So, you're ascending Mount Everest... (poll)

[Nava]

Give them assistance.

Otherwise, my family would chop me up into tiny bits and my local government would help them sharpen the knives when they got dulled… I happen to have quite a few pics of this guy in my family albums, passing a hurt mountaineer by would be akin to sticking a knife in him.

[Mangetout]

@Rand_Rover

Here’s a hypothetical that is more in line with the real situation on Everest (at least as I understand it):

You are walking along a bridge. You see another pedestrian get run over and die. Do you jump off the bridge or not?

Please feel free to start your own thread about that.

[si_blakely]

It is worth reading up on Rob Hall, who as a climber and guide had reached the summit of Everest more times than any non-Sherpa. He was vastly experienced, but died in 1996 when he refused to leave a client who was not going to be able to complete the descent in trying conditions. It was a disastrous day on Everest, 8 people died. It has been theorized that due to the conditions, there was 14% less O[sub]2[/sub] in the Death Zone than normal.

Basically, no matter how well prepared you are, you have to be willing to leave others to die if you want to live on Everest. I couldn’t do that, so I had better stay out of the Death Zone.

Si

[phungi]

As much as I want to say “give assistance” it would depend on the following circumstances:
[ol]
[li]can they walk/communicate[/li][li]do I have the assistance of other climbers[/li][li]do we have the ability to get them to camp IV[/li][li]do I have climbing expertise in the form of “leadership” or am I a relative novice following a more skilled leader[/li][li]is there some form of sled or toboggan at camp IV to use to descend[/li][/ol]
If I am on my own, and this person cannot walk or communicate, I am surely going to die if I try to assist them…

All that said, it is impossible to know what I would do, as this is so far from my couch and comfort level…

[elbows]

Part of what kept Rob Hall on that mountain, and drove them all on, in far less than ideal weather, is they were among the first wave of, ‘you pay me $50,000, you’ll summit’, rich but not well qualified climbers. They pushed on, when they should not have, because they’d already spent lots of these people’s money. And he stayed with that guy because he, rightly, felt some responsibility for that poor decision, in my opinion. It was a bad day on the mountain because money over rode wisdom and 8 people died, as I see it.

[DMark]

@Marley23

If we’re talking about people who are already long dead (which is what you see in the photos),** it says nothing about the ethics of anybody climbing the mountain. That’s absurd.** If you climbed Everest tomorrow, you wouldn’t be responsible for someone who died there 50 years ago. And unfortunately there’s little realistic possibility of getting those bodies down - people have died trying, and most us would agree that sacrificing live people to recover a corpse actually is unethical.

From the very interesting article linked above:

“High altitude mountaineering has garnered something of a reputation for callous disregard for others over the past decade…
The idea that it’s futlile even to attempt a rescue at very high altitudes seems to have become the norm on Everest, where the driven amateurs on commercial expeditions to the mountain routinely pass dead bodies on the way to the summit. Ranulph Fiennes, last week, described passing three frozen corpses high on the mountain before turning back.
…it’s all too convenient for summit ambitions to believe that rescues are impossible high up, but it’s hard not to surmise that there’s an element of that rationale going on.”

[si_blakely]

@elbows

Part of what kept Rob Hall on that mountain, and drove them all on, in far less than ideal weather, is they were among the first wave of, ‘you pay me $50,000, you’ll summit’, rich but not well qualified climbers. They pushed on, when they should not have, because they’d already spent lots of these people’s money. And he stayed with that guy because he, rightly, felt some responsibility for that poor decision, in my opinion. It was a bad day on the mountain because money over rode wisdom and 8 people died, as I see it.

I don’t disagree, and the presence of a magazine reporter almost certainly didn’t help. There were also too many people (33, I think) trying to summit. But it is worth noting that 3 of those deaths occurred on the other side of the mountain. It was a bad day all round, but that season was not a bad one as Everest goes.

Si

[FlyByNight512]

@si_blakely

Basically, no matter how well prepared you are, you have to be willing to leave others to die if you want to live on Everest. I couldn’t do that, so I had better stay out of the Death Zone.

Si

Fully agreed. AFAIK, it’s not uncommon for one team member to collapse, and the rest of the team eventually has to leave him to get themselves to safety. I don’t think I could do it, so no death zone expeditions for me. Big loss… Nope, actually, I’m 100% okay with that.

[Laggard]

A climber told a story of a corpse of a person who must have died and then slid off the edge of a cliff and had been hanging there for years. Dozens of climbers passed the victim many times each year. Finally one climber managed to cut the rope and let the dead man fall to the ground which seems more dignified than hanging there like a carnival attraction.

[Telemark]

@Laggard

A climber told a story of a corpse of a person who must have died and then slid off the edge of a cliff and had been hanging there for years. Dozens of climbers passed the victim many times each year. Finally one climber managed to cut the rope and let the dead man fall to the ground which seems more dignified than hanging there like a carnival attraction.

Bruce Herrod - died in 1996. NOVA Online | Everest | High Exposure, Epilogue

By the time we reached the South Summit the sun had risen. Near the base of the Hillary Step we found the last vestige of the 1996 disasters, the body of Bruce Herrod, the photojournalist who’d been with the South African team.

Bruce was hanging upside down near the bottom of the Hillary Step, like Captain Ahab lashed to his White Whale. Evidently he’d slipped toward the end of his rappel. He’d taken the precaution of clipping his figure-eight rappel brake into the fixed rope, but something had gone amiss. We hoped he’d hit his head and been spared a long struggle to right himself again. His arms hung downward and his mouth lay open. His skin was black from exposure. I didn’t look at him for long. Like the entire grim season we’d all been a part of a year ago, the corpse seemed a grotesque public spectacle.

