Climbing Mount Everest

@Kitty Carmel " Does anyone find doing things like this appealing?"

It is in the human race, in its DNA to go beyond borders of any kind. If something can be done, it will be done such as climbing the highest mountain on earth, diving as deep as you can without (apnea diving) and with equipment, crossing deserts, BASE jumping, free climbing, paragliding, sailing and flying around the world non-stop and alone, jumping down from the stratosphere, (Baumgartner), going for the Hawaii ironman's title, crossing the Grand Canyon on a tightrope without any harness, etc.
The human race would never have left the African savanna, setting out for the uncertain nor would they have crossed oceans in "nutshells" not knowing where they were going if they hadn't had that inner drive compelling - some of them - to go further and further.
Maybe a case in point is the NASA campaign for recruiting volunteers who'd be willing to go on a Mars mission. More than 400, or even more, signed on immediately knowing petty well that the chances of a save return are not too high.
All these things are not for me but they seem to be indispensable for certain males to feed their egos.

 

Some people are afraid of Heights.....I'm afraid of Widths.

Hal

 

I have a sister, Alicia, who hiked Everest in March. Hiking a mountain, she tells me, is almost the same as climbing, but you don't have ropes.

I have seen the pictures, and there are times the "hike" looks pretty sheer to me.

She is 59 and has a job (which she created) at a multiple myeloma foundation. The job is called "Extreme Sports Fundraiser." So, my understanding is that it's sort of like when kids used to ask you to pledge money if they walked so many miles or danced for so many hours. She started doing marathons and when the adrenaline bonus stopped, she did bicycling long-distance. Like from San Francisco to Santa Fe.

Then she hiked Mt. Fuji, Machu Pichu, Kilimanjaro, and finally Mt. Everest in a program she called "Moving Mountains for Multiple Myeloma."

She explained to me they weren't going to the summit, but instead to the Nepal base camp. I thought "base camp" must be near the bottom - or base -- of the mountain. WRONG! It is 17,589 feet. It was a 14-day hike just going up. Three of her teammates had to be airlifted off of the mountain due to "altitude sickness." Again, I was mistaken. I figured it must be like car sickness. I was disabused of this idea when one of the three airlifted off the mountain explained to me that it was the sickness you get when your body's cells begin to die from hypoxia (or lack of oxygen.)

I don't think she'll be climbing any more mountains. After all, what do you do after Everest? And secondly, it's apparently pretty darned cold on that mountain. I didn't hear her entire complaint because I live in Maine and it didn't sound THAT cold to me, but I did hear her say that the last night of the climb, she didn't bother to put on fresh clothes because of what she saw as the danger of freezing to death. She's back to bicycling.

I babysat her dog while she was gone, and in return, she gave me a beautiful and very warm yak blanket. She also gave Ken a yak hat, which is supposed to be quite warm too.

Here are a few photos from Everest.

1. That's my sister with her hiking poles in the air.

2. Mount Everest from just above the base camp.

3. My sister and her sherpa.

4. A stopping place for the night at the Village of Namche. Note the cow.

5, Somewhere on the mountain.

 

I don't. I am always impressed by people who do it, but frankly never had the desire to do such a thing. In fact, there are days when I don't even try to go out to my car!

But I understand the lure of adrenaline -- or dopamine, or endorphins, or any of those nifty chemicals which climbers, hikers, runners, etc. get the benefit of. And I suppose that's all the reason those people need.

 

The chances of them never leaving earth, to travel to mars, is probably much higher!

 

Wives tend to do that. I was part of a skydiving team and I convinced my 2nd wife to come out and watch the competition. Long story short, after the competition she told me if I ever jumped again she would divorce me.
I quit and somewhere down the line we got divorced anyway...………………

But, back to climbing. If everything went as described and I could actually climb a mountain, it would be perfectly fine with me. But, from what I understand, there is a lot of Dangling rather than climbing so I think I will opt out.

 

It depends on where you climb whether there is "dangling". You can choose non-vertical technical climbs, such as some ice fields and rock faces, but there are more sheer cliffs. It is the overhangs that I couldn't deal with.

 

I have read that the Summit of Mt. Everest is littered with garbage, trash, and feces.

(Those Sherpa guides sure are have no consideraton for natural beauty, do they?)

That's all...
Hal

 

High equates equally well to deep. How about a descent into the Mariana Trench? 36,000 feet below the ocean surface:

" It reaches a maximum-known depth of 36,070 ft. at a small slot-shaped valley in its floor known as the Challenger Deep, at its southern end.... For comparison: if Mount Everest were dropped into the trench at this point, its peak would still be over 1.2 mi. underwater. In 2009, the Marianas Trench was established as a United States National Monument."

For the life of me, I fail to understand how or why our Congress would spend the time and money to designate a place nowhere near the U.S. as a National Monument, much less so given the fact that Americans can never get to see it! The "swamp" definitely needs to be drained.

Frank

 

Adrenaline addiction, I believe.

 

I had no idea that there were so many climbers ready to tackle Everest!

I always thought that once every 10 years or so, someone would outfit himself to take that challenge.

I remember when Sir Edmund Hillary first conquered it in 1953. (Of course his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay was right there with him)

Hal

 

Far too many people taking the challenge now, they should have a limit of course but as usual - money comes first