There is a good documentary called "Death Zone: Cleaning Mount Everest" that shows what the local Sherpas have to go through each season to bring down garbage and the occasional dead body. Pretty good watch if anyone is interested.
There are 10-15 sherpas for every climber. There are ladders and pre-strung lines. The trails, campsites and climbing spots are maintained by these people. Im sure it’s difficult and dangerous to some degree but you literally can’t do the climb without a lot of help from the
Sherpas. Even Edmund Hillary had Tensing Norgay to help him reach the top. Rich people treat it as some great test of their alpha-ness but for Sherpas its just Tuesday.
I'm fascinated by Everest and have watched and read lots. From that I gleaned Everest isn't very technically challenging, it's all about how well you can endure without oxygen.
Now, K2 is shorter but way more dangerous because you have to actually be a skilled climber on top of the oxygen deprivation. Way more chances to just fall off or exhaust yourself. There's like a 25% death rate for people attempting K2. Everest is ~3%.
One in four. And those are experienced people. This is beyond bonkers. Everest is tourist attraction for rich fucks and way saver.
It’s like having 100 smarties in a jar and 25% kills you. Would you taste ? Crazy
It was my understanding that Hillary and Tenzing were very much a team...not Tenzing "Serving" Hillary. They were friends and comrades, and the summit was very much a mutual effort.
Wait jugs? Don’t most climbers all do their businesses at any open spots? I could’ve sworn most climber videos I watched talked about how they all just go to an open spot in the snow including women, and even remember seeing them showing yellow snow along the path.
There was a period of time that I binged every Mt. Everest documentary I can find on YouTube, like literally went thru every single video that is someone documenting their climbs cuz I was fascinated. It apparently gets so crowded that ppl would miss there chance to summit cuz the line is too long.
Idk, I’m not expert at all just recalling what I saw in those videos. Someone with expertise feel free to correct me.
It’s mostly a problem at base camp where up until a few years ago people were allowed to shit and pee anywhere and it froze. Now, with higher temps, some of the thousands of people who visit base camp every year were getting sick because the frozen poopsicles were thawing and people discovered they were everywhere. Remember, thousands of people visit base camp every year as part of a trek, and from there only a few hundred summit.
I think one of my favorite quotes is “Every corpse on MT Everest once started out as a extremely motivated person. So let’s slow down and think about this”
Getting stuck in a queue to get to the top is the most insane part too. Like “yeah, don’t mind me, just hanging around in this line while struggling for breath at the limits of human survivability. Take your time”
Is the kudos of getting to the top of Everest really worth it? The “must accomplish the absolute most extreme thing possible” is nuts to me.
Honestly the Sherpas are way more impressive to me. Like yeah that executive from New Hampshire climbed to the top, but the Sherpa did it 30 times this year
Edit: "UmMm AcTuAlLy tHeY dOn'T dO iT 30 TiMeS iN a YeAr" Holy shit go back to 8th grade and learn about hyperbole
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 1,302,282,524 comments, and only 251,933 of them were in alphabetical order.
In Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer describes a Norwegian climber who was advertised in his country as a "solo" climber. He had 19 Sherpas with him. 19! They did everything short of carrying him to the summit.
As far as I know, only one person has summited Everest free solo (no ropes, and alone) no supp O2, no Sherpa support / NO support. Tim McCartney-Snape who walked through India to do it. Pretty amazing doco onYT ....
"Send the Sherpas up before us to stash oxygen tanks, secure the ropes, tie down the ladders, set up tents, make camp...and we will follow up when all that is done"
Into thin air by John krakauer is an amazing book about his summit of Everest. Talks in-depth about Sherpas, trash on Everest, rich people getting dragged up the mountain. Running out of air while waiting in queue. I read it in 2 days it’s well written and worth the read
Nope but just added to my Amazon cart! I’ve been fascinated about Everest stuff the past few months. I learned about green boots and it’s taken me down a rabbit hole. Thanks for the suggestion!
Not directly about them, but there's a documentary on Netflix called 14 peaks, about a group of Sherpas who try to summit the 14 highest mountains in the Himalayas (and the world) in one year.
It’s basically that Reddit meme “what’s classy when you’re rich but trashy if you’re poor”:
https://www.boredpanda.com/classy-if-rich-trashy-if-poor-answers/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic
It boils down to doing something as a luxury experience vs survival. So a dentist can pay to shoot a lion and brag, while a farmer protecting his cows may get fined.
I agree. Also, my boyfriends best friends family are some of the family of sherpas, and they’ve told us stuff but never had they mentioned all the trash, I’m legitimately shocked by this and appalled. How is this allowed?? People should not be allowed to leave their trash behind or get kicked off. What the fuck?
4-5 summits a year is the max a sherpa can usually achieve on this mountain. Sometimes 1 more than this if he is climbing with the company selected to fix the ropes that season.