Unnerved, I climbed on around Bruce, leaving him roped in place for the time being. We soon reached the summit, one year to the day since Ed and I had last scaled it, and immediately went to work videotaping and conducting the cognitive tests. We spent a precious forty minutes here on top of the world, in the wind and bitter cold. For me, the purpose of the tests was more than science. I was seeking clues to the behavior that cost the men lying not far from here their lives. These were things I needed to know—and knew I might never fully understand.

There was one last piece of business to take care of on the way down. Before leaving for the summit we’d been in communication with Sue Thompson, Bruce’s girlfriend in England. She had asked us to search for Bruce’s camera or at least retrieve some memento from his body if we found him. A year before I couldn’t bring myself to take Rob Hall’s ice axe even as a keepsake for his unborn daughter, and I’d come to regret it. This time I was determined to find something for Sue.

By the time I descended the Hillary Step, I learned that Pete had sifted through the personal effects in Bruce’s pack on the way up. Given the ferocity of the winds at that level, it was a minor miracle that the pack was still attached to his body. More remarkable, one of the pockets yielded up a small camera.

Pete had then cut the rope suspending Bruce with his Swiss army knife, and Bruce’s body had plummeted from view. A slice of the blade, and the final casualty of the 1996 disasters vanished into the abyss.

[Princhester]

@DMark

From the very interesting article linked above:

“High altitude mountaineering has garnered something of a reputation for callous disregard for others over the past decade…
The idea that it’s futlile even to attempt a rescue at very high altitudes seems to have become the norm on Everest, where the driven amateurs on commercial expeditions to the mountain routinely pass dead bodies on the way to the summit. Ranulph Fiennes, last week, described passing three frozen corpses high on the mountain before turning back.
…it’s all too convenient for summit ambitions to believe that rescues are impossible high up, but it’s hard not to surmise that there’s an element of that rationale going on.”

But what struck me about the article was that this massive effort was swung into action to save the guy but the end result? He still died, and the risks taken in the effort of trying to save him caused signficant further injury and very high risk of death.

[Rand_Rover]

@FlyByNight512

I don’t think I could do it, so no death zone expeditions for me. Big loss… Nope, actually, I’m 100% okay with that.

Yep, this is how I feel as well. The best way to avoid these Everest situations is to not get into them in the first damn place.

[Ken001]

@jjimm

From everything I’ve read - and I’ve read a lot of books about ascending Everest - this part of the hypothetical is highly unlikely. It’s not just you, it’s your entire team who are going put in jeopardy by going off-plan. And if you’re going to have to ignore the distressed climber anyway, it makes no difference whether you ascend or descend without them. Even though morally I can’t get my head round it, I think Rand Rover has nailed it.

Like you I’m an armchair climber and have read many books about 8000m expeditions. Indeed I’m reading about the 2008 K2 expeditions at the moment. 2008 K2 disaster - Wikipedia

The OP’s question was much debated in NZ when Mark Inglis (a famous Kiwi adventurer and double amputee from frostbite) returned from the 2006 climb of Everest. Inglis and his party saw David Sharp in the Green Boots cave but continued climbing believing he was dead or close to death.

Upon his return instead of being lauded for climbing to the summit of Everest with artificial legs, Inglis was bewildered to find himself attacked for leaving Sharp.

Those criticisms and some comments here illustrate how hard it is to comprehend human existence above 26,000 feet. There are no rescue services. Every person is on borrowed time. The human brain does not operate normally. For example some climbers experience hallucinations, see other climbers who aren’t there, believe themselves to be lower down the mountain, hear birds and music, feel themselves to be hot etc etc. Climbers have been seen to walk off in the wrong direction in a fuge state despite others calling to them.

Despite the high dangers, rescues are attempted and do happen. Lincoln Hall is a good example. And an ethical example is Rob Hall staying and dying with his client rather than attempting to get down to the South Col.

Climbers do check fallen people and report by radio. Nevertheless help is restricted to giving oxygen and getting that person up and moving down. If they cannot move by their own volition then nothing can be done.

[PandaBear77]

Took me all of 0.2 milliseconds to decide. Screw the summit!

[pravnik]

@elbows

I am a Canadian. I have no real choice. I render immediate assistance, without hesitation.

I am an American. I save him by physically assaulting the mountain.

[elbows]

I save him by physically assaulting the mountain.

??? What does this mean?

How does one assault a mountain? And how does that save him?

What am I missing?

[MsWhatsit]

@elbows

??? What does this mean?

How does one assault a mountain? And how does that save him?

What am I missing?

As a fellow American, I think I can clear this up. Your preferred means of assault is obviously going to be a semiautomatic weapon. Failing that, a 12-gauge shotgun might do the trick. When it sees a red-blooded American citizen staring down double barrels, that mountain is going to cry like a bitch. Problem solved.

[Laggard]

He’s Canadian though which makes it much for difficult to procure the needed weaponry. I see though that he’s in Texas so getting said weaponry should be a piece of cake.

[Smapti]

@MsWhatsit

As a fellow American, I think I can clear this up. Your preferred means of assault is obviously going to be a semiautomatic weapon. Failing that, a 12-gauge shotgun might do the trick. When it sees a red-blooded American citizen staring down double barrels, that mountain is going to cry like a bitch. Problem solved.

No, you take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

[The_Second_Stone]

I render assistance. But I’m not the kind of guy who climbs mountains, much less mountains where, let’s face it, I’m going to be the one needing assistance. I don’t care if I make it to the top. Therefore, I am unlikely to start.