There have been well over 375 deaths on Mount Everest with anĀ estimated 200 bodies left littering the mountain side. It’s too dangerous to remove those high up near the peak, so they’ve become a sort of attraction all their own. The deceased climber known simply as “Green Boots” is perhaps the best known of these earthly remains. More
20 Comments on Gruesome Trail Markers Of Mt. Everest
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Is Sir Edmund Hillary Clinton at 29,000 feet?
@LBS, reports are that she had fallen, but revived with immediate application of oxygen from her Sherpas.
All those corpses up there were once highly motivated people. Motivation is overrated.
The spirit of Kamikaze pilots is alive well with Mount Everest Climbers!
A lot of people, I would guess most people, engage in unnecessary risky behavior. Motivations vary, but that’s what the right to “pursuit of happiness” is all about. I’m too old, fat, and out of shape today, but when I was younger I was an enthusiastic spelunker (crawler in caves), rock climber, hang glider pilot, and rider of motorcycles (including commuting from MD to VA on the DC Beltway). All these had their own rewards for me.
I doubt a single Everest mountaineer wasn’t aware of the risks but went ahead anyway because they believed that meeting the challenge was its own reward…for them.
@Uncle Al
I used to ride my motorcycle on the DC beltway too.
Looking back, I was a very lucky young man – so many close calls…
The people on Everest are, for the most part, selfish pricks. It isn’t the dead bodies that no one can be bothered with removing, it’s the THOUSANDS of empty oxygen bottles and bags of trash these jerks leave behind every year.
Base camp and camp one at Everest are toxic waste dumps. None of those rich bastards can be bothered to clean up after they’ve knocked Everest off their bucket lists.
It’s an intensely narcissistic endeavor. None of these fucks will stop to help a fellow human being in trouble. Not one.
Same dicks who cut ropes when climbing with a partner. Hate them all.
As I get older I don’t get the allure of mountain climbing. I did climb Mt. Olympus in Olympic National Park as a teenager. Good thing I turned back before the last part. My friend and I ended up hiking back to base camp in the dark with him puking his guts out and almost passing out. Could have been a disaster.
It’s just something you can say you did. Like going to the North pole. That’s lost it’s glamour as Saudi princes now fly helicopters there and take selfies next to the pole without ever getting their feet cold.
Same deal with Everest. It was cool to do when only a few people had accomplished it, but now anyone with 50 grand can be plunked down at base camp where you sit around for a month getting acclimated.
Aaron, I heard that they are cracking down and fining people big money that don’t come back down carrying their trash.
I believe they have to leave a $50,000 deposit.
As for you motorcycle riders, you are indeed lucky to live as long as you have.
There are “mountains” of perma-frost
frozen do-do’s there…
Ah Salty, you know what keeps motorcycle riders alive?
Willpower.
The second you lose that you end up as a road smear.
I come from a family of climbers. Bear with me. I’ll make a long story short.
My brother, Maurice, climbed Mount Carrauntoohil, the tallest point in Ireland. 3.400 feet. He broke his ankle and swore he would never do it again. (I think our very own Doc has a video of him.)
My sister Kay climbed Mount Kilimanjaro (19.340 feet) when she was a nurse in Tanzanzia. There she met her husband Jack. They now live happily in Scotland. She told me the path to the top is loaded with debris, and shit. She would never do it again.
Our distant cousin Ed Hillary, my dad used to call him Eddie, used to practice climbing on Mount Carrauntoohil before he attacked Mt. Everest and became Sir Edmund Hillary And then our great Secretary Of State was named after Eddie. (?) to be continued.
There was a story in the past couple years about how the mountain is covered in spots with human feces. For the life of me I cannot figure out what would possess someone to try to climb the world’s highest mountain just to take a dump.
@Uncle Al & Jethro ~ had my fun w/ a Sportster on the DC Beltway back in ’68 -’71 (got
neuteredmarried in ’71, so I stopped) ā¦ not too bad back thenā¦ buuuuuuut, did a bit of ‘commuting’ from Kenilworth Ave. to Rt. 4 (then down to Rt. 301 in Upper Marlboro) back in the late ’80’s ā¦. hair-raising experience every moment on the Beltway ā¦ like Burr said ‘Willpower’ &, I might add ‘Total Situational Awareness’
My wife used to call motorcycle riders who rode without helmets donor cycles. She also worked in a hospital and her brother is a trauma doc.
Motorcycle comments (not mountain climbing) so: O/T
Total Situational Awareness – YESSIR!
I’ve ridden a fair number of bikes of all sizes and types, largely because a very close friend and neighbor was a collector and had a lot of generous friends. What I learned was that quick and sure handling is the key to protecting yourself from road perils. Big bikes don’t react fast enough. Little bikes aren’t powerful enough, but there is definitely such a thing as too much power.
My favorite motorcycle was the last one I owned before I gave it up a little over 20 years ago: a plain old ordinary Suzuki GS500. Handling was light and very quick. Power was always plenty for everything I wanted. All the mechanicals were very robust (my collector friend took one look at the cam/valves and said they looked like they came out of a John Deere tractor). Air cooling meant no unnecessary points of failure.
I really liked that bike, but I sold it shortly after the time I was riding on the Raleigh NC Beltline and had established eye contact with a car driver in the lane next to me. I had absolutely zero doubt that he had seen me. Not two seconds later he changed lanes right at me without even a glance. That’s when I said to myself, “No more.”
I attended high school with Terres and Crag Unsoeld; Terres and I shared several classes, including a memorable drama class, in our junior year. You may know about Willi Unsoeld because he along with Hornbein were the first American expedition to summit Everest in 1963. Tragically Terres’s sister, Nanda Devi, died of altitude sickness on the peak for which she was named, in 1976. The climb was two teams, one lead by her dad, whose team she was on. A lot of kids thought that was such a romantic end — dying on the mountain for which you were named. There are some very good biographies, however, written by climbers who would know, that Willi’s haste and bad judgement was the cause of Nanda’s demise. I think Aaron Burr has it right.
Terres is now a “shaman” in our hometown, doing new age-y (still) stuff with crystals and burning sage. Some things never change.
I would never endure the rigors of technical mountain climbing — particularly in the danger zone. It would not be my idea of vacation, anyway.
AA, sounds like Terres found himself a lower-risk gig. Crystals and smudging? Didn’t know people even still did that.
DS works for a contractor now, but still teaches mountain warfare at Bridgeport & climbing for megacorp. His dad was a climber too. I never felt the attraction. Much like I never thought the blood sport of being on a motorcycle in the DC area was something I wanted to do. Just driving there in a passenger vehicle was enough. Never cared for navigating around the joint in a big truck either, but the around part was key.
I call most motorcycle riders “hamburger”.