Mount Everest Thread 2021 - the mountain is open for business and dead bodies this year!

Discussion of which expeditions are going ahead in 2021.

What on earth are they going to do if Covid breaks out up there?

Bookmarking this thread now. It’s still very undecided if operators will be running expeditions.

Hopefully, everyone will have to pass a Covid test before starting the ascent. Then once you're on the mountain, there will be no need for social distancing.

Hmmm I'm not so sure. You may be right R4, but something doesn't sit right with me about a bunch of risk takers going up a mountain in the middle of a global pandemic.

Everyone knows the coronavirus can’t survive up there.

Ashley Judd shattered her leg fucking round in the Congo. Do you really think these self obsessed cunts will not climb if there is any possible way?

They'll climb.

Wasn't there some research that showed that covid couldn't survive well above 5000m? They should be okay at Base Camp and above.

A Nepali guy called Nimsdai Purja led the first successful winter ascent of K2 last month, after summiting all fourteen 8000 metre peaks in just 7 months! The previous record was 7 years.

I forgot about our great Everest/climbing threads since last year was a wash. I'd imagine this season might be relatively chill - simply not as many people making attempts this year.

Brings back memories of a yoga frau (and, this time she was German so we aptly call her a frau) my sister talked me into taking classes from a few times. Essentially she had 2 small boys and a sexy husband who was a saxophonist in LA. Ok, what he saw in this 7 foot tall bag of bones who looked like the reason for the coronavirus I can't imagine, other than her PhD in nutrition. In any case, she went on Everest in 2019...totally selfish. Kids and husband were against it, huge blow out that he wasn't allowing her to "live her dreams". She had already been on Mount Fiji and (get this) risked going to fucking Iran to scale one of peaks of the Alborz mountains. I think these people are all either slightly crazy or manic.

I can see Ashley Judd hiring a rotating crew of sherpas to carry her up there.

I read a true story of a man who made 3 expeditions on Mount Everest. He failed to reach the to reach the top on the first 2 tries and then finally reached the top on the 3rd try - and quickly died on the way down. So bad that it speaks for itself. Darwin Award.

There's are some people who seem to beat the odds. David Breashears, Simone Moro, Pete Athans, Ed Viesturs all still alive, all knew when to stop!

[QUOTE] There's are some people who seem to beat the odds. David Breashears, Simone Moro, Pete Athans, Ed Viesturs all still alive, all knew when to stop!

Same for Chris Bonnington who's in his 80s now. I just read his excellent autobiography 'Ascent'. I think Joe Tasker and Pete Boardman were wonderful writers as well as mountaineers, but they died in their 30s, like so many others.

I think the expeditions will go ahead - too ruinous for the Sherpa economy if they don't. The mountain has been closed three times in the last seven years.

I think we should also track deaths on the other 8000m peaks this year. There's usually a top climber picked off every year due to hubris, like Ueli Steck strolling up Nuptse with just trekking poles.

Well Alan Annette seems to think there will be quite a few Indian climbers because they can get to Nepal easily.

What are Nepal's entrance rules like?

Extract from Savage Arena by Joe Tasker.

Camping high on K2, Joe's tent is hit by an avalanche.

"I awoke to an instant awareness of the imminence of a sordid death. All was black, the tent was collapsed on top of us. A heavy avalanche of snow was pouring over the tent. I was lying face down, cloaked by the fabric of the tent, my body and limbs moulded and held in place by the weight of the snow, solid as concrete.

I tried to rise, only my head and shoulders could move, but the snow crashed down on the back of my neck and my face was beaten inexorably closer to the ground. It was a brutal and implacable force of nature with no malice, which, impersonal and unfeeling, was bringing extinction. I felt awe at the power at work. There was no thought process, I was simply aware, knowledge without deduction, of all the implications of what was happening. I shouted to Pete and Dick by name; there was no reply. My arms were pinned down and I could feel, with my elbow, Pete’s feet next to me, also pinned."

So what happened to Pete and Dick?

More from The Savage Arena

"The avalanche had struck us in the middle of the night. At its first impact the tent had been partly knocked off the ledge before the snow stakes and the weight of the falling snow held it in place. Dick was suspended, in the folds of the tent, off the edge of the prow of rock, only the tent fabric preventing him from plunging down 10,000 feet of mountain. Pete had been pushed to the edge of the ledge where there was less weight of snow on him. With his head close to the tent entrance he was able to pull himself out. The prow stood clear of the snow slope still and the entrance to the tent was clear. He pulled Dick out of the tent and back onto the ledge where both of them shouted for me for long minutes, hearing no reply. They thought I had been suffocated and was dead."

Eventually, they pull him clear and continue to make attempts on K2, eventually giving up.

When do they start arriving at base camp for acclimatisation?

Chris Bonington still climbed challenging rock needles at 80 years old. Mind blowing!!!

Is there any way I can get a venti 1/2 soy, 1/2 oat, 6 pump caramel macchiato at base camp 4 ⛺️?

^ lol. I was wondering how many posts before any reference to the events of1996!

There should be a law that anyone who wants to summit Everest must have attended a trash collection trip up the mountain reaching Camp 3 during the previous season.

Leave no trace, MFers.

I heard they were going to put a yoga 🧘‍♀️ studio/Lululemon outlet on the summit!

^Fat & JUICY

R28 That's a good idea.

'Is there any way I can get a venti 1/2 soy, 1/2 oat, 6 pump caramel macchiato at base camp 4'

I get this is a 1996 reference to Sandy BUT feel duty bound to point out that Base Camp is at 5000 metres and Camp 4 is above 7000m. Very different places. The former a bit like a festival on a glacier these days, the latter an icy windswept hell.

[quote] He failed to reach the to reach the top on the first 2 tries and then finally reached the top on the 3rd try - and quickly died on the way down.

That's the problem. The weather conditions might be OK for reaching the summit, but weather won't necessarily last long enough for a safe descent.

Have you guys read Krakauer's "Into Thin Air"? If not, you should read it. (Easy reading.) When I read it, I knew his story was skewed, though. I ended up reading at least 2 more books: "The Climb" (by Anatoli Boukreev, the Russian guy that everybody was mad at b/c he was climbing w/o oxygen and couldn't save more ppl) and "Left for Dead" by Beck Weathers (the guy from Texas who was, indeed, left for dead a couple of times).

It's the sherpas who are doing a lot of the hard work. Yes, they're getting paid, but I think they're (the Sherpas are) doing a lot more than these climbers will admit to.

I've read all three of those! Anatoli should have climbed with oxygen and stayed on the mountain to help the guests rather than summiting first and zooming down to Camp 4 on his own athough he did rescue two clients and a guide from the 'huddle'.

Jon Krakauer was a good enough climber to have solo-ed Everest and really resented hanging back to wait for the others on Summit Day. Rob Hall should have left Doug Hansen and come down alone instead of waiting it out and getting too frostbitten to climb. Scott was seriously ill and shouldn’t have been on the mountain that day at all.

R35, maybe I'll reread these books. I have forgotten about Rob Hall and Doug Hansen. I do remember the lady with the espresso machine. I guess I'll start, again, with Krakauer's version.

Anatoli Boukreev's job was not to stay on the summit way past save turn around time.

That Scott Fisher's group got into trouble had a lot to do with the stupid decision of Neal Beidleman to stay with clients on the summit for, by his own admission, for 1 3/4 hours because they were waiting for Fisher, who was sick, to summit.

Camp 4 on the south col is at 8000m R32.

There are so many good climbing books if this is your interest. I've read many of them and Into Thin Air is probably on my top five list of ALL books.

I'd recommend Everest the Cruel Way and Savage Summits by Joe Tasker.

Into Thin Air is one of the few books I've read about four times. It was even a set text on one of the GCSE syllabuses in English schools for years. The other I re-read compulsively is Borrowed Time by Paul Monette.

Beck Weathers' Left For Dead is worth reading.

I read this recently and loved it. Everest is not the only peak!

DL is doing its usual swallowing of links at R41. The book is Ed Viesturs' No Shortcuts to the Top, an account of his mission to summit all fourteen 8000 metre peaks. It took him 18 years and he had to return to Annapurna three times before he succeeded.

This gripping and triumphant memoir follows a living legend of extreme mountaineering as he makes his assault on history, one 8,000-meter summit at a time.

For eighteen years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing's holy grail: to stand atop the world's fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest.

As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.

A preternaturally cautious climber who once turned back 300 feet from the top of Everest but who would not shrink from a peak (Annapurna) known to claim the life of one climber for every two who reached its summit, Viesturs lives by an unyielding motto: Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory.

It is with this philosophy that he vividly describes fatal errors in judgment made by his fellow climbers as well as a few of his own close calls and gallant rescues. And, for the first time, he details his own pivotal and heroic role in the 1996 Everest disaster made famous in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air.

In addition to the raw excitement of Viesturs's odyssey, No Shortcuts to the Top is leavened with many funny moments revealing the camaraderie between climbers. It is more than the first full account of one of the staggering accomplishments of our time; it is a portrait of a brave and devoted family man and his beliefs that shaped this most perilous pursuit.

It’s something to do I guess.

You've got to climb Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls. It's a brutal climb to reach that peak. You stand there. Waiting for the rush of exhilaration; but, it doesn't come. You're alone and the feeling of loneliness is overpowering.

I feel like our yearly Everest threads are an oddity, in that you know the same collection of posters are gathering to talk about it—and, let’s be honest, repeat the same things about it—once a year. It’s become a tradition akin to the Thanksgiving Otter.

I wonder if it will ever get old, or if we’ll still be having 1996 Everest Disaster Discourse in 2030 and beyond.

In any case, it’s one of my favorite DL quirks. My favorite was when I made posts as that creepy South African woman from one of the 96 documentaries who wouldn’t stop smiling.