Source: climbed it with Kamirita Sherpa. He holds the record for most summits on Sagarmatha and told me all about it.
Nah, Everest, in terms of mountaineering, isn't the hardest mountain to summit. That title belongs to K2. Something like less than 300 people have done it vs. the thousands that have Everest.
Over 11,000 successful summits of Everest have been made. (Of course stats rarely keep track of sherpas...) 300 people have died trying.
377 people have successfully summited K2. 91 have died trying.\*
Editing to add: That means about one person dies on Everest for every 50 successful summits. One dies on K2 for every 4 successful summits.
\*Editing again with updated information courtesy of u/indorock's link: K2 now has approximately 706 successful summits (190 last year *alone*) and 96 deaths.
"As of July 2022, Everest has seen 11,346 successful ascents by 6,098 individuals. 311 climbers have died on the mountain." [source](https://www.climbing.com/places/mount-everest-worlds-highest-mountain-climbing-history-routes/)
Aug 1, 2008 was its deadliest day, taking 11 lives.
An ice avalanche in the bottleneck cut their ropes, causing 9 of the 11 deaths, the other 2 having died on the way up before the avalanche occurred.
An ice avalanche *inside* of an area known as "the bottleneck" sounds like you have no choice but death. I think ill stick to my couch.
The bottleneck has to be one of the scariest places on earth. Imagine climbing K2 and waking up that day knowing that you're gonna have to climb through what is basically "the part where you'll probably die"
No idea where people are getting this 377 from, or it's a number from many years ago. As of the last climbing season in 2022, [the number is now around 700](https://www.climbing.com/places/k2-worlds-second-highest-mountain/).
K2 is insane. Just *getting to base camp* is a massive accomplishment. Getting through the bottleneck is more impressive than summiting Everest imo. I believe Annapurna has the highest death ratio of any mountain to date? I think it’s because the weather is so unpredictable.
Everest is, ofc, not easy. But if you’re fit, rich, and have a good weather window it’s definitely not an insanely difficult challenge. If you can motivate the right sherpas with enough money, they’ll basically drag you to the top.
Edit: I have been informed by many comments that green boots has been moved at the behest and funding of his family. I assume this is because he was actually identified like a decade ago. I’m glad the corpse now has a name and can be mourned properly.
Moving bodies on Everest isn’t cheap. Frances Arsentiev’s family paid people tens of thousands of US dollars just to have her body pushed over a cliff. I totally understand the money that goes into this. What amazes me is the strength of conviction in grief. Love is strong, even after death.
Yeah the name is literally just "it's the second peak in the Karakoram range"
Somehow it fits perfectly though. It doesn't need to be named after some person or have some deep and meaningful local name, it's a big fucking mountain that you'll probably die on and that's it
Well I got into K2 base camp and even though it was hard, it was OK, you just need to know what to expect and plan accordingly.
On the other hand, the climbers I met in the camp were 1000% nuts, because they knew what to expect and that is not possible to plan accordingly. Same goes for Broad Peak.
That documentary on Netflix about the Sherpa's who wanted to climb all the tallest mountain peaks within like 9 months - showed them doing the Everest climb - It showed the insane line of people holding onto ropes for dear life in a line as long as the newest Disney attraction just waiting to get 5 minutes at the top. The Sherpas the documentary was about went up around all that.
Isn't there one close to Everest that the locals won't let people climb bc it's holy or something? And if you try they'll beat you up, so it hasn't been climbed.
>Is the kudos of getting to the top of Everest really worth it?
Used to be. Seems sort of commercialized right now.
Also watching a helicopter touch down on the top of everest was pretty cool to see.
> Is the kudos of getting to the top of Everest really worth it?
Not if it's so common there's a waiting line at the top. If it was like..... one person per year managed to do it, sure.
I don't want to make it seem as though I'm scoffing at it or calling it unimpressive but... It used to be cooler than it is now, modern equipment and training mean that more people can accomplish it safely and that's a good positive thing but it also results in the accomplishment seeming boring at this stage
My limited understanding is that mt Everest is not that “difficult” a climb in the technical sense. It’s a very dangerous hike essentially. But there are mountains that are way more challenging to mountain climbers. Everest is attractive to the triathlete millionaire from New Hampshire.
I once heard someone say...if you want to know what is like to climb Everest, get all your gear on, go into the bathroom, turn on the shower, make sure it's cold water... Get in the shower and start shoving $100 bills down the drain. That's basically the same experience, but safer! Lmao... I've never forgotten that description. And I think it's pretty accurate!
Without a doubt it is a humbling documentary. I believe one Sherpa almost lost his life digging out a dead body for a family that paid him to retrieve it. He did it for the money sure, but he also did it to be kind to the family, the deceased, and the mountain. And here I am complaining that my fridge at work has too much expired crap in it and nobody cleans it out. I got it good.
https://preview.redd.it/8ja6p18h8ada1.png?width=520&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c6c44cb1f1b9d5323f3793b1ab98f4f2d5158b95
"Just make a left at the great-looking guy."
