But Hunt’s 1954 expedition-nobody lost hands/feet to frostbite. Every man was an experienced climber, and they had a BACKUP plan for every contingency (maybe because Hunt was an army man). At any rate plunking a bunch of egotistical , “me first” types onto a dangerous mountain like Everest, is a prescription for disaster! 
Some of that has to do with the nature of the acclimatization. Krakauer explained that the rapid acclimitization used by paid guides provides clients with the ability to summit with a brief four week period above 17,000 feet with one overnight to 24,000 feet. The problem is that with such a short acclimitization time it is absolutely essential that all climbers have bottled oxygen above 24,000 feet. In addition to high altitude pulmonary edema and high altitude cerebral edema hypoxia renders the sufferer more subject to frostbite.
I just Wikiid this up and found out that a physicist and a surgeon from the UNiversity of Toronto have analyzed weather conditions for May 11 and suggest that a freak weather pattern may have dropped oxygen levels by around 14%. Partial pressure of oxygen under normal conditions is around a third or what it is a sea level nunder normal conditions. At 14% lower survival would be much more difficult.
I’m not a climber though I’ve done a little climbing but not for recreational purposes.
The point of why mountaineers do what they do is that you never feel so alive as when you are seriously in danger of dying and all the rest of your life is a boring,depressing anti climax.
If you’re happy with security,comfort and routine then you will never understand climbers mindsets.
Saying that I’m not knocking your mindset,its “Horses for courses”,what makes YOU happy is right regardless of your viewpoint(Excluding serial killers,rapists and the like of course)
I just reread this last night. Some thought she was short-roped for as much as 6 hours of the ascent. She says it was only about an hour and a half. She also says she didn’t ask or want to be short roped. The lead climbing sherpa for Fischer’s team just hooked a rope onto her and started towing. She felt the sherpa was acting under Fischer’s authority, so she went along with it.
Here’s another take on the '96 season, and the whole Everest circus, as seen by one of the sherpas - Tenzing Norgay’s son Jamling, Touching My Father’s Soul. He interweaves accounts of his father’s ascent and changes to the sherpa lifesytle with an account of and objective observations about the '96 season. It’s interesting precisiely because he, as a sherpa rather than expedition leader or client, isn’t having to justify positions nor apportion blame. For example while admitting that perhps Doug Hansen had been pushed too far by his guide he calls the same giude, Rob Hall “a loyal friend and gentlman”.