Mount Everest Ethical Dilemma

A hike through the Himalayas might be physically taxing but it's just that, a hike. Not an attempt to climb an 8000m+ mountain. Mandating guides for hikers doesn't make Everest any safer but it might keep hikers from getting robbed or murdered. Now, the rules seem like they should also apply to the solo climbers on Everest, in which case it would probably help corral crazies like that turk with the bicycle, but as far as I can tell most of the fools unfit to climb Everest are doing so in groups which already had to hire local guides. The only way to keep those fools from dying is to actually mandate climbing experience in order to secure climbing permits.

That's a good point. As the article notes

I think the former is far more easy for the government to control than the latter; they should further get involved in the licensing of travel agencies to ensure that they are meeting minimum safety standards unlike what the fly-by-nighters that keep killing their tourists are doing. But ultimately reducing the traffic jam would be huge and it needs to be clear to Nepal that anything else is sending stupid people to die alongside capable adventurers, and that it's going to hurt their PR if "stupid" rather than adventurous becomes the durable stereotype.

Even experienced outfits aren't immune though -- The group in Krakauer's book was a very experienced tour group.

I'm not sure what your point is. In any high-risk activity immunity from harm is not a reasonable goal unless you are making an argument for banning the activity altogether. The group in Into Thin Air was certainly uneven at best in terms of skills (my favorite was the person who trained exclusively on stairmasters), and subject to the traffic jam phenomenon driving sub-optimal decisionmaking as well as bad luck iirc. It's hard to say which was the most important variable beyond not being in the wrong place at the wrong time itself, but it's just simple math that reducing the presence of negative factors that humans can control would make the mountain safer overall. What the cost-benefit looks like for each one from a Nepali perspective is, of course, a separate matter as this half-assed measure shows.

I was referring to the idea that it's just the fly-by-night groups that are killing people.

Reading through this and some of the opinions, I felt slightly affronted, mainly because I do an extreme sport myself, though not to the extent of mountaineering. I have been practicing competitive outdoor inline speed skating for nearly 16 years. From the moment you begin, either you or your parents (depending on your age) are told the risks. Then, throughout the time you spend on the sport, you are being constantly reminded by other athletes and coaches. In this sport, you are not allowed to forget about the risk factor. For instance, there are always 2 paramedic teams waiting at competitions because races are unpredictable and you never know if or when someone will fall.

In skating, there is always a danger factor. If you fall, injuries range from bruising to floor burns to shredded skin and broken bones. I have been rather fortunate because I have never broken anything though I have had to go to the hospital several times to receive stitches due to equipment that came loose in various falls with other people. My brother, on the other hand, has broken his arm at PRACTICE. I have been to many competitions in the last 13 years that I have competed where people have fallen in front of me or on me and had broken arms or legs, and because we race on the road, your skin is shredded, more often than not, so that part of your body looks like a slab or raw meat. Literally. (I have pictures to prove it.) In fact, at Outdoor Nationals this year, a girl had to be rushed to the hospital because she fell and hit the wall during a championship race at the Olympic Training Center Velodrome and hit her head twice, resulting in a severe concussion, a broken collar bone, a dislocated shoulder, and a fractured wrist. As a result, she was banned from competition for three months so she could heal. Its something that you grow up with in this sport.

However, if I just said that I skated, risks and dangers don't even come to mind. If you don't know the sport or hobby well enough, you can't know any of the risks. Sure, you can read about them in the research but it doesn't stay with you unless you experience it. This can also be applied to mountaineering because if you decide to go mountain climbing, researching alone won't prepare you for anything (except a paper test), nor will just one or two years of training. It requires a great deal of time to do anything on that level.

((Also I do realize that this is probably not that good of a comparison but it's the only way I could really relate to this issue.))

So... which opinions did you find offensive?

I was offended mostly by the opinion that in such a place as near the summit of Everest that it would be possible to save a dying person when you are already exhausting yourself to keep going in a harsh environment. Forgive me for all the sports analogies, but say you're in a national level race and someone falls. Can you actually stop your race in order to help someone who has stopped because they were not fully prepared or has given up? I am not saying this is the case all of the time but this is more or less the lifestyle I have been raised in. There are times when you can help someone in that situation but how can you if they don't want it or if you don't have the resources?

I take it you've never seen Cars.

Yes. In most races in most places, you can stop and be sure you can contribute something useful, assuming it's the kind of race where there wouldn't be spectators and supervision nearby. That's why analogies are less than helpful, as was clear at the very start of the thread. Everest creates an unusual combination of isolation, extreme conditions, and overcrowding along with fundamentally undercutting the accuracy of your judgment, especially with respect to a downed climber's survival chances and how assistance will affect your own survivability.

Rereading the thread, the consensus seemed to be that saving dying people near the top is nigh impossible. An opinion I agree with, by the way. So... *shrug*. Not sure what you got offended at. But in any case, I guess we agree, so there we are.

BTW... I agree with LK. Your analogy really didn't fit in any meaningful way. In most races, you can just stop & help people. (swimming being somewhat different, of course) But I think you were trying to illustrate the very point that we do agree on.

Jesus. That's a terrible, terrible idea. No tourism allowed in the zone would be a better approach but equally antic of course.

Of course it's a terrible idea. The point was that in some ways all of the "reasonable" solutions to the problem are all equally unreasonable.

Cable car is out due to weather, just like most permanent fixtures. Most of the climbing lines are ruined by the time winter is over and have to be reset. Anything larger would be wrecked after the first big storm.

