Right, upon closer look that photo is near the top so there can't be more than about 500 visiting there per year. The 35k refers to people that trek to Base Camp per year (but not sure if that number includes Sherpas or not (?)). Makes me wonder what Base Camp looks like. Mt Kilimanjaro has 30k people summit every year and it basically has no garbage anywhere as they implement a strict 'what goes up, must come down' policy.
That’s a good call but also a very different beast, you don’t need supplemental oxygen to summit Kilimanjaro and a lot of that trash is made up of empty canisters. Plus all the random bodies littering the way up that haven’t been worth the effort to remove.
It’s hard enough to haul yourself up to camp IV and down again let alone clean it up. there have been efforts from time to time to collect up oxygen bottles. At the end of the day the Sherpas risk their lives to build the camp 4 base for the summit team. It’s not like anyone is funding then to ascend and bring down bits of old kit in small amounts.
Lots of people have died at camp 4. there are bodies up there at the camp and above it. there is no way to get them down. Eta I see you covered this
Top kiwi climber Rob Hall survived the night above camp IV in a storm and is lying just below the south summit. The story is in Krakauers excellent ‘Into Thin Air’ there is truly no way to get him down.
they might have been carried at lower altitude there is no possibility to carry anyone on the summit attempt. That is why people die up there. You have to do it under your own power.
It is a good story, but Boukreev challenges some of the facts about the rescue. Considering Krakauer was on his first summit and Boukreev was among the best, I believe Boukreev (read his book as well). IIRC, Rob Hall's wife has tried several times.
How do you get that shit up there? There’s no humor content so I think you think you’re making sense.
Leave that to the engineers. If the air wasn't so thin they could get a Chinese balloon and float the crap down.
Oh, I read the book and went "that is ********ing awesome!" Honestly, the reason I knew it would never happen is because of my damaged knee (the money part never became a question because of the knee damage). But reading his book, with several amateurs on the trek, made it seem both dangerous and livable. But awesome! I can easily see how it motivated others to make the effort.
Yeah I had the opposite takeaway, first off it didn’t sound the least bit appealing to me, and that’s as somebody who’s always done a lot of hiking (I actually did a trek in Nepal way back, but maximum elevation was less than half that of Everest). And second I thought it was gross that people can basically buy their way into these ultra extreme environments that put them, their guides, and the sherpas who do most of the work in tremendous danger. And I can’t even remember if he got into all the garbage that’s left behind in the process.
Unfortunately, that's what happens when said extreme environment is a fair distance from the people who want to experience it. I would have loved to have done this as a younger man, but even back then it was something of a celebrity/wealthy excursion. It's one thing to be able to say, "I laid my hand on Green Boots Man and said a solemn thanks to whatever's out there that I am now part of this fraternity of the living and the dead who took the risk because it was there to be taken", but when someone in the same room can say, "Yeh, me and a couple of my frat bros hit my dad up for the expenses and we hung with Roger Goodell at Base Camp", it's no longer about me and Tenzing Norgay and Matthew Henson and the elements.
If we can ever drag them away from their perpetual Trekkie fantasies (NASA), there are more important things to do with their tech savvy, like feeding the hungry...
Like with the the KC shooting and the NYC Strangler, it will take protest and attention before an arrest.
To be fair, as Krakauer documented it was already out of control at the time - as a bucket list kind of life goal The only thing that will stop it is if nepal limits the permits
It's not surprising Krakauer got some things wrong - particularly the fate of Andy Harris Ultimately there is no point second guessing Boukreev's decisions. Hall was on the summit much too late and he did that for his clients and that is why they died. Had they turned around at 2pm they would have got down. The problem with getting Hall down, even if you can convince people to go to the South Summit to get him, is he is above the fixed ropes at the Hilary step - getting him down that section to camp IV would be very difficult in itself so I am not sure why a team should risk their lives to do it.