faced by Sherpas on Everest today.
It’s also worth pointing out that the government of Nepal seems to be lowballing the families of the victims:
That’s a fair point. You DON’T hear much about neophyte climbers on those other mountains much at all - because as mentioned above they already know they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. 40 percent fatality rate??? :eek:
Everest seems to get all the press, good or bad.
The Khumbu Icefall - Russian Roulette, with glaciers.
Normally, you could avoid the Khumbu Icefall completely by going the north route instead of the south route (although that has its own problems)… only no one is able to do that these days because of the political situation in Tibet, making the most dangerous part of the mountain even more crowded than it otherwise would have been.
And now, exactly a year and a day since the last post in this thread, here we are again. This time it is a tragedy amidst an immensely larger disaster. I’ve read anywhere from 13 to 18 deaths known so far on Everest, but the total is likely to be higher, thus making today the deadliest ever on the mountain. News coming off Everest is spotty at best.
I wonder if there are any resources available to reach the trapped or injured higher up on Everest? I would assume most helicopters would be transporting lifesaving supplies to areas where the number in need is so much higher. I remember reading once that if you are are high enough on Everest and something truly bad happens, you might as well be on the moon with regards to rescue. I can’t imagine the terror of trying to negotiate the Khumbu Icefall after the known passage through has been destroyed and where there are constant earthquake aftershocks.
I think climbers were probably not at the highest level on the mountain yet because the peak summit date is still a couple of weeks away. But how high up is too high too be rescued right now? What a terrible day.
The resulting avalanche hit base camp - that’s where a number of injuries and deaths have been reported.
Can somebody link to an article? Was the avalanche caused by the earthquake?
The death of the Sherpa guides is sad, no doubt, but it must be put in perspective. More than 1300 people were killed in that earthquake today.
In the book “The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest”, the author says that landing a helicopter at Camp I (elevation: 20,000-21,000) was essentially at the absolute upper limit on what was possible. However, that was 15 years ago, and the flight altitude record for a helicopter is a whopping 40,000 feet, so make of it what you will.
It has been somewhat frustrating today getting news out of Nepal today. Of course with the devastation that is certainly understandable. I suppose I am fairly surprised that the networks and CNN are not covering this more thoroughly. The Everest situation is but a small part of the overall horrific earthquake story, but they are spending more time today on Bruce Jenner than a tragedy with likely thousands of deaths. The best TV coverage has been on Al Jazeera.
This blog seems to have links to many of this year’s climbing teams: Everest 2015 Coverage | The Blog on alanarnette.com