people in the notes are trying to imply this is good, normal, natural, and not something to be discouraged, so uh… lets break this down
obvious warnings for discussions of death
pollution
there are mountains of literal shit on everest. i can only assume people forget that everest is freezing and so poop wont break down the same way as it will when youre camping (or that they dont want to carry bags of poo around). this contaminates glaciers which has began to cause damage to the water supplies of nearby local villages
similarly there are mountains of rubbish. in 2015, it was reported that yearly clean up efforts had removed 15,000kg of rubbish and 800kg of human waste from everest.
because of the high altitude, a bag of poo or rubbish becomes so heavy to carry that it would be deadly to do so.
pollution thanks to littering is a growing problem and one that is hard to fix because of the above point – “Even picking up a candy wrapper high up on the mountain is a lot of effort, because it’s totally frozen and you have to dig around it,”
tourist privilege
to the average english speaker, “sherpa” has come to mean guide, despite the fact it is a name for an ethnic group.
300 people have died on everest and the last year without a death was 1977. 111 of those deaths are people from nepal.
sad as it is to say, for tourism and money flow to keep coming in, it looks better for native guides to die than for the tourists to die. sherpas bend over backwards trying to help those they are assigned to
sherpas are often treated incredibly poorly by those they are assigned to, despite breaking their back (and risking their lives) to try and help
sherpas often have to support inexperienced tourists (who are on everest for some fuckin reason), making the already dangerous summit even more so. some of these tourists dont even know how to tie basic safety knots.
many sherpa guides work in the industry not because they want to but because they can make 10x the average wage in nepal doing it.
many of the deaths of tourists are down to doing extreme things for an ego boost, such as climbing without oxygen.
the corpses
should you die on everest you will likely remain there. “A dead body that normally weighs 80kg might weigh 150kg when frozen and dug out with the surrounding ice attached.” the risk to others isnt worth it, in most cases
furthermore, if you cant be found or your family cant organise rescue quickly, rescue may become impossible due to you literally becoming stuck to the mountain.
sherpas have reported how emotionally and mentally difficult finding these bodies is and plenty of them have died trying to bring people home
the difficulty in retrieving corpses means that many are left, mummified and frozen, in public view. it is common to find bodies when climbing which has proven to be difficult for many climbers
people who have climbed everest have gone out their way to say the media isnt being sensationalist about this, for once, and its as deadly and filled with corpses and rubbish as it is reported to be.
death is incredibly normalised on the mountain. a british man, famously, huddled with a corpse in a cave bid to survive. 40 climbers passed him and very few attempted to help, despite him being alive. why? most assumed he was a corpse and so didnt check.
this normalisation is why some corpses have gained names and become markers. green boots is the most famous, but the german woman and sleeping beauty are other examples. a stretch of the climb has been called “rainbow ridge” due to the bright colours of jackets belonging to corpses that poke through the snow.
tourism
more than 4,000 have climbed everest. while thats barely any compared to the overall global population, it definitely isnt the impressive, one of a kind feat it once was.
most people actually die AFTER getting to the top, not on the way there.
2019 was the deadliest year on everest since 2006, excluding years where deaths were largely due to natural disasters.
tour companies do not screen you for experience, anyone can sign up to go up mount everest. this means incredibly inexperienced climbers have become common, causing danger to themselves and others.
nepal also has no rules for who can climb the mountain.
until this year, the nepal government turned a blind eye to most of this. presumably, for them, the money income was worth it.
in 2012 it was reported that overcrowding was becoming a major issue, causing many to die that year. congestion caused by inexperience was blamed. nothing was done. in 2019 we heard the same story.
2019s viral photo of the crowd climbing. people died waiting in this crowd. people stepped over the dying and dead to make it to the top. congestion caused by inexperience was blamed, once again.
people fight to take selfies at the top
theft has been reported by climbers on the mountain
the demand has meant dodgy equipment has found its way onto expeditions. climbers reported oxygen tanks leaking and exploding.
psychology
people who have been rescued have been reported saying that they wished they had died; that the disfigurements to their body and the way such has changed their lives werent worth it
people have had their families die struggle never getting a body back
climbing over dead bodies, using them as markers, and even sharing a tent with one, has proven to be difficult for some who climb
the family of the man thought to be green boots has discussed how horrid it is to them that their sons dead body is posted online.
these thoughts were echoed by the family of the woman who came to be called the sleeping beauty.
you really think all that is natural and normal?
in what world is everest worth it
in average
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