7 ms·
Everest through the eyes of a Sherpa
- mychael 7y agoDoes anyone know why that Sherpa's face has that distinctive tone? Is it frostbite or some kind of sun burn? Great article by the way!
- actuator 7y agoSun burn and tan. When you spend most of your time at high altitude and don't use some kind of sun block you get that tone. I have seen that tone in local populations at altitudes > 3000m
- raverbashing 7y agoThinner atmosphere where they live and snow definitely contribute to a higher incidence of solar rays
- actuator 7y agoYeah. You can definitely feel the sun there. It is hard to adjust to these areas, but definitely some of the most beautiful I have been to.
- test1235 7y ago"It's pressure on young climbers by some companies describing Everest as easy. Everest is never easy." Not just companies - it's 'common knowledge' now that Everest is just a hike with rich clients being dragged up by poorly paid sherpas.
- ahelwer 7y agoSummiting Everest, as a tourist, is basically unimpressive and a strong indicator you're an empty box-checker. Any moderately fit person with $100k lying around can get short-roped or crawl up the fixed lines to the top while sucking down bottles of oxygen, endangering the lives of the people helping them on their way. If you meet someone who has climbed Everest, don't validate their ego.
- derekdahmer 7y agoDid you read the article? The sherpa is saying the exact opposite of this. > "Climbers need to wake up and understand that climbing a big peak like Everest is extremely risky. They need to stop believing just because they are with a 'Sherpa guide' who has summited Everest 10 times that they will be rescued if they get in trouble," says Alan.
- 55555 7y agoIt can be both 'unimpressive' and reckless.
- ahelwer 7y agoYes, I read the article, and am a mountaineer, and stand by what I said. It's tricky to talk about difficulty with those not versed in the sport, because with mountains like Everest (which are non-technical high-altitude walkups) it's about objective risks like weather or avalanches or HAPE/CE rather than subjective risks like lack of strength or fitness or coordination or whatever.
- 7952 7y agoAs a mountaineer do you actually come across people who show off about climbing Everest? I guess that could be really annoying. I am not a mountaineer but I have always dreamed of climbing Everest just because of reading books as a kid. It seems like an amazing form of escapism rather than about ego or anything like that. I think that is what drives a lot of extreme fitness activities. You have something to focus on and work towards and a possibility of feeling a sense of achievement. I think rock climbers are more about feeling a sense of flow which makes it a completely different sport.
- tim333 7y agoI had a go at climbing Everest but turned back at about 8400m when my oxygen gear packed up. I find it funny that people are really impressed by Everest climbing which always seemed to me a bit of a dumb expensive trudge up a large rock and very unimpressed by my attempts to figure why the universe exists which seems to me a noble and logical thing to do but people think you're nuts. Life's odd like that I guess. That said Everesting was quite fun. I went unguided but with a lot of logistical support, and tried to develop my own oxygen gizmo. It wasn't my invented bit that failed by the way.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoI remember hearing a talk by Ed Viesturs who was the first American to climb all 14 eight-thousanders He emphasized that his rule was that going up was optional, coming down wasn’t and told a story of this one mountain climb where they spent weeks getting ready to the point where they were ready to summit. I don’t remember the details, but for some reason they were not able to get the start they wanted and it would be close to being dark by the time they got back from the summit. Instead of risking it, he aborted and came back the next year. Sometimes knowing when to abort an endeavor is one of the most important skills.
- dopeboy 7y agoI dive (albeit new) and knowing when to abort is taught over and over again. In general, from both theory and practice, the threshold is pretty low. Any kind of physical and mental stress means you surface. I guess what makes Everest so different are the costs involved. I imagine the sunk cost fallacy is magnified.
- maxxxxx 7y agoYeah. With diving an abort is not a big deal. Just do it again tomorrow. With Everest you have already put in a lot of effort and money and you may never get the opportunity to do it again. Also, when you do stupid things there is often a good chance to get away with it. I have done things I shouldn’t have done but I have fond memories of overcoming the hardship.
- nradov 7y agoAborting a shallow sport dive is no big deal. But some of my acquaintances go on major expeditions doing deep, complex technical dives on shipwrecks and in caves. Just getting to the dive site can be a major logistical undertaking, and there's often a large group of surface crew and support divers just to assist the push team. Sometimes permits to access a particular site are time limited, or there's only a narrow window of good weather. So those exploration divers are subject to the same mental pressures to go ahead and dive even when it's risky.
- wybiral 7y agoI've always thought of "climbing Mount Everest" as being a literal figure of speech for something incredibly difficult and potentially very dangerous. Why do these people think it's going to be anything less than that?
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y agoBecause most of these people are accustomed to throwing money at people to solve their problems.
- maxxxxx 7y agoThat’s probably it. Also, there are climbers who do it for the love of climbing but for most of these people it’s something to brag about. “ Not only am I better because I am rich but I am also physically better and I do harder things than you.”
- briandear 7y agoIt seems like many of the debates on HN seem to quickly devolve into classism. I am pretty sure not many people have ever met an Everest climber, let alone got to know any in order to make these sweeping generalizations.
- maxxxxx 7y agoI have talked to a guy who had climbed Mount Everest that way. He had the goal of climbing all the highest peaks on all continents and Everest was one of them. He also came from a wealthy family. He had the time and money to put in the time preparing and then paying >50k for the Everest climb. Who can afford this money and taking off months for an expedition? From what I have read Everest climbers are either basically very poor people who put all they have into climbing or they are rich enough to take time off and pay for that hobby. For a regular guy with a regular job it’s very difficult to do.
