Heights of Glory

Last few days we have been hearing about traffic jams, deaths and crowding on the way to the summit of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world and according to veteran mountaineers /climbers this is being attributed to unusual number of permit being issued by the government of Nepal this year and hordes of inexperienced climbers. Mountain climbing is an adventure sport with lot of hard work, physical fitness and experience of climbs to various other peaks in various parts of the world even before deciding to take on Mount Everest which sure is a pinnacle in this sport.

This year 77 Indian are aspiring to climb the Everest this year 2019 out of nearly thousand persons, largest contingent from a single country and am not sure how many of them are hard core mountaineers with sufficient training and experience. As of today May 28^th total of 18 persons have died on the route to summit out of which 5 are Indians, due to exhaustion or Acute mountain sickness. Given the exposure to the social media these days it has become a fad to do something that others have not done and post pictures on the instagram / face book and other platforms...so an averagely fit person with sufficient funds but without sufficient skills attempt the climbing of Everest with the help of an adventure tour companies that will arrange all the logistics, have experienced Sherpas to fix ropes and ladders for climbing, carry your baggage & oxygen cylinders, pitch tents, cook food and also instruct when to climb or sleep... in other words hand hold you all the way up to the summit and back. 

It is true that an expeditions to Everest requires to have deep pockets since the total cost of the expedition is anywhere between US $ 65,000 and $ 80,000 which includes permit cost of US$ 11,000 to be paid to the government of Nepal when you go along with companies based in West who rely on local high altitude support climbers and Sherpa. Local expedition companies charges around US$ 40,000 +. The total price includes everything from the wages of the guides and Sherpas to food, climbing kit, tents, transfers and some training in use of communication & medical equipments, climbing techniques, glacier travel, rope fixing, ascending, descending and safety techniques. But then spending this amount of money does not ensure you that you would reach the summit for it involve immense physical fitness, endurance and acclimatising to high altitude and finally the climate itself on the mountains which change quite drastically and life threatening too. No wonder the success ratio of people reaching the summit is less than 50% of the people attempting the climb.

Image Courtesy CNN new on the net

Most climbers can only spend few minutes at the top of the Everest without oxygen supplies and given the size of the summit which is just about approximately 5 Sq meters there is always a long queue of mountaineers above 8000 meters height wanting to scale the summit or descend. This area where the queuing happens is known as the death zone .This year inclement weather conditions has reduced the number of days that an attempt can be made to reach the summit and hence has lead to overcrowding near the top. See the image showing the queuing at the top .... Thank god that the weather was clear and did not change for the worse otherwise there would have been a disaster as over 250-300 climbers were waiting in a single file. Climbers deaths due to overcrowding during the ascent or descent in the death zone are official listed as death due to exhaustion but usually is due to the long exposures to high altitude or running out of oxygen supplies. There has been a call to limit the number of permits to be issued by Nepal Government in view of the overcrowding on the Mount Everest thereby can avoid considerable deaths near the pinnacle.

More than 270 deaths have occurred on Mount Everest from the first recorded death in 1922 and many bodies have been lying there buried in ice and snow but this does not seem to stop inexperienced climbers from attempting to climb the Everest. Is it foolhardy or stupidity i am not sure but it seem that the social media is the catalyst to such attempts by these inexperienced climbers/ tourists.

I am sure most of you would have seen the movie “Everest” which is an adaptation of the book Into Thin Air written by a survivor named Jon Krakauer of a disastrous expedition in 1996 when 12 people died trying to reach the summit on the same day. He has said “Everest is not real climbing. It’s rich people climbing. It’s a trophy on the wall and they are done...when i say I wish i had never gone...I really mean that “