Cathy Woodall?

Oh yeah that cunt. Creepily smiling as she was reminiscing how she and her climbing companion came across someone dying and left them behind. I’m fully aware it’s the only sensible thing to do when summiting a mountain like Everest if you want to survive yourself, but there was something really off putting about the glee she displayed when recounting the incident.

During the '96 disaster, here in New Zealand, Rob Hall was depicted as some kind of hero for dying up there. Our current affair shows covered it like some kind of tragedy, and the interviews with the wife, and the fatherless child were endless. I remember thinking what a fuckwad he was.

Then I read the book and was glad to have it confirmed.

[quote]I've read all three of those! Anatoli should have climbed with oxygen and stayed on the mountain to help the guests rather than summiting first and zooming down to Camp 4 on his own athough he did rescue two clients and a guide from the 'huddle'.

Anatoli saved his clients. He rested then returned and did everything right. I like Krakauer but his rage at AB is baseless.

Rob Hall is responsible for the death of Andy Harris, Doug Hanson and Yasuko Namba.

Article about Nepal ignoring hovid-19. They are desperate for people to come and climb Everest, Llotse and the others.

"But I am not a bad person"

R40 Love Borrowed Time. Read it twice. Into thin Air- twice. And I would add to that list: Drinking. A Love Story. All in top ten at least but probably for a different thread. Can't imagine the movie Everest would compare to the book (Into Thin Air). Have no interest in seeing it but did watch the documentary on an IMAX screen.

Oh I interviewed the hot women who fronted the Imax film. She was stunning but did not wear that they were also a little responsible for the cluster fuck that year.

So, they all shit in buckets up there?

No they have sit down toilets Frances, albeit primitive ones.

R54, Dry by Augustus Boroughs is another excellent memoir about being an alcoholic, getting sober, relapsing, rehab etc. The author is gay and nurses his ex through AIDS-death in the book too.

The temperature difference even at Base Camp always shocked me. From high 20s centigrade to about -30c at night.

I spelt his name wrong. Augusten Burroughs.

Alan Arnette posted this on March 1st

I’m not 100% sure what to expect for Everest 2021. Based on a recent conversation with Nepali guides, there could be at least 300 permits for foreigners on the Nepal side, a bit less than the record 2019 with 382 permits issued.

Several major guide companies have canceled their entire season due to COVID; they include Adventure Consultants, Adventures Global, Alpenglow, and Mountain Madness. Also, travel from the UK to Nepal is effectively banned (see discussion in the comments for details.)

I’m not aware of any Nepali companies refusing business, including Asian Trekking, Seven Summits treks. Many of the longtime foreign guides like International Mountain Guides and Alpine Ascents, plus Austria’s Furtenbach, are still going. However, China has said that Tibet is still closed to foreigners; thus, all Everest climbing this spring will be on the Nepal side, creating queues.

In keeping with the past few years, look for more climbers than ever from China and India. As I’ve detailed in the past, China requires all Chinese Nationals to have a summit of an 8000-meter peak before climbing Everest from China, so many go to Nepal where there are no requirements.

With the COVID virus combined with turmoil in the Nepal Government, no new rules were announced – a pleasant change from their recent history of ginning up the climbing community with promises of a cleaner, safer environment with rules that are never implemented. The bottom line for climbers this year is to triple-check with your evacuation company that you are covered for COVID with the guide service you use. Also, be prepared for some quarantine upon arrival in Kathmandu. But don’t expect it to be serious. As usual, Nepal likes to talk big but not enforce its own rules.

Finally, the Icefall Doctors are en-route to Everest Base Camp right on schedule. Usually, they have the ropes through the Icefall by the end of march to

I’ve been writing about two major trends that have been rising and reached a crescendo in 2019: inexperienced climbers and unqualified guides. These two factors along with a “wobbly” jet stream and record 381 foreigner permits issued by Nepal conspired to create a deadly combination of independent factors during the peak of a truncated weather window in late May.

Six months after the spring season, the biggest question is what, if anything, will Nepal do about the crowds, the experience of the climbers and the qualifications of the guides. While there are solutions I’m not optimistic anything will change.

The headline for 2021 is a narrowing (not widening) of the price spread between traditional foreign guides and Nepali based guides as the Nepali lock in the low-end market and the foreign guides move in

As for which side is the best deal, Tibet continues to win but that spread is closing fast and will not last for much longer. For those who just want to go on an Everest expedition with the least amount of “inconvenience” possible, Furtenbach, 7 Summits Club and even Seven Summits Treks can meet you every need for a Princely sum of $130,000 plus.

Follow the Money

The median price for low-end climbs in Nepal is $42,500 and 43,875 in Tibet, while the top end comes in at $67,000 in Nepal and a whopping $85,000 from Tibet.

Bottom line for 2021: Look for a mixed bag Everest, with a quiet Tibet side and uncertainty on the Nepal side. Kathmandu will be confusing, potentially deadly as will Everest Base Camp with the pandemic.

Here’s to a safe season for everyone on the Big Hill.

What arrangements are in place to treat Covid victims up at base camp when they happen?

Helicopters would fly them to Kathmandu hospital, I guess. There are medical evacuations all the time from Base Camp and even Camp 1/2.

R63 Indeed. As Ant Middleton found.

This thread seems early. Don't they start climbing in May?

I went to watch Everest on Prime (because I read Into Thin Air), but it's not free. Come ON. It's 6 years old now.

Oh how I missed this thread this year. I look forward to it every year and felt cheated this year, lol. Thanks to all who posted about the books. Just purchased Into Thin Air and look forward to reading it. John Oliver had a very funny show on Mt. Everest that some of you may enjoy. He was spot on about it all, imo.

I highly recommend Krakauer's Eiger Dreams. I've lost count, along with Into Thin Air, of how many times I've read it.

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson is excellent .

R68- Thank you, I will and really appreciate your recommendations. I became hooked on this years ago when some show, I am sorry that I can't remember the name, did a documentary on the climbers that year and their climb to the summit. A camera crew filmed the climb. At the time and compared to today, there were no where near the amount of climbers and they were so much more experienced and devoted to climbing. Now it is much watch to see how many complete idiots will die each year. The skill and devotion is mostly gone, replaced by shallow assholes who just want to brag and get that all important selfie.

This is an excellent My Everest Hell book which came out a couple of years ago. Only 4.99 on Kindle.

The Ice Fall doctors have reached Base Camp!

Just purchased this book and have not received it yet, but reading the reviews there are several disturbing statements about some of the Sherpas. The reviews mention harrowing accounts of anger and abuse from them. I have provided a link for anyone interested. Can't wait to read this.

Sorry, here is the title of the book. It is in Amazon. The Everest Politics Show: Sorrow and strife on the world’s highest mountain (Footsteps on the Mountain Diaries)

Bring 'em on, baby!

Hope some Klan Grannies climb Everest and don't come back down.

Love that John Oliver segment.

R73, I've read that book. I think it's the one where author Mark Horrell is angry because his 2014 exhibition up Lhotse got cancelled after 20 Sherpas were killed in the Ice Fall and he talks about the Sherpas threatening to attack any westerners who tried to go through the Ice Fall with rocks. He thinks the Nepalese army should be permanently stationed at Base Camp.

I thought of you when I read this quote from "The Everest Politics Show: Sorrow and strife on the world’s highest mountain (Footsteps on the Mountain Diaries)" by Mark Horrell -

"On a more sobering note, over dinner Phil talks for the first time in detail about what he saw at the avalanche site. Most of the victims died not from being buried alive, but from shards of ice exploding from the serac like shrapnel. ‘There were decapitations up there,’ he says. I don’t think I’m the only person at the table who feels sick. The event could have happened at any time. Had it been an hour later or an hour earlier, the outcome could have been different. Perhaps nobody would have died at all. But it happened at precisely the wrong moment and caused destruction in the most hideous way imaginable. Nobody is in the mood for staying up late tonight and finishing the rest of Phil’s wine. I leave the tent at 7.30 to head for bed. Only Jay and Ricardo remain there, arguing about religion. I still hear their voices murmuring a few metres away as I drift off to sleep."

@R79- Thank you. I.had no idea they died that way. Horrible. To be honest, my interest in his book had to do with his writing on the sherpas. It Will be the first time I have ever read anything negative about them. I will post his comments here for those interested.

Any updates?

Hundreds of climbers expected despite covid.

This link should work.

R83 Thank you. I'm eager to read more about the next expedition.

Over/under on the number of deaths?

R85. nobody has gone high on the mountain yet, they're still trekking into Base Camp.

Where are the snows?

Interesting account of a guy who tried to trek to BC this year.

The Everest threads are better than the damn Dyaltov Pass threads....

I'm rewatching "Everest" (for the umpteenth time) this morning.

"Crevices so deep they don't have bottoms." Jesus!

3/25/21: Any moves to ascend yet, or are they still at Base Camp?

Attempts are always in May,

So are the Sherpas up there fixing ropes and stuff?

I think the ice doctors are at Base Camp now, making the Icefall safe with ladders.

.....look, hush, they will do it when they want to. Don't fuck them off, or they will throw rocks at you, pushy Westerner.

Every body on Mt. Everest was once someone with ambition.

The Nepalese slaughtered their own royal family not so long ago. They're violent people.

[quote]The attempts are always in May.

Thanks, R91.

r91, funny that suicide season is also climbing Mt. Everest season.

But no one believes they'll be the one to die on the mountain.

Plenty die on the other 8000s every year too, so we'll be monitoring those. Nanga Parbat and Annapurna always see casualties but K2 is usually climbed in August.

Bring on the dead!

Simone Moro:

My winter expedition to Manaslu as a component of Alex Txicon’s expedition ends today. It is the third goodbye to Manaslu in winter, after 2015, 2019 also on this 2021 I want to say only goodbye.

