If you have to ask, the answer is 42.
Basically he wouldn’t encourage them to follow that particular dream.
I’m reminded of another narrative of a couple who climbed Everest as part of a mission to travel from the lowest point on Earth (the Dead Sea) to the highest. They wern’t hard-core climbers, but they were in good shape and good spirits. They came back aghast and wishing they had never come up with the idea. At one point the woman’s ropes got caught up in a corpse’s crampons- it turned out to be her friend who had died just hours earlier. They had to literally step over corpses to reach the top. It wasn’t a joyful or triumphent experience to them. They sounded like soilders back from a war- sad and haunted. I guess thats kind of the human response I expect out of people. The whole thing seems a little ghoulish to me.
There was a time when climbing Everest contributed to the general human mission of discovery- we learned more about the world, our bodies, the sport of climbing, etc. It was a frontier, and sometimes feeling out frontiers is worth a little risk. Now that it’s pretty much routine, the contributions to humanity to be found are minimal. All there is is the risk of orphaning your children, widow(er)ing your spouse, destroying your parents and haunting your friends- all for one gasping moment on top of a rock, just so you can say you’ve done it.
Someone somewhere has profited off of every event- fortunate or unfortunate- in human history. Tourism is the world’s largest business, and certainly a great re-distributor of first-world money in to third-world lands. But it’s a VERY complicated subject. FWIW, I’ve been to Nepal. I ended up in a wildlife reserve in a war-torn part of the country. The (thus far unfulfilled) promise of ecotourism was the only thing keeping the villagers from shooting the damn elephants and tigers that keep eating their crops and livestock. The infrastructure is there, but the people are not. I hope one day the war stops and people can come visit this beautiful country. It’s basically the only chance they’ve got to keep their villages and culture at least a little bit intact.
But there is a difference between well planned tourism programs that focus on benefiting the people of the land, and the willy-nilly pack 'em in madhouse that 10,000 a piece in to the government coffers encourages. For an autocratic king, a country’s budget is basically his bank account. He doesn’t really have too much motivation to do this in a well-paced, well-planned sustainable way.
Money, the most meaningful answer to everyone’s prayer. Dear Lord, please beseach thy son Bill to lead us through the pearly Gates.
I don’t get how “stopping in the Dead Zone” is deadly while continuing to climb farther up in the Dead Zone and then back isn’t… surely that expends more energy and puts the climber in a thinner atmosphere.
I’m not arguing that anyone can make climbing a mountain like Everest “safe,” but at this point with hundreds of people going up and back I think people could make it safer. Of course in Nepal concern for the general well being is pretty well nil and little public expenditure is made to even make daily commutes reasonably safe. The extreme poverty of the country and autocratic plutocracy help create conditions for these expeditions to be run the way they are; I imagine if Everest were in a richer western country expeditions would be controlled and required to go about things differently.
I’m guessing you have not seen 3rd world poverty. Money is pretty damn meaningful when you don’t have any.
FWIW, Bill Gates is one of the most philanthropic businessmen in the world. He has donated generously to third world countries.
Edmund Hillary is one of the most respected and admired men who have ever lived. More because of his humanitarian work and other activities after climbing Everest. Sure everyone knows he was the first to climb Everest. Please read about what he did after climbing Everest and you will get true respect for the man.
Secondly, I would like to know what Nietzsche, the mountain-climbing Philosopher would have said about the incident.
Something that I read from a link by one of the posts here. One group of climbers said there is no morality above 8000 feet. The reply was that if that were true, maybe humans should not be going above 8000 feet.
FWIW, it’s not his generosity that he will be remembered for but the ROI on his contributions. A model of which, I hope is repeated.
I was alluding to the concept that something was worthwhile because of an unintended secondary benefit.
Sort of, I think. IOW, climbers do use pressurized oxygen, but they can’t increase the flow to the point where they don’t suffer hypoxia, because they cannot carry enough tanks to make it all the way to the top and back. Yes?
Regards,
Shodan
That, and climbers in general don’t use pressurized breathing masks. It would be very claustrophobic and a failure would be quickly fatal. It you are on pressurized oxygen up high (therefore not fully acclimitized) and the mask fails, you will pass out and die very quickly. As it is, when you’re oxygen runs out people can fade quickly.
The recent rescue on the north side does bring into question what is really possible up there, and how people can rebound. I don’t think climbers thought that a response like that was possible, considering all the folks who had rescue attempts that failed. It’s hard to say what would have happened to Sharp, but the clients probably couldn’t have performed a rescue, only the Sherpas.
Thanks for the clarification. I think my sticking point is whether or not Beck Weathers counts himself in the first group (my climbing Everest was a good, productive dream that contributed to greater understanding of the human experience, but there’s no need for anyone else to do it) or the second (you know, upon reflection, I realize now that my “dream” of climbing Everest wasn’t worthwhile, and I would encourage my kids not to repeat my mistake). I’m hoping he’s going for the second option.
Pressurized oxygen is not required at 29,000’. Up till approx 33,700’ you only need supplementary oxygen as an increasing percentage peaking at 100% unpressurized at 33,700’. From there up to 40,000’ you can get by on 100% unpressurized, above 40,000’ you need oxygen under pressure.
This is all for normal functioning for an average person who is not acclimatized.
I would assume that climbers use far less than the recommended amount of oxygen just because it is so heavy to carry around.
Anyway, the point is that there is no advantage to pressurized oxygen at Mt Everest altitudes apart from having the bottle itself pressurized so that you can carry more of the stuff in a small volume. The oxygen would then be regulated so that the required trickle is delivered over time rather than it all being forced out in minutes under high pressure.
Thanks.
Regards,
Shodan
For all his talk about ethics, Hillary painted himself in his autobiography as the intrepid climber who practically dragged Tenzing Norgay up the mountain. This is contradicted by most accounts I’ve read of the expedition, as well as Hillary’s own comments in interviews and other public appearances. Like a lot of us, he’s done some great things and some less-than-great things. I don’t think he has any claim to a moral high ground on this question.
I’m inclined to give more credence to 40 climbers who were a the scene than one who wasn’t.