Comment by hasoleju | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hasoleju | Hacker News Reader

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> “but they’ll need to accept the likelihood that they’re buying themselves a one-way ticket.”

The sensation of this achievement seems to be mainly grounded in the fact, that there was a high probability of death. I understand that this thrill is a very good hook for media coverage. But as far as I understood from reading, the main difficulty was the technical climbing part. Combined with the low oxygen atmosphere and low temperature of high altitude.

I really hope that they knew what they were doing and mitigated the risk of getting hurt. Maybe sometimes the risk of death is exaggerated in this articles to build suspense for the readers.

I think it is bad if the "Risk your life to get famous" part of this adventure is stressed too much.

> The first two days involved about 6,000 vertical feet of climbing, 60 meters of rope at a time.

As a European used to the metric system reading a sentence like this is a real challenge. I don't know why you measure hight of a mountain in feet and length of a rope in meters.

The pure difficulty of the technical climbing was not remarkable.

The grade they gave was M7, AI5, A0. M7 is moderate, AI5 is moderate but strenuous, and A0 is the very easiest A grade. The details of what these grades mean are discussed in other comments. If there was a climb with that grade close to the road in the U.S. Rocky Mountains, it would be considered a fun but not-too-challenging day of climbing by these guys.

But combine this moderate climbing grade with: the weight of a week's worth of camping supplies; the very high altitude; the very cold temperatures; the constant threat of terrible weather; the constant threat of avalanche or ice fall; and the very far distance from any kind of help... and you begin to see how it is a remarkable achievement.

The risk of death was high, yes. But it's not like playing Russian Roulette or running across a busy highway or something. The hazards are inherently part of the climbing goal, and a huge part of the achievement is in how the risks were mitigated: peak physical fitness; long climbing experience; the lightest gear; the best weather forecasting; the best planning and logistics, etc.

Metaphorically: you can't build a plane with the same safety margins you use to a build a bridge. And you can't get a rocket to orbit with the same safety margins you use for a passenger plane. The harder the objective (physically), the smaller the safety margin is available, and the more skill and expertise it takes to make it work.

>But as far as I understood from reading, the main difficulty was the technical climbing part. Combined with the low oxygen atmosphere and low temperature of high altitude.

The danger of avalanches, weather changes, and the non-availability of rescue if anything goes wrong also plays a part. Alpine climbing is a package deal of difficulty and deadliness, and these aspects are hard to disentangle. Every competent alpine climbers does what they can to mitigate risks, but there is a very significant amount of risk that cannot be mitigated except by not doing difficult alpine climbing.

I can share my perspective (downhill longboarding rather than climbing, surprisingly lots of parallels, while on average most likely less fatal it definitely can get you killed or wheelchaired).

There are exactly zero people who do these kinds of sports and have a deathwish, because every deathwish almost immediately comes true. On top of that, while the sport could technically be practiced alone, you really really really need buddies to rely on - they're gonna hold your life in their hands, you're gonna hold theirs. The "stay safe" mantra is fundamentally embedded into the groupthink.

The entire sport *is* risk management. Picking your gear, picking the route, picking your friends, knowing (and consciously pushing) your limits, knowing when to back off, dealing with trauma of injury, of seeing others injured or dead.

Media of course can and will toot the "these insane men" horn, thrill sells and an impartial report would be boring. We're guilty of this too! The boys in the crew often shoot cool videos to attract clicks and sponsorships, it's how the best of us turn the hobby into a trade.

We're not motivated by danger, we're wary of it as a constraint under which we can express ourselves.

climbing ropes are typically measured in meters and come in increments of 10(ie. 50, 60, 70, 80). that's likely the reason they used metric for the rope length... however I will agree with you that it's a weird choice given this is meant for a mainstream audience

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