Quote:
Originally Posted by kdog
It's hard to believe it will make that big of a difference in reaching the summit given that they think it collapsed 2 years ago and no one noticed it until now.
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The ice at the summit is as hard as rock. If the underlying rock on the step broke away, the climbers have been walking on an ice bridge since then. The ice must have broken away.
The Hillary step is a short knife-edge traverse very close to the summit. There is only enough room for one person at a time on it, so a long line forms, waiting at both ends while individual climbers traverse the step.
If a person slips, it's a sheer drop-off on either side of it that's lethal. Really a lot of climbers have died there over the years; it's very exposed, so when the winds kick up, it's easy to lose balance on it, and even though safety lines are strung, a climber can still go off the step.
Waiting in the long lines on either end of the step can also be lethal. At over 26,000 feet, climbers must breathe oxygen to stay conscious, and if their oxygen runs out while waiting, they can die either going up or coming down. The wind is continuous on the summit, and it strips all body heat away instantly, so waiting increases the chances of freezing to death.
At that height, everyone's brain isn't getting enough oxygen, so their thinking becomes slow and often incorrect, the lungs are gradually filling with fluid, and all the body's energy is being sapped continually. Descending from the summit kills more people that going up, as the descent comes when the climbers are all the most depleted. The entire final approach is like climbing through a killing field, with mummified bodies all over the place.
With the step gone, the other routes to the summit will take much more time and are, overall, more dangerous. The approach to the step from the highest camp site is actually the easiest and quickest of them all; only the step and the area around it is very dangerous climbing.
Half of Everest lies in Tibet. The Chinese don't allow climbing on that side like the Nepalese do. The approach is much harder, and is much less mapped. There are very few lines of supply on that side, and they are nowhere as well developed as on the Nepalese side.
This may spell the end of large novice expeditions summiting Everest. Without the step, the rest of the approach is useless.
I used to climb when I was young, and I hope the loss of the step ends the the mass transit mountaineering of Everest. 60 years of trash, food waste, human excrement, equipment of all kinds, bodies, fuel spills, and abuse of all kinds has left the mountain one huge garbage dump from bottom to top. I've felt for many years that the ruination of Everest for profit is one of the worst things humans have done to one of the most magnificent places on the planet was terrible for humanity.
The base camp was the worst of all until the massive avalanche of 2-3 years ago wiped it all out, either spreading it down the mountain or burying it under ice. Over time, it will become a garbage glacier.
The garbage will end up in the Ghanges and all the many other rivers that begin in the Himalayas, so it will eventually end up polluting them all before it all ends up in the Indian Ocean. The Himalayas are the major fresh water source for all of India, most of Pakistan, and most of the Indian sub-continent.
The notion that anyone with the money could summit the highest mountain in the world was dangerously stupid, and there are some places humans simply shouldn't go for all kinds of good reasons.
Nepal makes a lot of money from Everest, but there are many other mountains in Nepal that tourists can be hauled up and down on like so much walking freight, and the experience is the same on all of the big ones. Hopefully, if Everest becomes permanently off-limits, the others won't suffer the same fate.
There's so much garbage on Everest the mountain may not ever be pristine again, but warming may change that; if the glaciers begin moving, all traces could be scoured off the mountain. But it won't ever go away over time- nothing ever degrades up there. It will take thousands of years for the stuff to naturally degrade.
In time, empty oxygen bottles from Everest could be washing up on the shores of the United States along with all the trash that's up there.
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