Everest Avalanche

The truly scary thing about Guck's photo is the total lack of snow and ice on the Hilary Step.

KETCHUM, Idaho — SIXTY years ago this week, as Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay approached the summit of the world’s highest mountain, they were stopped by a 40-foot wall of rock and ice. It was, Hillary later wrote, “a formidable looking problem ...We realized that at this altitude it might well spell the difference between success and failure.
Employing the skills he had learned in the New Zealand Alps, Hillary jammed his feet, hands and shoulders into a thin crack between a ridge of ice and the rock and, as he put it, “levered myself” up the wall. Then he brought Tenzing up on a tight rope, and together they climbed the final 300 feet to become the first humans to stand on the summit of Mount Everest.

Are there any other mountains in that area?

It's time to skip the icefall by using cargo type helicopters to carry all supplies & people from the Base Camp to a forward camp above it.

Who the hell would want to slog past corpses, sh#t piles and oxygen tanks? What is the fun in that anyways?

Personally, I enjoy digging through piles of frozen sh#t to set up my tent on piles of frozen sh#t. Isn't that what mountaineering is all about?

Climbing Everest has become such a sh*tshow....I can't imagine being around that many people on a mountain. To me, the prestige is simply not worth it.

If I were to head over there, it would be for one of the lesser peaks with no crowds, in order to have a true adventure.

First on my list....Ama Dablam.

Most Sherpa mountain guides have decided to leave Mount Everest, a guide told the Associated Press on Tuesday. The walkout comes after at least 13 Sherpas died in an avalanche Friday – Everest's deadliest disaster.

Earlier Tuesday, Nepal's government appeared to have agreed to some of the Sherpas' demands in the threatened boycott, such as setting up a relief fund for Sherpas who are killed or injured in climbing accidents, but the funding fell well short of what the Sherpas wanted.

The Nepal National Mountain Guide Association in Kathmandu will try to negotiate with the Sherpas and the government because a total boycott would harm Nepal's mountaineering in the long term, the group's general secretary, Sherpa Pasang, said.

After a memorial service at base camp Tuesday, the Sherpas in the camp discussed their options, said guide Dorje Sherpa, who attended. He said most of them were planning to pack and leave as early as Wednesday.

"It is just impossible for many of us to continue climbing….There are three of our friends buried in the snow, I can't imagine stepping over them. We want to honor the members we lost, and out of respect for them we just can't continue," he said.