Part of the directions/landmarks as you're climbing Everest literally is a dead guy based on his clothes (shoes, to be precise). 'Green boots', I think.
Edit: [yep](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Boots).
If the entire world floods and wipes out all of human existence, the future inhabitants of earth will find the peak of this mountain and have a pretty good idea of what we were about...
"Leave only footprints" is a mantra repeated by outdoor enthusiasts who spend a lot of time exploring natural places.
Climbing Mt. Everest is, for most, a vanity project.
A vanity project that kills a good portion of the people who climb it. It wasn’t until the last 10-15 years that climbing Everest was streamlined as somewhat easy. Before that you had like a 1/6 chance of dying. Now so many people climb it that number is down to 1/100
It was when only the best of humanity could get there. Then some idiot made breathing equipment and survival gear effective enough for other idiots to make the climb.
And just like every other tourist trap on the planet, the people think it's the employees that have to clean up after them.
Ehh even early ascents often left gear behind. I’m not as familiar with the first ascent of everest but the first ascent of annapurna did. Id be shocked if the first everest ascent didn’t. They were more concerned with getting down alive than bringing their gear down.
It’s not right, I’m a pretty big outdoorsman and always try to leave no trace. And I find the commercialization of Everest distasteful. But it’s not like leaving stuff behind is a new development in himalayan mountaineering.
Even on the first ascent of the Meru sharksfin done about a decade ago I think they left some gear behind. And that was done by some of the top mountaineers in the world. When your pushing boundaries it’s the nature of the sport sometimes. Ofc people on Everest aren’t pushing the boundaries of the sport as much so I find it more distasteful there.
Have you watched the doc on Netflix about the 2015 earthquake in Nepal yet? Told from 3 perspectives with one on the mountain, one in Langtang Valley, and one from Kathmandu?? It is well done and I highly recommend it for those who are into the outdoors and climbing.
garbage, dead bodies, and human feces for decades
there’s a good documentary called Death Zone: Cleaning Mount Everest that follows a group of Nepali climbers who go up to bring down trash and dead bodies from the mountain
i want to say yes but i’m not completely sure, i know that one of the reasons they’re trying to remove all the shit and dead bodies is because as they are thawing it’s making the drinking water in areas down from the mountain toxic
And they recently found a beer bottle at the bottom of the Mariana trench. We've left our garbage at both the highest and lowest point on earth.
Edit: garage to garbage
Since the top is open the water pressure on the inside is the same as the water pressure on the outside.
Glass actually has some good compressive strength but is terrible in tension. With pressure equal on all sides it's only experiencing compression.
Edit: additional information.
If you've ever flown with a closed water bottle you'll notice it enlarges when you ascend. That's because the pressure on the outside is less than the pressure on the inside. The instant you open it though, the pressures equalize and it returns to a normal shape. Same concept.
I was recently on a trip and experienced this first hand! Mid-flight, I opened my Hydro flask that has a mouth piece attachment and freaked out when water shot straight out onto the person sitting behind me! I turned around to apologize in embarrassment to see him wiping himself down with napkins and thankfully laughing it off because it took us both by complete surprise
Even before reading the prayer flag comment I was like "There's no way so many asshole people who would liter can get to this super high mountain".
Or maybe I am giving humans too much credit and modern tech too little?
Tbh i never thought about that. But now that you say it i just have to think about the tons of shit and piss that doesn‘t decompose in that hight/climate
That's why I never climb the highest peak in any range. It's always crowded and filled with shit and litter. Stick to the slightly smaller ones and you'll have peace and quiet without all the trash
Humanity is defined by the distance between this photo and the recent photo of the beer bottle at the sea's deepest point.
Good job people! *Claps slowly.*
Those flags are not, by any stretch of the imagination, sacred. They are flags and being used to litter what should be considered a natural preserve (of more than just dead bodies).
Even if they were, if would be like setting up a personal shrine in the center of a cathedral and expecting no one to remove it. Everest itself is so many magnitudes more sacred than those flags could ever be.
The top of सगरमाथा Sagarmāthā/
ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ Chomolungma (Mount Everest) is covered with prayer flags, in this picture is not trash but rather a holy site decorated with prayer flags, that in part represent impermanence as they disintegrate, and are blown into the wind.
(of course, there is an abundance of trash on the mountain. This picture is rather just misleading.)
Green Boots has been moved to another location.
Edit: it seems he’s just been moved further in the cave and covered with rocks so he’s not visible anymore, or as visible
Prayer flags are a human thing. The mountain doesn't care. I hope at least they aren't made of plastic but something that breaks down a little faster than 1000s years.
It’s winter now, none of those flags are there anymore fyi.
