Mount Everest
March 24, 2006 12:23 PM Subscribe
Blogs by Mount Everest climbers This is a really cool site with blogs by Mount Everest climbers, right from the mountain. There's also a great Google map of Everest with points of interest along the route.
This post was deleted for the following reason: self-link, banned
Darn. No yetis. Cool site, though.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:38 PM on March 24, 2006
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:38 PM on March 24, 2006
Department of Redunency Department
but I love the link.
posted by wheelieman at 12:43 PM on March 24, 2006
but I love the link.
posted by wheelieman at 12:43 PM on March 24, 2006
As someone completely naive to mountain climbing, how difficult is Mt Everest? As far as technically difficult mountains go is it that hard? What's the average time for a dedicated mountaineer to go from novice (no mountain climbing experience) to Mt Everest, assuming money and resources were not an issue?
posted by geoff. at 12:43 PM on March 24, 2006
posted by geoff. at 12:43 PM on March 24, 2006
Part of me thinks it's great that people still do things like climb great mountains and sail around the world by themselves. And part of me thinks they're all banal, pampered asshats who mistake adventure for taking stupid risks with their lives and the lives of others. Of course, Into thin Air gave me the latter bias.
But this is an interesting FPP nonetheless.
posted by bardic at 12:44 PM on March 24, 2006
But this is an interesting FPP nonetheless.
posted by bardic at 12:44 PM on March 24, 2006
geoff., I've never climbed either, but ITA comes down pretty hard on the fact that it's no longer just skilled, professional climbers that go up Everest, but pretty much anyone, in any shape, who can afford the expenses and a guide, i.e., poseurs who should stick to managing their trust funds.
posted by bardic at 12:46 PM on March 24, 2006
posted by bardic at 12:46 PM on March 24, 2006
Goeff: By the standard route there's almost nothing that is hard technically anymore. At the beginning of the season the guide services fixes ropes up the steep parts and build a route through the icefall. For the most part, clients walk up the route.
That said, doing anything at that altitude, much less walking up-hill, is HARD. Even with bottled oxygen most climbers push themselves beyond their limits and most don't make the top. Just getting your boots on in the morning is a chore.
Guides have a lot of pressure to get paying clients to the top so a lot of the time the guides and Sherpas literally pull people up to the top (see: Sandy Pittman) and there are often traffic jams at certain bottle-necks like the Hillary Step.
Jon Krakauer, who wroteInto Thin Air, about the famous 1996 season, was a very experienced climber. In his younger days he even pioneered a lot of new routes in Alaska. He had never been up at that altitude, however, and by the time he got to the top he didn't even care, he was in such bad shape. So there's someone who had more experience than most of the paying clients, he was in good shape, and the mountain kicked his ass and almost killed him. YMMV.
Everyone's physiology is different and the altitude affects different people in different ways. Ed Viesteurs (sp?) has been to the summit a few times without oxygen and doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Other people never make it beyond base camp, they get hit so hard.
A lot of it is luck, as well. Everything has to be perfect when you're in position for a summit attempt.
If money is no object, you could probably go in a year or two. Some guides require previous trips to smaller mountains like Denali, others might not care. Some people's first time in crampons is on Everest. very sad.
(no, I haven't climbed it, but I know people who have)
posted by bondcliff at 1:23 PM on March 24, 2006
That said, doing anything at that altitude, much less walking up-hill, is HARD. Even with bottled oxygen most climbers push themselves beyond their limits and most don't make the top. Just getting your boots on in the morning is a chore.
Guides have a lot of pressure to get paying clients to the top so a lot of the time the guides and Sherpas literally pull people up to the top (see: Sandy Pittman) and there are often traffic jams at certain bottle-necks like the Hillary Step.
Jon Krakauer, who wroteInto Thin Air, about the famous 1996 season, was a very experienced climber. In his younger days he even pioneered a lot of new routes in Alaska. He had never been up at that altitude, however, and by the time he got to the top he didn't even care, he was in such bad shape. So there's someone who had more experience than most of the paying clients, he was in good shape, and the mountain kicked his ass and almost killed him. YMMV.
