# What's the point of climbing Everest? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 11, 2015, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259 "2015-10-11T12:57:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/21 "2015-10-11T21:05:54Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > To them, risking life and limb, the breadwinner of the family, just to say they ‘climbed Everest’ is unbelievably foolish. Yes, no one, and especially not a ‘breadwinner’, should ever undertake challenge or put themselves in any risk just out of a desire to achieve a personal goal. They should stay at home, check their 401(k) portfolio, watch CNN, eat their Hot Pockets, drive their overscheduled children to soccer practice, piano lessons, horse riding, and ‘give me a few minutes alone’ camp, and play golf or fantasy football like the good little consumers they’ve been conditioned to be. Complaints about how Western tourists treat their host countries may be valid (although from much of what I’ve seen the residents are often equally trashy, having adopted Western values and products) but ‘adventure tourism’ and ‘eco-tourism’ bring money and attention to places that would otherwise receive little of either. Nepal is a economically depressed nation which is highly dependent upon remittance of labor performed by emigrants and what commercial and tourism revenue it can get. At least this prevents them from clear cutting forests to create more farmland or poaching endangered species to sell tusks and organs. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/22 "2015-10-11T21:10:44Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > It’s not just fame. Most people’s sense of self-worth is tied to their achievements. Even if they never tell anyone they climbed Everest, \*they’ll \*know they climbed Everest, and for many people, that’s enough. Maybe you are right. You can get Herostrates fame by writing many offensive articles. Does anyone know what are the chances of death climbing Everest? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/23 "2015-10-11T22:08:55Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > Maybe you are right. You can get Herostrates fame by writing many offensive articles. > > Does anyone know what are the chances of death climbing Everest? From [this chart,](http://www.adventurestats.com/tables/EverestAgeFat.shtml) (with data to 2006) it’s around 2% per attempt, which is much lower than I would have assumed. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/24 "2015-10-11T22:13:43Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > From [this chart,](http://www.adventurestats.com/tables/EverestAgeFat.shtml) (with data to 2006) it’s around 2% per attempt, which is much lower than I would have assumed. Thanks – not nearly as dangerous as I thought – and its probably safer in this century. ---
**Author:** ![SaharaTea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/25 "2015-10-11T22:28:05Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > Does anyone know what are the chances of death climbing Everest? [This site](http://www.mounteverest.net/expguide/survivalrules.htm) says it’s about 5%. From what I’ve read about Everest, getting to the summit isn’t that difficult. It’s getting back down and dealing with fatigue/lack of oxygen that are the problems. In terms of mountaineering skills, I’d be much more impressed with someone who said they had climbed [K2.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2) But Everest will always attract the people who want the distinction of being at the highest place on Earth. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/26 "2015-10-11T22:31:34Z")
Maybe it is genetic. [Restless genes](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/suburbs-and-the-new-american-poverty/384259/). Maybe the kind of people who climb Mt. Everest are also the kind of people who “discovered” new continents back in the day. It’s also an interesting thing to talk about. There’s a guy at work who climbed Mt. Everest five years ago, and people still bring it up in conversation. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/27 "2015-10-13T00:13:04Z")
Didn’t read any other posts. My conclusion is “More Money Than Brains” hence forth known as MMTB. And hyper competition syndrome. HCS. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/28 "2015-10-13T01:05:09Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Maybe it is genetic. > > [Restless genes](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/suburbs-and-the-new-american-poverty/384259/)… Your cite has nothing to do with genetics. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/29 "2015-10-13T01:41:29Z")