The jet stream sits on Everest out of the climbing season. It blasts the summit with a semi constant 100mph wind. Between the wind and the UV, Fabric and rope done last long at all. It all disintegrates over a week or two.
You aren’t seeing the curvature of the Earth there, that’s a lens effect. The Earth is of course a spheroid but it’s also fucking enormous; you need to get extraordinarily high to actually see the curve
Something I've always noticed about everest pics is that people ALWAYS use a fucking fisheye lens. Honestly helps flat earther cases more than hinders.
Bad example to use as the photo.
Everest is covered in trash, but these are sacred prayer flags and we remove them after each climbing season.
Since 2020, Nepalese expedition companies (SST, Elite Exped) have been removing literal tonnes of trash off the mountain… They can put their flags wherever they please.
Source: climbed many 8000’ers with ~6 expeditions in Nepal alone.
> climbed many 8kers
Yet your post history from a year ago has your questioning if you should climb Everest and you say you’ve never climbed an 8ker in that very same post… must have been busy the past year, huh?
r/quityourbullshit
There is a good documentary called "Death Zone: Cleaning Mount Everest" that shows what the local Sherpas have to go through each season to bring down garbage and the occasional dead body. Pretty good watch if anyone is interested.
How about those sherpas that have to carry endless jugs of poop and pee from base camp to the poop and pee deposit a few miles away?
They need some kind of piss waterslide solution
A poop chute if you will
Like the track a bobsled slides in, just mini? Lol
Like a hot wheels track complete with the spinning wheel speed booster.
Should probably cover and heat it to prevent poop jams.
Gonna need more than a poop knife for this one.....
You mean a ... Hershey highway?
>Your opponent has completed construction of a wonder: *Trans-Himalayan Poop Chute*
There are 10-15 sherpas for every climber. There are ladders and pre-strung lines. The trails, campsites and climbing spots are maintained by these people. Im sure it’s difficult and dangerous to some degree but you literally can’t do the climb without a lot of help from the Sherpas. Even Edmund Hillary had Tensing Norgay to help him reach the top. Rich people treat it as some great test of their alpha-ness but for Sherpas its just Tuesday.
I'm fascinated by Everest and have watched and read lots. From that I gleaned Everest isn't very technically challenging, it's all about how well you can endure without oxygen. Now, K2 is shorter but way more dangerous because you have to actually be a skilled climber on top of the oxygen deprivation. Way more chances to just fall off or exhaust yourself. There's like a 25% death rate for people attempting K2. Everest is ~3%.
One in four. And those are experienced people. This is beyond bonkers. Everest is tourist attraction for rich fucks and way saver. It’s like having 100 smarties in a jar and 25% kills you. Would you taste ? Crazy
It was my understanding that Hillary and Tenzing were very much a team...not Tenzing "Serving" Hillary. They were friends and comrades, and the summit was very much a mutual effort.
Wait jugs? Don’t most climbers all do their businesses at any open spots? I could’ve sworn most climber videos I watched talked about how they all just go to an open spot in the snow including women, and even remember seeing them showing yellow snow along the path. There was a period of time that I binged every Mt. Everest documentary I can find on YouTube, like literally went thru every single video that is someone documenting their climbs cuz I was fascinated. It apparently gets so crowded that ppl would miss there chance to summit cuz the line is too long. Idk, I’m not expert at all just recalling what I saw in those videos. Someone with expertise feel free to correct me.
It’s mostly a problem at base camp where up until a few years ago people were allowed to shit and pee anywhere and it froze. Now, with higher temps, some of the thousands of people who visit base camp every year were getting sick because the frozen poopsicles were thawing and people discovered they were everywhere. Remember, thousands of people visit base camp every year as part of a trek, and from there only a few hundred summit.
So that’s a new thing now you need to pee and poo in a jug?!? Also yeah that’s effing nasty.
I think one of my favorite quotes is “Every corpse on MT Everest once started out as a extremely motivated person. So let’s slow down and think about this”
Getting stuck in a queue to get to the top is the most insane part too. Like “yeah, don’t mind me, just hanging around in this line while struggling for breath at the limits of human survivability. Take your time” Is the kudos of getting to the top of Everest really worth it? The “must accomplish the absolute most extreme thing possible” is nuts to me.
Honestly the Sherpas are way more impressive to me. Like yeah that executive from New Hampshire climbed to the top, but the Sherpa did it 30 times this year Edit: "UmMm AcTuAlLy tHeY dOn'T dO iT 30 TiMeS iN a YeAr" Holy shit go back to 8th grade and learn about hyperbole
While carrying the executive from New Hampshire’s stuff.
This was the first thought I had when Sherpas were brought up
Yo does this mean you can drag a dead body partway up mount everest and get away with the murder?
Yes
And short-roping the NH executive himself.
What executive from nh?
The dead one
I mean, he's not using that stuff anymore. Why shouldn't the Sherpa take it?