The mountain and weather conditions again this year lead me to give up. My limits and abilities are highly inferior to those of the Mountain I have encountered in these three winters. Acceptance of this has allowed me so far to survive my dreams and let my head prevail over my heart.

I have been part of a fantastic group that has accepted me and allowed me to interpret the climb with them while maintaining independence and freedom and this is a credit and a thank you that I want to acknowledge to Alex and his group. Never a disagreement, never an argument, total harmony have confirmed the fraternal friendship that I have and maintain with Alex even after this surrender of mine.

It was a tragic and difficult start of the year for the whole of mountaineering and we too had to emotionally manage the weight of these bereavements of friends and climbing partners who never returned from K2.

The crevasses we encountered on the Normal Route in mid-January and the new variant that Alex and all of us opened consumed the most beautiful and stable days I have ever encountered in all my winters. Unfortunately, when the variant was completed, the winter at Manaslu was back to its old self, very strong winds at high altitude interrupted by a few days of clouds and fog and the usual, though this year weak, snowfall. The wind tore the snow off the ridges and settled it on the medium-low part of the mountain and it was always a struggle to get going, with immense efforts to open the trail, often sinking to the belly, even with snowshoes on.

Karl Gabl was my, and our, silent climbing partner. In addition to his bulletin, other meteorologists were also contacted and almost always the forecasts coincided. Man is imperfect and vulnerable and I am the first to be so. Upon receiving the latest bulletin from Gabl predicting high winds of over 175 km/h until early March, I decided to continue to trust him and prefer to give up and stoically endure beyond February.

Winter ends on March 20, I confirm, the permit we have however expires on February 28. You can ask for an extension and maybe that’s what Alex and his companions are considering despite professional and family commitments.

I thought about it too, but I pondered the signals that destiny and the tragic events of this 2021 sent me.

^ Is that the deluded 60 year old?

Moro is 53.

R96, that wasn't a Russian revolution-type slaughter, though. The killer was Crown Prince Dipendra. It's assumed that he was upset about an arranged marriage, but we may never know. They've hushed up quite a lot about the killings.

Still proves they can be a violent people. They attacked Ueli Steck and his team with rocks just for fixing their own ropes.

^ They deserved that, I thought?

They deserved to be attacked with rocks for fixing their own ropes? Really?

I watched a documentary on that year, and trying to remember the details. Don't the sherpas always fix the ropes, but those guys ignored that presumption and so with their trekking made it dangerous for the sherpas?

They weren't trekking, they intended to climb Everest ahead of the Sherpas by fixing their own ropes.

May 2018

Three climbers have halted their expedition on Mount Everest, after an argument with the Sherpas who were guiding them devolved into an alleged fistfight on the mountain.

The climbers say they were close to Camp Three, which is located at 24,500 feet, when 17 Sherpas accused them of kicking ice down onto them while the guides were working to set up ropes for the next part of the ascent. A dispute ensued, reportedly culminating in a crowd of 100 Sherpas confronting the climbers after they retreated to Camp Two.

At Camp Two, the climbers say, the Sherpas punched and kicked them, as well as throwing rocks and threatening to kill them if they did not leave the mountain.

The expedition included Italian Simone Moro and Swiss Ueli Steck; both of them have previously climbed Everest. British climber and photographer Jonathan Griffith was also in the group. In a statement posted on his website, Moro told his side of the story. It includes this version of events:

"The Sherpas said that the reason they attacked the climbers was because they had knocked ice down on a Sherpa below. As it stands no Sherpa has come forward to show any injury. Furthermore on an ice face getting hit by chunks of ice is a very natural occurrence. The climbers believe that the lead Sherpa was tired and cold and felt that his pride had been damaged as the three climbers were moving unroped and much faster to the side of him."

An American bystander who witnessed some of the events tells the Agence France-Presse, "The Sherpas told the team not to climb above them while they were fixing the ropes but they did it anyway. Then some ice fell and hit the Sherpas, which made them angry."

Of the alleged attack at Camp Two, the witness said, "It was terrifying to watch — they nearly got killed."

Police in Nepal are investigating the incident, which occurred Saturday. The Nepali Times calls it "the highest brawl in world history," as well as evidence of a culture clash.

But the sherpas fix the ropes every season, love.

Let us watch the footage and hear them whine.

Moro and Steck were capable of going up Everest alone, sans ropes, and that's what they were doing. They are better and stronger and more experienced climbers than the majority of Sherpas - well, were not are in Steck's case.

R113 The point I was asking about is wasn't there an etiquette always on the Mountain that the Sherpa string the ropes and then people can climb. And the reason the Sherpas went fucking wild was they disregarded that gentleman's agreement.

'The point I was asking about is wasn't there an etiquette always on the Mountain that the Sherpa string the ropes and then people can climb. '

They lay the ropes for expeditions. Top climbers have always climbed without Sherpa support and they don't need fixed ropes.

Coolio. Thanks.

[quote] What on earth are they going to do if Covid breaks out up there?

Ah, jump off the side of a cliff?

Covid doesn't thrive at high altitude and any cases could be helicoptered off the mountain from Base Camp to Kathmanu hospital.

Article

Moro and Stack were climbing independently, meaning they didn't have to wait for the Sherpas fixing the ropes. That's how they crossed a team if Sherpas who were working lower on the mountain fixing ropes for their company's clients.

It's an unwritten rule that the Sherpas are always the first in every season to fix ropes. Al least Moro and Stack shouldn't have crossed right over the area were the Sharpas were working.

Moro is a tough guy, he saw Anatoli Boukreev die in an avalanche on Annapurna. He is lucky he is still alive and could dig himself out of the snow, his hand was all cut open.

R120, I own a book which translates Moro's account of that avalanche. I'll copy some of it over.

That would be interesting R121, thanks!

Above my head there was a terrifying, gigantic cornice of snow and ice stretching out like an ocean wave. Death was hanging right over our heads, and only some strange combination of forces had kept it from crashing down on us. It was impossible to see from below, which was why I was even more stunned and disoriented at finding myself just a whisker away from this time bomb.

And it was there, at that precise moment, that the signal came that there was no more rope and I would have to make some sort of a belay to fix this desperately long umbilical cord linking me to my two friends. I was 6,300 meters [20,700 feet] up.

"A fraction of a second later a deafening roar announced the end of that gigantic cornice, and with it our lives.

“Anatoliiiiii …”

That desperate cry was all I could manage before the explosion of ice and rock started pouring down on me. I had just time to turn towards him and I still remember his eyes. I don’t know how, but despite the hundreds of meters separating us I can remember the expression in his eyes just as though he had been standing right in front of me.

It is difficult to put into words what those blue eyes said to me. If I had to interpret that look, Toli’s last look, I think it showed a mixture of fear and determination to make it. In an instant, Anatoli grasped the situation. Without hesitating, he did what experienced climbers always do when an avalanche or collapsing serac bears down on them from above. He tried to run sideways to get out of the path of the tons of falling debris. Praying that “death would pass me by,” with his bare hands, I grabbed the fixed rope I had just anchored."

"The Will to Climb: Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna--the World's Deadliest Peak" by Ed Viesturs, David Roberts

"I managed to hold on for a second, maybe even less, and then I felt myself being torn from the face by an indescribably powerful force. I began falling at supersonic speed with the rope running through my hands. Then a few seconds later I had the impression that the rope was falling with me and that my hands—at last—were holding on to something. After that there followed an interminable phase of bouncing, sliding, spinning round and round at great speed as though in a vortex, then falling again and the violent impact of all the different parts of my body against the various protuberances of the face. I banged my face, rebounded into the void and then again knocked first my legs, then my back and began sliding again."

“I finally came to a stop [and] found myself in a sitting position, and everything around me was silent as the grave.” One of the first things Simone did was to look at his altimeter watch. The time was 12:36 p.m. on Christmas Day. His altitude was 18,000 feet. Incredibly, battered by the debris of the collapsed cornice, Simone had survived a tumbling descent of 2,600 feet. Even before looking at his watch, he had stared at his hands. “They were cut open right down to the bone,” he later wrote, “and burnt flesh marked the edges of the deep gouges made by the rope. I was losing blood and had difficulty focusing on what was before my eyes.” It remains unclear whether the anchor had come loose with the cornice debris, as implied by Simone’s “impression that the rope was falling with me,” or stayed attached to the mountain so that the static rope whipping through his bare hands cut the flesh down to the bone."

"Slowly and awkwardly, Simone clawed himself free from the snow and a tangle of rope that ensnared his right leg. He checked and was astounded to realize that he had broken no bones. Then, only moments after the long fall ended, he looked around for his teammates. He shouted their names into the void.

Moro: Nobody answered … nobody! I saw a piece of cloth, perhaps a rucksack, in the snow. I went closer, but realised it was only, terribly, a piece of cloth. I wandered about for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, but there was no clue, I did not know where to start. I was powerless. “They’re dead!” was the stark conclusion I came to. “They really are dead!”"

END

This book is excellent and I recommend it.

Thank you.

Thank You R123 - R127!

I had no idea Ed Viestrus was also an exhibition member during that fateful Annapurna climb.

Anyone seen the play K2 on stage? Read it decades ago and loved it. And what a set.

R20 There are some hoops to go through but they aren't untractable, so if you've got your heart set on trekking up to EBC this season, it looks like you can do it.

R20 Forgot the link. Bear in mind it all could change tomorrow.

What's the attraction? Spend a fortune, risk your life, major discomfort for what? Go stand and look at other mountains for a few seconds?

R133 I just can't describe the feeling of freedom, at the top of the world, with the wind whistling through my caftan.

'I had no idea Ed Viestrus was also an exhibition member during that fateful Annapurna climb.'

