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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMaxed Out on Everest
By Mark Jenkins
An hour above high camp on the Southeast Ridge of Everest, Panuru Sherpa and I passed the first body. The dead climber was on his side, as if napping in the snow, his head half covered by the hood of his parka, goose down blowing from holes torn in his insulated pants. Ten minutes later we stepped around another body, her torso shrouded in a Canadian flag, an abandoned oxygen bottle holding down the flapping fabric.
Trudging nose to butt up the ropes that had been fixed to the steep slope, Panuru and I were wedged between strangers above us and below us. The day before, at Camp III, our team had been part of a small group. But when we woke up this morning, we were stunned to see an endless line of climbers passing near our tents.
Now, bumper to bumper at 27,000 feet, we were forced to move at exactly the same speed as everyone else, regardless of strength or ability. In the swirling darkness before midnight, I gazed up at the string of lights, climbers headlamps, rising into the black sky. Above me were more than a hundred slow-moving climbers. In one rocky section at least 20 people were attached to a single ratty rope anchored by a single badly bent picket pounded into the ice. If the picket popped, the rope or carabiner would instantly snap from the weight of two dozen falling climbers, and they would all cartwheel down the face to their death.
Panuru, the lead Sherpa of our team, and I unclipped from the lines, swerved out into open ice, and began soloingfor experienced mountaineers, a safer option. Twenty minutes later, another corpse. Still attached to the line of ropes, he was sitting in the snow, frozen solid as stone, his face black, his eyes wide open.
more
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/06/125-everest-maxed-out/jenkins-text
Kali
(55,007 posts)That was funny.
Hey, it's not like you're out walking the dog.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)Bookmarking for later reading. I don't understand the draw of climbing everestp
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)All climbers there should be embarrassed to have any part of it, deaths and destruction, littering without a care in the world.
It's done, leave the mountain alone already.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)....but I do. There is nothing noble or exclusive about reaching the Summit anymore.
Nose to Ass crowds, passing dead bodies on the way, everybody in jeopardy from the slowest climber On-the-Line.....
No Thanks.
The only thing "elite" about climbing Everest is having the elite disposable $Dollars$ to BUY a place in line.
There are other much more noble challenges on this planet.
It reminds me of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles.
In Bradbury's Novel, the Colonizing Mars had been a noble goal of all Mankind,
To begin Spreading Mankind across the Stars....
As soon as the Martian colonies were established, they built a McDonalds,
and began to litter the ancient planet with wrappers and drink cups.
The older I get,
the more I see,
the more I want to be Left Alone,
in a place free from Litter, Advertising, Degradation, Commercialization, Unsustainable Exploitation, and Noise.
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)The best climbers remove their waste with them. It's the low-end groups that do not. There have been a few expeditions over the last few years to just clean up the mountain - bring down bodies, trash, and oxygen containers. Disgusting that people have trashed such a place.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Shrike47
(6,913 posts)hunter
(38,311 posts)All the summit needs now is a bunch of tourists waving at the climbers from the windows of a fast food place.
russspeakeasy
(6,539 posts)In all my reading about Everest, I never tire of hearing a new report.
marked50
(1,366 posts)back sometime in the late 80's or early 90's (can't remember exactly) when I was driving to work and heard about someone sending the first Fax from the top of Everest. I knew then that there were no more "Mysterious Islands" or "Lost Worlds" anymore.....only people trampling places to try and outdo one another.....
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)interesting read. Thanks for posting.
Sid