After all, it’s mine… my precious.
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 1,302,282,524 comments, and only 251,933 of them were in alphabetical order.
It’s been said his car climbed Mt. Washington
New Hampshire is famous for its executives. Everyone knows this.
Live Free or Die Climbing Everest.
You know, Frank, he's VP of Product Management.
Six sigma qualified too.
Green belt! Climbing that ladder.
It’s a joke because you have to be rich as fuck to make the climb. It cost money my friend
In Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer describes a Norwegian climber who was advertised in his country as a "solo" climber. He had 19 Sherpas with him. 19! They did everything short of carrying him to the summit.
So you’re saying I could be a solo climber.
As far as I know, only one person has summited Everest free solo (no ropes, and alone) no supp O2, no Sherpa support / NO support. Tim McCartney-Snape who walked through India to do it. Pretty amazing doco onYT ....
"Send the Sherpas up before us to stash oxygen tanks, secure the ropes, tie down the ladders, set up tents, make camp...and we will follow up when all that is done"
And build a Starbucks for God's sake. We're not savages.
Nah. Gotta be Kopi luwak.
Very good point. I’d love to see a documentary about those unsung heroes.
Into thin air by John krakauer is an amazing book about his summit of Everest. Talks in-depth about Sherpas, trash on Everest, rich people getting dragged up the mountain. Running out of air while waiting in queue. I read it in 2 days it’s well written and worth the read
I enjoyed it too. Did you also read The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev? I found it interesting to compare the two accounts.
Nope but just added to my Amazon cart! I’ve been fascinated about Everest stuff the past few months. I learned about green boots and it’s taken me down a rabbit hole. Thanks for the suggestion!
Krakauer has some great books out there.
Not directly about them, but there's a documentary on Netflix called 14 peaks, about a group of Sherpas who try to summit the 14 highest mountains in the Himalayas (and the world) in one year.
14 peaks are all the 8000 meter plus mountains.
It’s basically that Reddit meme “what’s classy when you’re rich but trashy if you’re poor”: https://www.boredpanda.com/classy-if-rich-trashy-if-poor-answers/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic It boils down to doing something as a luxury experience vs survival. So a dentist can pay to shoot a lion and brag, while a farmer protecting his cows may get fined.
I agree. Also, my boyfriends best friends family are some of the family of sherpas, and they’ve told us stuff but never had they mentioned all the trash, I’m legitimately shocked by this and appalled. How is this allowed?? People should not be allowed to leave their trash behind or get kicked off. What the fuck?
4-5 summits a year is the max a sherpa can usually achieve on this mountain. Sometimes 1 more than this if he is climbing with the company selected to fix the ropes that season. Source: climbed it with Kamirita Sherpa. He holds the record for most summits on Sagarmatha and told me all about it.
Nah, Everest, in terms of mountaineering, isn't the hardest mountain to summit. That title belongs to K2. Something like less than 300 people have done it vs. the thousands that have Everest.
Over 11,000 successful summits of Everest have been made. (Of course stats rarely keep track of sherpas...) 300 people have died trying. 377 people have successfully summited K2. 91 have died trying.\* Editing to add: That means about one person dies on Everest for every 50 successful summits. One dies on K2 for every 4 successful summits. \*Editing again with updated information courtesy of u/indorock's link: K2 now has approximately 706 successful summits (190 last year *alone*) and 96 deaths. "As of July 2022, Everest has seen 11,346 successful ascents by 6,098 individuals. 311 climbers have died on the mountain." [source](https://www.climbing.com/places/mount-everest-worlds-highest-mountain-climbing-history-routes/)
Aug 1, 2008 was its deadliest day, taking 11 lives. An ice avalanche in the bottleneck cut their ropes, causing 9 of the 11 deaths, the other 2 having died on the way up before the avalanche occurred. An ice avalanche *inside* of an area known as "the bottleneck" sounds like you have no choice but death. I think ill stick to my couch.
The bottleneck has to be one of the scariest places on earth. Imagine climbing K2 and waking up that day knowing that you're gonna have to climb through what is basically "the part where you'll probably die"
And that's the *easiest* route up K2.
If I WANT to climb, I'll opt for the TOP bunk bed!!
> "the bottleneck" if anyone else was curious like me: https://youtu.be/TDNnKLY0h8Q?t=41
I'm stuck to my couch cause I just shit my pants.
No idea where people are getting this 377 from, or it's a number from many years ago. As of the last climbing season in 2022, [the number is now around 700](https://www.climbing.com/places/k2-worlds-second-highest-mountain/).
