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JL's Link
I always thought it would have been cool to do this, but not so much anymore. Like someone commented in the article, it looks like the DMV or Disney World waiting your turn to walk to the top.
At $11,000 a pop for just the permit. And they up the quota to nearly 400.
Time to raise the price and lower the quota.
Or raise the price and raise the quota, it will take a few years to fill in the crevasse with the Darwin idiots.
Due to shifting snow levels and difficulty removing bodies at such high altitudes it’s a little eerie to be walking past frozen climbers from years past.
One of my facebook friends was posting that his friend Don Cash who had climbed the 6 other highest points on each continent had achieved his goal of climbing the Seven Summits and was taking pictures on the summit of Everest. Not an our later and Dan Cash was dead and will now be up above camp 4 forever. 55 year old man with teenage kids....I'm sorry I just don't get it. It's not clear if getting down faster would have saved Don......but they waited 2 1/2 hours at the top of that line before they could come down. He was way dead by then.
Standing in line for the only outhouse can be a major problem.
Just finish Dan Simmons, Abominable book, good story that centers around Mt. Everest in 1925.
"Time to raise the price and lower the quota."
Set a lower quota and auction them off. Raffle a few for the ones who can't fork over $100,000 or whatever the auction price is.
Hard pass for me. Mountain goat hunting was scary enough haha
I can understand the challenge and the adventure.
But not with tons of other people!
OK , where do they go when they get to the top ? Doesn't look like anyone is coming down ... No need to answer. It looks like a joke but if it's real I don't understand this kind of behavior.
Everest is a bit over 29,000 feet in elevation.
That means there is virtually no oxygen.
If you've ever been in an altitude chamber, you'll understand what that means.
When I was in Flight School, we all went through altitude training.
We'd get in the chamber and 'buddy up.' We'd be wearing oxygen masks and they'd take us 'up' to 12,000,' 18,000,', 24,000,' and finally 35,000.'
They gave us all tablets with word games, such as 'count the number of 's' in this paragraph,' etc.
Your 'buddy' would take off his oxygen mask and start working through one of the word games and his buddy monitored him. Once the monitor saw his buddy was starting to really screw up, his job was to put the oxygen mask back on his buddy.
Then you'd switch roles and do it again.
At 12,000' there was almost nothing to monitor.
At 18,000' your buddy could go a long time before he needed his mask, if at all. There would, however, be a few mistakes on his little test.
At 24,000' same thing, only your buddy needed the mask sooner and there would be even more mistakes.
But at 35,000,' forget about it! You needed to put the oxygen mask on your buddy after just a few seconds.
So exerting yourself physically at 29,000' is flat out insane!
What's amazing to me is that while carrying and using supplemental oxygen on Everest is standard, Everest has been conquered a few times by people who never took supplemental oxygen!
^I did the pressure chamber too. It's cool watching everyone's face. Did the dunker (alot) and the tear gas chamber. I suspect if you get injured at altitude and run out of O2 bottles....you're in trouble.
"On and a hundred" meant you were wearing your oxygen mask and the control was set to 100% oxygen.
I think "on and a hundred' might have been a required setting when we were running an air-air refueling.
BTW, "On and a hundred" is awesome if you have a hangover of any magnitude. ;^)
There is no better nor faster way to immediately feel better if you aren't feeling so good than "On and a hundred!"
Weather is such a factor..... I'd guess the lines form at a lower camp and can stack up pretty deep waiting for the weather to break. A window that might only be a couple hours if that?
Not a problem I'm ever going to have in my lifetime..... I bet you'd have to re-sight your bow up there though.....
Five people have died in Everest this week.
FIVE!!
There must be one heck of a bone yard up there.
Take a google look at dead bodies on Everest Kyle. It’s pretty creepy.
Over 300!
So, what do they do with them?
No way can they carry them back down the mountain.
So they must say a brief goodbye, then toss them down a chute.
Yikes!
Yep.... left up there. They get nicknames from their colorful clothing like “green boots”.....
Not sure what the allure is.
From what I've read the picture is legit.
Apparently there were several teams waiting for a break in the weather. When they saw one, they all took off, hence the line to the concession stand.
Many of us chase big toothy critters with pointy sticks. I get it.
But we ain't lining up to kill the same one. Just kidding I get it too but dang its a little strange.
It's certainly at the edge of our macabre compulsion to leverage death for depth of existence.
Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
That is pure madness! There is no way in hell that static line is not already overloaded plus the wait on the Hillary step would deplete most of those guys o2 to nothing. All it would have took is a quick storm to come in and all those guys would be toast.
Now it's TEN deaths on Everest in the last two months.
I would think the smart guide services would turn around and go down when they hit the back of that line
My son towed up a hang glider to over 15000 feet. They didn't have oxygen and had to grunt breath, what ever that means. My son cut the hang glider loose and filmed him doing flips. Had to be filmed so it could be counted for the world record. They broke the world record but I think it has been broken again since then.
I've always had that "wanderlust", but it's to hike into the next valley via the easiest route possible. Never had a desire to climb any higher than needed. I have a 10,800 ft. mountain right in my backyard..never had the slightest desire to go damage myself by climbing it.
People know the risks when they sign up to climb Everest, and then they pay a boatload of money for guides, permits, etc.
I just don't get it..but they do, apparently.
ninety five people have died on I-80 this week. ninety five.
and none of them were living a dream.
Bou'bound: You're saying there were 95 deaths on I-80 THIS WEEK??
I'm afraid you've got some figures crossed..there was only 114 deaths on I-80 (Calif. to New Jersey) for the whole year of 2014.
It was an internet stat may not be right
I-80 runs through Chicago.
So maybe those 95 deaths were gangbangers who were shot or thrown off overpasses by other gangbangers, not traffic deaths.
Ooops!!
It's I-90 that runs though Chicago, not I-80
JL's Link
The article says 5 folks died this week.
I searched, Everest's Deaths. Interesting stories of some the dead that were found.