Mount Everest

I have a fascination with Mount Everest. I can't imagine what it is really like there. I don't actually want to climb it, but I would love to hike to Base Camp, and look up at it.

I just got done reading a book about how the mountain is being polluted, and basic human decency has evaporated with people's desire to reach the top at any cost, including stealing other climbing groups' oxygen, food, and other supplies, and leaving helpless people for dead in the "death zone" and then lying about it to their family and the media.

I suppose I can understand a *little* why people may leave climbers up on the mountain to die...most people are not in the best shape on the way down the mountain due to lack of oxygen (even *with* bottled oxygen) and sheer exhaustion and the technical difficulties of actually carrying someone down...what may take 4 hours can turn into 12 hours in this situation, turning into an even bigger loss of life. The timing of making the summit is very tight. Climbers try to make the summit by 10am (after climbing for 12-14 hours from the highest camp), and cannot stay on the summit for long. Thirty minutes is considered a very long time. Then, it is time to head back down. At any moment, the weather may change, and if you get caught on the mountain above 8,000 meters at night, you are a goner.

Climbing Everest is a big business, and part of the problem is that many very inexperienced climbers now have the opportunity to summit by hiring a guide to take them to the top. But the guide may not be as experienced as you would like when they literally have your life in their hands! Consequently, you have guides who may not be prepared for anything that may happen on the mountain, and inexperienced climbers who cannot save themselves if necessary, and who have paid upwards of $65,000 to get there. Also, it appears that Sherpas have their own agendas as well, in one of the poorest regions of the world. It all combines to create an iffy environment.

This book was interesting...and sad. The focus of the book was on one man who was a seasoned climber, but hired a guide who had a less than stellar reputation for caring for his clients. This man picked up a virus in Kathmandu, and climbed anyway, and got sicker and sicker. His family told him to come down, but he ignored the advice because he REALLY wanted to summit. Where was his guide? Not helping him. It is not even clear if he summitted. His guide left him on the mountain right below the summit, and several other climbing groups passed by him, and all had differing stories of what happened. No one ever found his body.

Everest is SO intriguing, I can see how people get tunnel vision and want to summit at any cost. Me, I would not mind seeeing it from an airplane!!!