For a frozen open air cemetery, I direct your attention to Mount Everest.
Your odds of dying while climbing it are better than while attempting suicide. And most of the bodies just...stay.
Your odds of dying while climbing it are better than while attempting suicide. And most of the bodies just...stay.
I think the death ratio is down now there are pretty much fixed ropes the whole way to the summit on the south side. The 'Into Thin Air' deaths were because they lost their way in a storm but now you just clip onto the guide rope and walk up/down.
The attempt to death ratio is probably more like 0.5% or 0.2% though there aren't really proper figures on number of attempts.
I'm assuming by "summit attempt" they mean something like ascending above the high camp, so that wouldn't include people who abandon the climb lower down the mountain?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_on_eight-thousa...
From 1924 (Mallory's death) and 1952 (Hillary's summit) it was infinite deaths per summit as summits were zero.
It does make sense that this figure would evolve over time.
(Note: that link contains photos of frozen human corpses, so maybe don't click it if you're squeamish.)
My understanding is that many of these bodies are clearly visible from the trail as you climb the mountain. Imagine seeing the well-preserved corpse of someone who previously attempted the dangerous feat you're now attempting... I don't want to find out what that feels like.
The reason one does such things, though, is because they're difficult, so I'd imagine the bodies are motivating - focus or you'll be the next milestone.
I also wonder, with so much money going into these expeditions for many decades, how hard would it be to build some kind of safe house not too far from the summit, with oxygen / heating supplies delivered by drone?
The density of the air on Mount Everest is about 3/8 of that at sea level. So getting enough lift would be difficult. To the sibling commenter's point, I think a drone would be a lot easier than a piloted helicopter, since you can make the whole thing out of beryllium if you have to.
You also have a stream of hundreds of people climbing it daily. If each one carries a few hundred grams payload to help with construction, or a sherpa takes an extra O2 cylinder every once in a while...
I know nothing about climbing, but thought, given the volume of people and money, it doesn't look like a "greatest feats of engineering"-level project to save a few dozen lives.
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/eve...
Really takes the mystery and wonder out of it, but maybe the Nepal government will sell a FastPass.
But I was questioning my own assumption there and as it turns out there's "only" a few hundred people a year that try to make it to the summit, with a total of about 12.000 people that did since the 50's. That said, the surrounding national park gets 100.000 visitors per year, and 500 people a day go up to Everest Base Camp, which is already over five kilometers high up (although people can start from a town with an airport at 2804 meters high).
Above that in Nepal it's just tents carried by human porters. In China/Tibet there's an advanced base camp which is like a village supplied by yak but without shops/public facilities, just expedition tents.
The trek to the 5200m stuff on the Nepal side is a nice trip and cheap once you get to Kathmandu.
Andean and Ethiopan populations also have separate such mutations of their own.
Academic article: https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/46/1/18/661204
Grunt work (porters, cooks, etc) is done by migrants from lowlands, on poor wages, with poor equipment and often effectively at higher risk despite not being involved in, for example, summit pushes. They do not benefit from the biological adaptations, nor noble savage mystique payday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Delsalle?wprov=sfti1#Mo...