AIBU to be blown away by this? TW - Deaths on Everest.

[Chefpig]

I have read a news article about the person who died on Everest 30 years ago, known as Green Boots and wondered if his body would have been preserved by the snow and icy conditions up there. After some reading, I believe his body would not have decomposed and so his face will be the same, still in his late 40's. Forever young.

Yes, her image, sitting up more or less preserved decades after her death was not something to forget easily.

I just watched this on Prime (called Everest: Death Zone on there but it’s definitely this one). Fascinating, humbling and extremely sad. Thanks for t( recommendation.

Aren’t they paid? That’s probably the incentive for the majority of them?

Same as the British couple detained in Iran. They were warned not to travel there.

@CypressMoonI remember my mum thinking that climber who died climbing K2 without oxygen was incredibly selfish as she had very young children. I think one of her sons died a few years ago doing similar. Surely you would put your children’s welfare before a reckless ambition.

I remember being struck at the time by the fact no one ever says that about male mountaineers who die and how ‘mother’ is always added to a woman but you rarely saw/see ‘father’ when it’s a man

I think there are a lot of naive people in the world - and a lot or think the British embassy can get them out of any scrape!

Mumsnet can be very educational, thanks. Another poster has mentioned the title now.

It is the challenge, read Into Thin Air, they are all successful in their field, one woman in the party was heir to some famous American business, others were top doctors etc. they need something else to reach for, most people are just engaged in trying to meet their monthly costs.

They do limit how many can go up Everest. The real problem is the ascent window is very narrow so the pictures of queues are when there is a very short break in the weather during the very limited time of the year ascent is possible. 7500 different people have got there and 13k ascents have been made, obviously accounting for some people doing it more than once, and 339 never got off the mountain alive.
There's a Sherpa that's been on the top 31 times. About 60 perc who try never get there due to weather and you are twice as likely to die doing the Tibet route than the Nepal route.
You have about 40 perc chance you'll do it and around 1.5 perc chance you'll die trying.
I don't know if they are acceptable or not for someone to 'achieve a lifetime goal

Thank you. Yeah it did seem to attract these Uber high achieving thrill seekers. Like they need an increasing buzz.

Same reason you see drug addiction and violence sadly.

Saving people from their own stupidity is a thankless - and ultimately wasted - exercise.

Like people who don’t take out travel insurance!

For comparison, around 15 perc of people trying to sumit Annapurna 1 die, a bit lower for K2 but still over 1 in 10 die climbing K2.

Eternity will end before you have listed all the ways humans can find, discover or invent to be stupid.

A disturbing section in Into Thin air is when one of the lead climbers from a climbing guide company gets hopelessly stuck near or in the Death Zone with no hope of rescue (and he would have known this better than most) and he gets patched through on a satellite phone to his wife in New Zealand just before he died, they used radios, he had one that could reach a lower camp, and they could transmit to base camp and they had the satellite phone to reach New Zealand, something like that, it was covered on the bbc or ITN news at the time and I remember finding it extremely disturbing and sad, reading about it again years later just brought back the facts of desperate finality that come with getting into trouble on that mountain.

🤣🤣 So true though!!

Though I guess quite a few people's bodies might get moved down when it melts and eaten by predators.

At that altitude it doesn't melt and there are no predators. They'll be there forever...

In ‘The Ascent of Rum Doodle’ a recurring theme is the Brits getting stuck and the local guides getting them out of the mess or the local guides taking on the hard jobs (hacking ice steps/setting ropes) and the Brits are impressed by their quick learning!

The guy who was lost for two days and came staggering back into one of the camps during the night all frost-bitten, Dr. Beck I think, he became quite famous after that and moved into motivational speaking, decided later through therapy that going to Everest repeatedly and failing to reach the summit was subconsciously an attempt at suicide due to deep dis-satisfaction with various elements of his life

8000 people have died on Mont Blanc over the years but as a rate per climb it is very low because of the 10s thousands that do it. But the reports put around 100 deaths a year to: 'people treating the mountain as a casual hike rather than an alpine ascent and not being prepared or having the correct equipment'
Literally thousands of people think climbing Mont Blanc is a casual hike.
It's incomprehensible.

They now have to take their shit with them.

Rob Hall

Somebody on Reddit recently found a possible body on Google Maps, and the location correlates very closely to Green Boots (or possibly another missing climber, can't remember the exact details). People have calculated that the shape is roughly the same heigh as a human and it's an unnatural rusty colour that sticks out from the green background.