# ID this news story (Dimwit on Mt. Everest) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 1, 2019, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-news-story-dimwit-on-mt-everest/828779 "2019-02-01T11:49:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-news-story-dimwit-on-mt-everest/828779/21 "2019-02-03T16:41:24Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > Damn these spoiled socialites. They can’t even be bothered to die like the rest of us. Yeah, she should’ve been like Mercedes in _The Call Of The Wild_, who tries to take a bunch of unnecessary luxury items on the trail in Alaska (which would’ve fatally burdened the dog sled team), and pitches a fit when forced to leave them behind: _“And so it went, the inexorable elimination of the superfluous. Mercedes cried when her clothes-bags were dumped on the ground and article after article was thrown out. She cried in general, and she cried in particular over each discarded thing. She clasped hands about knees, rocking back and forth broken-heartedly. She averred she would not go an inch, not for a dozen Charleses. She appealed to everybody and to everything, finally wiping her eyes and proceeding to cast out even articles of apparel that were imperative necessaries. And in her zeal, when she had finished with her own, she attacked the belongings of her men and went through them like a tornado.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-news-story-dimwit-on-mt-everest/828779/22 "2019-02-04T16:21:00Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Into Thin Air is a great book BTW For balance you should also read Anatoli Boukreev’s book [The Climb](https://www.amazon.com/Climb-Tragic-Ambitions-Everest/dp/0312206372). He was, shall we say, not a fan of Krakauer’s book, and wrote this to tell his side. I tend to side with Krakauer, but there are a lot of people who think Krakauer went too far towards making Bourkeev the villain. Also, [Beck Weather’s book](https://www.amazon.com/Left-Dead-Movie-Tie-Journey/dp/0440509173/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0440509173&pd_rd_r=40249542-2898-11e9-a720-93fce9026ffb&pd_rd_w=Oe3yV&pd_rd_wg=q03el&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=QCWNJY9CYRKJ5J97FXQN&psc=1&refRID=QCWNJY9CYRKJ5J97FXQN) is pretty good side account of the disaster. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-news-story-dimwit-on-mt-everest/828779/23 "2019-02-05T19:22:04Z")
I read three of the books! The following excerpts relevant to the discussion here are from Krakauer’s magazine article > [@](#): > > All of us had suffered greatly to get to [Camp Four]. I had eaten little and slept not at all since leaving Camp Two two days earlier. Damage to my thoracic cartilage made each cough feel like a stiff kick between the ribs and brought tears to my eyes. But if I wanted a crack at the summit, I had no choice but to ignore my infirmities as much as possible and climb. > … > One of the first people I passed when I started moving again was Fischer’s sirdar, Lobsang Jangbu, kneeling in the snow over a pile of vomit. Both Lobsang and Boukreev had asked and been granted permission by Fischer to climb without supplemental oxygen, a highly questionable decision that significantly affected the performance of both men, but especially Lobsang. His feeble state, moreover, had been compounded by his insistence on “short-roping” Pittman on summit day. > Lobsang, 25, was a gifted high-altitude climber who’d summited Everest twice before without oxygen… As Fischer’s head Sherpa, he was expected to be at the front of the group this morning, putting in the route. But just before daybreak, I’d looked down to see Lobsang hitched to Pittman by her three-foot safety tether; the Sherpa, huffing and puffing loudly, was hauling the assertive New Yorker up the steep slope like a horse pulling a plow. Pittman was on a widely publicized quest [and] was determined to succeed. Fischer knew that Lobsang was short-roping Pittman, yet did nothing to stop it; some people have thus concluded that Fischer ordered Lobsang to do it, because Pittman had been moving slowly when she started out on summit day, and Fischer worried that if Pittman failed to reach the summit, he would be denied a marketing bonanza. But two other clients on Fischer’s team speculate that Lobsang was short-roping her because she’d promised him a hefty cash bonus if she reached the top. Pittman has denied this and insists that she was hauled up against her wishes. > … > Boukreev had returned to Camp Four at 4:30 P.M., before the brunt of the storm, having rushed down from the summit without waiting for clients – extremely questionable behavior for a guide. A number of Everest veterans have speculated that if Boukreev had been present to help Beidleman and Groom bring their clients down, the group might not have got lost on the Col in the first place. One of the clients from that group has nothing but contempt for Boukreev, insisting that when it mattered most, the guide “cut and ran.” Boukreev argues that he hurried down ahead of everybody else because “it is much better for me to be at South Col, ready to carry up oxygen if clients run out.” This is a difficult rationale to understand. In fact, Boukreev’s impatience on the descent more plausibly resulted from the fact that he wasn’t using bottled oxygen and was relatively lightly dressed and therefore had to get down quickly: Without gas, he was much more susceptible to the dreadful cold. If this was indeed the case, Fischer was as much to blame as Boukreev, because he gave the Russian permission to climb without gas in the first place. **Whatever Boukreev’s culpability, however, he redeemed himself that night after Beidleman staggered in. Plunging repeatedly into the maw of the hurricane, he single-handedly brought back Fox, Pittman, and Madsen.** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-news-story-dimwit-on-mt-everest/828779.md?page=1)