Why Climbers Die On Mount Everest

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081209221709.htm

by soundsop • 18 years ago

14 22 18 years ago

brandonkm• 18 years ago

After reading this article I would like to know what kind of training climbers engage in before climbing Mount Everest. It seems to me that at the types of elevations Mount Everest is working with, the preparation you would need beforehand would be quite intense. Not only that, but the technology you would need to offset whats happening to your body at those heights would be interesting to investigate as well.

brandnewlow2• 18 years ago

I'd always understood that a lot of the deaths on Everest were the result of wealthy people not preparing properly for the climb. If you've seen the IMAX Everest movie, you see the incredible shape that team was in...and they still had a hard go of it. I imagine attempting in anything less than exquisite physical condition is asking for trouble.

wensing• 18 years ago

Mogens Jensen's training regimen can be found here:

http://www.gsk.com/people/mogens/training.htm

That said, he was an asthmatic attempting to climb without O2.

nradov• 18 years ago

I attended a lecture several years ago by a photographer who has climbed Mt. Everest several times. He said his usual workout was a long session on a stair climber machine, set to maximum difficulty.

sutro• 18 years ago

If you are interested in why climbers die on Mount Everest, read Jon Krakauer's amazing first-hand account of Everest's worst disaster:

http://outside.away.com/outside/destinations/199609/199609_i...

jumper2• 18 years ago

Looks like an interesting article, but 11 tiny pages and no print link that I can find? As much as I hate to be the guy saying it... FAIL.

brandnewlow2• 18 years ago

Heh. You picked the exact wrong author to dismiss summarily.

blogimus• 18 years ago

The article states that most deaths seem to happen in the decent, rather than the ascent. This shows that the risk is climbers pushing themselves too hard. This just, well, seems obvious. There is ego on the line, if not other factors. The problem of pushing past your limit, such as mountain climbing, past your reserve capability and capacity doesn't clearly manifest itself at the point you've exceeded your capability, it is when you are trying to move back from the edge to a safe point that this becomes clear. The climbers are so focused on reaching the goal it is easy to forget about measuring the capability to get back down.

I've heard that rescue aircraft keep a reserve of fuel on board and once the craft reach this point, they turn back. It seems that at least some of the climbers don't gauge this properly. Some are lucky. They survive. Others are not as lucky, they are the 1-2 percent statistic of dying on the way down, having pushed too hard.

uuilly3• 18 years ago

Down climbing is inherently more difficult than climbing. When you're "up"-climbing you can see your next steps more easily b/c they are closer to your eyes and the slope is at a better angle for watching your steps. You also have your ice axe held like a cane in front of you to arrest any fall, and the distance of the fall from feet to hands is shorter than on the way down.

On the way down, your eyes are much further away from your steps and the slope is angled away from you. Each step is longer, more dynamic and more likely to dislodge some rock / ice / snow. You are also putting a lot more force on each step so your legs can actually get more tired on the way down. When you fall you mostly go to your butt, slide and you need to roll over on your belly to self arrest. By that time you have often picked up so much speed that it's too late.

All these physical factors plus many well documented "horse to barn" psychological factors make down climbing the most dangerous part of the day.

aflag4• 18 years ago

What's "horse to barn" psychological factor?

blackguardx• 18 years ago

This is very true. To see this firsthand, try hiking a steep trail of any significant distance (a few miles). Going up isn't so bad. Its like climbing stairs. Coming down is terrible, though. It is very taxing on the joints and much easier to slip over loose gravel.

Goladus• 18 years ago

While that all makes sense, it also seems possible that deaths happen on the descent simply because it takes that long above 8,000 feet for cerebral edema to kill you. It seems like, if those were the main issues, the descent below 8,000 feet would not have shown significantly fewer deaths than above.

aflag4• 18 years ago

"Mountaineering is for fun; it's not worth dying or leaving others there to die. Appropriate caution is the hallmark of the elite mountaineer – the mountain will always be there next year."

I don't like those sort of comments. I think one of the reasons people go mountain climbing is because they want to take the risk. The fear of maybe not coming back alive is part of the fun. But people say stuff like that, like every single thing should be safe. I might say that people are getting paranoid over safety.

For me the bottom line is: I surely don't want to get killed doing some boring job, but I hope to die doing something awesome and exciting.

Tichy2• 18 years ago

I don't think it is paranoid to worry if the probability for death is 3%.

aflag4• 18 years ago

But if you're looking to do something dangerous, wouldn't you expect the probability of death to be above 0? And if you aren't looking for danger, why are you climbing everest?

tyohn• 18 years ago

As a avid trekker and climber (I've trekked to Everest base camp - fun stuff) ~ if you're wondering why people climb Everest it can really be summed up best by George Leigh Mallory - "because its there".

Why Climbers Die On Mount Everest

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