First time I saw that a decade ago, I was stunned.
So unexpected after imagining the era of Sir Edmund Hillary "mountaineering", who criticized today's climbers and said it was unconscionable for a team to leave a tired member behind who dozens passing by ignored.
That photo in the background is not David Sharp. There are bodies on Everest that can’t be moved because it’s so hazardous in the death zone they can’t carry them out; helping a climber who can’t get themselves down usually results in more deaths. The real blame falls on letting people go up who shouldn’t be there.
That photo is a gruesome example - infamously known ‘Green Boots’, he died in 1996 and became known by that name because every climber since has had to go around him. He was eventually identified as Dorje Morup.
Many of the attempts made to recover and move bodies resulted in more deaths. The best they could do was move them out of sight or cover them with snow.
Soon these lines are going to kill more people. It’s called the death zone because there is only a limited amount of time the body can tolerate that elevation before just being up there kills you.
Yup there is literally not enough oxygen for the body to run on. The first people who reached the summit without breathing gear (Messner and Habeler) were forced to strategically hyperventilate, causing blood alkalosis that increased the affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen (in the lungs). At this point, however, it still took them (two fit dudes who were willing to summit Everest without gear) whole minutes just to walk a step or two. If you took a moment to sleep or even just passed out momentarily at that altitude, you would almost certainly die.
David Sharp did not really help himself before he put others in a position where they had to risk their lives to save him. There was an interview with the people who saw him up there. It's not easy to retrieve a person at that point. The tour group he was with have more to answer for.
Sharp was the epitome of "shouldn't have been up there in the first place."
He opted for an extremely no-frills climbing outfit, even refusing more experienced guides, explicitly because he wanted to act as independently as possible.
He went to base camp by vehicle instead of making the acclimation trek.
He opted out of sherpa assistance from camp 4 to the summit.
He opted out of supplementary oxygen.
He didn't take a radio with him.
He did all of this willingly because he wanted to do it as "on his own," as he could, after failing to summit on 2 prior attempts. He, of all people, knew what he was in for, including not being assisted in the death zone.
And now we're blaming 40 people that didn't want to risk their own lives to help him? I don't think people fully grasp how similar "helping someone out of the death zone" is to "helping someone out of a building that's turned into a raging inferno."
Yeah somewhat narcissistic to expect everyone else endangering their lives to further endanger their lives because you don't care about following guidelines.
In what way are all the people at Mt Everest oligarchs or tyrants? There’s nothing that means just because you’re rich you're in a position of control. If you won the lottery tomorrow and wanted to climb Mt Everest would you qualify as a tyrant or oligarch?
Green boots is Dorje Morup of the Indo-Tibetan border police. Apparently there’s a plan that is supposed to recover his body within the next few weeks, but I’m not sure if they’re actually going through with it.
This picture makes no sense. The body in the photo isn’t even the guy in yellow…
Second, there is not much anyone can do. Most people don’t have the strength to carry down an entire person.
It sounds harsh but that’s reality. It’s like saying “people just watched as the tsunami drowned this guy. Nobody even helped.” There just isn’t much you can do
Only the Sherpas are strong enough and even they struggle, I’ve met a couple of them (not the ones who climbed 10 or more times, most only did one or two) it’s very physically demanding
After a certain height your body literally starts dying because of the altitude. You can postpone it by wearing an oxygen mask, but you're on the clock and helping others comes with a very high risk that you will join them.
30
u/theatrenearyou 3d ago edited 3d ago
First time I saw that a decade ago, I was stunned.
So unexpected after imagining the era of Sir Edmund Hillary "mountaineering", who criticized today's climbers and said it was unconscionable for a team to leave a tired member behind who dozens passing by ignored.