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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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May 31, 2012 - 06:41am PT
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I agree with Karl, all of Everest is guided. Nothing makes the Sherpas more amused than the western climbers who brag about climbing independently or soloing - all the while using ropes fixed by the Sherpas.
Now calls are being made to establish two fixed lines next year instead of one and instead of limiting the number of climbers. Capitalism at its best!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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May 31, 2012 - 06:43am PT
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Final new:
On May 29, a 68 year old Australian woman made it to the top along with several other teams while a speed climb by Ecuadorian Patricio Tisalema, "Pato" was aborted above Camp 3 because the Sherpa accompanying him passed out and needed help descending. This goes down with the Turkish man rescuing an Israeli as the most heartening news of the season.
The season itself is finished as the monsoon has arrived and the fixed ropes are being taken down starting today.
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Stewart Johnson
climber
lake forest
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May 31, 2012 - 09:45am PT
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how about being happy for the local population surrounding everest.
the trickle down means everybody eats and prospers.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - May 31, 2012 - 09:51am PT
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Yes it does, and that is good. Can't help but notice, however, the extreme difference in income between the locals of one of the poorest countries in Asia and the the clients who are well to do people from the richest countries on Earth.
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Stewart Johnson
climber
lake forest
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May 31, 2012 - 10:18am PT
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i agree with that. how much do you tip after spending $60,000?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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May 31, 2012 - 10:25am PT
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It's not how much you make, it's how far your money will go.
Most of the climbing Sherpas I know make about $6,000 a year. However, the per capita income in Nepal is only $400, putting the Sherpas in the upper middle class. Many of my friends who lived in little more than huts 40 years ago now have sons who own three story concrete houses in Kathmandu that are all paid for.
The really rich Sherpas are the ones who took their mountaineering money and bought land before the great Kathmandu real estate bubble and then sold in the midst of it. They send their sons to be educated in Europe and America now though they themselves often have little more than a third grade education.
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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May 31, 2012 - 10:36am PT
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That's a dilemma, but the tourist business might be better if the Everest scene wasn't such an eyesore. In Ecuador, the UN pays the govt to keep certain areas as wild nature preserves. I spent a few weeks with the park service in the Sangay park (a very active volcano) which is a protected tiger preserve. The ecuadoran govt took the un money and hired a bunch of park rangers to keep people from settling inside the preserve. So basically, you turn the sherpas into rangers who enforce rules like, don't throw oxygen bottles, etc. They could also serve as a garbage patrol to try to clean up the mess.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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May 31, 2012 - 11:41am PT
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recent photo from Everest:
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WBraun
climber
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May 31, 2012 - 11:44am PT
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Looks like a good ski slope.
Take a pair of skis on the way up and ski back down on the descent instead of slogging down .....
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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May 31, 2012 - 12:17pm PT
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I like Don Paul's idea.
And Jan's info on how some Sherpas have used mountaineering to hoist themselves up by their bootstraps is encouraging.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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May 31, 2012 - 01:17pm PT
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It's not realistic to worry about what to do with oxygen bottles when your client is about to pass out just changing from one to another or worse yet, near death. Instead, the Sherpas are paid $15 an empty oxygen bottle and collecting them is what they do on their days off or after their clients have collapsed in their tents. When they go down to base camp to carry new supplies or when they take down the fixed ropes at the end, they carry down the oxygen bottles for their refunds as well.
There is an expedition almost every year for the express purpose of cleaning up Everest. One of the contributors always is the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, run by Sherpas. They also installed outhouses along the trek and designated garbage dumps. The UN paid for special stoves to incinerate the stuff.
Commercial climbing firms are now required by the government of Nepal to check in at Kathmandu with barrels of human waste which they collect in the tent latrines at base camp. There are fines of several thousand dollars if they don't.
The main problem at this point is the bodies stewn on the mountain.
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Stewart Johnson
climber
lake forest
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May 31, 2012 - 02:05pm PT
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well its not like you can just go and pick up the bodies and take them down
they are frozen to the mountain, bonded. it will take several hours of
hacking to just to get em loose.i dont see anyone lining up for that job
but the sherpas will get the grisly task im sure.
perhaps just leave em, part and parcel of the 2013 show
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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May 31, 2012 - 02:08pm PT
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It seems few bodies will be removed with climbers equipped with current high altitude equipment. It is not realistic that someone is going to climb to 27,000+ feet, hack a body out of the ice and carry it down, at least within any acceptable levels of risk.
I wonder if using something like astronauts suits/oxygen systems would work. Laser guided high altitude para-cargo drops of oxygen and/or pressurized work stations? Crazy, but if anyone cares enough it would take some serious technology, expense and willingness to do a nasty job to get rid of the fixed corpses.
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Fluoride
Trad climber
West Los Angeles, CA
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May 31, 2012 - 02:17pm PT
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Shiryah Shah's body was recovered by a team of 5 sherpas in horrible weather...word is the guiding company felt horrible about her death and did it gratis.
She was brought down to base camp to be helo'd out, She's one of the rare ones. She collapsed and died a few meters from Scott Fischer's body 48 meters from the summit..
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zBrown
Ice climber
mercenario de merced
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May 31, 2012 - 02:48pm PT
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Send those 5 sherpas up to the summit. Have them bring back a whole bunch of rocks. Break 'em up into small pieces. Close the mountain to all access. Sell the little rocks to those who need a piece of the action for $100,000, kinda like the floor at the Boston Garden. Give the proceeds to the folks in Tibet. People will stop dying up there.
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zBrown
Ice climber
mercenario de merced
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May 31, 2012 - 05:13pm PT
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^ Righto
"Also the mountain itself feels like is losing it's value. Just about everyone seems to want to climb it by paying a Sherpa who will ensure reaching the summit."
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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"Does this make any sense?"
Uh, no, it won't make any cents in the third world.
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H
Mountain climber
there and back again
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Well we have been all over the place with Jim's topic. So with the idea that it is ludicrous (or morally indefensible) to pay a guide company $60,000 to climb Everest. I saw at a climbing gym that a guide service is offering a day of climbing in the Eastern Sierra with a well know climber for only $650 a day. That's damn near as much as it cost to climb Everest. How defensible is that!
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