Diving and climbing

[Dan G]

That's the easy one: then everyone climbing Everest automatically becomes an outlaw when they die it removes those criminals from the society and saves a ton on police and courts and jails. A clear win-win.

Thankfully the fees provide enough incentive corruption for Nepalese government to not go there.

What the Nepalese gov can do is allow fewer guided expeditions and issue fewer permits to those expeditions. This would reduce the number of people on Everest who could never make it without a guide.

 

[dmaziuk]

Or raise the prices and let the market sort 'em out.

 

[MaxE]

I agree it’s all about economics and money. But I think it has very little to do with the 10,000 peak fee. Think of how many local Sherpa’s are employed, not just the highly skilled high altitude ones. Entire villages are employed carting gear, cooking, tending base camp. These huge expeditions (it is a bit painful to call them that honestly) are spending money the entire way from Katmandu to base camp and then back. Climbers trying to get a view from the top (or even basecamp) have substantially increased the standard of living for a great many people, the government of Nepal knows this and can’t go back.

 

[DButton90]

Another difference is that Everest is a magnet for climbers and non-climbers who want that selfie. I mean, climbers know that there are other mountains that are harder to summit that Everest, but I'll bet that a lot of these wannabes wouldn't consider spending $70,000 to summit any other peak, and spend their time on FB explaining that "...no, really, this one is just as challenging as Everest. Maybe more!".

So those 11 deaths are notable because they happened on one site, which has revved up the climbing tourism business precisely because of that reason - the mountain's brand, it's name recognition.

Diving deaths with similar issues would be spread all over the world, so less of a notable concentration.

Obviously the draw to Everest is that notoriety and that selfie you mentioned, but based on my experience with climbing companies they typically don't take some random Joe even if they are willing to fork out the cash. I've used Adventure Consultants, the very same company founded by Rob Stewart, and they wouldn't even let me join them on a climb that would be considered a medium to medium/high degree of difficulty because I had never even climbed with them before. In climbing, much like scuba diving, these companies need to consider the risk that is assumed by their guides when taking on a client. Taking on a client they have no information on or have never had experience with can easily lead to catastrophic results.

I'm not going to compare climbing and diving as they are both technical in their own respective way, but in either sport there is at least a basic understanding that these activities can lead to death. You mentioned these death on Everest might be comparable or at least be similar to a discover scuba dive tragedy. The levels of skill of these two comparisons are vastly different, but they still hold the very basic relationship of inherently being dangerous. We can reverse the roles and compare some sort of deep trimix dive (someting I know relatively nothing about) that lead to the death of multiple people to that of a hiker on their local mountain led by some small town guide that ends in tragedy. I would say the trimix dive is far superior in technicality and difficulty, but are incomparable tragedies except for that same relationship that they are both inherently risky activities regardless of the skill of the guides or those being lead by the guide.

I only bring these scenarios up because in my personal experience in both sports there is the shared truth in them being dangerous. No matter how careful or how prepared you are there is always the potential of death. I would imagine that the guides in both of these adventures care far more about their own lives than they do the lives of those who they are guiding or teaching and do their best to mitigate deaths. However, we are human and we seek out thrills, debate risk vs. reward, and love adventure. We don't always make logical decisions because we are imperfect people. I am probably way off topic at this point so I'm going to shut up now.

P.S. It's true that those 11 deaths happened in a short period of time, but you have to remember that there is a very specific time window these people can climb to reduce the level of danger. It's not like climbers attempting Everest are doing it at the same rate all year long. There is a climbing season for optimal conditions and that season for Everest is drastically small. Just like my local mountain has a normal season that last three months. Sure you can climb on it all year long, but you are going to see 90+% of foot traffic in that 3 month window. Okay, I'm shutting up again.

 

[broncobowsher]

Or raise the prices and let the market sort 'em out.

Probably make it worse. The skilled won't have the money. The money won't have the skills.

 

[almostDIR]

I found a very good mountain climbing video on youtube which pretty much sums up why I gave up the idea completely and went for scuba instead.

there is different types of mountains of course but this is too much uncontrolled risk for me. watched the whole video actually. the most striking was when the poor person fell to his death and they just must to keep going.

 

[turkeyphant]

One of our favorite local restaurant in Michigan is a Himalayan restaurant run by a former Sherpa. He has 27 ascents.

Doubt that very much seeing as, afaik, the record is 24. And he's still working.

Those deaths were due to an avalanche.... Basically unavoidable. A number of these recent deaths are from stupidity, and completely avoidable...

This was the response I would have given too, had you not beaten me to it. There is such a difference between how and why people are dying.

This is not the case. Just like the 2014 icefall Sherpa deaths, the only reason there were so many people in the effected places is because of the crews of Sherpa needed to support the western expeditions.

2014 is an even clearer example as Sherpas have to make multiple long journeys over the most treacherous part above BC that everyone else tried to minimise time on.

To suggest it's a random unavoidable event that would always cause that degree of loss of life is incorrect. The body count is directly related to the number of paying customers making summit pushes and their lack of experience to ascend without the fixed ropes and ladders Sherpas put up for them (which also assist in dealing with the volume).

 

[Scared Silly]

I found a very good mountain climbing video on youtube which pretty much sums up why I gave up the idea completely and went for scuba instead.

there is different types of mountains of course but this is too much uncontrolled risk for me. watched the whole video actually. the most striking was when the poor person fell to his death and they just must to keep going.

That is video is nauseating because it was head mounted. That said K2 has become as much of a clown show as Everest. They did not climb the mountain the jugged a fixed rope set by Shepras to the summit. Without it they could not have gotten to Camp 1. I have had several friends who have really climbed K2 and Everest (some both) - there is a place for fixed ropes and there there are fixed ropes for the clients.

 

[Dominik_E]

I have never even come close to climbing an 8000m mountain. Some peaks in the Alps though. I think "clown show" with regards to K2 is still a vast exaggeration. It is still a much more serious undertaking than the overwhelming majority of all dives, technical or no...

 

[broncobowsher]

I've driven to the top of Pike's Peak.

Almost to the top there was some guy on a bicycle riding UP the mountain, nearly at the peak, and going faster than I can do on flat ground. We were way more impressed by that over the people climbing/hiking to the top.