He wasn't part of it. He's narrating an account of it using Moro's account from another book that was written in French. The book is about Annapurna in general - the various conquests, deaths and Ed's own attempts on it.

R133 Bragging rights to bore your friends with for life.

If you're a Midwestern dentist, what else are you going to point to as a lifetime achievement?

A successful mid-sized dentistry practice ain't going to impress the ladies down at the country club or the boys on the golf course. Climbing Everest on the other hand....

R136 Yes! For me, it was a financial advisor who claimed an Everest climb and hung all the tools (pickaxes, crampons, I'm sorry I don't know all the names) on the wall of his office. Fucking asshole.

I can understand why people want to do it, it's just that it's not the exiting, somewhat romanticized adventure it was when George Mallory Sandy Irwin, Tensing Norgay and Edmond Hillary did it. Commercialism kills everything I guess.

What gets me is that sure, climbing the highest mountain in the world is a great talking point at dinner parties.

But it's just a very selfish act in my book. It's a bought achievement.

R139 It's not like you're helicoptered in or carried up on the back of a sherpa!

Of all the little things guys take some pride in bragging about -- and who among us doesn't do it sometimes -- reaching the top of Everest is not just pretty benign but like it or not does reflect accomplishment.

If I'd done it I'd be hanging that climbing gear in my office, too, and be shameless about bringing up the experience.

Consider it payback for having to listen to colleagues brag about their kids' getting into Yale.

[quote]BUT feel duty bound to point out that Base Camp is at 5000 metres and Camp 4 is above 7000m.

Camp 4 on the South Col is actually at 8000 meters, or slightly below, depending on where your tent is on the flattened ridge between Everest and Lhotse.

I don't see it as a selfish act really, people like to set themselves goals and there's nothing wrong with it. And for some people it's climbing the highest mountain on this planet. Mallory, Tensing and Hillary had that same goal. They were just lucky they made it (or didn't in the case of Mallory) before it became a big tourism business with hundreds of people every year wanting the same thing.

Of course is a selfish act, no one, outside the Everest industry, benefits of some executive to reach the top of the world for a selfie and not dying trying. The ultimate act of pride, waste resources and risk your life and the life of others to have something to brag about on dinner parties.

R140 But, given all of the public resources that have been spent on getting that Dentist to the top of Everest,

How does that achievement benefit mankind?

Why don't these great adventurers clean up after themselves? I understand if they can't bring their dead down the mountain but the least they could do is pick up their own excrement. What next? Send up prison inmates to clean the mountain the way they send them out to clean the roadsides? Everyone who makes it to the top should have to bring back every one of their poops. Hey, maybe that could be a cottage industry...Bronzed Everest poops as paperweights or bookends!

[quote]How does that achievement benefit mankind?

You can think the same of Tensing and Hillary. How did their accomplishment benefit mankind?

Tensing and Hillary were the first to achieve it. Demonstrating man's ability to conquer the highest point on the globe.

Everyone remembers their name, not the thousands of Narcissists that have followed them.

Here we are again! My partner loves to tease me about Everest, and other mountains people like to climb, now. I tried to tell him that I am not a mountain queen, it is just this thread and that hill.

[quote]Tensing and Hillary were the first to achieve it. Demonstrating man's ability to conquer the highest point on the globe.

So, the people who came after them have the same goals. What's wrong about that?

And before you try to spin stories about how unique and amazing Hillary and Tensing were. The Brits hired 500 Nepalese porters for this exhibition they hauled 10,000 pounds of equipment to Base Camp and Camp 4. Just to get two people to the top. Also Hillary and Tensing started their summit bid from a tent at 8,500 m instead of what people do today from South Col which is at 7950 m. So they had a huge advantage.

For me it is the sorry state of the mountain that takes away from it being any kind of respectable achievement anymore. The mountain has been trashed and that makes me sad and angry. I also have no respect for these people because they only buy their way to the top. It may not be a fair or even accurate judgement on my part, but it is how I feel. On the other hand I live for this time of year and this thread, so I am the worst kind of hypocrite. 😣

The Brits in 1952 also left all their trash at the mountain R150.

Actually, if you want to complain about something, complain about the way the constant stream of yak/donkey trains tears up and befouls the trail to EBC.

So there should not be the long line at the top this year? I gave to go look but I think they are restricting the number of people allowed to climb. @R151-- Yes, I agree all are to blame for the trash on the mountain. R152-- I haven't read about that, but will look it up. Thanks.

'I can understand why people want to do it, it's just that it's not the exiting, somewhat romanticized adventure it was when George Mallory and Sandy Irwin, did it.'

Freudian slip.

So everyone dismissing an Everest summit is able to climb vertical ice cliffs with crampons and an ice axe, yes? And cross aluminium ladders over 300 foot deep crevasses? And climb ice and rock above 8000 metres, breathing in oxygen and still feeling like you're drowning? You can all do that, yes? Climb non stop for 18 hours on summit day?

Donkeys can't get up to Base camp, they are only used in the lower altitude areas.

But, wait, I thought Mandy Moore made it to Base Camp 2 years ago, R156?

R155 Can as long as I get my coffee.

If I met someone who claimed to have climbed Everest, I'd merely smile politely while thinking "what a dumb cunt" to myself. Not impressed by that kind of shit.

The account at r126 is making me cringe. Rope burn gouging your flesh down to the bone?!? God almighty that sounds horrifically painful. Hopefully the shock and adrenaline prevented him from feeling the full extent until he could get help.

It's incredible that Moro managed to get himself back down to Camp 1 on his own in that condition. He couldn't have been able to use an axe or rope.

5 people have already died on K2 this year.

I went down a wiki rabbit hole reading about mountain climbing and deaths. Going to check out some of the books that have been mentioned.

Anyone dead on Everest yet?

R163 see R162. I don't understand how 5 people died on K2 in 2021 if the season hasn't started yet but apparently R162 has inside knowledge.

R164, they died trying to summit K2 in winter. K2's first winter ascent happened in January of this year, by a Nepalese team, but climbers are still trying for the accolade of first K2 winter ascent by all the other different nationalities.

K2 also has a different climbing season than Everest as it's 900 miles further north and has a more extreme climate. It's usually attempted in August.

R164, the deaths are listed on wiki. I have no insider knowledge. I rarely climb hills, myself.

R165 Thank you.

I see that the Sheikha of Qatar is attempting to climb.

Place has become a tourist destination. Soon there will be a McDonald's at base camp.

ONTD: Pop singer Mike Posner plans to climb Mt. Everest, the world's tallest mountain, even though he does not have any major climbing experience. He claims that he has been training for a year and a half, but does not mention any summitting any major peaks. His other physical venture was walking 2,851 miles across the U.S. in 2019.

It's foolish to climb Everest without having attempted another, easier 8000m peak to see how you fare at altitude. Many can't cope at all even with bottled oxygen and Sherpas carrying all their gear. Cho Oyu is usually the one people pick for a trial run. A lot of the 8000m mountains are more difficult to climb than Everest, such as Nanga Parbat, Annapurna and K2.

If you've ever felt sick on a low-ish mountain (such as 4000m) or felt faint standing up on a crowded train (the faintness will be due to lack of oxygen) your lungs probably aren't up to the task of summiting Everest.

Good point r172. I have never felt as tired as I have been on skiing vacations. I'd do fairly well while on the mountain, but once we packed it in for the day and had a bite to eat, I would literally pass out and sleep like the dead for ten hours. There is no night life for me at altitude. I could never have been a climber.

I'm the same, R173. On a vacation in Tenerife, we went on a coach/cable car trip to the top of Mount Teide, which is only 3,715 m. However, we went from sea level to the top in less than two hours. Most people in the party were fine but I had a terrible headache and felt sleepy. I even took the codeine tablets that I have for migraines but they didn't work, and then back at sea level it miraculously disappeared.

I think Nepal requires you to have climbed another 8000er before you try Everest. You won't get a permit if you haven't.

People, please stop sending rich fucks your money through gofundme. SMH

....

R177-- That took my breath away. It is breathtakingly beautiful, and heart pounding at the same time. That little, tiny ledge! 😲

And deadly.

Same vantage point, a dead climber still hanging on the ropes. In the comments, a guy identifies the dead climber as his dad, Don Cash. RIP

I remember him, R177. How surreal that must have been for his son. That is the very best, most detailed footage that I have ever watched. It made my heart beat fast watching it. Incredibly dangerous. Interesting article I found about new rules for climbers. Apparently the Nepalese government is still upset about that footage of backlogged climbers getting out to the public/media. They are trying to prevent that from happening again, but I can not see how they will be able to enforce this.

The guy who took that photo was the top mountaineer Nims Purja who was the first man to summit K2 in winter last January. He also summited all fourteen 8000 metre peaks in just seven months.

Thank you. I was reading that NYT'S article about him. Very impressive and that was a very impressive team. That mountain is really fascinating to me. Much more dangerous than Everest. They really got a massive break weather-wise on that summit. The winds are rarely that calm according to the article. Congratulations to all.

A winter summit of K2 was the last major feat left in mountaineering and Nims did incredibly well to achieve it. He also made sure his team all set foot on the summt at the same time so he didn't just bag the glory for himself. I read his autobiography about summiting the fourteen 8000-ers and it was fascinating.

Imagine living most of your life in a traffic jam just so you can save up enough cash to sit in a traffic jam on top of a fucking mountain.

And freezing your ass off R184. Not fun, entertaining or relaxing. If I spend that much money on my valued vacations it had better be in a private villa in Bora Bora with natives bringing me mai tais and a private beach.

[quote]Covid doesn't thrive at high altitude and any cases could be helicoptered off the mountain from Base Camp to Kathmanu hospital.

That's right, someone will always be there to risk their ass rescuing yours.

'That's right, someone will always be there to risk their ass rescuing yours.'

