All those bodies littering the side of the mountain are people who were only trying to get themselves up and back down again. Anybody carrying the kind of equipment and materials you need to build a chair-lift is only going to join the rest of the corpses. The atmosphere is so thin that climbers have to catch their breath between every step, so even if you get the materials there there’s still no way anybody could dig support holes out of the rock or mix concrete do anything labor intensive in that environment. At that altitude even the sherpas are busting their asses just to lash some ladders together and stock oxygen bottles.
If through some miracle you did somehow get it done you now have a chairlift going up the side of Mt. Everest that was built entirely by workers suffering from extreme oxygen deprivation. There’s no way I’m riding on that thing. Plus, much of the ground where you’d have to put the supports is a glacier, it’s not even going to last long before the whole thing falls into a crevice or rips apart.
The world’s highest ski lift is is Chacaltaya, Bolivia ending at 17,785 feet above sea level.
The world’s longest ski lift is actually a gondola system called the Dragondola. It runs 3.4 miles but actually only has a vertical interval of 1,398 feet. There are a few other longer gondola systems but they’re not really used for ski-lift type conveyances.
Anyway, ralph124c, the point I’m trying to make is that you’re asking why no one has built a ski lift that goes 3.5 times longer vertically than the longest ski-lift and starts 7,000 feet higher than where the highest ski lift in the world ends.
To that I say I guess it’s because people don’t have the imagination and can-do spirit that you do.
Forward flight in a helicopter doesn’t require a whole lot of power; a helicopter flew at 40,000 feet back in 1972. Hovering and landing requires a lot more power, and so touching down at high altitude has been difficult, although not intrinsically impossible. And recently, it actually did become possible: in 2005 a helicopter landed at the summit of Mount Everest.
In addition to all the excellent reasons already posted:
There are already serious problems on Everest with litter, and overcrowding during the season in which the mountain is climbable. In other words – in recent decades, far too many people are already attempting to go up the mountain. This would just exacerbate the issue.
Ah, but the OP’s idea is to build a 5,000 ft ski lift, so it would start around 24,000 ft above sea level. You still need to hoist the fuel that high - unless, of course, you started your entire lift system at the nearest roadhead. That would appear to be Namche Bazaar, Namche Bazaar - Wikipedia, at about 11,300 ft. That makes it a bit more challenging as a technical exercise, let also justifying the economics of it.
I like **jjimm’s **idea of making it mechanical, rather than electrical, but I’m sure there would be issues with that. Isn’t the best time to climb a mountain when the wind isn’t blowing too strongly?
Although, according to this website, you can just go to Warren Street underground station in London.
I disagree with this one. A non lethal and fast way up and down the mountain would likely decrease litter. At the very least it sure would cut down on the number of dead bodies laying about.
Off topic here…so what happens to all the stiffs on the mountain? Are they all still lying around, or do the sherpas clean up the litter during the off season?
It might cut down on the amount of litter on those last 5000 feet (re-read the OP’s exact suggestion), but it’d greatly increase the amount on the rest of the mountain, because now you’re encouraging the ordinary yahoo to give it it a try.
And, it’s not like the climb up until that point is a walk in the park, either. You might actually wind up with more net deaths.
There have been several expeditions strictly for the purpose of cleaning up as much trash as they could; the place is littered with empty oxygen bottles and other trash. Until recently, these expeditions didn’t attempt to clean much of anything in the death zone (above 26,000 feet).
Bodies - particularly the ones in the death zone - tend to get left there because it’s difficult enough to safely get one’s self down from up there, let alone hauling a dead body. Bodies that get lost on/in glaciers will eventually move (with the glaciers) down to lower elevations, where they may or may not be recovered.
Everyone who as climbed Mt Everest has had to walk past dozens of dead bodies littering the trail. There’s a spot so littered with dead climbers in brightly colored winter gear it’s called Rainbow Valley.
Airplanes fly much higher than Mt Everest. Supplies could be parachuted to the top of the mountain as well as key points on the trail. Cargo parachutes are fitted with GPS guided steering. It would still require good weather.
The towers of the ski lift could be dropped into place like giant darts. An inert bunker buster nose welded to the base of each tower, GPS steering fins, and bombs away. There’s most of the construction, already finished.
The powered section would be at lower, milder elevation, the turn-around tower on top of the mountain.
Ski resorts have trouble operating lifts in winds above 30 MPH, or when snow/ice clogs the cables and wheels. You could never operate a ski lift up there. Even if it was possible to operate it in the short patches of good weather, it would never survive the bad weather.
Besides, who would be there to scan the lift tickets that early for the alpine starts?
That’s on the China approach, high on the North East route.
Yes, the bodies remain in the mountains embrace for decades. Mount Everest is not an especially steep massif nor is it technically difficult. Plenty of alpinists avoid Mt Everest because of its popularity and because they do not view it as hard core. What they deliberately overlook is the sheer scale of the place and the height that has to be climbed.
By contrast K2 is a proper alpine mountain and its a killer. Very few bodies remain on K2 because it is so steep and dead climbers are swept away by wind snow and avalanche. Some years nobody ascends it.
Ok, good point. So here’s what we do: when the wind blows in off-season, we have turbines that wind up a massive rubber band stretched between the summit of Everest and nearby Lhotse peak. When it gets to ski-lift season, just pull out the stick and allow it to unwind, thus powering the lift.
Brilliant! Looking at this from the economic perspective, it would allow us to accurately measure the elasticity of our proposed model. I bet Lhotse people would want to climb the peak that way!
Interesting idea, if it could be done. You’d attract thousands of tourists who would otherwise never even consider putting in the effort to climb the mountain in the traditional way. The purists would still be struggling up in the old-fashioned way, and each would think the others crazy as a loon.
Having done some things the hard way, (backpacking, long distance cycling), I can only say, it’s the journey - not the destination - that makes it attractive. And some people will never understand the difference.
