A really great book about K2 is Buried in the Sky by Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan. You really don’t want to try to climb K2.
On the main route, you have to traverse in front of a sheer ice wall that towers over you. It’s intimidating, but people learned to suppress their fear, because it has held and never fell for decades.
But it’s there!
Repeatedly, it looks like.
I’ve thought this video of the Bottleneck showed both how incredibly dangerous K2 is, as well as how unimaginably beautiful the view can be. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou3m2Ic4gFE
Along with the other video posted on K2 in the thread, it gives you an idea of how monstrously steep the climbing routes are on that mountain.
OK, here’s my plan.
For the next five or six years we require everyone going up Everest to bring down all the junk that has been tossed on the approaches. We keep doing this until the place is clean again.
I hope I can count on your support in 2020.
Paul, first we should require them to bring down the bodies.
They paid their money, they took their chances. I say, leave them there.
Trash first, then bodies.
Your flesh ain’t nuthin’ but trash . . .
Here you go,
Nepal picks up four bodies, 11 tonnes of garbage in Everest clean-up
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/nepal-picks-up-four-bodies--11-tonnes-of-garbage-in-everest-clean-up-11599614
(They have been attempting to clear garbage, ongoing over a few years now, FYI)
The proposal seems to be along the lines of requiring one 6500+m peak in Nepal, a certificate of physical fitness, experienced guides, and $35000.
Sounds like a good idea. I hope it nets them a ton of money and a lot fewer deaths
Seems like a reasonable move to me, let’s see how it plays out over the next few years.
I’ve been to 5500 meters in Nepal and while I was certainly moving slowly due to lack of oxygen it doesn’t really stress the body a huge amount. There a bunch of “trekking peaks” between 6000 and 6500 meters that are popular and get significant traffic, but none are really good preparation for Everest. It will be interesting to see if this makes a significant difference, since some of the peaks in question are glorified walk ups while still providing some limited altitude experience.
They should force you to bring cash to pay the sherpas, but I guess that isn’t something which would help the government, so it won’t get done.
(In fact, money going directly to sherpas is money not going to the government, which means it certainly won’t get done.)
I assume the requisite “experienced guides” are mostly Sherpas, and that they don’t work for free. The government will already be getting $35000 per climber, up from the $11k or $12k they are getting now.
My understanding is that what you pay the sherpas is separate from what you pay the government for a climbing permit.
It cost (or did a few years ago) $50-60K to climb Everest, the permit fees are a significant but not dominant part of it. Looks like now it will be the single biggest cost.
Last year no one climbed Everest and no one died. The first year on Everest since 1977 without a death.
Covid + Everest seems a poor mix.
Talk about the worst place to catch Covid.
Plus the moral dilemma mentioned in the article - all those hospitalized in India and Nepal without oxygen while these climbers use up so many oxygen cannisters.