Only if you can pay 2k for a one way trip.

151 permits issued so far.

Link to article about the number of permits issued so far.

I wonder how it feels like to be surrounded by so much death. I watched some docu about the life of Sherpas and the various jobs they have on the mountain and during expeditions. One kitchen team of one of the bigger tours was looking for fresh snow to cook tea and while they were scooping up the top layer of snow into a bucket, they came upon a mummified hand of a climber who died who knows how many years or decades, probably falling into a cravass and the Kumbu Icefall shoved and grinded his body down to basecamp eventually.

Dead bodies are everywhere on the mountain. Camp 4 is littered with frozen bodies.

R190 The issue is clearance and disposal at such a high altitude. The effort to retrieve or dispose of bodies so high must be an awful problem.

160 climbers headed to BC as of yesterday. Wildfires in Nepal are hampering air operations.

Has anyone else seen the documentary Sherpa on Netflix? Filmed during the 2014 Everest season when 16 Sherpa were killed in the Icefall disaster Very interesting.

I've seen it R193.

Very devastating to see that so many Sherpas lost their lives and that they have so little job opportunities other than risking their lives on Everest.

The Sherpa have lost three seasons on the mountain since 2014 and some must be struggling. They'll be glad to see the climbers back.

I wonder where all the money is going that the Nepalese government makes from Everest. Hopefully into things that benefit all like education and social services.

I was tempted to start a new thread about her, but I figure it'd be best to ask this thread instead. I don't know too much about Mount Everest, but every year I enjoy reading about Everest season.

I just learned about Elizabeth Hawley, the American woman in Nepal who kept track of expeditions on the Himalayas, I didn't know about her and she sounded so fascinating. I never thought about official treks of climbers being checked and verified! Does anyone know anything else about her? The entire culture around climbing Everest is so fascinating.

R190, your interest in the dead bodies on Everest is how these threads started years ago- poor "Green Boots" was up there so long, he was used as a guide marker. Also, the 'rainbow valley' was named for the many bodies in the snow, their brightly colored outerwear sticking out on the endless white.

I just finished watching the Sherpa documentary on Prime and I am disgusted by the way the westerners treat the Napali people.

R197, yes Hawley was a formidable character and would chide leaders who'd lost members of the expedition on the mountain. She features a lot in mountaineering literature.

Anybody dead yet?

They seem to be acclimatising at Base Camp, which is looking quite dry for the time of year. A dry mountain with no snow isn't the easiest climb.

^ "The first NFL player to climb Everest..."

Geez, my eyes are rolling hard at that.

If the climb doesn't get you, The 'rona will. Look what showed up...

I had a sneaking suspicion that Rona would show up.

Well, the season is fucked, then?

I hope all their covid lung problems kick in when they’re beyond help.

Is that bad?

They won't cancel the season over one case. Not when these hoes have spent 50k each.

On Wednesday, Outside magazine first reported a climber at base camp had been evacuated by helicopter for what was believed to be high-altitude pulmonary edema and tested positive for the coronavirus upon arriving at a hospital in Kathmandu last week. The New York Times subsequently revealed that in fact there had been multiple climbers who tested positive after being flown out of Base Camp.

- Washington Post

R209 There is never just one case of Covid...

Per Alan Arnette's blog, it's going to be just as crowded on Everest as it was in 2019, when 11 people died, many due to human traffic jams holding up ascent/descent.

I wonder how many will die this year due to overcongestion.

Many will die of congestion - of the slopes and of the lungs.

2021 climbing fees.

R2 : and sure enough...

[italic]I LOVE IT ! !

Covid deaths, HAPE deaths, HACE deaths, fatal falls - the corpse count will be higher than ever on Everest this year.

"We can be almost sure there have been other cases already this year that were misdiagnosed or hidden, and that there will be more," said Adrian Ballinger, the founder of Alpenglow Expeditions, which chose to cancel its Everest treks this spring. With infections rising in Nepal as neighboring India grapples with an out-of-control outbreak that is driving a global surge, the crowded camps and their rotating crew of porters and yak drivers provide "the perfect setup for a superspreader event," Ballinger said.

Making matters even worse, many common coronavirus symptoms bear a close resemblance to the symptoms of altitude sickness and the "Khumbu cough" that often plagues climbers at high altitudes.

Has Nepal been hit with oxygen shortages, like India has?

Hard to justify taking valuable oxygen supplies by climbing Everest, whilst thousands struggle for air to breath.

So, what happens to all the money they've paid to climb? Do they lose it or get refunded?

Excellent point, R219. The super rich asshole climbers should be forced to abandon their expeditions and donate the oxygen to Indian hospitals. Sherpas should still get paid though.

'So, what happens to all the money they've paid to climb? Do they lose it or get refunded?'

Depends on their insurance. A lot of climbers were uninsured against the acts of God that occurred with the serac collapse and the avalanche in 2014 and 2015 respectively. I think a mega, mega expensive insurance would probably pay out for a covid breakout.

Snuggling together for body warm will increase the covid transmissions.

[quote] What are Nepal's entrance rules like?

I think you can be a head in a bed & Nepal will allow a Sherpa pull you up in a basket.

It's absolutely obscene people climbing, when so many people are dying due to the lack of oxygen.

Thanks for the laugh R224

I don't know what these idiots are thinking. Aggressive covid strains are everywhere in that region and I doubt the Nepali gov even requires people to test for the virus on entry.

I almost forgot about Mount Everest climbing season! Maybe there will be another big avalanche this year as karmic retribution for the rich fucks hogging oxygen, R225.

All seems to have gone quiet because of India being a fucked up shit hole.

Nepal isn't doing much better. I guess that contagion will spread over the border.

The concern is that civil disobedience will start in India as a result of the lack of medical facilities. God knows how that would pan out.

Best time to climb mount Everest when a deadly respiratory virus is killing thousands of people in the neighboring country.

That was an updated report on Covid in Nepal in this morning's Guardian.

Summary of post at r232 : Nepal is as fucked at the moment as India is, if not more so.

Well, there goes our Mount Everest thread for this year.

My warmest and most supportive thoughts to anyone, anywhere going through the hellscape that is COVID.

And there IS COVID on Everest! Norwegian climber tests positive and is evacuated from base camp, a Sherpa has also reportedly tested positive! Yes, there IS a contagious respiratory virus on the loose in the filthy conditions of Everest Base Camp!

Hoo boy, this year should be a clusterfuck to remember, because anyone who's spent six figures and invested their ego into an Everest climb isn't going to want to quit now. They're going to want to form the same close line of gasping climbers as the last ten years....

Absolutely R234

I think that some of the climbers are going to want to go more so now, so that they can say that not only did they beat the mountain but they beat Covid too.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Holy shit, the COVID outbreak at Everest Base Camp is so bad campers are actually leaving voluntarily! First case was actually two weeks ago, and reportedly 30 people have been flown out with respiratory symptoms and tested positive for COVID at the hospitals!

Anyone returning from Everest needs to be quarantined, if they're allowed to enter their home countries at all. If any of this is true, and a lot of this is based on people's social media posts, then this is BAD. The typical crowded, carefree, fuckfest environment of Base Camp is a good place for the virus to spread like wildfire, and apparently it already has.

R237 Damn....that's an alarming (though not surprising) rate of acceleration from what was reported at r204 on the 21st.

Are they dead yet?

[QUOTE] Imagine a line like this forming, with hundreds of people crowding up and down a trail six inches wide, all desperately gasping for breath, and with a fatal drop on either side... and one person in that line is in the asymptomatic but contagious state of COVID

They're all wearing oxygen masks at that stage so they wouldn't become infected. I think a lot of these rich bastards will have made sure that they were vaccinated before heading off to Nepal.

The worry, of course, is not just them going, but returning home with the Indian Covid variant.

408 permits have been granted, a record number, but expeditions aren't allowed to socialise with each other.

Nepal is riddled with the Indian variant and is doing nothing to contain it. Countries like Aus, NZ and the UK who have covid under control will soon place Nepal on their banned list and the millionaire climbers won't be allowed back home.

NZ has reopened travel with India so please, do not expect common sense from our Government at this time.

NZ will find themselves on the Aus banned list if that continues, R244.

Jacinda lost all credibility when she refused to criticize China for its forced labor tactics. She's nothing but a Jill Stein with a better cover, which is slowly coming forward.

Nims Purja posted from Camp 1.

Everest blogger Mark Horrell just tweeted this -

Domestic flights in Nepal suspended from Tuesday due to covid. Decision time for expeditions at Everest Base Camp, who now have just 2 days to fly their climbers out.

Are they all going to abandon base camp or stick around to summit and then helicopter out to Kathmandu and get on their international flights?

No copters either. If they all abandon ship our thread will be dead for the second year runnning and fourth year since 2014. Sherpas will still expect to be paid.

POSTED ON2. MAY 2021

Climbing season on Mount Everest on the brink?

The corona situation in Nepal is escalating. Today, authorities in the Himalayan state registered 7,137 new Covid-19 infections, more than ever before in one day. Forty-three percent of the tests carried out were positive, another record since the pandemic began more than a year ago. The last doubts should now be dispelled: The current explosive spread of the coronavirus in neighboring India has spilled over into Nepal. The Nepalese Ministry of Health had already sounded the alarm on Friday. “The health system is not able to cope and a situation has already arisen in which hospital beds cannot be made available,” the ministry let it be known. Hospitals lack not only beds but also oxygen to ventilate the critically ill.

Domestic flights suspended from Tuesday

Lukla airfield, the gateway to the Everest region

Today, the government decided to suspend all domestic flights from 0 a.m. local time Tuesday until further notice. International flights to and from states particularly hard hit by the pandemic – including India – are to be suspended at midnight next Wednesday.

