After back-to-back climbing season disasters two years in a row, Everest climbers are getting to the summit again and the mountain has claimed its first two fatalities for 2016.
The dead Australian woman was the wife of our vet, who’s probably the “injured Australian man being helped down the mountain” referenced in the article :(. Who knows how many fingers and toes he’ll come back with.
TBH, my very first thought, on hearing back in March that he was going Everesting was “you idiot”, but I’m sorry to have been proved right. They were totally experienced mountaineers who’d already successfully climbed a number of major peaks, and the clinic kept sending out sensible-sounding updates from them, like “bad weather - we’re going way back down the mountain to wait it out.”
Altitude sickness is terrible. My ex went on a hiking tour in Nepal and got a mild case of it. He’s had heart problems ever since. My condolences to your vet on his loss.
I was reading her bio last night, and saw an article that said her mother was too devastated to talk. I hope it was worth it, because it all just seemed like the most pointless waste.
And who are going to be the poor schmucks sent up to retrieve her body, or will she stay there up the mountain along with the countless other bodies never recovered?
She was actually at one of the base camps on her way down, not in the ‘Death Zone’, so I think it’s likely that Sherpas will be taking her back down. Probably no worse an effort/danger than all the ladder and rope setting they do every year before the climbers start up (though that’s dangerous enough in itself)
At least the Sherpas have some very practical reasons for taking on the work - the money they earn in just a few seasons on Everest can make an enormous difference to their families, enabling them to educate their children, purchase health care, get the capital to start another business with less risk… Relatively speaking, they’re potentially getting a huge payoff.
What do the First Worlders get? Bragging rights and frostbite?
I just watched this movie a couple weeks ago. It aired on the Discovery Channel and may yet again.
It was really obvious that the documentary film crew were there to chronicle a BASE jumper who was planning to jump off the Everest summit in a wingsuit, and when the 2013 avalanche struck, killing IIRC 16 Sherpas, the focus of the story changed drastically.
In the closing credits, it mentions the 2014 earthquake that also resulted in multiple casualties at Base Camp.
The linked article says she experienced altitude sickness, snowblindness, and a stroke while on the way down the mountain.
It also says that she wanted to challenge the notion that people who maintained a vegan diet were malnourished and weak.
And it says that she didn’t think novice climbers should be allowed on mountains like Everest–too likely to be “inexperienced people” blocking paths and spoiling it for the experienced climbers.
Deaths like this are always tragic, and I certainly feel for her family, but geez, making comments like these always seem like tempting fate, don’t they?..
My brother wants to go climb Everest. I told him that I was more impressed by his having successfully quit smoking than I’d ever be of his hiking Everest.
There’s plenty of hard things you can do in life. Pick one that’s actually got value.
And every year it seems there is someone trying to be the “first” to climb Everest for some reason like First Siamese Twins or First Person to Descend in a Potato Sack.
All those deaths over the past few years, and the circus continues. Nothing at all was learned. Nothing.
That’s because it’s the ‘easy’ / best weather season.
I have no desire to go to the top*, I don’t like my odds of coming back alive but I am an endurance athlete who has done a number of ultras including a bunch of 24’s. The idea of pushing your body to the limit (& beyond) does definitely appeal to some/many people, including me & a bunch of people that I know.
However, if I win the lottery (or one of you Dopers offers to pay) I am absolutely booking a trip to Camp 1, which means I have to go through the Khumbu Icefall. While the Icefall can occasionally be deadly, the lower altitude of Camp 1 usually isn’t.
I have always wanted to make it to the summit of Everest… In a mind-over-brawn method. Just build a garage jet-pack, zip up to the top, take a few pictures, and flit back down for lunch.
All I really need to do is figure out how to build the jet-pack.
