Avalanche Kills At Least 12 On Mt. Everest

Sad to hear, hopefully the expeditions take care of the victim's families although too often the sherpa's aren't treated that well.

Also Fox should do a better job of checking their facts since according to every other news outlet the avalanche occurred at 19000 feet just below camp 1, and the article you linked agrees that it happened in the icefall, but puts where that is off by a couple thousand feet.

I was listening to PBS and they said that the Sherpas have life insurance. The minimum was $4k but was recently raised to $11k, in an area were average wages are (if I remember correctly) $500 per year. I doubt the expeditions do much at all except pass the hat, for how much that may collect.

Of note Sherpas make about $6k per year so they are quit well off relatively speaking when they manage to avoid avalanches.

A "house hunter" tv show showed a house in Tibet for about $50/month. A better than average house.

Climbing Everest is off my bucket list...actually never on it as I am not THAT stupid. The documentaries are terrifying enough.

ucfgrad93 said:

You should read Into Thin Air if your really want to hear about the dangers of climbing Mt. Everest.

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If you want to read that read The Climb as well Krakauer gets a lot of stuff wrong in his book.

Everest is one thing, but the horror stories from K2 scare the living crap out of me.

When you decide to climb mountains, you know the risk you are taking. It burns my tail when someone takes such a risk and then tons of money are spent and lives put in peril to attempt to rescue them.

Southern Dad said:

When you decide to climb mountains, you know the risk you are taking. It burns my tail when someone takes such a risk and then tons of money are spent and lives put in peril to attempt to rescue them.

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So I take it you don't want the money to be spent to pay paramedics, firefighters, doctors, etc to save your life if you are in a car accident because you accept the risks of driving a car..... Or you want to tell the families of MH370 victims to go screw themselves because the victims knew the risks of flying so money shouldn't be spent to locate the wreckage and determine what happened?

quagmire said:

So I take it you don't want the money to be spent to pay paramedics, firefighters, doctors, etc to save your life if you are in a car accident because you accept the risks of driving a car..... Or you want to tell the families of MH370 victims to go screw themselves because the victims knew the risks of flying so money shouldn't be spent to locate the wreckage and determine what happened?

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Talk about taking stuff to extreme.

Southern Dad said:

When you decide to climb mountains, you know the risk you are taking

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This isn't about the (usually wealthy, Western) tourists and adventurers who pay upwards of $100,000 for a guided ascent of Everest. Those people, for better or worse, know and accept the risks they take.

More to the point: If you get into trouble on Everest, there simply isn't some Government-funded rescue crew to come to your aid. You are totally on your own. If you are lucky, your team-mates or other climbers might - if conditions allow - be able to help you.

But above ~ 19,000 feet, it is impossible to land a helicopter. No powered vehicles can get within many miles of the site. A rescue team, if one could be organized, would take days to get to you - if the weather cooperated. If you were lucky a privately-funded effort might be able to recover your frozen remains. But probably not.

The disaster that happened in the Khumbu icefall may well turn out to be a watershed moment (I think there is a mixed metaphor there...) in the history of Everest ascents.

Part of it is an example of the power of organized labor demanding more of a say in their work conditions. Without Sherpas to carry food, oxygen bottles, and supplies to altitude; and without Sherpas to set fixed-ropes and ladders - it would be all but impossible for most recreational climbers to attempt an Everest ascent.

To their considerable credit, most of the Everest guide companies; and a great many of their clients (who have paid tens of thousands of dollars in non-refundable fees) accept and applaud the Sherpa's decision to "strike" for better working conditions.

Anyone who knows anything about the business (and thats what it is) of climbing Mt. Everest knows there are things that need to change. Here's hoping that the Sherpa community, along with the international climbing fraternity and the government of Nepal, can come to a solution that works for everyone.

But whatever happens, please keep Fox News off the slopes. They don't understand what happens in their own country. God only knows the damage they could do in the Himalayas.

vrDrew said:

But whatever happens, please keep Fox News off the slopes. They don't understand what happens in their own country. God only knows the damage they could do in the Himalayas.

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I've noticed some can't pass up an opportunity bust on Fox News. You must watch it a lot to be so knowledgable. We do have a whole topic dedicated to it now. It really doesn't need to infect every thread.

Southern Dad said:

I've noticed some can't pass up an opportunity bust on Fox News. You must watch it a lot to be so knowledgable. We do have a whole topic dedicated to it now. It really doesn't need to infect every thread.

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It doesn't take a lot to see that they mess things up. It came up in this thread because they have a basic fact checking issue in the article where they moved the icefall where the avalanche took place up much higher on the mountain than it actually is. Every other news organization that I've seen reporting on the incident was able to get it right, but I just checked the article in the OP again and they still haven't found their mistake and fixed it.