I’ve never climbed it, and I never will, but here’s my answer to the question. I would want to climb it first to see it, to be on “top of the world”, to take in the view. But the second reason is, I would test myself. I’d want to know if I could do it. Call it a “measuring contest” if you will, but it bothers me a little that there are people that can do something that I can’t. If I could make the climb, then I would be equal to some others. Silly, but true. I’d want to test my limits. I also have considered this in the context of Viet Nam, or Iraq. Sometimes, I want to know how I would have fared in combat. Of course, for Everest, the reality is, that I know I can’t do it. I would go there to test my limits, and I’d find them. It’s not very useful to find out your limits and then die! ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/30 "2015-10-13T01:54:39Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > It seems the ultimate manifestation of First World privilege to me, to be honest. In poor countries people live in fear of the dangerous unregulated activities involved in scratching out a living. Few expect to make it to old age without serious injury from their daily job, whether inhaling dangerous toxins, or losing a limb to a medieval wood mill, etc. Should they die from their job there is little or no compensation, their family will be left destitute, in the street. Their children will be preyed upon or sold or become beggars. > > To them, risking life and limb, the breadwinner of the family, just to say they ‘climbed Everest’ is unbelievably foolish. Especially since the ‘personal challenge’ that makes them so proud involves paying for guides who put up camps and cook, (not to mention providing life saving aid should it be required!), permanently afixed ladders and ropes, on a decades old, well worn route. ‘Well worn’ meaning thoroughly abused, strew with garbage, polluted with far too much human waste, and the size of small villages. > > Nepal actually represents one of the most disturbing records of international Aid. There have been innumerable western aid organizations operating there for literally decades, yet very little has changed for the Nepalese. Access for tourists and climbers has though. Aid orgs top personnel often openly live like kings, and spend lots of time pursuing mountaineering and adventuring while little impact is realized for the poorest people in Nepal. It’s changing now but it was so, for far too long. > > The West has cared little about the royal family being slaughtered, the rise of radicalism in politics or even relief after a devastating earthquake. But we still hear about who’s climbing that mountain. Disabled people even! At enormous cost and danger to numerous lives. > > Straight up First World privilege, in my humble opinion. Yes, God forbid anyone strive for great feats so long as there are backward countries run by petty, corrupt, bureaucrats because their people can’t get their shit straight. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/31 "2015-10-13T01:59:51Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Yes, God forbid anyone strive for great feats so long as there are backward countries run by petty, corrupt, bureaucrats because their people can’t get their shit straight. Wow. That’s quite a broad statement about Nepal. I’m sure being a tiny, landlocked, mountainous, remote country wedged between two massive and not particularly cooperative powers has nothing to do with it. It must be that they are just bad people, otherwise they’d be rich. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/32 "2015-10-13T02:02:01Z")
I’d pay good money to ride the ski lift to the top. Exactly because “because it’s there.” There’s no practical use paying to go to the top of the Sears Tower or CN Tower, but I’ve done those, too, because they’re there, and you can get a good view. I’m not willing to risk death or get into shape enough to minimize the chances via a traditional climb, but my enjoyment of the ski lift wouldn’t diminish the accomplishment of the climbers who did it the hard way, any more than the people that take the lift to the top of Huangshang or the Great Wall diminished my enjoyment of climbing up myself. _If I were a climber_, though, then my motivation would certainly be that it’s a challenging climb, I have fun climbing, so, hey, let’s do this thing. There are things that I like to do that others certainly see as pointless. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/33 "2015-10-14T00:10:42Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Serious question: I was under the impression that the Sherpas were very well paid and tended to be breadwinners for their extended families. I do not contest that th appeal for the jobs is quite like paying people in very poor areas to make good wages being a coal miner, crab fisherman, or some other hazardous job. But you seem to be calling the Sherpas themselves desperately poor, so I just want to dispel my ignorance if needed. Are you under the impression that they were well-off to begin with? If not isn’t that desperately poor people taking on the task because it’s “one of the few ways open to them to make decent money”? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/34 "2015-10-14T00:59:33Z")
No, I did not have the impression that Sherpas started off wealthy, but thanks for responding to my question with a double helping of indignancy. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/35 "2015-10-14T01:22:07Z")
