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The amount of trash that is left at Everest is disgusting. This should be stopped. You can go to Base Camp and that is all. If you want to climb the mountain then you must have 20 plus years of experience and you must do it without oxygen tanks. No search and rescue for you if you get injured or for your body. It's a point of no return if you want to climb past base camp.
Of course it's for bragging rights. Why else would they do it?
On the other hand...Maybe these nutcases choose this as an exhilarating and exciting way to commit suicide?
Well, I’m not bothered by it. Maybe pursuing a lifelong dream is more important to them than living long enough to become an elderly person and then dying anyway.
The amount of trash that is left at Everest is disgusting. This should be stopped. You can go to Base Camp and that is all. If you want to climb the mountain then you must have 20 plus years of experience and you must do it without oxygen tanks. No search and rescue for you if you get injured or for your body. It's a point of no return if you want to climb past base camp.
Wow! In just two weeks, they collected that much trash.
You also have to remember the doo doo that has to be retrieved from base camp. (It can't be left there) Poor Sherpas have to carry everything equipment, food, oxygen tanks, and waste.
With climate change melting the glaciers, bodies from decades ago have been revealing themselves. Ugh. Overall, not my idea of a good time.
And if it's so crowded up there, why wait for hours on a treacherous ridge, just to go some yards more, to say you were at the summit? What difference does it make? Is it worth risking toppling down the ridge, as people jostle to push toward the summit, just to say you set for on the official peak? It's not enough of an accomplishment to make it to that ridge?
I'm not excusing putting one's life on the line frivolously but as an avid hiker (but not into high altitude mountain climbing), the point of reaching one's goal of climbing a particular mountain is to reach the top.
That is psychologically crucial to the satisfaction of reaching the person's goal.
An analogy would be a person who has never been to NYC but has put it on their bucket list. They fly into Newark and go no further than that or they do a road trip but stop at one of NJ cities across the Hudson River from NYC. They then park the car and just stand and admire the NYC skyline. I can attest from experience that it's a beautiful sight to behold, but it will never suffice for actually being on the street in NYC itself.
Almost doesn't count. Coming in second is meaningless in certain context; this is one of them. It's understandable that if a person has put the type of time, money, training, and travel halfway around the world to get to Mt. Everest, coming up short of the peak would not be considered an accomplishment.
Almost doesn't count. Coming in second is meaningless in certain context; this is one of them. It's understandable that if a person has put the type of time, money, training, and travel halfway around the world to get to Mt. Everest, coming up short of the peak would not be considered an accomplishment.
Thanks, this is what I posted earlier. They have so much invested in it, that they're compelled to make it to the official summit, even if it means waiting in freezing conditions, risking toppling off a narrow ridge full of jostling people. Thanks for your inside perspective. I think, sometimes it's wise to let go of what one thinks one has invested in reaching a goal, if one's life is at risk.
I wonder what the other climbers thought, when one of the people did fall off the ridge to their death? What a horrible thing to witness! How could anyone continue on after that, as if nothing had happened?
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Almost doesn't count
