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Comment by jdietrich | Hacker News Reader

Racing drivers don't get kudos for racing without a helmet or a seat belt - nobody would let them race and they'd be seen as moronic for even suggesting the idea.

Nepal have every right to ban people from doing pointless, stupid things on their mountain. Jornet's good friend Ueli Steck died earlier this year. He was solo climbing Nuptse without fixed protection, supplemental oxygen or even ice axes. If Jornet has not learned from this senseless tragedy, then Nepal has no obligation to entertain him.

If you want to kill yourself, do it at sea level.

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The racing analogy might have some flaws. Seat belts and helmets are for protection, they don't aid you in driving. Ice axes and supplemental oxygen aid you in climbing. You could very well climb without them. They are not safety devices. Seat belt is by definition a safety device which will save your life in case of a high speed accident. I think the only seat belt equivalent is the climbing rope.

What do you think the rope is tied to? A team member. The team itself is your seat belt in such ascensions.

It’s possible to use a rope as protection without a partner. “Rope-soloing” is not uncommon on harder, more remote climbs.

on everest, it's usually tied to a snow anchor. The Sherpa who put the anchor there usually wasn't tied to anything.

Traditional rock climbers use their ropes and equipment as both a fall-arrest system and a means of ascent. Sport climbers only use their ropes as a fall-arrest system and sometimes and a means of resting on the rock. The same can be done with ice axes - they're a vital means of arresting a fall, regardless of whether you use them to ascend.

If you're determined to climb into the death zone without supplemental oxygen, you could still carry a small cylinder as a bailout option. Hell, if you want to make the climb really challenging, you could carry ten oxygen cylinders and a Piñata.

More to the point, you could just not climb Everest. Other than the altitude, there's nothing particularly interesting about the climb. The Nürburgring was the most interesting and challenging course in the Formula 1 world championship, but the sport abandoned it in 1976 because it couldn't be made safe. The drivers agreed that no race track was worth creating widows and orphans for.

If you go on Oxygen, you basically want to have enough to get you down to camp. The effects of coming off Oxygen can be totally debilitating. There are also advantages to climbing without Oxygen if you have the proper physiology, mainly you don't have to worry about carrying g it or running out. Anatoli Boukreev's book about the 1996 Everest disaster is very insightful. Among other factors climbers running out of Oxygen contributed to the scope of that disaster. It's a fascinating read.

>Traditional rock climbers use their ropes and equipment as both a fall-arrest system and a means of ascent.

Minor quibble: you mean aid climbing, here. post-1960ish, "french-free" or hangdog ascents are considered bad form for trad, and using your gear to take your weight is an ethics violation at some level.

>The drivers agreed that no race track was worth creating widows and orphans for.

Motorcyclists, of course, continue to use the Isle of Man TT course despite the deaths of 255 people to date.

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