- 7y ago
- dopeboy 7y agoHas anyone here climbed Everest? What drove you and what it's like up there? How did you feel afterwards?
- harshreality 7y agoEverest has become a freakshow. Humans are not built to climb that high, even with supplemental oxygen there is a non-trivial risk of brain trauma from blood vessel leakage even if you don't die from it. When the final push from camp 4 to the summit is a human traffic jam, the risks multiply. Because of the logistical difficulty of getting there and preparing, and the perceived (not real) "accomplishment" of reaching the summit, people take excessive risks rather than quitting when they start having cognitive impairments, the weather turns, or they're moving too slowly or using too much oxygen on the ascent, making the risk severe during descent. It's not a good situation. Anyone with a death wish should take on one of the other peaks in the Himalayas, without all of the route prep that goes on on Everest and turns it into fast food mountaineering. Anyone without a deathwish can find plenty of challenge on more convenient mountains elsewhere, climbing only when weather and avalanche risk are very low, since there's less pressure of feeling, like many do on Everest, that it's a once in a lifetime opportunity and they've paid lots of money to get there so they have to keep going. Or take up rock climbing. Excellent technical challenge and strength training, lower risk (with rope and prudence). Everest used to be at real challenge. Now it's more of a contest of luck and whether you have the money. People climb it for the status, but look at the damned lines! That's not status, people. That's being a lemming. Wake up.
- actuator 7y agoI agree with your sentiment mostly but I think rock climbing and mountain expeditions are just different ballgames. I think you can't just label mountain expeditions as deathwish, a big reason people are pulled towards mountaineering is the sheer thrill you get not just battling the knowns(technical climbs, routes) but also the unknowns(weather, AMS). Mountains can be unforgiving(8 climbers died in Nanda Devi a week back) but the accomplishment you get is also something worth savouring. Once you start, you can hardly go back. I have only done six thousanders but even I want to do more.
- lhorie 7y agoI read it as GP saying that rushing Everest specifically is a death wish, but that mountaineering elsewhere responsibly is what a sane person ought to look for.
- bitL 7y agoBTW, a small hint, anyone climbing 8,000+ peaks should get a large dose of Viagra ;-) EDIT: For those that didn't get it, it significantly helps with altitude sickness.
- cultus 7y agoIt would be better to ban oxygen on Everest. A much more limited number would summit, and there would be no more discarded oxygen tanks. I've been up to 6400m and climbing up there was the most physically difficult thing I'd ever done, I can't imagine 8800m. However, people can and have climbed it without oxygen numerous times.
- actuator 7y agoI personally think it would be wrong to ban it. Also, the criticism the Nepalese government will face in case someone dies because of lack of oxygen will be immense. I have heard stories of experienced climbers suffering from AMS on some climbs. No one would want that to convert to HAPE.
- rbanffy 7y agoMy favorite quote on the subject still is "Every corpse on Everest was once a highly motivated person".
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago30-130k per person, but a sheep make 8k a season? The Nepalese government should mandate payouts to Sherpas much higher than that.
- whitenoice 7y agoFor people interested in the topic of Himalayan big wall climbing, do checkout the movie Meru - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2545428/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2545428/ it's excellent!
- actuator 7y agoJimmy Chin, the guy who directed this and went on the climb also directed Free Solo featuring Alex Honold.
- kstenerud 7y agoThe thing that gets my blood boiling is the discarded trash scattered around everywhere. They removed 3 tons of trash a few years back in a big cleanup attempt. If you can't carry your trash back, you shouldn't be climbing up in the first place :/
- krapp 7y agoI wonder if tourism shouldn't be considered a form of pollution, and if the countries that export the most tourists shouldn't also pay a tax similar to a carbon tax towards cleaning the damage they do to the local environment.
- icebraining 7y agoMany places have a tourist tax already. In this case, like the article says, there's a $11000 tax for each person climbing the Everest.
- aitchnyu 7y agoCould one invent a protocol to eliminate almost all deaths? The article mentions a prudent Sherpa aborting summitting for a client who would be unable to descend. But can anything be done about sudden failures of the body in high altitude?
- scythe 7y agoSomething about this reminds me of school shooting stories: it’s meamt to discourage Everest trekkers, but it will probably end up encouraging them. Misconceptions abound. Some argue that people shouldn’t climb Everest because it’s not that impressive anymore. This is irrelevant: people aren’t dumb or arrogant enough to believe they’ll convince their friends they’re great mountaineers. They’re obviously not great mountaineers and they’re at least minimally self-aware. Some argue that people shouldn’t climb Everest because it’s crowded and not exclusive. But Mecca is crowded and the hajj rolls on. Explain. Still others argue that people shouldn’t climb Everest because it’s dangerous. This is the worst argument of all! Dangerous things are cool! Half the stories I tell at parties involve me almost dying. Or at least I try to make it sound that way. There is one single fact that makes people climb Everest: people don’t like to explain their accomplishments. Everyone knows what Mount Everest is. Everyone knows it’s dangerous to climb. What you gain is having done something everyone else can recognize. Stories like this only increase the notoriety of the peak. Nobody’s going to be impressed if you summit Kangchenjunga What’s that? Aconcagua? Never heard of it. Nanda Parbat? I think I had that at an Indian restaurant once. And so on. Every time someone tweets a news story about deaths on Everest, two more idiots decide to buy a trip. I guarantee it.
- bitL 7y agoClimbing Mt. Everest became a ticket to upper strata at many corporations these days that want "cool leaders".
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]