I’ve been re-watching the Everest: Beyond the Limit series on Netflix, the first 2 seasons of which focus on climbers going up the North route (the 3rd they go up the South side), and given what’s portrayed in the series, it appears to me that the primary difficulty and danger (besides avalanches and falls), is the altitude, as the majority of the climb itself seems like a fairly simple matter of just walking up a slope.
When I think of “mountain climbing” I first think of very technical rock climbing, with all the equipment: the ropes, carabiners, cams, ice axes, belay devices, etc., you know, the clinging to a rock face by fingertips and toes, the shit you see in Sly Stallone doing in Cliffhanger (I know, :rolleyes:). The most technical sections of climbing Everest seem to be made relatively easy with fixed ladders so amateur climbers can get to the top.
Now, I am not at all suggesting that climbing Everest is easy, in fact I’m certain it’s just as difficult and dangerous as the very dramatic narrator makes it out to be, and I’m certain that the slope is much steeper than it appears on my TV, but still, it looks like they’re just walking up a very high snow-covered hill.
So, the question is: is the main difficulty in climbing Everest the altitude, low oxygen, and cold, or am I missing something else?
All those things, plus the main one: a single mistake, or a single stroke of bad luck, in a place like that, and you’re dead. They don’t call it the death zone for nothing.
The route up the Northeast Ridge includes a cliff known as “the Second Step”
at over 27,000 feet which apparently required advanced rock climbing skills
before some thoughtful people attached a ladder to it.
I think it was Jon Krakauer who wrote that with the help of competent guide company any reasonably healthy adult with six months" worth of stairmaster conditioning can summit barring an accident or bad weather. There’s very little technical skill involved and the main obstacle is a financial one.
Altitude, low oxygen, cold, severe weather… and a lot of related issues. Near zero humidity. The cold air can’t hold much water, so virtually everyone develops the Khumbu Cough as their respiratory system breaks down from the conditions. Which leads to… Infectious Diseases. A lot of climbers don’t even make an attempt because they catch something in the sea of humanity at the camps. And all the environmental conditions are exacerbated by the fact that it takes weeks on the mountain to acclimatize, with multiple trips down to recover and back up to acclimatize further.
And there are some significant technical challenges. I know some are classified as 5.7-5.8, which would mean true rock climbing on vertical or near vertical surfaces. There are ladders on some of these. But I have heard that some climbers don’t trust the ladders and consider it safer to use their own ropes and equipment. Which may be a fair concern as at least one ladder collapsed in the last few years taking a climber with it. So while there are ropes and ladders in place they were simply abandoned by the folks that brought it up. They weren’t necessarily intended for multi-season use. And there are still places where new crevices open in the ice each year, where the climbers have to make 3-4’ jumps to cross, until one of the tourist catering groups haul up a ladder.
So I would mostly rate the difficulties as environmental. But there is some real climbing involved as well.
-crowds
-some areas of unstable terrian (Khumbu Icefall)
-oxygen deprivation
-its really fucking cold
-oxygen deprivation and extreme cold weather both make you have really bad judgement
-storms blow up suddenly
-the last 100 vertical feet is the hardest part and also the most difficult spot psycholgically to turn around because you’re in sight of the peak
-You have to summit AND get down alive; plenty of people die on the way DOWN.
-did I mention its crowded? And littered with trash and sometimes, corpses?
In the Death Zone (above 8,000 meters), the body feeds on itself. Climbers lose appetite and can barely eat. Oxygen levels are so low that minor cuts and any injuries do not heal. It’s a war of attrition at that altitude and you can hardly sleep, so there’s no resting to “recharge.”
Krakauer’s Into Thin Air gives a pretty good description of the situation.
Wondering if the OP has done much mountain hiking. Walking up a long slope with a heavy pack is hard at 8000 feet for a couple of hours. Try hiking up Half Dome for example, that’s pretty hard for most people. Add unstable conditions or snow, extreme cold, little oxygen and 10 hours of “walking” at a time -yeah, it’s pretty hard.
IANAMountaineer, but my basic understanding is that once in the “Death Zone” near the summit, the air is so thin that the body consumes oxygen faster than one can possibly breathe it in. As a consequence of that, there’s a window of 2-3 days tops wherein one can make the summit attempt before being forced to descend to a lower altitude - and from the final camp, the summit attempt itself is about 12-14 hours of constant labor, where slowing down or pausing for a rest is pretty much a guarantee of a slow death from hypothermia.
I’m only repeating what the most noted journalist on the subject has stated. Nothing in that statement implies the endevour isn’t dangerous, just not very technically difficult nor even extraordinarily physically challenging if one is properly conditioned.
Krakauer does not have a lot of high altitude climbing experience. He wrote a best-seller after the May 1996 disaster, and he was lucky enough to be on one of the main expeditions involved (unlucky, really, but “lucky” for his journalism assignment).
I’m trying to imagine a situation where someone would decide to attempt an Everest summit based solely on Elmer J. Fudd, of Teh Straight Dope’s comment, which isn’t even worded as advice in the first place.
I’ve seen a few accounts where bodies were used as landmarks for months, until a group got the resources together to bring it down (if that ever happened).
If it counts for anything, I’m far from an Everest enthusiast, but the only book I own on the subject is In To Thin Air.
Also, I heard you can summit in a weekend with some long-johns, a pair of Crocks, and a decent bathrobe.
The fact that humans cannot survive for long above 25,000 ft. (The Death Zone) Makes simply standing above that altitude a dangerous act. Having to move, and to think along with that adds additional challenges. So, while Everest is not a technical peak, unlike some other Himalayan or Karakoram peaks, it is by no means a “safe” mountain.