Some people are inspired by God to go to undertake a journey to places for divine reasons for the ultimate betterment of themselves and all of humanity by what one learns along the jourey. Others just follow thinking it’s cool and all that shit. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/36 "2015-10-14T14:02:44Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Serious question: I was under the impression that the Sherpas were very well paid and tended to be breadwinners for their extended families. I do not contest that th appeal for the jobs is quite like paying people in very poor areas to make good wages being a coal miner, crab fisherman, or some other hazardous job. But you seem to be calling the Sherpas themselves desperately poor, so I just want to dispel my ignorance if needed. [I found this article](http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/04/22/305954983/who-are-nepals-sherpas), which tells a little about their earnings: > [@](#): > > How much are they paid? > > Sherpas who lead or assist expeditions to Everest earn about $5,000 during Nepal’s two-month climbing season, well above the country’s $430 annual per capita household income. But to earn that money, Sherpas make multiple round trips, exposing them to great risk. (By contrast, Western guides can make as much as $50,000 during the season.) [It also links to this article,](http://www.outsideonline.com/1928326/disposable-man-western-history-sherpas-everest) which goes more in depth. > [@](#): > > According to the Himalayan Database, which keeps track of such things, 174 climbing Sherpas have died while working in the mountains in Nepal—15 in the past decade on Everest alone (see sidebar for a country-by-country comparison). During that time, at least as many Sherpas were disabled by rockfall, frostbite, and altitude-related illnesses like stroke and edema. A Sherpa working above Base Camp on Everest is nearly ten times more likely to die than a commercial fisherman—the profession the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rates as the most dangerous nonmilitary job in the U.S.—and more than three and a half times as likely to perish than an infantryman during the first four years of the Iraq war. As a dice roll for someone paying to reach the summit, the dangers of climbing can perhaps be rationalized. But as a workplace safety statistic, 1.2 percent mortality is outrageous. There’s no other service industry in the world that so frequently kills and maims its workers for the benefit of paying clients. > > The result is that in Kathmandu and in villages across the Khumbu region, dependents are left without breadwinners or, in the case of serious injury, forced to choose between supporting or abandoning a disabled husband. > > \ > > In the past decade, Everest has been transformed into a tourist attraction, the cornerstone of Nepal’s $370-million-a-year adventure-travel industry. Thanks to explosive growth in commercial guiding, the more than 300 paid clients who arrive each spring to attempt the Southeast Ridge route can mitigate their own risk by having Sherpas do the most dangerous labor for them. But little has changed for the workforce. The families of the men killed on the Mallory expedition in 1922 were eventually given 250 rupees each, a payout that, adjusted for inflation, is in line with the standard $4,600 insurance claims Sherpas receive today. > > \ > > Despite these good intentions, there remains a surprising lack of understanding among clients and outfitters about how Sherpas are covered. Many outfitters I spoke with were aware of the insurance requirements but had no idea how much they paid out. For example, when I spoke with Peter Whittaker, the owner of Rainier Mountaineering, a boutique outfitter known for running small, high-end trips, he said, “I trust my Nepalese outfitter is meeting the requirements, but I’ll have to confirm specific insurance details.” When he subsequently checked with his in-country agent, High Altitude Dreams, Whittaker—whose company has an enviable safety record—discovered that his Sherpa staff had been covered at an above-average $8,000 until 2012 but this year dropped back to the minimum. > > In fairness, the current system for employing Sherpas promotes a certain amount of this ignorance. Guided clients typically hire Western outfitters like Rainier Mountaineering, which in turn are required by law to hire in-country trekking agencies. It’s those trekking agents who actually hire the Sherpas, purchase insurance for them, and help them collect after an accident. On the one hand, the trekking agents act as docents, helping outfitters navigate Nepal’s disorganized bureaucracy. But they also make handy scapegoats after a snafu, since they’re the Sherpas’ technical employer. The system fosters a kind of plausible deniability in which each person thinks he’s acting in good faith while others are failing. I highly recommend this last article. It sounds like sherpas can make a lot of money, but it’s a big gamble, and they are often inadequately protected. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/37 "2015-10-14T15:44:07Z")
Thanks Sam! I’ll read those. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/38 "2015-10-14T16:17:48Z")
Everyone talks about climbing to the top of Mt. Everest. But nobody ever talks about what’s on the other side. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259/39 "2015-10-14T17:14:11Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Everyone talks about climbing to the top of Mt. Everest. But nobody ever talks about what’s on the other side. More people coming up from the Chinese basecamps. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-climbing-everest/734259.md?page=1)