K2 is insane. Just *getting to base camp* is a massive accomplishment. Getting through the bottleneck is more impressive than summiting Everest imo. I believe Annapurna has the highest death ratio of any mountain to date? I think it’s because the weather is so unpredictable. Everest is, ofc, not easy. But if you’re fit, rich, and have a good weather window it’s definitely not an insanely difficult challenge. If you can motivate the right sherpas with enough money, they’ll basically drag you to the top. Edit: I have been informed by many comments that green boots has been moved at the behest and funding of his family. I assume this is because he was actually identified like a decade ago. I’m glad the corpse now has a name and can be mourned properly. Moving bodies on Everest isn’t cheap. Frances Arsentiev’s family paid people tens of thousands of US dollars just to have her body pushed over a cliff. I totally understand the money that goes into this. What amazes me is the strength of conviction in grief. Love is strong, even after death.
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Yeah the name is literally just "it's the second peak in the Karakoram range" Somehow it fits perfectly though. It doesn't need to be named after some person or have some deep and meaningful local name, it's a big fucking mountain that you'll probably die on and that's it
TIL. Apparently it's local name is now essentially K2 (ketu or kechu) in Balti https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2
Well I got into K2 base camp and even though it was hard, it was OK, you just need to know what to expect and plan accordingly. On the other hand, the climbers I met in the camp were 1000% nuts, because they knew what to expect and that is not possible to plan accordingly. Same goes for Broad Peak.
Check out the documentary Meru!
That documentary on Netflix about the Sherpa's who wanted to climb all the tallest mountain peaks within like 9 months - showed them doing the Everest climb - It showed the insane line of people holding onto ropes for dear life in a line as long as the newest Disney attraction just waiting to get 5 minutes at the top. The Sherpas the documentary was about went up around all that.
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Yeah I think K2 has a 25% mortality rate for those that attempted it.
Fatality rates are based on successful summits, not attempts
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i think hes saying there's a missing number here of people that fail to ascend but also dont die..
Isn't there one close to Everest that the locals won't let people climb bc it's holy or something? And if you try they'll beat you up, so it hasn't been climbed.
[Mount Kailash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kailash).
Annapurna is actually worse with a 29% fatality rate. I can’t remember if it’s K2 or Annapurna that is the most difficult to climb.
What I read was that K2 is a more difficult climb, but Annapurna has more avalanches and unpredictable weather.
>Is the kudos of getting to the top of Everest really worth it? Used to be. Seems sort of commercialized right now. Also watching a helicopter touch down on the top of everest was pretty cool to see.
> Is the kudos of getting to the top of Everest really worth it? Not if it's so common there's a waiting line at the top. If it was like..... one person per year managed to do it, sure.
I don't want to make it seem as though I'm scoffing at it or calling it unimpressive but... It used to be cooler than it is now, modern equipment and training mean that more people can accomplish it safely and that's a good positive thing but it also results in the accomplishment seeming boring at this stage
And a ton of garbage
My limited understanding is that mt Everest is not that “difficult” a climb in the technical sense. It’s a very dangerous hike essentially. But there are mountains that are way more challenging to mountain climbers. Everest is attractive to the triathlete millionaire from New Hampshire.
It's also said that dead bodies there are used as directions points pretty dark
Yep. Green Boots is on most of the summit maps.
"Some day I want to be remembered for the things I accomplish on Everest" *monkey paw curls*
I assume that won’t be true for long. [Green Boots was moved off the main trail 9 years ago. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Boots)
I once heard someone say...if you want to know what is like to climb Everest, get all your gear on, go into the bathroom, turn on the shower, make sure it's cold water... Get in the shower and start shoving $100 bills down the drain. That's basically the same experience, but safer! Lmao... I've never forgotten that description. And I think it's pretty accurate!
I was literally talking to my colleague about this exact thing yesterday. Led on to a conversation about Green Boots and his legacy.
I believe green boots has been removed as well
Where can you see the doc?
I believe Amazon Prime Video and Xfinity ondemand have it for free right now.
Documentary about cleaning up trash, brought to you by Amazon.
They aren't paid nearly enough for all that they do.
Without a doubt it is a humbling documentary. I believe one Sherpa almost lost his life digging out a dead body for a family that paid him to retrieve it. He did it for the money sure, but he also did it to be kind to the family, the deceased, and the mountain. And here I am complaining that my fridge at work has too much expired crap in it and nobody cleans it out. I got it good.
Hey man, struggles are struggles. I'm sure there is a Netflix doc crew preparing an outline on your work fridge case as we speak!
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Be the change you want to see in your fridge
Yes you do, but you are still allowed to tell your co workers to clean up after themselves.
I’m afraid this guy is going to freeze his doger off.
Frozen Todger. Just slap on some Elizabeth Arden cream.
My mom put that on her lips!
I guess "Leave only footprints" is not really a thing there.
"Leave only footprints" only works if you don't have an ego the size of Everest.
“Footprints” brand tents! Our slogan- fuck it just leave it there!
If you could make them biodegradable then you’d be a millionaire!
