RE: Mt. Everest has around 200 dead bodies (pics)
August 19, 2011 at 5:02 am
(This post was last modified: August 19, 2011 at 5:27 am by Anomalocaris.)
(August 18, 2011 at 9:15 pm)padraic Wrote: 200? That many? I'm impressed. 200 Darwin awards.
I wouldn't think summiting the highest mountain on earth would be a goal so unworthy that giving one's live in it's attempt merits a cynical snicker.
(August 19, 2011 at 12:32 am)Rhythm Wrote: After looking at the full spread. I have a powerful urge to get those bodies back. There has to be some sort of foundation or group or something that is working on this yeah?
Every climb above 21000 feet seriously jeopardized one's life. Few would undertake such a risk to one's owe survival just to recover the Husk of one who is already dead.
(August 19, 2011 at 12:57 am)Rhythm Wrote: Nothing to do with burial. I don't know, maybe I wouldn't want to be left there for gawkers, hell, the green boots guy is what, 2 feet from a rope? A few years back they made a documentary out of attempts to climb everest, so they can haul all that video equipment up and down but they can't bring back bodies? Bullshit. 25k a head but no money to buy a hacksaw and a plastic bag, bullshit. Hell, in '02 a group of 50 people made it to the summit. Was 3 lbs a person going to endanger their lives. No. This is a strange sort of apathy in tourism. Apparently 150 people make the summit every year, and I can't help but think that the bodies add to value of the experience, or they wouldn't be there. Obviously this is my own hangup, but it's hard to imagine that in the thousands of people who've made the summit, there aren't some folks who would like to bring these people back down. I know it's not simple, but neither is climbing everest right? We don't balk away from things because they're really really hard. Just seems terrible to me, is all.
You can't saw a dead body into 5 man-portable loads like you can with camera, film, lens, tripod and battery. In any case, you can't find venues for charging $10 a head to see the dead body from everest as you can to see an IMAX film of where the dead body had lain. Details, details.
But apathy in tourism is not leaving a deadbody where it lays, but leaving a climber in distress to die so one could summit oneself. This happened not long ago, when a commercial climbing outfit taking paying customers up to the summit came upon a lone descending climber who is clearly in distress and unable to continue on his own hey. The commercial climbing team probably could have help the lone climber get back to the base camp, but most of the team would need to abandon their own summit attempt. They decided instead, coldheartedly, to press on with their summit attempt and leave the climber in distress to die. Their actions resulted in a rebuke from Edmund Hillary himself.
(August 18, 2011 at 10:36 pm)searchingforanswers Wrote: The last picture with the skull seriously surprised me. If i was climbing that mountain and saw that itd be a quick "oh fuck this" before going back down.
Every everest climber knows one in six of those who tries dies and most of the dead bodies are left where they fell. So it's unlike those who would be daunted by the sight of the dead would have gone far enough to see a dead.