The halt to domestic flights is particularly likely to affect climbers on Mount Everest and Nepal’s other high mountains. From Tuesday onwards, it will no longer be possible to take a helicopter from base camp to Kathmandu. It has not yet been announced whether rescue flights will also be affected by the suspension of air traffic.

R134 = Richard Carpenter.

[quote]How does that achievement benefit mankind?

Does everything have to benefit mankind? Can’t someone do something in their life just for themselves without harpies like you bitching about it? If you think it is so horrible and wrong and detrimental to the world that 300 people this year climb a mountain, then get off this fucking thread and start a GOFUNDME for India.

Fucking sick of you naysayers.

R251 Are you new on these threads?

I’m not new at all. But I’m so sick of you self-righteous fuckers I could spit.

How dare they climb while India is suffering! Well, how dare people go to weddings, or fly, or attend church without protocols while elderly people are near?

I want to hear the stories, the history, the new developments, how the weather is, the decisions that have to be made. Not the CONTINUOUS bashing and complaining about the people climbing who, btw, are providing content for this thread!

You hand-wringers can fuck right off.

R253 Yep, twiggered.

And your point?

We don't fucking need a hall monitor here. And never have.

I agree R253, there's obviously a huge fascination about mountaineering, if I were physically fit I would try to climb an 8 thousander. Curiosity and the desire to achieve is natural to mankind.

The problem with Everest is the commercialization of the climb and all the negative aspects that go along with it. If the Nepali government were smart they would demand from climbers to have scaled at least 5 other 8 thousanders before they can attempt Everest. They would still be making money and it would reduce the numbers of climbers on Everest each season.

"How dare they climb while India is suffering! "

Who the fuck thinks it was a good idea to come to India and adjacent countries during an out-of-control pandemic?

Seriously, how stupid are these people at Base Camp?

They are driven to climb.

OT, I still think Judd lied about her breaking bones. That family thrives on drama and lies.

Back on topic. There should be NO "winners" this year, should climbs be allowed. Think of any summiting achievement with an asterisk beside it. A bit ugly fat one that screams "selfish whore"". (MARY!) Because given what we know now, many climbers attempting the summit have something new to die from now, and if not themselves, the Sherpas working hard to put money on the table by dragging some entitled cunt up the mountain are in great danger.

Sherpas who refuse to go along with "big bosses" have traditionally been ostracized (at best). Not just them, but their family/pod. So for them to turn down a job can mean a forever ban from doing their job. They are really stuck between a wicked big rock and an even harder place.

Also, should Joe/Jane Moneypants need to be helicoptered to the closest hospital for whatever reason, well Joe and Jane are in for quite a surprise as those hospitals are filled up past the tits. No room at the inn.

If the companies sponsoring this called a halt again for this season, the Sherpas could save face, as could the asshole (most of them, anyway) climbers, and when things sort out, they can try again. The climbers, most who are rich, could throw in a few thousand clams toward the Sherpas to let them get along until next year. These bitches wouldn't even feel it.

Not sure why, but it seems that people already installed on the mountain are doing what they can to keep the "dream" alive. This is going to end badly.

"Also, should Joe/Jane Moneypants need to be helicoptered to the closest hospital for whatever reason, well Joe and Jane are in for quite a surprise as those hospitals are filled up past the tits."

That's what pisses me off - the client climbers paid huge bucks to come to Nepal just as India is having a massive pandemic surge, which has overwhelmed the hospital system in nearly Nepal as well as India. So when these paying climbers come and share their viruses in their expensive little tents, they have a choice between taking up a hospital bed from the people that actually live there, or finding a way to flee the country and bringing the Indian variant viruses with them. Either way, they fuck over innocent people.

The climbing companies should have had contingency plans in place to cancel if the virus hit Base Camp, they've had over a year to get their shit together on this front. Assholes all around up there!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Mt. Everest is Covid.

The Indian/Nepal surge happened two weeks ago and most of the Everest climbers were already at Base Camp by then, acclimatising. Domestic flights are stopping on Wednesday until 17 May so that may not affect climbers.

Interesting Guardian article published half an hour ago

r265 Bad link, could you please repost? Thanks!

r265 Stinky linky.

it isn't just you, this time. The link stinks.

The link is too long to fit in the crappy DL format but search Everest Guardian and it will come up.

Is it this link? Why can't you look at the link and see that it's not the article. Also, don't use amp links.

Thank you for the link.

I don't think the cessation of domestic flights will affect the climbers as they're already at Base Camp and will try to summit in the first good weather window, probably this week or next. They can easily hang around until 17th when the domestic flights resume and some may not even attempt to summit until then. Nepal will probably make special arrangements to fly any stranded climbers back out at the end of May because they don't want to lose the goodwill of the mountaineering community.

I wonder if Pakistan will close down too, threatening K2 and some of the other 8000s.

[quote]R272 They can easily hang around until 17th when the domestic flights resume and some may not even attempt to summit until then.

I pray they all start eating each other, like the Donner Party.

I think the word we are all searching for on the sherpas is: exploitation. If you don’t have clarity on white privilege, here you go! White people come in to other cultures, actually they “invade” these cultures, and arrive with the most sublime entitlement you’ve ever seen, like they *deserve* this, and besides, I’m helping the sherpas by paying them, right? “If anything, those sherpas *owe* ME.”

So these climbers get to have this groovy, empowering Groupon mountaineering experience, while literally climbing over the backs of the sherpas. The symbolism is stark. It’s no different than George Floyd, the only missing ingredient is a climber(s) who actively engage in racist behavior — which I guarantee has happened numerous times and has resulted in all kinds of tragedy, up to and including death. The sherpas need advocates, they need someone who is trained to be the voice of the voiceless. People like the sherpas, the marginalized, they actually deserve special and exclusive treatment. Why? Because they can’t defend themselves. Rich, white westerners can afford to defend themselves and know how and understand how to advocate for their agenda, so the sherpas are at a disadvantage.

I’ve been on these threads for probably ten years now. It’s time we do some fundraising for these men, give them a show of support and a debt of gratitude for their work. Treat them with dignity.

[QUOTE] The sherpas need advocates, they need someone who is trained to be the voice of the voiceless. People like the sherpas, the marginalized, they actually deserve special and exclusive treatment. Why? Because they can’t defend themselves.

This is patronising bollocks. The Sherpas know how to defend themselves and brought the 2014 season to a halt by themselves because they refused to climb through the Ice Fall after the serac collapsed. Many Sherpa now own and staff their own expedition operations and the last thing they or the Sherpa employed by the western expeditions want is for the mountain to close down. Sherpa expedition staff earn at least twenty times the Nepalese average annual wage in two months on Everest. They are a militant people and when they didn't want to be on the mountain, they protested and walked away.

The tourism around Everest isn't a bad thing for Nepal. It's just that the government doesn't use the money it makes off Everest to help build an infrastructure that moves ordinary citizens out of poverty.

The money they get from selling 400 permits a year isn't enough to solve the country's woes, but climbing isn't the only way people in the Khumbu make money out of Everest tourists. All the teahouses, hotels and shops along the route get decent business too from climbers and trekkers.

Nepal has 8 of the 10 highest mountains. The government isn't just making money from Everest.

Corruption is high in Nepal, so the money probably mostly goes into the pockets of government officials, unfortunately.

^ like corruption in the US isn't pervasive.

^ enough with the whataboutism, Boris.

When did '^ ' replace the RXXX (XXX= reply number) on DL?

[Quote]“a total shitstorm. I had no idea what I was flying into.”

Really? Well, at least this climber left after a day.

R280, the USA ranks lower than Nepal on pretty much all corruption indexes that I know of. (Not just the one I linked to.)

"Besides having landlocked, rugged geography, few tangible natural resources and poor infrastructure, the ineffective post-1950 government and the long-running civil war are also factors in stunting the country's economic growth and development.[208][209][210] Debt bondage even involving debtors' children has been a persistent social problem in the western hills and the Terai, with an estimated 234,600 people or 0.82% of the population considered as enslaved, by The Global Slavery Index in 2016.[211]"

38% of Nepal live on $1.50/day.

Debtors bondage is a significant issue in former colonial empires. Haiti's former SLAVES were forced to pay off to French sugar planations & other interests to Europe as it languished well into the 20th Century as the Duvaliers raped Haiti on behalf of French corporate interests.

It's not that hard to understand, right?

Will the moron ranting on about how evil and impoverished the US is compared to Nepal get the fuck off this thread and back to one about Trump or Biden where you can slag off the US to your heart's content. You are tedium personified and completely off topic.

Of course corruption is high when a Putin puppet sits in the White House, duh!

Picture of the day in the Telegraph is mountaineers on Everest rather than at Base Camp. Maybe in the Western Cym by the look of it - what do you think? Seems they have stayed on the mountain rather than rushing back to Kathamandu.

Actually, having taken another look at it, the photo might be of the Ice Fall.

It does look like the Ice Fall. Thanks!

Are there any attempts from the North Side this year or did China close Tibet for foreigners?

Nepalese gov is denying that there is covid at Base Camp. From the BBC today:

Base camp officials said they had received reports of 17 confirmed cases from hospitals in the capital Kathmandu, where a number of climbers have been sent from the base camp and higher camps to be treated.

And staff at a private hospital in Kathmandu, the CIWEC clinic, confirmed to the BBC that patients had tested positive for coronavirus after arriving from Everest base camp.

The Nepalese government has so far denied having any knowledge of positive cases at Everest base camp, raising concerns that officials are downplaying the extent of the situation out of fear it will bring more pressure to close the mountain to expeditions.

Foreign climbers are a major source of revenue for the Nepalese government, which shut Everest last year during the pandemic.

Authorities are mandating that visiting climbers quarantine in Nepal before proceeding to base camp, but concerns have been raised within the climbing community that a serious outbreak at the mountain would be devastating.

