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It's that time of the year. I've been patiently waiting for the inevitable reports to roll in.

Here we go ( again ):



Everest Weekend Death Toll Reaches Four


http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/05/22/everest_wide.jpg?t=1337668259&s=4

May 22, 2012
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/22/153252226/everest-weekend-death-tool-reaches-4

Climbers have reported seeing another body on Mount Everest, raising the death toll to four for one of the worst days ever on the world's highest mountain.

Nepali mountaineering official Gyanendra Shrestha said Tuesday that the body of Chinese climber Ha Wenyi was spotted not far from where three other climbers died. They were part of what was a "traffic jam" by Everest standards — an estimated 150 climbers who rushed to use a brief window of good weather to try to reach the top Friday and Saturday.

Wenyi and the other victims — German doctor Eberhard Schaaf, Nepal-born Canadian Shriya Shah and South Korean mountaineer Song Won-bin — died Saturday on their way down from the 29,035-foot summit. They are believed to have suffered exhaustion and altitude sickness, Shrestha said.

Shrestha says a Nepalese Sherpa guide who had been reported missing is safe and has reached the base camp. Shrestha says the guide was separated from his group and did not have communications equipment.

The latest deaths have raised concerns about overcrowding in the "death zone" at the top of the world's tallest peak. Many of those who headed to the summit over the weekend had waited at a staging camp for several days for the weather to improve enough to attempt the climb.

"There was a traffic jam on the mountain on Saturday. Climbers were still heading to the summit as late as 2:30 p.m., which is quite dangerous," Shrestha said.

Climbers normally are advised not to try for the summit after 11 a.m. The area above the last camp at the South Col is nicknamed the "death zone" because of the steep icy slope, treacherous conditions and low oxygen level.

"With the traffic jam, climbers had a longer wait for their chance to go up the trail and spent too much time at higher altitude. Many of them are believed to be carrying a limited amount of oxygen, not anticipating the extra time spent," Shrestha said.

The climbing season runs from late March to the first week in June, and the Nepalese government places no limits on how many climbers can be on the 29,035-foot mountain. The season's first clear conditions were on Friday and Saturday, but that window already was closing by Saturday afternoon with a windstorm at higher altitudes, Shrestha said.

Ang Tshering, an Everest expert and former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, said the government should impose schedules so that scores of climbers are not trying to head for the summit on the same day.

Tshering said the race to the summit on Saturday meant that climbers likely expended all their energy on the way up and had little left for the descent.

The deadliest day on Everest was May 10, 1996, when eight people were killed. The main reason was said to be that climbers who started their ascent late in the day were caught in a snowstorm in the afternoon.

An unusually light snowfall this year has added to the danger, renowned Everest climber Conrad Anker said.

"Because there is little fresh snow, icy surfaces on the slopes make climbing more difficult and dangerous," Anker said, adding that "the snow acts as glue, stopping rocks from falling on the climbers."

Well-known expedition organizer Russell Brice cited the mountain's precarious condition in his decision in early May to cancel this year's climb for more than 60 clients.
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​
 


For the curious and the morbidly curious: More than 3,000 people have climbed Everest since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first to do so in 1953. Some 225 climbers have died attempting it.

Is there anyone who isn't aware that for a price of "$×" a commercial guide company will attempt to get almost any physically fit person to the summit (and— *chuckling*— down) ?


 
Love that shot, Thor. That could be Royal Robbins after he lost interest in climbing and started doing exploratory kayaking stuff.
 
Peregrinator said:
Love that shot, Thor. That could be Royal Robbins after he lost interest in climbing and started doing exploratory kayaking stuff.
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Andy Embeck

Killed himself, 9 years ago, today.

Awesome kayaker and adventurer. Great all round guy. Doctor. And very fucking smart. Just got fucked-up in the head for a bit. An acquaintance of mine, and a good friend of a few of my friends.
 
thør said:
Andy Embeck

Killed himself, 9 years ago, today.

Awesome kayaker and adventurer. Great all round guy. Doctor. And very fucking smart. Just got fucked-up in the head for a bit. An acquaintance of mine, and a good friend of a few of my friends.
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Ugh, that sucks. Sorry.
 