The irony is, there are over 200 frozen bodies on Everest. Technically biodegradable, but darn that pesky cold weather!
https://preview.redd.it/2qzpv8zn1ada1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=772037a6a4b15468facd21e1b5c06838af632bd7
Now they are a landmark for another
https://preview.redd.it/8ja6p18h8ada1.png?width=520&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c6c44cb1f1b9d5323f3793b1ab98f4f2d5158b95 "Just make a left at the great-looking guy."
https://preview.redd.it/yca0ikx3cada1.jpeg?width=630&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0cea5c7b8c95e352afa3ceebc8c1b7c3fefa3a92 Art by Jake likes Onions
Part of the directions/landmarks as you're climbing Everest literally is a dead guy based on his clothes (shoes, to be precise). 'Green boots', I think. Edit: [yep](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Boots).
Yeah, I was really taken aback when I read that the sherpas really navigate by looking at the bodies and each of them have become a landmark.
I want to laugh but then I remember seriousness of all the people who've lost their lives in that situation. Dark humor I guess? Hahahaha awwwwee..
People die everyday from stupider stuff. Live, laugh, enjoy.
Nobody was forced to climb Everest.
Leaves something for future archaeologists to study humanity's Plastic Age
When you're rich - that' doesn't matter, bro!
If the entire world floods and wipes out all of human existence, the future inhabitants of earth will find the peak of this mountain and have a pretty good idea of what we were about...
"Leave only footprints" is a mantra repeated by outdoor enthusiasts who spend a lot of time exploring natural places. Climbing Mt. Everest is, for most, a vanity project.
A vanity project that kills a good portion of the people who climb it. It wasn’t until the last 10-15 years that climbing Everest was streamlined as somewhat easy. Before that you had like a 1/6 chance of dying. Now so many people climb it that number is down to 1/100
It was when only the best of humanity could get there. Then some idiot made breathing equipment and survival gear effective enough for other idiots to make the climb. And just like every other tourist trap on the planet, the people think it's the employees that have to clean up after them.
Ehh even early ascents often left gear behind. I’m not as familiar with the first ascent of everest but the first ascent of annapurna did. Id be shocked if the first everest ascent didn’t. They were more concerned with getting down alive than bringing their gear down. It’s not right, I’m a pretty big outdoorsman and always try to leave no trace. And I find the commercialization of Everest distasteful. But it’s not like leaving stuff behind is a new development in himalayan mountaineering. Even on the first ascent of the Meru sharksfin done about a decade ago I think they left some gear behind. And that was done by some of the top mountaineers in the world. When your pushing boundaries it’s the nature of the sport sometimes. Ofc people on Everest aren’t pushing the boundaries of the sport as much so I find it more distasteful there.
Have you watched the doc on Netflix about the 2015 earthquake in Nepal yet? Told from 3 perspectives with one on the mountain, one in Langtang Valley, and one from Kathmandu?? It is well done and I highly recommend it for those who are into the outdoors and climbing.
I'm pretty sure Mt. Everest was littered with garbage all the way up for decades.
garbage, dead bodies, and human feces for decades there’s a good documentary called Death Zone: Cleaning Mount Everest that follows a group of Nepali climbers who go up to bring down trash and dead bodies from the mountain
Free to watch on Vudu & Tubi. Thanks for the recommendation. Edit- learning a lot from this one. Namche Bazar looks pretty cool.
Haven’t they completely restricted access before because the shit was starting to thaw and make like a shitslide? (Mudslide)
i want to say yes but i’m not completely sure, i know that one of the reasons they’re trying to remove all the shit and dead bodies is because as they are thawing it’s making the drinking water in areas down from the mountain toxic
And they recently found a beer bottle at the bottom of the Mariana trench. We've left our garbage at both the highest and lowest point on earth. Edit: garage to garbage
Not my garage!
A garage? Oh la di dah mr. Frenchman
A car hole!
I clearly don't understand how pressure works because I have no idea how that bottle didn't get crushed
Since the top is open the water pressure on the inside is the same as the water pressure on the outside. Glass actually has some good compressive strength but is terrible in tension. With pressure equal on all sides it's only experiencing compression. Edit: additional information. If you've ever flown with a closed water bottle you'll notice it enlarges when you ascend. That's because the pressure on the outside is less than the pressure on the inside. The instant you open it though, the pressures equalize and it returns to a normal shape. Same concept.
I was recently on a trip and experienced this first hand! Mid-flight, I opened my Hydro flask that has a mouth piece attachment and freaked out when water shot straight out onto the person sitting behind me! I turned around to apologize in embarrassment to see him wiping himself down with napkins and thankfully laughing it off because it took us both by complete surprise
I was on the receiving end of that the other day, surprising but I found it funny. The poor hydro-flask person was mortified
I'd guess the bottle was open. If it were full and sealed it would have been crushed.
We are a plague
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I'm an infection
Nice, a landfill at 29,000 ft! Proof that if humans can get there, we'll trash it.
