Well, why not? Sure, you’d have to drag a parachute up there, but you wouldn’t have to bring up supplies for your way down. From the descriptions (as in, 10,000 foot sheer drop into Tibet) there’s a number of places you could take the leap if not off the summit.
Alternatively, why not a hang glider? You’d have a heck of a time putting it together, what with the wind and all, but that would be quite a ride (assuming the air pressure (?) is high enough to allow it…).
It would work if the angle is such that it allows for a clear glide path to the ground off the mountain. Everest is a large mountain, however, and I would imagine the ability to stay aloft all the way to the ground is largely dependent on favorable winds blowing you up and away from the mountain, which given the capricious nature of winds in that area is not a sure bet by any means.
A few years ago, two Australians BASE-jumped from the Trango Tower in Pakistan. The Tower itself is a 6,000-foot cliff, but the top of it is more than 21,000 feet high. If you could find a similar cliff on Everest, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible.
BTW, the footage of the Trango jump is truly breathtaking. One of the jumpers had a helmet-cam, and the extra weight caused him to tumble out of control for a few seconds at the beginning of the jump. Just watching it on TV was frightening; I can only imagine what it must be like to actually experience it.
Everest isn’t Trango Tower. First, Everest is raked by stiff winds that make BASE jumping almost impossible. Second, whereas Trango offers a vertical wall, Everest really doesn’t. Nameless Tower (Trango)is a truly vertical spire; the big E ain’t. (Nor is K2)
The description of a 10,000 foot drop is correct, but it is not a sheer drop, if I understand your usage of the term. Another problem is one of high altitude. If one were to jump from, say, 28,000 feet, it would take several seconds for the thin air to fully pressurize the chute, for it to properly deploy, and for you to get your bearings. By then, you’d likely end up as a geological fixture on the mountain.
Also, I think a standard issue hangglider that’s normally used at altitudes of four kilometres and lower might have some problems at almost nine kilometres. Wouldn’t you need a huge wing area to provide enough “lift”?
That would mean hauling a lot of equipment up the mountain. And ever since I saw In Thin Air, I’m thoroughly convinced that some places on this planet are just not meant for human beings… frightening stuff up there.
OK. Assuming the air pressure, once you get below 25k will allow a parachute to deploy and the wind didn’t slam you into the side of a face…Anyone thought of wingsuits? They use them in the valleys in the Alps for extreme flights and then deploy chutes to land. It would, no doubt, have to be a dream day in the Himalayas, light wind, etc…
Then after this perfect flight and chute landing, where are you on the mountain? Do you land at Base Camp? Or do you have to hike thru miles of ice and glaciers without all the equipment you left at 29k? Remember how hard it is just to get into the region?
I think that would be the last item on the Bucket List. Going out proud, on my own terms!
Checking Mt. Everest in Google Earth suggests that its steepest slope (appears to be the southwest face) isn’t much better than about 60 degrees. That probably means that both BASE jumps and wingsuits are out for the reason tsunamisurfer suggests - no place to jump where you could avoid hitting the mountain.
A paraglider or hang glider certainly could work, given acceptable winds. The former would be a lot more practical to carry up there. There’s no need for more than normal wing area provided you are willing to accept the higher true airspeeds inherent in high-altitude flight.
Second question of that extreme change in altitude over a period of seconds…would you actually survive the nitrogen exploding the blood vessels in you brain, leading to an horrifying bleed out?
That happens when pressure decreases on divers who are returning from under water. There have been at least thousands who’ve parachuted from fairly high altitude (above 20 thousand feet) and I’ve never heard of anything remotely like this happening.
I imagine the only conceivable way wingsuits would work at that altitude would be really really HIGH winds, which might make up some of the lift that the low air pressure would take away. I wouldn’t bet my life on it.
You should see a movie called “Skiing Down Everest”, which a guy tried with a drogue parachute. It worked, for a while.
AKAIK, no one has ever tried:
Motorcycling down Everest
Ice boating down Everest
Sledding down Everest
Riding a horse down Everest
Riding a camel down Everest
Rollerskating down Everest
Skateboarding down Everest
As far as jumping is concerned, the simplest route is off the top over the Kangshung Face to the north-east. However the wind plume which normally flies from Everest is in that direction so not a lot of lift available at the top. Which is why jumpers/skiers etc tend to prefer the south-west face.
The bends occur when the pressure is reduced too quickly such as coming up too fast from a deep ocean dive.
Jumping off Everest is the opposite of this the jumper will be going from low pressure to high.
Other than a possible busted ear drum or going splat I don’t see a problem.
His name was Joseph Kittinger II and he was wearing a 60lb pressurization suit just to be able to survive the jump. Don’t think I’d wanna pack that up to the top.
WWII had hundreds of thousands of pilots and crew flying in unpressurized planes at altitudes of more than 20,000 feet without their brains exploding, going up or down.
I’ve always wondered if using a low pressure space suit would be an easier way to climb Everest. I get the impression its mostly just a long ass walk (at least now where they have ropes and ladders at all the hard spots). What makes that walk so damn hard and slow is people can’t breath. Take a step, rest, take another step, rest. Breathing pure oxygen at a couple PSI above ambient would probably be a godsend. The higher the pressure, the easier the breathing. But the higher the pressure the harder the suit would be to work in so the answer probably depends on details I don’t know enough about. The suit really wouldn’t be all dead weight because you need insulation anyway and many climbers carry oxygen as well.
I think the problem with this is just the diminishing returns of carrying any extra weight at all. It already takes a substantial support staff to bring all the supplies to the various camps. Adding enough oxygen for you to breathe it the whole time might be quite a lot extra. Plus, then you’re not acclimatized to the environment, so if something goes wrong with the suit or the O[sub]2[/sub], you’re pretty much immediately screwed.