Mrs t and I had lunch in Talkeetna on Saturday at Mountain High Pizza. When we were almost done with our food, a group of six weatherbeaten guys came into the place to eat. They were clean and wearing gear, not normal clothes. They were evidently just out of the shower after coming off the mountain. Quiet and deliberate. Not joyous. i wonder about their story.
 
chipbutty said:
is that real real? no photoshoppery? it is astoundingly beautiful!
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That's real, indeed. Switzerland is like that, I'm told. The one I posted of a lonely spiky mountain is, I believe, and artist's conception. The others are real.
trysail said:

I'll never forget my crazy-ass pals goin' swimming in there. Include me out, thank you !!


My signature appears in that hut's registers many times. I could find it quickly. It's not likely I'll ever visit again. I used to be an AMC member. 5 Joy Street, Beantown, 02108 is an address that hasn't changed in more than 50 years.
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Love Lakes. I was an AMC volunteer naturalist for a couple years...got to stay for free. And, yeah, Joy street...I've spent many happy hours listening to passionate people argue about nothing while in my head I was wandering across from Lakes to Madison.

Sad news: The "prop" finally disappeared a few years ago. Speculation is that the CC had buried it in a foundation...
 

...The holy city itself, stripped of the radiance of the Potala and the Jokhang Temple, appeared to the invaders as decrepit, medieval in aspect. In the streets hungry dogs lay abandoned as children in rags smoked wild rhubarb and tobacco. In the shops were bundles of scented soaps that had been on the shelves for decades. The people bathed once a year. They had prayer wheels but no wheeled transport. They called guns "fire arrows." They took it as a given that the world was flat. They allowed women to marry more than one man, and men to embrace in matrimony any number of women. Refusing to kill an insect or harm a blade of grass, they enforced the most ruthless of sanctions, the gouging of eyes, the severance of limbs for petty theft. In religious services, they played music with trumpets carved from human thighbones, and drank offerings from chalices made of human skulls...


...The chances of emerging unscathed were slim. Indeed, in 1914, the chances of any British boy aged thirteen through twenty-four surviving the war were one in three. Schools, on average, lost five years' worth of students. The student body at Eton numbered 1,100; in the war, 1,157 Old Etonians would perish. Wellington, a school of only 500, would sacrifice 699. Uppingham would lose 447, Winchester 500, Harrow 600, Marlborough 733, and Charterhouse 686. The Public Schools Club of London lost over 800 members, forcing it to close for lack of numbers. Of the thousands of public school boys who entered the war, one in five would perish. The lucky ones served on staff positions behind the line. Of those young officers who fought in the trenches, half would die...


...Anker's reservations are several. First, there is the matter of clothing and equipment. Mallory and Irvine had primitive crampons, but they could not use them at high elevations as the leather straps impaired their circulation and increased the risk of frostbite. On his summit climb Anker found crampons essential; he never removed them, even on the rock face of the Second Step...

​


-Wade Davis
Into The Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest
New York, N.Y. 2011.




Americans, by and large, remain absolutely and utterly oblivious to the unbelievable bloodletting that occurred in World War I.

The average U.S. citizen has no idea how many French, British, German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Austrian, Russian, Italian, South African, Ottoman, Belgian, Colonial and other troops were slaughtered in the insanity.

French deaths were 1,357,000 (with 4.3 million wounded). The death toll for the British Empire was 908,371 (with 2.0 million wounded). Russian deaths were 1,700,000 with 5 million wounded.

For comparison's sake, U.S. battle deaths in World War II were 292,100 with 371,822 wounded.

Wade Davis' book is going to appeal to anyone with an interest in climbing, the history of the Himalayan region and the Age of Exploration. It is thoroughly researched and well-written— though (obviously) far-ranging. It is possible to question the wisdom of the attempt to conjoin a survey of Britain's experience in World War I with a history of Everest. At 573 pages plus an annotated bibliography, it's not a book for an afternoon's diversion.


 
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