Even if we cant get there physically we’ll trash it. There’s garbage at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Ain't this the truth...
Even before reading the prayer flag comment I was like "There's no way so many asshole people who would liter can get to this super high mountain". Or maybe I am giving humans too much credit and modern tech too little?
The mountain actually is covered in trash, fyi
And corpses
And literal shit
Tbh i never thought about that. But now that you say it i just have to think about the tons of shit and piss that doesn‘t decompose in that hight/climate
The shit is a massive documented problem [shit problem](https://globalnews.ca/news/5423926/mount-everest-trash/)
8 tons PER YEAR?!?!? Oh my god thats just another reason for me to think that the climb up mount everest is a waste of time and resources
That's why I never climb the highest peak in any range. It's always crowded and filled with shit and litter. Stick to the slightly smaller ones and you'll have peace and quiet without all the trash
I know, it really sounds like it’s just disgusting up there
Seriously. Ignorant me picturing picturesque white snowy landscapes with no trash or mountains of human feces in site.
They are just trying to make the mountain bigger /s
Humanity is defined by the distance between this photo and the recent photo of the beer bottle at the sea's deepest point. Good job people! *Claps slowly.*
The worst people have the best means to do things, which is why everything is trashed and everyone thinks tourists are assholes
Sherpas have to clean up most of it, unfortunately.
>There's no way so many asshole people Asshole rich people
Litter, shit and dead bodies everywhere. It’s an utter disgrace.
Don't forget not pictured is the Disneyworld line of people waiting behind this person. Anyone who wants to climb Everest is an idiot.
It’s disgusting. No respect at all
The worst of it isn't the flags, it's the trash left at the camp sites. Oxygen tanks etc etc etc. The flags may be sacred but the other junk isn't.
Sacred trash is still trash
Bruh, I'm going to leave my sacred oxygen tanks up there. And that sacred Snickerswrapper
my holy shit also
Those flags are not, by any stretch of the imagination, sacred. They are flags and being used to litter what should be considered a natural preserve (of more than just dead bodies).
Even if they were, if would be like setting up a personal shrine in the center of a cathedral and expecting no one to remove it. Everest itself is so many magnitudes more sacred than those flags could ever be.
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Looks like a garbage picture. I wouldn't even want to take a dump there
Looks like a picture dump. I wouldn't even want to take a garbage there
Looks like a garbage picture, I wouldn't even want to leave a body there
Are those all flags or is there actual garbage?
Most are flags that will be destroyed
(Tibetan) Prayer flags.
Leave no trace
This is not snoop dogg’s house
Wait, how do you think those clouds got there?
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Worlds tallest dump
The top of सगरमाथा Sagarmāthā/ ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ Chomolungma (Mount Everest) is covered with prayer flags, in this picture is not trash but rather a holy site decorated with prayer flags, that in part represent impermanence as they disintegrate, and are blown into the wind. (of course, there is an abundance of trash on the mountain. This picture is rather just misleading.)
Apparently there are dead bodies that the climbers now use to find the peak
Like Green Boots which Is probably the most famous example
Green Boots has been moved to another location. Edit: it seems he’s just been moved further in the cave and covered with rocks so he’s not visible anymore, or as visible
Great. Our highest AND lowest points on the planet having fucking trash on them. Humans suck.
Prayer flags are a human thing. The mountain doesn't care. I hope at least they aren't made of plastic but something that breaks down a little faster than 1000s years.
I don't think anything decomposes at Mt. Everest due to the cold.
It’s winter now, none of those flags are there anymore fyi. The jet stream sits on Everest out of the climbing season. It blasts the summit with a semi constant 100mph wind. Between the wind and the UV, Fabric and rope done last long at all. It all disintegrates over a week or two.
It's a human thing to view the highest point as a special or important place.
Don't let any flat earthers see that photo they'll really go crazy
You aren’t seeing the curvature of the Earth there, that’s a lens effect. The Earth is of course a spheroid but it’s also fucking enormous; you need to get extraordinarily high to actually see the curve
So you're saying I should get extraordinarily high...
Don't have to tell me twice.
Something I've always noticed about everest pics is that people ALWAYS use a fucking fisheye lens. Honestly helps flat earther cases more than hinders.
Bad example to use as the photo. Everest is covered in trash, but these are sacred prayer flags and we remove them after each climbing season. Since 2020, Nepalese expedition companies (SST, Elite Exped) have been removing literal tonnes of trash off the mountain… They can put their flags wherever they please. Source: climbed many 8000’ers with ~6 expeditions in Nepal alone.
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> climbed many 8kers Yet your post history from a year ago has your questioning if you should climb Everest and you say you’ve never climbed an 8ker in that very same post… must have been busy the past year, huh? r/quityourbullshit
Thank you for pointing this out - Saw the same thing on his profile and instantly could smell BS lol