The number of coronavirus cases has risen sharply in Nepal in recent weeks, and the country has the highest rate of infection among the countries neighbouring India, where a second wave has sparked a full-blown crisis.

Officials from Nepal's Department of Tourism, which directly oversees expeditions, could not be reached for comment, but Prem Subedi, the under-secretary at Nepal's Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, told the BBC the ministry was not aware of any coronavirus cases at base camp.

"None of the Covid cases at Everest base camp have been reported so far to the Ministry of Tourism," he said.

[quote]Authorities are mandating that visiting climbers quarantine in Nepal before proceeding to base camp

How is that supposed to happen? Do they have quarantine hotels where they lock themselves away for 14 days with somebody bringing them food and doing their laundry?

I seriously doubt it.

I don't understand how anybody can still be so naive about this virus.

Nobody is checking that the climbers are quarantining anywhere. They'll ignore it and go out partying in the bars before heading off to Lukla.

The government's denial is just proof of how much they value the 8000 peaks trade. They've lost three seasons since 2013 and they're not going to lose another.

R257 Why?

This season is fucked.

Someone I have on "ignore" is all over this threat, specifically at R295 and R296.

I only put people on "ignore" if they're monumental assholes and/or racists, BTW.

Interesting.

I do love Everest Escandales!

R294, other countries have/had quarantine hotels...NZ, Australia, Singapore. I don’t see why Nepal can’t do it. If anything, it’s the climbers who will object to tacking on another two weeks at the beginning of their trip.

Nepal has third world infrastructure. Quarantine in those countries mentioned, means a 4/5 star hotel with security guards or police enforcing the quarantine.

In Nepal that would mean one Sherpa trying to contain a bunch of narcissists in tents/1* B&B. Just won't happen. There'd be room parties every night.

How can they party and drink nightly with an impending climb?

That’s a good article R299. Thanks.

What hubris and narcissism on the part of these climbers (not the sherpas, they HAVE to work) to think that they can outrun Mother Nature.

And imagine the jarring visuals: elderly Nepalese dying in little cots at barren hospitals due to lack of oxygen, while these well-heeled foreigners are sucking up oxygen for "fun" (or as the wise Ted Kaczynski put it accomplishing "surrogate activities") and when not climbing, get to relax on special mattresses/chairs carried up by sherpas for their comfort in Base Camp.

'How can they party and drink nightly with an impending climb?'

They drink and party DURING the climb. Even Nepalese Nims Purja's book was all about how he and his Sherpa team loved to drink beer and play loud rock music at the various camps going up the fourteen 8000 peaks he summitted in 2019. Everest Base Camp is like Glastonbury with plenty of music and drinking. Remember they are there for weeks acclimatising before they ever attempt to summit.

That idiot in the pic at R307 is back on Everest. Maybe he will be the first death on the mountain.

Jesus, horrendous frostbite on that guy's face at R307. I wonder if it healed up.

Have been following this thread for some time and find it really fascinating. Thanks datalounge! And here an interesting instagram post on the subject.

If only that were untreatable frostbite in r307

From the Washington Post:

By Júlia Ledur and Artur Galocha May 6, 2021

As India’s massive coronavirus wave spreads, neighboring Nepal is also quickly becoming overwhelmed. An average of 6,700 cases are now reported a day as of May 5, an increase from 1,100 just two weeks earlier. Even as the country faces its steepest coronavirus wave yet, it has kept its main tourist attraction, the Nepali side of Mount Everest, open to foreigners seeking to climb the world’s tallest mountain.

After the 2020 climbing season was canceled, this year a record number of 408 expedition permits have been issued for the peak, leaving climbers to work out rules to contain the spread of the virus. Now growing concerns of a coronavirus outbreak at the mountain cast doubt on the safety of climbers and locals after multiple people were evacuated from base camp and later tested positive for the virus.

Nepal’s second coronavirus wave far surpasses its first.

Daily reported cases as of May 5 - 8500

Nepal’s Department of Tourism requires a negative coronavirus test 72 hours before entering the country. But in late March the government removed a seven-day quarantine requirement, in an attempt to revive the country’s $2 billion tourism industry that contributes roughly 8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Everest expeditions alone contributed more than $300 million to the economy in 2019.

Once on the mountain, climbers have no way to access tests unless they bring their own. “We don’t have tests,” said Prakash Karel, a doctor who treats patients at the Everest base camp, explaining that the clinic he works at doesn’t have laboratory permission to test for the virus. “And high altitude makes it difficult to identify covid from cough and HAPE [high-altitude pulmonary edema], which is common here.”

Permits this year are at a record high, even more than 2019 when that epic traffic jam was photographed.

And teams are locked down and keeping mum about the virus. I feel sorry for the folks working at Everest ER, especially when faced with a potential Covid patient. The regular cough everyone gets can be nasty and difficult to distinguish from Covid.

The weather window this year is huge so the temptation to summit even if a climber is feeling unwell, will be huge.

What you bitches really want to know is how big is the potential for disaster this year? You’ll be happy to hear that it’s as big as ever: lack of snow meaning hard ice in places, longer walk through the Khumbu Icefall, many climbers hauling themselves up the mountain without oxygen, and posh teams who believe they have this virus threat hardwired and nailed.

Start freezing your favorite ice-cream in preparation for as soon as the next few days.

Well has anybody died yet? Slow start to the season. I hope it picks up soon.

I'm putting on my 🍿 as we speak

Hello my fiendish friends ! So happy to be reunited on this thread. Are you all ready for Everest Mountain Death Jam 2021? With special guest Miss Covid- don't fuck with me fellows-19? Just to be clear I want to say clearly that I mean no disrespect to anyone and I wish no one to die. Except arrogant rich pricks who lack a fucking conscious and only want to feed their insatiable ego by buying an accomplishment they did not earn and trashing a beautiful, magnificent,mountain. Them I take gleeful delight in mocking unmercifully. So please don't try to shame or sjw warrior me. I only have scorn for that virtual signaling tripe. Thank you in advance. Are we going to place a bet on this year's number of deaths? I will bet 19.

Potential for a high mortality rate is good as the mountain is unusually dry, meaning they have to utilise complex rock climbing techniques at altitude instead of plodding over snow.

I think Nimsdai Purja - who in January led the first team to summit K2 in winter - is going to bag the first ascent this year. Because he's from Nepal and his team are Sherpas, he's allowed to go ahead and fix his own ropes, not that he needs very many.

I wish it were like The Hunger Games, where fans/followers sent their favorite players gifts of soup, blankets, etc.

But instead of sending them things, I’d pay to have stuff taken away.

I wish there were White Walkers running around Everest, picking off climbers (not the Sherpas).

@R319- 🤭

We could start a list of mean things to do to the rich climbers.

Spike their coffee with syrup of ipecac.

Ipecac has a really strong, unpleasant taste so they would know their drinks had been spiked.

Who the Mother Fucking Fuck is this "Frank" who liked to put people on their very edge of survival? Gawdalmighty. He's a swift prosecution evader.

Social distancing is now to be enforced on the summit?!

Video is worth a watch for the poncy toffs

Krauer wrote of the queueing and backlog of climbing in the 1990s, long before the Yellow Brick Road. Imagine how bad it is now.

The last guy interviewed on this BBC segment R324 might want to spent some of the money cast aside for his next summit on fixing his teeth. Probably a much more useful endeavour.

Anyone interested in the other mountains? I was looking them up and saw that K2, the second highest mountain in the world, has had five deaths on it in February of this year as well as one in January:

Ali Sadpara (Pakistan), Juan Pablo Mohr Prieto (Chile), John Snorri Sigurjonsson (Iceland), Atanas Skatov (Bulgaria), and Sergi Mingote (Spain).

Any more deaths, or evacuees?

R327 - imagine trying to summit K2 in winter! Suicide mission. Only one team has succeeded and they were all from Nepal.

Plenty have summitted. First two fatalities.

And honestly? Fuck this site and these stupid pop up videos which jump into the reply box and have to be closed. When closed, they try to take you to the ad anyway.

The height difference between Everest and K2 is 200 meters but the latter is much more difficult to climb. Imagine an earthquake/landslide that somehow lops off the top of Everest.

K2 is where Alison Hargreaves died at age 33. I remember thinking that she was just going to keep climbing and rolling the dice until she died. (Since this is an Everest thread, she was the first woman to summit Everest alone without supplementary oxygen and without support from Sherpas.)

She'd climbed the Eiger while six months pregnant with her son, Tom Ballard. And then when Tom himself was 30, he died climbing Nanga Parbat. I remember being fascinated at that. Family patterns pass down or what??

Nepal and China in December last year jointly announced that the revised height of the world's highest peak was 8,848.86 metres, about 86 centimetres more than the previous measurement done by India in 1954.

First person to summit this new official altitude? A Bahrain Prince. Lol.

R332 What a story, thank you. I need to look further into the story of Alison and her son.

Thanks R330

R334, a biography alleged that she was beaten by her husband and that she was driven to seek fame for money because her husband’s climbing equipment business had failed; the phone was disconnected, her car repossessed and they could not afford to heat the house. Not long after they lost their home to bailiffs. The link has some of her diary entries about the beatings. O_O

It’s summit week! 🏔

Two people have died on the descent.

Summit week is my favorite! I bet this year is going to be rough, and we're just starting.

R332, I read a book about Alison Hargreaves. She reached the summit but was literally torn from the mountain on the way down by hurricane force winds. They found her harness covered in blood. What a tragedy that her son Tom died on an 8000 peak too. Similar to Whitney and her daughter Bobbie taking a fatal overdose in the bath or Paula Yates and Peaches both dying of a heroin overdose.

I heard on NPR that climbers have been requested to take their oxygen tanks back down the mountain with them, as they’re in short supply in the country.

Will ANYONE do this?

