One option is to make it into a little marker, or tower - a Shitcairn if you will. It could be quite Bountiful if you wait long enough.
I was also going to say that. Have done it in Canyonlands and Zion N.P. both. You get used to it.
Interesting link, thank you. I suspect that’s probably what NOLS teaches now, as minimum impact is one of their foundational principles. We weren’t even permitted to use toilet paper, back then: smooth stones or snow were the options.
For stats nerds, this guy has a ton of data on everything Everest, and some projections for the upcoming season (800 summits, 7-9 deaths).
Note that he defines “summit” as anyone going above Base Camp. This gives a more realistic estimation of risks.
Rich people will have to pay more and more to have hard working Sherpas haul their ass up the mountain:
BTW, as someone with a neck spinal injury, it makes me cringe to see those huge loads carried from their heads, but my quick search found they aren’t injuring themselves.
Tumplines are quite efficient and effective.
That’s what my quick reading showed, but if you’ve had neck injuries, you would understand my cringe. This is coming from someone that has also had multiple shoulder injuries (thanks bikes) but will strap on a backpack, but I can understand those stresses and attempt to mitigate. I’m getting old enough where I’ve injured everything and everything hurts so it’s a matter of distributing the pain.
Under those conditions your turds are going to freeze very solid very quickly. No smells and no worry of spills for prior poops, just the current one you’re making. I don’t see where re-using the bags will be a major problem.
Gawd, I read that as 250 pounds per day. I was wondering how much they were eating. I know they need extra calories, but man.
My understanding is that it’s really hard to eat at high altitude, so I was also surprised!
New requirement for Everest climbers: tracking chips.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/nepal-mount-everest-climbers-tracking-chip/index.html
I love the photo illustrating the CNN story. “It’s just me against the mountain.”
He explains that climbers will pay $10-15 apiece for the chips, which will be sewn into their jackets. Once the climber returns, the chip will be removed, given back to the government, and saved for the next person.
So it’s kind of like the return deposit on a canned drink.
Would you bet your life on some government-issued no-name GPS beacon that uses some service they refuse to name? Of course not. Which means you have to bring your own, which means it’s just another cash grab, whether legitimate or not.
Perhaps it would seem less fishy if they required you to supply your own beacon, chosen from a list of reputable manufacturers?
It’s not clear that Nepal is requiring climbers to use chips provided by Nepal, or just requiring some tracking chip. The larger expedition outfits already provide chips, so that might be sufficient.
No matter what, it certainly isn’t a cash grab. The upfront cost of the chips and ongoing maintenance is going to be more than the $10-15 they will reportedly charge. A single climbing permit is $11,000 and going up to $15,000 next year - the government is getting around $5M from the permits this year. The $5,000 from GPS rentals (which cost much more than that) is not a revenue source.
The only surviving member of the mountaineering expedition that first conquered Mount Everest said Saturday that the world’s highest peak is too crowded and dirty, and the mountain is a god that needs to be respected.
I didn’t realize they had that big a team.
You can see the whole team and how they worked together to get Hillary and Tenzing to the top in the contemporay documentary The Conquest of Everest.
Rule #2?
Sad news for those who have followed his career:
David Brashears, Dead at 68 (cause of death not listed)
Oh bummer, he was a great guy. He was one of the people who did it right.
If you don’t know much about him, you should definitely read the Outside obituary linked above.
A great guy.
I knew him professionally around the time the IMAX film came out, and know many people who were close friends with him. Coincidentally, I now live only a few miles from where he was living when he died. I hadn’t seen him in years, but I have at least one mutual friend in the area who had.