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from the how-many-people-would-climb-it-if-it-was-safe-and-easy? dept.
Everest summits smash records amid deadly bottlenecks
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
A record 885 people climbed Everest in May this year, figures showed Tuesday, capping a deadly traffic-clogged season that also saw 11 climbers die on the world's highest mountain.
The number smashed last year's record of 807 summits despite a short weather window that resulted in fatal bottlenecks on the peak.
[...]A traffic jam forced teams to wait for hours in freezing temperatures to reach Everest's 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) summit and then descend, increasing the risk of frostbite, altitude sickness and exhaustion from depleted oxygen levels.
Experts said too many of the new wave of mountaineer tourists were ill-prepared and inexperienced. Others have called for a cut in the number of climbing permits, or tougher standards for guides.
[...]A government team re-measuring the height of Everest also reached the top.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday June 20 2019, @10:37PM (1 child)
I suspect the guides are under the pressure of the attitude that if you don't make the customer happy you lose your job, Too many customers are only going to be happy if they reach the top. After all, they paid a lot so they are "entitled" to be successful. Once climbers reach the "death zone", it should be completely at the discretion of the guide whether or not the client is capable enough that the climb can continue.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday June 21 2019, @02:12PM
True, and many guide contracts are specifically written that way that if the expedition leader makes the call for no go then the climber is supposed to submit, and that the company is not guaranteeing the climber will reach the summit. At the same time the company will be judged by how many people it gets to the top and almost by definition your clients are going to be hard-chargers who do not take no for an answer - it takes that kind of resolve to do it at all is the picture I've built up. But as presented by Krakauer in Into Thin Air when it comes down to it, exactly what can the expedition leader do when one is at final camp? Stop everybody from summiting? Forcibly remove the climber or handcuff them down? There were documented experiences in that book of a leader saying no and the climber still doing what they would. That's aside from the issue that because one is in the death zone one may not be receiving enough oxygen to make rational decisions, and also the question of whether the clients have enough mountaineering experience to attempt Everest.
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