Everest 2019

[Bishop]

I had heard the stories but never realised it was this crowded!

Image taken by Nirmal Purja at first I thought it was some clever time-lapse or simply Photoshopped but alas no, just another day on the mountain during climbing season.

 

[Robson Valley]

It's been really bad = climbers dying of exhaustion as there's so many people trying to get down after summiting!
Think of the abandoned equipment piles and heaps of turds.
There's some 145 frozen bodies up there, waiting to be recovered from past years.

 

[Tengu]

Somebody tell those poor folk that there is no shop at the head of the queue!

(I have heard that the Chinese have cleared up (How do I express this in a properly respectful way? But it does sound terribly like rubbish collection) many of the bodies, including Green Boots.)

(You know you are someone in this world when you become a geographical landmark, eh?)

They should solve the descending problem by installing a very long slide, debouching into a ball pit.

 

[Nomad64]

It’s sad on so many levels - Pen y Fan is less busy on a Bank Holiday though hopefully less people will die there this weekend.

As a coincidence, I’m sat here having a coffee wearing a very old Mountain Equipment fleece with a label proudly proclaiming that they have equipped 35 Everest Expedition!

The world has got a lot smaller, less than half a century ago Everest was the domain of mountain gods like Bonington, Scott, Haston, Whillans and Brown - people who lived and breathed mountains and had earned the right to stand on the top of the world having devoted their lives to climbing. Now anyone with a few (well quite a few) £s, a reasonable level of fitness and a burning desire to take a selfie to make their friends jealous can sign up to a trip and get a Sherpa to push them to the top.

The 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were a golden era of mountaineering and underwater exploration (my other passion) - today mere mortals can stand on the shoulders of giants and that is not necessarily a good thing!

Moan over - off to bang some fence posts in while looking over at Pen Y Fan on the horizon, which as close as I want to get this time of year!

 

[Broch]

Yep, there's something very disrespectful about that photo. I confess I no longer walk up Snowden preferring instead to watch the ants on their way to the café from the quiet summit of Glyder Fawr.

At least they haven't built a railway up Mt Everest!

 

[rich d2]

Everest has been a circus for a while now. I know the ridiculous queue is being blamed for these deaths, but there is always a baseline of deaths on Everest just due to the altitude, so when there’s 200 summiting in a day the odds are there will be deaths. There’s a couple of main problems, firstly the 11k permits are a great source of income for the area as are the Sherpa jobs, there’s more inexperienced companies taking very inexperienced punters up, but now with much better and further out weather forecasting a lot of teams go for the summit in the best weather window. The easy answer is to just go and do k2!! (This is all from an armchair perspective as I’ve never climbed up anything higher than Mont Blanc and nowadays stanage edge is as high as I climb)

 

[Tengu]

Yes, that is what I would say.

Go do K2.

Or Mountain Kami (some of who are like me, Tengu) forbid, go find a virgin peak.

I dont think deaths are the problem...I think they are the attraction. So called Extreeme sports are so safe these days.

(And it must save on funeral expenses).

 

[Fadcode]

Should ask Virgin to put a rail line in, could call it "The Dickhead Express", one way tickets only., and no doubt cheaper than the £8250 those mugs have spent to die.

 

[rich d2]

Should ask Virgin to put a rail line in, could call it "The Dickhead Express", one way tickets only., and no doubt cheaper than the £8250 those mugs have spent to die.

Easier way would be to ban supplemental oxygen, that'd knock the numbers right down.

 

[Corso]

utterly utterly mental

I blame the internet...

 

[Lou]

Nirmal Purja omg have you seen his instagram feed?!

 

[Robson Valley]

There is room only for one rope. Period.
There ought to be a penalty to carry out a load of garbage and oxygen bottles equivalent to what you carried in.

 

[snappingturtle]

The garden of Eden is truly over crowded, we are all going to wither at least its a beautiful place to die.

 

[Janne]

At least those Himalayan fly tippets pay a hefty fee to climb that mountain, employ local work force and spend lots of money getting there.
The local flytippers ( UK, Cayman) just create a mess but not much benefit.

I do not see why numbers should be restricted. The mess and crowding has been known for years, and if somebody is stupid enough to waste that amount of money to be standing in line it is their problem, right?

We used to walk almost every weekend in the Seven Sisters area between Brighton and Hastings, and it was hugely crowded too. Still a lovely walk!

 

[Broch]

Neh, sorry Janne, 'hugely crowded' does not = 'lovely walk' for me. If I meet one person on my walks it's a ruined day

 

[Janne]

But Seven Sisters is sooooo beautiful.
Plus, the seakale is very tasty there...


It was a nice accessible area to breathe some nice fresh air, our son could use his bike safely, he could have fun throwing stones into the sea, we could look for treasures that the sea delivered, and then go to the Hungry Monk in Jevington for some original Banoffee Pie and drinks!

That alone was worth it!

Worst was that our Cockers did not like other dogs. Noisy.

 

[Broch]

Ah, what you've described is a nice family day out in a beautiful scenic area including a pub lunch - that, I'm all for

 

[Janne]

Restaurant. I usually saved my thirst until back in Mayfield, then I poured them in.....
Could not afford to get nicked by the police fir DUI, I could lose my professional license.

 

[Lou]

I find it truly sickening that people are climbing Everest like this. An acquaintance did it a month ago on a whim (only to base-camp) His friends talked about it as if he was going to the local pub or something. They all started to get a little worried though when the weather was bad and his plane had problems landing at the 'most dangerous airport in the world' - Lukla and there was in fact a plane crash - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-47926714 (not his plane though). People should be staying in their own neighbourhood and doing something about the litter being dropped there, not contributing to someone else's (who are poorly equipped to deal with it) problem half way around the world.

 

[Woody girl]

I'm in total agreement with you lou. The mountain will hit back big time. Nobody heeds the warnings and then say it's a tragedy when people die. Its inevitable. It's about people making money from starry eyed young people who have such boring and meaningless lives that they feel they need to risk everything to feel that they have achieved something.

In retrospect that seems a bit dismissive . Adventure is good for the soul but these people are just not thinking about the enviroental impact of their adventure and I think a yearly limit needs to be put on this. It's a real disaster waiting to happen but even after the avalanche a few years ago it doesn't seem to have stopped the desecration of what was a pristine and holy site once upon a time.