After reading “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer, I feel like anyone still traveling to climb Everest is a rich douchebag. It’s glorified tourism of the worst kind. It’s been done a zillion times already, and isn’t as impressive as they fantasize. Go run a marathon or something for your stupid adventure junky social media clout. The sherpas do all the real work.
That’s an incredible book. I highly recommend both that and Under the Banner of Heaven. Krakauer is just riveting.
Totally agree, I think Into Thin Air is maybe my favorite book and I wasn’t expecting that at all when I read it. I really enjoyed the show based on Under the Banner of Heaven too. What a bunch of crazies.
At this point it’d be safer to just build a tram line to the top and then hire the sherpas as the infrastructure mechanics to keep it maintained, raises their incomes and cuts the shit with people dying for dumb rich people nonsense.
The Chinese already built a paved road to the North Base Camp. Only a matter of time before they build it all the way to the top.
Maybe but IIRC the Chinese side of the approach was already considered the less treacherous side, this would most likely require some serious capital investment just for hazard mitigation alone during construction.
The long term net benefit though would be more than enough to warrant the costs IMO, would even facilitate recovering the dead bodies on the slope.
I think the long term net loss of allowing anyone who wants to drive to the top to do so is a bigger issue.
The net loss of people not dying like idiots for a fake accomplishment? The net loss of the local communities getting high paying technical jobs? The net loss of all that shit and dead people the hike accumulates being removed from the equation since it’s now able to be safely transported off the mountain without making people hike for days to retrieve it?
And a road to the top allowing endless tourists up there won’t result in more trash accumulating on the mountain? Not to mention erosion.
Have you been to an easily-accessible natural wonder before? People who can get up close treat them like shit. That’s why most of them are only viewable from a distance.
I give it two weeks from the time a road to the top gets completed before someone spray paints their graffiti tag on the summit.
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who said anything about a road, I mentioned a rail car.
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that’s what you install guard rails and write rules of conduct for. This tragedy of the commons narrative more often than not comes from understaffed park workers not having the funding to adequately police park visitor behavior with the up close sites, the tomb of the unknown soldier is also easily accessible and yet is one of the most well maintained and respectfully observed sites in the world.
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I’m pretty sure the spray paint can would have blown off their hand by the time they got to the summit from becoming so much more pressurized by the high altitude.
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But the rich need to maintain their veil of accomplishment! And it’s dumb rich people dying, so who cares?
For real, go climb Muchu Chhish if a flex is wanted. Highest unclimbed peak in the world that can be legally climbed right now.
Ok, help me understand this.
Muchu Chhish (7,453 metres (24,452 ft)) is a mountain in the Batura Muztagh sub-range of the Karakoram in Hunza Valley, in northern areas of Pakistan.[1] Located in a very remote and inaccessible region, only a handful of attempts have been made to reach the summit; and none have succeeded.
Ok, that seems to track but then there’s this bit…
most expeditions thus attempt it via the South Ridge of 7,462 m (24,482 ft) Batura VI to the immediate west. This ridge was climbed by a Polish expedition in 1983 using fixed ropes while making the first ascent of 7,531 m (24,708 ft)
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You’re allowed to try but no one has succeeded?
IMO he was stressing how easy it has become to make the climb. In that it was expensive is another issue. His point was that people that didn’t have the ability to make the climb, could.
That was definitely one of his major points. But he also talked about all the damage being done, and how people make really stupid decisions. And how it’s an arrogant and pointless endeavor. He was fairly self-critical, which I respect.
He was speaking as a witness to a tragedy and as such was trying to identify why it happened. He himself was blamed for part of it by climber families. Of course any event that ends in tragedy seems pointless in retrospect.
Say they succeeded and nobody got hurt. I still don’t see the point. I’m not saying all of mountain climbing is entirely pointless. I’m saying most people going to Everest for the clout are dumb.
They’re clearly not thinking this through. They all need to lug their frozen poo to the summit and pile it there, so they can stand on it when they take their selfie and declare that they’re at a higher peak than any previous summiters due to their poo pedestal.
One thing that is not on my bucket list is climbing Mt. Everest. Any natural wonder and charm it once had have been destroyed by mindless tourists.
So that is something that is on my bucket list, not climbing Everest.
Congrats on the bucket list so far! Oh how less poop and endangered your life is now!
Thought it was “starts to sink,” I was like ok that’s a lot of poop
BRB gotta eat enough tacobell to reverse tectonic processes and launch the monsoons into central asia
Global warming is gonna make that a simple hike.
Support global warming! Let the earth clean up Everest poop the natural way! Decomposition in situ: transport costs more emissions!
It already is a simple hike, it just depends on weather if it’s dangerous or not.
80 year olds have climbed everest. So have 15 year olds.
Have you?
limit the permits to climb this mountain and charge people thousands of dollars for them
I too, believe the best way to control a natural resource is to only allow the rich to use it. For they are truly better people. Always known for their consideration.
Only the rich climb it now.
An upper middle class person can afford an Everest climb as a once in a lifetime trip. It isn’t an exclusive millionaire class trip.
“Once in a lifetime” isn’t affordable, that’s someone sacrificing a lot to vacation outside of their socioeconomic class.
An “economy” climb is $60k. That is 10 years of saving $6k per year for a once in a lifetime vacation. That is totally achievable for someone making $100k a year that doesn’t let income creep put them in a stupid financial situation.
You have more of a point if that same person making $100k a year spends $120k on a “premium” climb, but that same person would let income creep make that trip less reasonably affordable.
How poor are the people here that you’re getting downvoted and even got a “shut up” for this comment? It’s really not a stretch to call a $60k expense a “once in a lifetime” expense.
How many people drive around in 80k vehicles that they “upgrade” every few years? How many people spend absolutely ridiculous amounts of money on designer brands, perfumes, watches, and shit? Sure, 60k is a lot of money for most people, but there’s a large number of people (at least in the western countries, in absolute numbers, not %) that could easily afford to spend 60k on something every 5-10 years if it fancies them, and an even larger number of people who could afford to spend 60k on something once in a lifetime.
Those people with $80k cars tend to lease, which can have tax advantages, but you are still paying $1k a month to rent a car that you put 20-30% down on.
That touches on that income creep issue as people increase their lifestyle expenses along with income and don’t understand how they are living paycheck to paycheck with no savings, retirement, investments, and can’t afford to have your midlife crisis on the world’s tallest peak.
Buy a Honda, climb the mountain.
Shut up 🙄
But what about the poors?
They belong down here.
Plus, their shit doesn’t stink.
Yeah seriously, just limit the amount of people who can climb.
I personally believe that anyone should be allowed to go on a suicide mission should they chose to, whether they be rich or poor.
Sherpa rates gonna skyrocket
How do they wipe and clean themselves up there? I’d bring my bidet with, lol
Poorly I would guess
Makes you wonder if they just start diet until returning to camp.
Wait is this the no-poop-for-three-days guy is doing all along?
A mountain of shit!
I just don’t understand why people even climb everest anymore, with all the tech nowadays it’s quite easy, and really just depends on weather if you die or not. I’ve seen some overweight elderly people successfully do it, some as old as 80.
The first thing I want to know is who shits on the mountain? I mean taking a poo in base camp I can understand-- but on the way?