Everyone's physiology is different and the altitude affects different people in different ways. Ed Viesteurs (sp?) has been to the summit a few times without oxygen and doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Other people never make it beyond base camp, they get hit so hard.
A lot of it is luck, as well. Everything has to be perfect when you're in position for a summit attempt.
If money is no object, you could probably go in a year or two. Some guides require previous trips to smaller mountains like Denali, others might not care. Some people's first time in crampons is on Everest. very sad.
(no, I haven't climbed it, but I know people who have)
posted by bondcliff at 1:23 PM on March 24, 2006
I've just finished the Krakauer book. An experienced climber, Krakauer and his buddies used to refer to the standard route up Everest (the one he was to climb in the book) as 'The Yak Route' because supposedly its so easy to climb.
Not only did it seriously kick his ass, it killed half of his party, some of whom were extremely experienced climbers.
A couple of weeks later there was another party of South African climbers that lost an experienced mountaineer as well. Apparently, one of the notable features of the so-called yak route are the numbers of dead bodies that you just stumble past on your way up the route.
So it might not be technically difficult, but it's still extremely demanding, and as bondcliff says, requires a lot of preparation on the part of your guides, and a lot of luck with regard to the weather. And while reaching the summit might not be overly taxing, the trick is to reach the summit and then make it down again afterwards.
I read the Krakauer book after reading Savage Summit: The life and death of the first women of K2, by Jennifer Jordan. Because K2 is so taxing, Jordan also gives the impression that Everest is a walk in the park. This was the first mountaineering book I'd ever read, and I enjoyed it greatly, but it was my wife who insisted I read the Krakauer book because of my describing to her the way that Jordan is so blaze about how taxing Everest is.
As someone who has never been up a mountain in his life, both books were wonderful reads and I'd recommend them to anyone, climber or not.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:21 PM on March 24, 2006
Not only did it seriously kick his ass, it killed half of his party, some of whom were extremely experienced climbers.
A couple of weeks later there was another party of South African climbers that lost an experienced mountaineer as well. Apparently, one of the notable features of the so-called yak route are the numbers of dead bodies that you just stumble past on your way up the route.
So it might not be technically difficult, but it's still extremely demanding, and as bondcliff says, requires a lot of preparation on the part of your guides, and a lot of luck with regard to the weather. And while reaching the summit might not be overly taxing, the trick is to reach the summit and then make it down again afterwards.
I read the Krakauer book after reading Savage Summit: The life and death of the first women of K2, by Jennifer Jordan. Because K2 is so taxing, Jordan also gives the impression that Everest is a walk in the park. This was the first mountaineering book I'd ever read, and I enjoyed it greatly, but it was my wife who insisted I read the Krakauer book because of my describing to her the way that Jordan is so blaze about how taxing Everest is.
As someone who has never been up a mountain in his life, both books were wonderful reads and I'd recommend them to anyone, climber or not.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:21 PM on March 24, 2006
Ed Viesteurs (sp?) has been to the summit a few times without oxygen and doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Other people never make it beyond base camp, they get hit so hard.
If you're talking altitude sickness, it's not just a matter of this and that person, but a host of factors governing any individual. You can do the same mountain a half dozen times, never having had the problem, and then get hit with it. Overconfidence often arises because someone has done that mountain or altitude before, only to be hit hard with HACE or HAPE. (for me it was HACE, on Annapurna, but it was my first time and I was doing way too much altitude per day -- stupid)
posted by dreamsign at 7:59 PM on March 24, 2006
If you're talking altitude sickness, it's not just a matter of this and that person, but a host of factors governing any individual. You can do the same mountain a half dozen times, never having had the problem, and then get hit with it. Overconfidence often arises because someone has done that mountain or altitude before, only to be hit hard with HACE or HAPE. (for me it was HACE, on Annapurna, but it was my first time and I was doing way too much altitude per day -- stupid)
posted by dreamsign at 7:59 PM on March 24, 2006
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