Interesting article in Outside about Everest in 2012 (ten deaths in April - May this year) that touches on many of the same issues that were discussed here, including overcrowding, the ease of setting up climbing/tour guide companies, the lack of regulation around Everest and the lack of readiness and preparation of many climbers. The main thrust of the article is that the situation on Everest is actually worse now, in 2012, than it was in 1996 when several died in a single day, as related in Krakauer's book.

That article is somewhat incorrect unless it isn't counting Sherpa deaths. IIRC the first death on Everest this season was a Sherpa in the Khumbu Icefall.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. Where does the writer state that the first death on Everest in 2012 wasn't that Sherpa?

I assume Bill is referring to this:

That said, there still was only 10 deaths on Everest this year including the one in the Icefall (which was a stroke according to wiki).

Ah. Assuming that's what Bill's getting at, I don't think that line is intended as an authoritative summary of all deaths on Everest this year, but the deaths that occurred in the window when the writer was stationed at Base Camp earlier this spring.

Quibbling over details aside, it's a really interesting, unsettling read. It sounds like the overcrowding is getting worse due to more sophisticated, accurate weather forecasting, and the lack of any regulatory oversight regarding the guide companies means more unfit, unprepared people are attempting to summit. One of the deaths related in the article was a woman who'd never climbed any mountain before, who was pretty clearly conned out of tens of thousands of dollars by a company that encouraged her to book a climb with them despite being aware of her lack of experience.

The moral, to me: never, ever try to climb Everest. Even if you are actually capable of it, you will get stuck having to deal with many fools who are anything but. There are hundreds of other awesome mountains where you won't trip over corpses every few hundred yards, or slowly asphyxiate while you wait for idiots who've never climbed a mountain before trying to deal with the Hillary Step.

Knowing little about Everest, I've been following this thread with interest. It just now occurred to me to do an image search of "Hillary Step". Step?! Step?! That is not a step! Maybe if they called it the Hillary Frozen Clamber (of Doom) you'd get fewer inexperienced people trying to navigate it.

And yet it's considered a fairly straightforward feature, it wouldn't even be worth mentioning except it's at 29,000 feet. I wonder if climbing forums have an equivalent to our nerd rage thread, where people bitch about having to wait for the newbies to get their fingers out. I'm sure they do.

Yeah, sorry, I was assuming he was referring to the entire year and not just that period of time.

Talk about your compelling one-picture arguments. A Disneyland lineup with a higher chance of ignominious death.

Yeah, talk about enjoying the unrivaled majesty of the wilderness untouched by human... oh. Never mind.

And don't forget the Haunted Mansion statues:

OH WAIT, IT'S NOT A STATUE. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

Please do not show me that at this point in time.

Heh "Green Boots" (one of the bodies) is actually used as a landmark.

Behold the most awesome interactive Everest panorama! Switch to full screen and zoom and pan around - it's like a point&click adventure (the green squares are interactive).

https://s3.amazonaws.com/Gigapixel_Trees/Pumori_Spring2012_EBC_Full/EBC_Pumori_050112_8bit_FLAT.html

(source http://www.glacierworks.org/the-glaciers/pumori-spring-2012/ )

The green squares did nothing for me.

Still, pretty awesome. It's stunning just how bleak & desolate that landscape is. When I read about experienced people dying while climbing that thing, my first reaction is "how? If you know what's coming, and you've done it before, what's the problem?" Then I see actual pictures of the landscape, and I'm reminded "Oh... that's the problem. Now I remember."

They are fickle. You gotta click the frame I think - they change the point of view so you can actually look around standing on the glacier etc.

Woah! That's super cool! Thanks!

Waaaah, I want free thing to be better ;-) Seriously I wish they had green squares all the way up to the top showing all the major landmarks. GET ON IT, SOMEONE.

My boss just climbed a 6,500 meter peak in the Himalayas - the highest you can climb without doing real technical climbing - and yet they started out 12 all with some experience and when they reached the peak two weeks later, only six of them made the top. 4 had returned due to height sickness - one in a compression bag - and of the three groups doing the final climb, the last with the two weakest had to turn back.

Now, this wasn't really dangerous (apart from some unexpected snow on the week long trek back to the nearest airstrip, which made for a slippery and potentially somewhat dangerous descent), but hearing about it, did put the real dangers of something like Everst itself into perspective.

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And yeah, everything above the treeline looked really bleak on the pictures and apart from the vistas those last days had also been cold and dull.

All I know is if I win the lottery, I'm giving Everest a shot. I love climbing stuff like that - not too much technical skill required (with the exception of the Hillary Step), but a helluva lot of determination, level-headedness and endurance required. Right up my alley.

It's... it's like you haven't read the thread.

No, I have. It's not terra verboten. It's dangerous, deadly and it IS every man for himself once you're above 25k feet. I already know those facts. I've also climbed other mountains (though none anywhere close to that high) and used good judgement both climbing them and knowing when to turn around. I know the dangers of hypoxia and edema (both pulmonary and cerebral). I know exactly how to train for it so that when I get to the Himalayas I'd be as prepared as you could be. So what's your point?

I think that goes without saying. You don't just get up off your couch and run a marathon either.

Note that I know I'm nowhere in shape enough to do it right this very moment, but if I could train full-time I could be ready to go by summit season of 2014 (May).

Where are they trying to get to?

And yet, people do. We just wanted to make sure you weren't one of those people. :)