Racism - Always and Forever

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.

 

Crunchies know all about carry in, carry out

 

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.

 

A couple of droovers do the trick.

 

Mwah, only if you're still alive, not so much if you're dead.

 

Has anybody ever tried a skydive suit?

 

Yeah I read Into Thin Air years ago, and the issues only seem to have mounted since then.

 

I'd develop some kind of zip line system to strap things to. Garbage, oxygen tanks, frozen climbers

 

So basically the exact opposite result of what the book seemed to intend. People are so awesome.

 

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.

 

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.