Sherpas, Death, and Anger on Everest
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
http://himalayanexperience.com/newsletters
This is what Russ published regarding the event in the article:
"Sorry for the late news, I have been a bit busy these last few days.
On the day of the avalanche we had 19 Sherpas carrying loads to C2. On their descent they established our rescue tent at C1 with oxygen, sleeping bags and other rescue equipment. The fact that they were busy doing this meant that none of our staff were actually in the ice fall at the time of the accident, so all are safe. As each Sherpa has a radio we were very quickly able to ascertain where everyone was. Our Sherpas also all have avalanche transceivers so they were able to do a transceiver search as they descended back to BC, but as very few people actually use transceivers on Everest they never found any signals.
At that time all our members were at Lobuche BC or acclimatising on the slopes of Lobuche, and only now are they returning to Everest BC.
At this stage we do not know if we will be continuing with our expedition or not.
Russ"
As someone who is into more 'extreme' endeavours, it's more about the experience than the result. Where's the fun in having someone else do the heavy lifting?
Second, why not climb new mountains? There's plenty of interesting places in the world to explore, climb, and have an adventure. Plenty of peaks to ascend (and descend on skis!), plenty of remote locations to reach, and many peaks where you can bag a first ascent, rather than be the X climber to have been carried up by a Sherpa...
Want to be extreme, and enrich your life experience? Learn how to actually be a mountaineer, learn the ropes (figuratively and literally), and do something on your own. But I guess that's too hard.
About the Sherpas on Everest - they need to decide as a society whether depending on tourist dollars is what they want, or whether they want to actually create something...
From http://www.andy-kirkpatrick.com/blog/view/everest_sucking_on...
The "only" difficulties with the Everes ascent are with cold and oxygen deprivation, which are solved by technical means and sherpas hard labor. Unlike plenty of climbs in the Alps or the Rockies the only prerequisite for Everest is (very) good physical condition, time and money.
That price/method example isn't an "I hope this is possible", just what it would take for me to personally want to go, I'd be paying for the view and the experience of being up there, rather than the experience of getting up there (since I'm never going to be able to do it that way, I won't be doing it at all). But that's just me, others like you it's largely about the experience, while some people will be in between, wanting some of the experience, but have it be not too difficult.
I like how Krakauer referred to his own Everest adventure as "I was guided up Everest" in his article.
But this a very old debate, and there may be good reasons for alpine style; though personally I don't think there are very many good reasons to climb the Everest in any style.
Do you make your own ropes and biners, and walk to every mountain you climb from the house you built with your own hands?
Why draw a special line for Everest ascenders when we all depend on others to get done everything we do?
Why criticize the economics of Sherpas for being dangerous when our own economies are killing people by the millions?
But what's wrong with tourism as a core part of their economy? That would make it easier to create something in the near future.
"Things aren't fun/good/interesting if hundreds do it."
Pardon me if that doesn't sound a bit like the stereotypical hipster excuse not to do something - a fetish for being original. To each their own, but my goodness does that make my jaw drop.
Isn't feeling the need to be the "first" at something the same logic as feeling the need to climb the "highest" mountain?
> Among the Sherpas’ demands are that the government […] require the guiding companies to pay Sherpas their salaries, even if they call off the remainder of the 2014 Everest climbing season;
So basically if a guiding company calls an expedition off they don't even have to give a raincheck, but they withhold the Sherpas pay? That seems predatory even if you workers are not dying like flies!
Secondly, its not unreasonable at all. Sure the trip you may have done on vacation was an easy float down a class 3, but that's the equivalent of hiking a small hill an hour from your home. There are plenty of rafting expeditions that probably took way more planning and organisation and unknowns than some rich kid paying a million bucks for some company to hold their hand all the way up Everst.
Seems fine to me. It's actually worse for them if they were paid the entire season even when a cancelation happens since then there's less reason to call it off.
