About 200 people died during their attempt to climb the Mount Everest. The highest mountain in the world has been climbed since 1922. Now snow and ice is melting the deaths on Mount Everest become visible due to climate change. Many climbers reached successfully the top of the Mount Everest but many died during this adventure.
Mount Everest 'clean up'
You can imagen that it is very difficult to bring dead bodies down. A climber – always equipped with a minimum of gear – has not the possibility to bring a corpse down at these hights where there is a lack of oxygen and often are extreme weather conditions. Often a person who dies during his/hers climb to the top or descend is quickly covered with snow and ice.
Hillary en Tensing, climbing the Mount Everest in 1922
Now deaths on Mount Everest become visible due to climate change and people from Nepal get confronted with this big challenge to bring the bodies ‘back home’. Some dead bodies which have been brought down by sherpa’s are dating back even to the 1970th.
The NNMGA (The Nepal national Guides Association) is getting upset because of the lack of money coming from the Nepalese government. Also foreign organisations who organise these expeditions should set up a fund to pay for the returning of the bodies and for clearing up the trash left behind by these expeditions.
Melting of snow and ice goes very fast. At the Basecamp it has been measured that it melt at a rate of 1 meter a year.
Some bodies have been brought down to villages some have been covered by stones and snow. Many Sherpas share the opinion that there is a moral responsibility to bring deceased climbers to their final resting place and to pray for them. There are also people who think it is better to leave the bodies where they are.
Anyway it would be a good gesture from foreign operators to help the Nepalese people to bury the bodies and clean up the garbage they left and are still leaving behind on world’s highest mountain; the Mount Everest.
(Also interesting: Deaths on Mount Everest And Garbage Problem Reached Its Peak)
Mount Everest Is So Busy Climbers Are Dying in Traffic Jams
Deaths on Mount Everest
Anjali Kulkarni, an Indian mountain climber, trained for six years to make it to the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world. She finally fulfilled her long-time goal when she reached the summit this week. But it was the descent that killed her. Her son, Shantanu Kulkarni, told CNN that she died after getting stuck in a ‘traffic jam’ on the mountain. She had to wait for a long time to reach the summit and descend. She couldn't move down on her own and died as Sherpa guides brought her down.
Two other Indian hikers, Kalpana Das, 52, and Nihal Bagwan, 27, also died this week. Nihal Bagwan was stuck in the traffic for more than 12 hours and was exhausted.
On Saturday, a 44-year-old British man, Robin Haynes Fisher, died shortly after reaching the summit, bringing the death toll for this season to at least 10, as a few days of clear weather attracted huge numbers of climbers hoping to scale the 29,029-foot (8,848 meter) peak.
A number of other people have died elsewhere in Nepal's Himalayan mountains this season. Nepal has issued around 380 permits for those hoping to climb the mountain. They cost about US$11,000 each, and hikers are accompanied by local, and sometimes international, guides.
A chilling photograph from Everest shows a long line of mountaineers queuing to ascend a steep ridge to the summit. The photo was shot by Nirmal Purja, an avid mountaineer, who wrote in an Instagram caption that he estimated there were 320 people waiting in line.
Mount Everest Traffic Jams
Traffic jams create dangerous situations for climbers, who are often already exhausted and carrying heavy loads while battling altitude sickness, which can make people dizzy and nauseated. Overcrowding often occurs, but every year seems to be worse and worse. When a line starts to back up, you're changing your natural pace so you're spending more time in this high altitude zone than might be necessary if you were climbing 10 to 15 years ago. One of the most important skills for guides who accompany climbers is ‘knowing when to turn people around’. The idea isn't to push yourself to the ultimate maximum to reach the summit. Then there's no steam or energy left in your body to get down.
Everest attracts climbers from around the globe
- Séamus Lawless, an assistant professor of computer science at Trinity College in Ireland, went missing May 16 when he slipped and fell shortly near the summit, on a different side of the mountain from where the main traffic jam is taking place.
- An Irish climber, Kevin Hynes, died Friday. He had climbed parts of Everest before, and the British group he traveled with. He was a very strong and experienced climber.
- The American, Donald Lynn Cash, 55, of Utah, died after falling sick, possibly from the high altitude. It was unclear what role, if any, the traffic jams had in his death. He took a sabbatical from his executive job at BMC Software to finish scaling the world's seven highest peaks, wrote on LinkedIn before his trip that he was 'excited to look for the next chapter in his career.
- A 65-year-old Austrian man is also among the dead.
Last year, 807 people reached the mountain's summit, more than had ever reached the top in a single year before. When climbers choose to scale Everest, they do so understanding the perils they could encounter along the way. In addition to the risks of altitude sickness and exhaustion, there have been a number of avalanches on the mountain over the years, including one set off by the catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal in 2015.
In that instance, an avalanche swept down the mountain and through a base camp, killing at least 18 people and injuring dozens more. Still, most who make the trek expect to come home.
Cover photo by: Dominic Goff
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