The husband’s reputation, though not his life, comes out of the story unscathed.
The story of David Sharp is interesting.. up to 40 climbers passed him before he died, including a TV crew that filmed him, clearly in a bad way, sitting in the “Green Boots” cave.
Should have choosen ‘cake’.
Yeah. You know, you’ve reached the summit and you want to go back down?! :dubious: Reaching the summit should be enough. 
What more could you want?
So you’re saying it really is all downhill from there?
Yes, it appears that the latest fatalities were from traffic jams of people headed down! (All the previous snafus were of traffic jams of people going up-most notoriously, at the Chinese-installed aluminum ladder). Too bad they couldn’t install a fixed rope, that you cold clip yourself to-and then head down without fear of falling.
In any event, the current season looks like a record one for on-mountain fatalities.:eek:
Well, we’re all outta cake. We only had 3 bits and we didn’t expect such a run on it.
I know you probably posted this in jest, but the technical details of it are kind of intriguing, in a hypothetical engineering kind of way. Of course you’d need airlocks at the top and bottom, but you’d need them along the way, too; otherwise you’d have the same loss of pressure with altitude even inside a sealed tube. Or you could pressurize the bottom to more than 1 atmosphere (at whatever altitude the bottom of the tube is at) to get greater-than-ambient pressure at the top.
There are fixed ropes. They are reset every year, at a cost of approximately $20,000, and, according to some, most climbers never contribute to the cost.
By contrast each climber is required to pay $300 towards the cost of setting the ropes, ice screws, and ladders for the Khumbu Icefall.
There’s a psychology to Everest, described in both “Into Thin Air” and Boukreev’s book, “The Climb.” The last 200 ft is the hardest part. People who under normal conditions would turn around for their own safety, are hypnotised by the sight of the peak because it is so damn close and continue (oxygen deprivation doesn’t help their judgement either).
Somebody had suggested something similar in that other recent thread about Everest. A tunnel in the mountain to the top, which would avoid all the problems of wind, snow, avalanches, low pressure, and of course falling. A big project but probably not absurdly big. If they could manage 10 feet a day they would be done in about 3 to 4 years.
I’ve never rooted against climbers but I do root for the bulls in Pamplona.
Did they have a flag at least?
[nitpick] (It’s “rush” btw, not “run on it.”) [/nitpick]
…Holy crap, I think I love you. That’s one of the creepiest SCPs I’ve read.
Well, we’re out of cake! We only had three bits and we didn’t expect such a rush.
Edit: bugger, beaten to it.
How about some toast? Two toast or four?
Agreed. Everest in unfashionable and sneered at by many in the climbing community. That is an anti-reaction to its public popularity as well as the fact it isn’t a proper alpine climb. K2 is the real thing.
Still, what the experts willfully ignore is the sheer height of Mount Everest. The extra 1000ft and time required in the death zone puts this mountain beyond even very capable climbers.
I concur.
Now I remember how Homer Simpson got down from the Murderhorn. I’ve watched *The Simpsons *way too much.
I hope the writers and producers come up with an episode about Apu or Lisa climing Mt. Everest.
The hazard isn’t a bug requiring solution, the hazard is a feature. The obligation isn’t on the part of climbers to rescue their peers, the obligation is on the part of climbers to accept the obvious and well-documented risks of climbing.
Gee, thanks - I have just wasted half a day on that site, it’s as bad as TVTropes. In fact, the whole freakin’ website should be assigned an SCP number and classified as “keter” for the way it sucks you in and won’t let go!
Fixed ropes are installed, and they don’t do what you think they do. They help to prevent some types of danger, but they aren’t a failsafe. It’s pretty easy to die on a fixed rope.
Wow, that’s exactly my reaction, too — except that the site’s threat level actually should only be “Euclid”. 
I just had a great idea-replace “Space Mont” at Disneyworld with a new , virtual reality “Climb Mt. Everest”-complete with frozen corpses, abandoned junk, etc.
Ought to be a big attraction.