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Keep going. 240+ people summited (not attempted, but summited) Everest in 2012 alone. You're still a long way from "most".

dalke 13y ago
Now where did I ever say "most"? ;) VLM claimed "Most of them have climbed a zillion other mountains." (I'll interpret 'zillion' to mean "very experienced mountaineers, with years of mountain climbing and 50+ difficult peaks summitted." Perhaps you have a better definition?) I was curious of the evidence which might back the validity of that claim. It's certainly true that some people who climb Everest are not highly experienced mountaineers. While VLM rejected my original references, I quickly found some counter-examples which show that it is not the case that all Everest climbers are very experienced mountaineers. ("Not all" is obviously not the same as "not most".) My point stands, which is there is no data backing the claim that "Most of them have climbed a zillion other mountains." It might be that 95% are very experienced, in which case VLM is justified in making the assertion. It might be that only 30% are so experienced. Ahh! Here's one possibility. http://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032%2806%2970297-6/fulltext http://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032%2806%2970297-6/... has in table 1 information about some of the people attempting in 2003. Of the 108 people surveyed, on average there were about 1.47 previous attempts at an 8000 meter peak, of which about 0.7 were of Everest. The standard deviation is 2.03, which means the distribution is very skewed. One person who did all 14 eight-thousanders balances out a lot of first-timers. They also asked about the highest previous climb, and report: > A histogram of previous altitude ever attained (Figure 1) shows a distinct peak at about 7000m. This is likely because of the influence of Mt Aconcagua in South America, a popular training ground for would-be Mt Everest summiteers. Although highest previous altitude ever attained initially appears to be a good measure of a climber's experience, the natural paucity of high-altitude peaks and the strong bias of climbers summiting Mt Aconcagua means that it is not possible, with our data, to determine depth of experience. Many of the climbers in this study may have climbed only once at high altitude, with very little other experience. That paper agrees with my belief, which is that there isn't enough information to meaningfully claim that "Most of them have climbed a zillion other mountains."

dalke 13y ago

Now where did I ever say "most"? ;) VLM claimed "Most of them have climbed a zillion other mountains." (I'll interpret 'zillion' to mean "very experienced mountaineers, with years of mountain climbing and 50+ difficult peaks summitted." Perhaps you have a better definition?) I was curious of the evidence which might back the validity of that claim. It's certainly true that some people who climb Everest are not highly experienced mountaineers. While VLM rejected my original references, I quickly found some counter-examples which show that it is not the case that all Everest climbers are very experienced mountaineers. ("Not all" is obviously not the same as "not most".) My point stands, which is there is no data backing the claim that "Most of them have climbed a zillion other mountains." It might be that 95% are very experienced, in which case VLM is justified in making the assertion. It might be that only 30% are so experienced. Ahh! Here's one possibility. http://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032%2806%2970297-6/fulltext http://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032%2806%2970297-6/... has in table 1 information about some of the people attempting in 2003. Of the 108 people surveyed, on average there were about 1.47 previous attempts at an 8000 meter peak, of which about 0.7 were of Everest. The standard deviation is 2.03, which means the distribution is very skewed. One person who did all 14 eight-thousanders balances out a lot of first-timers. They also asked about the highest previous climb, and report: > A histogram of previous altitude ever attained (Figure 1) shows a distinct peak at about 7000m. This is likely because of the influence of Mt Aconcagua in South America, a popular training ground for would-be Mt Everest summiteers. Although highest previous altitude ever attained initially appears to be a good measure of a climber's experience, the natural paucity of high-altitude peaks and the strong bias of climbers summiting Mt Aconcagua means that it is not possible, with our data, to determine depth of experience. Many of the climbers in this study may have climbed only once at high altitude, with very little other experience. That paper agrees with my belief, which is that there isn't enough information to meaningfully claim that "Most of them have climbed a zillion other mountains."