NEWS: Everest Round-Up

CULTURE: Everest Round-Up

The world at 29,000 feet above sea level is different. When you begin to see more sky than land, and the air seems to disappear from your lungs, you leave the world. And if you're not of excellent character like Sir Edmund Hillary, you drop your morals along with spent bottles of oxygen.

The news from Mt. Everest, appropriately enough, comes and goes in peaks and valleys. The news forgets about Everest while a new set of climbers and sherpas train for the ascent, money is spent on gear, lessons, passports, expedition papers, etc. Then, in the course of a few days, you become, as Thomas Sjogren said, "completely disgusted by Everest" and in the words of Sir Hillary, "horrified" by today's climbers.

A lot of these feelings come from the events that happened around British climber David Sharp. Mark Inglis, the first double amputee to summit Everest, saw Sharp while Inglis was on his way up to the summit.

I think it's impossible to understand why over forty people didn't stop on their way up the mountain. Forty people all saw Sharp and none stopped to bring him down the mountain. Some critics have said that they didn't want to endanger their chance to reach the top of the mountain, take their picture, spend some time reflecting on how small everything looks, and then come back down.

Buddhists call Everest Chomolungma, or Mother of the Universe. It is a Goddess. From what Sir Hillary has written about that space at the top, along with climber's reflection, photos from those that have succeeded in the attempt, and movies about the mountain, the Tibetan name seems apt. It is a place, like the inside of a lunar module in the Sea of Tranquility or Normandy during Operation Overlord, that supersedes the way that any of us perceive the world. Perhaps it is the promise of that world that kept all of those climbers from helping a dying man—a glimpse of a goddess.

Everest takes, but occasionally it gives back. Another climber on Everest was left for dead this week. Lincoln Hall was thought to be another casualty on the mountain and was abandoned by his team as they made their way up to the summit. He spent the night on the mountain, half alive, until another climber found him and sent for a group of sherpas to help bring him down.

Hall is suffering from cerebral edema and was in a state of psychosis. His prognosis looks good and gets better as he comes down from the mountain.

Finally, there's a bit of interesting, if not humorous, news from the summit. Everest, while a holy place, is also under intense scrutiny and attention is paid to its every event, including a new record: three minutes naked.

These strange places: corpses in the snow drifts, people dying from the lack of oxygen, low temperatures, and literally being blown off the side and people are getting nekkid. If anything proves Sir Hillary's point, it's a naked sherpa at the summit of Mt. Everest.

yeah, after the Sharp thing I did some research and found that the corpses of those who die are usually left where they fall since its almost impossible to get a recovery mission going. So when you climb Everest you literally have to climb over the bodies of people who didn't make i and because of the freezing temperatures the bodies are perfectly preserved... that is some intense symbolism right there.

I've heard about a point where you unclip from the rope, clip on to the rope a few feet away, climb past the dead guy, unclip, then clip back on to the main rope.

Wow, that was a very well thought out article. It read like an essay!

Total pleasure to read.

Another guy from New Zealand made the summit last week, the thing is he has no legs, he did the whole thing with carbon fibre from the knees down. Ouch.

I imagine that most people wOuldn't stop to help someone in the street outside their house, let alone during an extremely risky, dangerous and physically demanding ascent of what is a highly dangerous mountain. If people risk their life to attempt to climb everest, they already know how many lives the mountain claims annually and that they too could fall victim to it.

Yea, I seriously doubt they're smiling and having a few beers laughing about how some guy died. But when it comes down to it, you probably don't want to be on the side of a mountain fighting with some guy who's obviously gone bonkers from low oxygen. If it was someone who'd fallen and broken a leg that they failed to help, it would be a different story, but cerebral edema is a different situation.

I cant immagine not helping someone. Im one of those people that will put themselves in danger to help others. I just dont think, emotion takes over and I race in to help.

Ive always wanted to climb Everest, but I have bad knees that require surgery and Im a chronic Asthmatic, so the best I could ever make on a perfect run and if I was lucky would be base camp - and thats probably pushing it.

I know it costs a helluva lot of money to do the climb, and the drive to get to the top must really be completely over powering to all other emotions and desires, but I still can not fathom how people are left for dead on the mountain and no one tries to help.

when i lived in nepal, i remember sir Hillary bitching that there were to many climbers and that people were eroding it so badly...

its about $2000 to even go near the mountain though...

Great article.

After reading about Sharp's death it's good to hear about Hall's rescue. It restores a little bit of my faith in humanity.

Now as for the naked Sherpa?

Yeah, quite! Thanks for that.