All of the oxygen tanks should be donated to the hospitals filled with Covid patients. If you summit Everest this year, you should do so without supplemental oxygen. Make it a real challenge.

[quote]R233 Alison Hargreaves reached the summit but was literally torn from the mountain on the way down by hurricane force winds... What a tragedy that her son Tom died on an 8000 peak, too.

How is it “tragic” when people die from willful stupidity?

[Quote]Similar to Whitney and her daughter Bobbie taking a fatal overdose in the bath or Paula Yates and Peaches both dying of a heroin overdose.

Uh no, Hargreaves and son were not a couple of drugged out useless celebs.

R336. That is so sad to hear about Hargreaves being beaten by her husband. Damn. I hope she found happiness climbing.

R343, you could say that climbing is like a fairly useless and dangerous addiction too though. It just has some kind of veneer of respectability because it's more middle class?

Zzzzzzzz

A Sherpa climber has died after falling into a crevasse just below Camp II this morning. Pemba Tashi Sherpa was a five-time Everest summiteer.

Oh that's sad.

Only three deaths so far and we're into the third week of May.

I am actually sad to hear it when Sherpas die on Everest.

Oh for fuck's sake, if people DIE trying to facilitate your hobby, it's time to find a new hobby!

Do the Pacific Crest Trail or sky diving if you need challenges, hobbies where nobody's risking their lives but yourself.

It's not as if these Nepalis have many career options.

Either climb the mountain or live a subsistence lifestyle.

Poor sherpa dies carrying these assholes' stuff around, and his family only gets around $5000.

Adopt a sherpa.

Sherpas are neat.

Honey, You Got A Big Storm Coming

Now there are an incredible number of teams waiting to attend, so I’m afraid that the photos and fatalities that I saw in 2019 will be repeated again this year. There are now more than 300 clients and 500 Sherpas on their way. There will be a small window now around May 20, where many are planning to go, and in addition, there is a huge monsoon on its way over India that could help define, and possibly stop, the full climb that is now, says Locke and adds:

There are a lot of doubts here now, so I’m afraid things will happen on that mountain. I’m so happy that I was awake, and that we have a very smart and intelligent team captain who manages to be fast.

- Frank Locke, 41, Norwegian who summited yesterday

Watch out, bitches, it's Monsoon Season.

Dinner party on Mount Everest!

The entitlement, cluelessness, and unmitigated greed in that picture. It's everything I loathe about humanity in one photo.

Yes, R359, those people should be shoved over the mountain as a sacrifice to Miyolangsangma (the goddess who lives atop Everest).

[italic][bold]Why can’t they just die, already ? ?

I’m not a violent person, but I agree with R359/R360.

I can imagine some were wondering, “what does one wear to a dinner party on Mt. Everest?” A good DL question, haha.

Their sherpas must loathe them.

I would rather be chilling on a nice sand beach in Santa Barbara than a rocky beach in Cornwall.

At least 77 Sherpas have tested positive for Covid-19.

“Every day now there are people that are being evacuated [by helicopter] from Base Camp that have tested positive for Covid-19,” said Lukas Furtenbach, the owner of Furtenbach Adventures.

On Friday, Mr Furtenbach became the first tour operator to cancel his group summit of Mount Everest due to the outbreak of cases at Base Camp.

“We had a Sherpa who was perfectly fit one day and then within 24 hours, we had him in a helicopter to Kathmandu. There are a lot of sick Sherpas isolating in their tents and the number is increasing every day.”

“Other teams don’t care at all. People were having big parties and gatherings and whole teams were sharing one big tent,” said one foreign tour operator. “The last big party was on Sunday and it was just so stupid when you already have Covid infections in the camp.”

I'd wish for an earthquake or avalanche to wipe out base camp after reading that, but only if it spared the Sherpas and local people who are just trying to earn a living in a developing nation.

Very late in the season for summits.

R362, I would assume one would not wear green boots.

[QUOTE] is starting to come out, [R48], his wife and the supergluing eyes shut as sorority "hazing" indicates both are sociopaths. God help those isolated kids, the one was already pushed into a pap/merch stroll at aged 1 with a concerning swollen cheek.

This manic schizo is responsible for 50% of the posts on this thread. She thinks that one blurry pap pic equals 'merching', even though MM didn't supply the press with any details of where she bought Archie's outfit. This is a big contrast to the HUGE merching evident on the Cambridges' youtube channel. The Mail had all the details of the family's outfits and the Scotland and Norfolk tourist boards also paid the mercenary couple to make sure they got a mention in their lifestyle video.

Sad little R51 is a Larry Stylinson tinhat who lives in a Qanon world where every internet rumour becomes fact. She believes from the bottom of her gullible little heart that MM and Harry abuse animals and children and pay millions every month in PR fees to get People and the UK tabloids to write about them.

Sorry guys, wrong thread.

I'm sure you Everest people will LOVE this breaking news about 100 Everest climbers being infected with COVID and Nepal trying to deny it!

I do appreciate that, R370. I hope all the people at R358 are among that number.

Selfish, impatient fucks. They couldn't wait for the pandemic to be properly over; they had to fly over and help spread coronavirus in Nepal, a poor country.

Interesting article from today.

R373 Interesting?

Is this mount Everest in the picture??? Maybe the north col route.

20 Chinese runners died on another mountain of HAPE.

Another Sherpa dead.

[quote]Wong Dorchi Sherpa who was a part of Seven Summits Club expedition, breathed his last near South Col above 8,000 m, base camp sources confirmed. Efforts are underway to retrieve his body.

Elia Saikaly wrote an instagram post about what it's like this year and I can't help but think: yet he still does it and is part of that..

Meh, just another I'm better than the other 400 egoists who also climbed this season.

When do the Sherpas start pushing these assholes off the Sacred mountain, or rigging cables to fail?

You know this already but they want the $$$. They could stay home and be poor, after all.

RIP Sherpa.

The recent teams have really pushed their endurance in the last 2-3 days, staying much too long at the South Col/Camp 3 in order to avoid the winds on the summit. Another death was inevitable although I was expecting an exhausted foreign client to be a casualty.

Is it just me, or do there seem to be more Sherpa deaths than rich cunt deaths this year? Or is it just because we are pro Sherpa and anti cunt that I'm hearing it that way?

R383, there have been 2 Sherpa deaths, 2 rich cunt deaths this year so far.

Sherpas do most of the work which is why they are probably proportionately at higher risk of dying.

Thanks r384 Only 2 rich cunt deaths? Everest better step it up.

The snap at r358 makes me want to do bad (but would they be *so* bad?) things. If there is one pack of cunts like that, you know there are more...like cockroaches.

Sponsor banners on Mt. Everest is so, so, wrong.

That climber should print the name of the guy who littered, and the sponsors names. Shame the fuck out of them on social media.

What's this nonsense about China building a wall on the north side of Everest? That cilmber made it sound like it was going to be built on the summit.

I took it as Chinese geopolitical posturing, rather than a meaningful public health activity R387, given the tiny numbers of people involved, given China's vast population. They were sending a message to India, via Nepal to step off their grass.

R388 Fucking hall monitors.

Aim High Narcissists!

Every year some media site has an essay by some millennial waaahing over the “exploitation” of sherpas by “wealthy white foreigners” (despite the fact than large numbers of South & East Asians climb Everest every year with the help of sherpas). Poor sherpas, they wail, they are so poor they have no choice but to trek along with westerners (again - plenty of Asians up there) and they have to CARRY STUFF like beasts of burden.

Meanwhile, sherpas are making good money. Most survive and lots of them have homes in the US. When Nepal had its last earthquake, a plane load of Nepalese/Sherpa nurses from New York took personal time from their jobs and flew home. Sherpas are like everyone else - they do jobs where they could die or get injured because it means a better life for their children. Look how many of us had ancestors who were miners or worked building railroads through blasted mountains or were medical workers during epidemics in the days before antibiotics. Enough of this “poor sherpas” whine. They’re capitalists, just like everyone else.

R391, when was the last time you even considered a job where "most survive"??? When was the last time you had a job where you could "die or get injured"???

Okay, I spent the last year at a job where I could indeed die and get injured, which was working in an ICU during a pandemic with inadequate PPE. I hated it, it was monumentally stressful, but I did it in order to save other peoples LIVES, not to help Type A assholes meet the goal they've set for this year's vacation.

R392, that poster is writing from 1948 Cicero, IL. I wouldn’t pay it much mind.

R393, that is a very specific burn. One I understand + approve.

Report on tonight's Channel 4 news about the rise in Covid cases in Nepal and lack of ventilator beds.

NBC celebrating those reaching the summit like the old American geezer. No mention of Covid or anything but FUN.

I hope the Narcissists don't bring any unwanted coughs and colds home with them.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

R398 So not content with just death on the mountain, these Narcissists are bringing home a new variant, which will kill people back home!

Whoa, what a twist to the tale! There were hardly any deaths of Everest this year, but the rich whores have brought back a deadly variant.

[Quote]Most survive and lots of them have homes in the US.

Nepalese sherpas who work Everest have homes in the U.S.?

^ Yeah. And you must love “most survive”. Then really what are they complaining about?

One of the dumbest posts of the year!

You might like to know about the most successful female Everest climber, a Sherpa, who is also a Real Housewife of Connecticut:

(I learned about her on one of these threads, maybe 3 years ago.)

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Only five people died on Everest - a very slow year for us.

That is low.

Will there be any Covid Delta residual deaths I wonder?

I feel like I can relate to sports team fans for once: well, guys, maybe next year! I'll see you here.

George Mallory movie in the works.

Thanks - I'll definitely be watching that film.

I’m on the fence. Will anyone die in the movie??

That’s not a slimming outfit @ R378

[bold]: (

Mallory and Sandy Irvine die, R410.