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Comment by ldjkfkdsjnv | Hacker News Reader

The climbs are basically pure dice rolls. Alot of regular human beings could climb these mountains, they would just die 80% of the time. These climbers might only die 10-20% of the time. But they always do in the end. Still, a riviting exhibit of human exploration.

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A "regular human" would die just sleeping at 20,000 feet like these people did. You're really underestimating the amount of preparation and skill that goes into a feat like this.

Likewise for this part: "The first two days involved about 6,000 vertical feet of climbing, 60 meters of rope at a time." No "regular human" is even making it 50 feet free climbing up a vertical wall, let alone the technical skill required to clip the rope, place protection, and manage equipment while climbing and working with your partner.

It's really easy to underestimate this stuff, especially if you've never actually tried rock climbing or done high altitude stuff before. It may look easy, but at around 15,000 feet it gets to the point where even the most physically in-shape person cannot walk more than a few steps without having to stop and take a breath, let alone climb a vertical wall.

Likewise, rock climbing might look easy, but go to a local climbing gym and pick a 5.9 or 5.10 (which are about medium difficulty) and unless you have past experience climbing, I guarantee you won't even make it halfway up. And that's at a gym, where everything is easier, and you don't need to worry about placing your own protection or carrying ropes.

Indeed. People who don't do these kinds of activity wildly overestimate their physical capabilities.

Part of the reason for this, I think, is that Hollywood and TV depicts ludicrous levels of acrobatic and athletic capability as the norm; apparently normal people in movies are depicted catching falling people one-handed, outrunning explosions, and so on.

Climbing, even at an enthusiastic amateur level, is much harder than non-climbers believe, and I think your suggestion that readers try top-roping a 5.9/5.10 to get some idea of even beginning climbing difficulty is an excellent idea.

I cannot even imagine the level of dedication and expertise it takes to do this sort of feat.

I don't quite believe the dice roll metaphor tells the whole story. It is not all or nothing, it is not how it is done. On that subject, I recommend reading the book by Ed Viesturs [1], first American to ascend all 14 highest mountains (summits > 8000m) without oxygen. His take is: to do all 14, you need to come back alive every time. So knowing when to give up on an attempt and turn back is key. Above 8000m (reasoning impaired by lack of oxygen), when the weather is still good, when you are so close to the top, and knowing you will have to wait years perhaps for the next opportunity it can be really hard to make that decision correctly. And picking a partner with not just all the skills bit also the same risk tolerance is vital.

[1]: No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks (October 2006)

I beg to differ.

Regular human beings would die 100% of the time. Not 80.

Exactly, and for multiple reasons too. Fear leading to bad decisions, lack of skill, lack of fitness just to name a few.

It's 100%, for everyone. This is being written about because until now, despite a community of hyper competitive individuals vying for first ascents in extreme environments, no one has done this route until now; it was unimaginable, basically, as something you could possibly survive. But these mad lads had the imagination to see it was possible, and the skill sets to achieve it.

As for 'dice rolls', it depends. In climbing there is "objective danger" - danger you cannot really control, like your route passes under a serac that collapses frequently, and "subjective danger" that you can control - you step on a loose hold and fall. They spend months planning, trying to reduce the objective dangers as much as possible, and of course years of training to reduce the subjective dangers. Summarizing all of that as a 'dice roll', while it might capture the percentages of particular high risk climbs, seems to miss the mark a bit. Spend a night in a climbing hut, or hanging in a tent/portaledge off a mountain side and it's endless talk about this sort of thing. How to master your body, the terrain, and often most importantly and hardest, your mind.

I'd put this at Nobel prize level of achievement for the climbing world. Lifetime of effort plus unique talent, drive, focus. Whereas climbing Everest via the standard tourist route might be like passing an undergrad calc exam (few months of effort with someone teaching you, 80% of people could do it).

Not sure if you'd say "a lot of regular humans" have a Nobel. There are a lot of laureates out there, but I mean are they regular guys?

Having read a few accounts of what it takes to summit Everest, I would guess that the number of people who could achieve it is less than half of 80%. The excellent book Into Thin Air[0] has a lot more on this (and some thoughts on the increased tourism/commercialization of the mountain).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Thin_Air

That is how I felt when watching the documentary on Marc-Andre Leclerc, eventually the dice were going to roll against him and they did.

You clearly underestimate the amount of skill and tenacity involved here. I can tell you these percentages are waaay off and more like 100% death sentence for "regular" humans (if they can even do the approach). These are like olympic-level athletes (gold medalist kind).

Can you please make your substantive points without swipes? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

If you know more than someone else, that's great, but in that case please share some of what you know, so the rest of us can learn.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

The original comment also felt like a swipe or at least slightly disrespectful so hence my reply. But you're right - rules are rules so I edited my comment =)

Agreed on the 100% for regular humans, but what would the % be for this calibre of climbers?

I dont have hard data but definitely nowhere close to 10-20% that’s just ridiculous. Somewhere like 1 to 10000 on routes with very high objective danger would be my guess

I replied separately, but this is being written about because up to now, every last elite climber said 'nope, I'll 100% die on this one'. Well, perhaps there were aborted attempts (I'm not aware of any), but you abort when it becomes impossible, ie death is looming.

People can quote stats for Himalayan climbs and the such, but a climb like this lacks meaningful statistics. It is so far from a trudge up Everest, and unequalled, that I don't see how to assign a stat. Right now it stands at 0%, which is probably not the right number.

We all do in the end.

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