Paying workers for their time and not hiring them works well when said worker is very highly skilled and you will not need them for a very long time: a lawyer, a chef for an event… If you plan on hiring someone for a whole season or longer I believe the right thing to do to protect both parties is to agree on a flat rate for the season.
On one hand a contractor can leave you whenever they please, but in practice (and this is the case) the employer will have the upper hand. This is why we need laws to regulate this type of work relations (I know this might get me downvoted here). I know this probably will not happen to the typical HN crowd working as contractors, but think of a housekeeper; I believe it's very important that regulation is in place to prevent this kind of exploitation.
Peak Freaks is in support of the Sherpa people any which way it goes. They are our family, our brothers and sisters and the muscle on Everest.
Best of them was probably "Abstieg zum Erfolg".
More than anyone else I've read, he captures the compulsion and the self-doubt of people compelled to pursue such ventures. My highest "climb" is Mt. Shasta, which is nothing in comparison to anything he's done. But I so understand that urge to go and get into the wilderness. It's a compulsion for some, and he documents it, and the vulnerabilities it implies, so very well.
http://amzn.com/0312206372 - The Climb
http://amzn.com/B00368CAVU - Eiger Dreams
http://amzn.com/B000SEFNMS - Into the Wild
http://amzn.com/B007TKATSM - Surviving K2
This opens up another can of worms in implying that 'eastern' civilisations are poorer than western ones. I agree it is not a good use of the term but it's arguably better than 'first world' and 'third world' and I cannot think of a better equivalent.
[Also first time I've found the infobox to answer my query.]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_K2_disaster
This event had a similar death toll (11x), a similar pysical situation (ice sercac avalanche accross main summit route), and overall was in a place made people similarly nervous for many years.
http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-K2-Wilco-van-Rooijen-ebook/d...
The story of Alison Hargreaves' life and death is especially chilling. She was blown off the peak by a hurricane force wind in 1995.
Her body has never been found, but her fellow climbers mentioned seeing her jacket, harness and boots in the snow. This reminds me of a certain aspect of plane crash investigations. When a plane explodes at high altitude and the occupants are thrown out, the force exerted by the atmosphere due to falling can be sufficient to rip off clothes, so sometimes the victims bodies can be found on the ground naked.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/k2-the-final-hours-1597003...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zkC9IMQmYA is a very good video of Chris Warner talking to Google employees about leadership. He has climbed K2 in 2007 and gives his opinion on the events in 2008.
Also The Summit [0] is a nice film about this tragedy.
Poor coordination with other teams, leaving 3 hours later than intended, missing or forgetting gear, and dangerous decisions in very dangerous situations.
> Nevertheless, on April 20th, after holding several emotional, contentious meetings at Everest base camp, the climbing Sherpas announced that they would go on strike unless the Nepali government agreed to meet thirteen demands within a week.
I meet one of such Sherpa guides, who already had 5 ascendings, in Periche village on 31 March. He told me that the number of tourists is increasing each year, that supply chain is robust enough so that tourists could have ordered a spaghetti or noodles or even pizza at the Camp2, etc. (30kg. gas cylinders and food supplies were carried to the Camp2 by Nepalese potters).
Actually it is ugly, greedy, very arrogant and selfish world of those rich "tourists" who brought their "safe" trip to the top. One just have see them for a few minutes or how potters are carrying innumerable boxes and bags with tourist's stuff. Just business.
Perhaps, but in modern times it's more complicated than that. People who arrange their own expeditions often come into conflict with established tours and organizations. You often hear stories of someone who doesn't belong on the mountain for one reason or another, who can't keep up with the traffic flow -- in certain places on the route a weak or unprepared climber can produce a bottleneck that prevents people from completing their summit, on one of the few days of the year when that's even possible.
It's not as though Everest is a big cone with dozens of available routes where people can choose to walk up to the summit any way they want. There are serious traffic and coordination problems, and the more independent agents, the more ways things can go wrong.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/30/everest-climber...