re: Netflix documentary on Everest earthquake

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Maybe its because I don't know if I could do it.

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I grew up in the old school and when I started as mountaineering there were basically no commercial climbing services like exist today. You started small (like Ranier) and worked your way up. There are a lot of people today that have a single 8000er on their climbing often Everest. The idea of having your first 8000 meter peak being Everest was unheard of when I started. By moving up through the altitudes and technical difficulty you learned your limits. There are quite a few people who just can't deal with altitude. I have short roped more than one person down off Ranier (~4400m) with either the beginnings of HACE and full blown AMS. Being in shape helps, living/training at altitude helps but a lot of it is just genetic apparently. My point is my generation of mountaineers had a pretty good idea they could handle the altitude and technical demands of a climb because they had accomplished the "step below" without significant issues.

While the climbing guide services require some level of alpine climbing experience it really is fairly minimal. Many of today's Everest climbers are more or less wholly dependent on their Western guides and Sherpa. By progressing slowly you build the skills to be self sufficient. Take a strong Cat 2 roadie and put him on a MTB for the first time and send him out on Black Mountain in Brevard or Porcupine Rim in Moab and it isn't likely to go well. I look at the concierge climbers today that Everest is their first "serious" climb and I think they are utterly insane.

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As in looking over cliffs and seeing a 2000 foot drop. I think at the summit of Everest its a 7000 foot drop over the China side. My dick would be in my stomach.

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Heights and exposure are something most people can get used to. I started rock climbing at 8 and heights just don't get to me. Exposure will occasionally cause me to take a deep breath like 20+ pitches up El Cap. There are tons of people in every city and small town that work at height daily. I had a lot of respect for the roofers that just ran around on the 12 on 12 pitch roof of my 3 story house like they were walking on flat ground. Doing things at height is no different physically than doing it one foot of the ground. Just a mind frick that if you start young or just do it a lot it moves further and further back in your mind.

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Obtuse1

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have you ever crossed paths with Ed Viesturs? I've read all of his books at least twice and I'm obsessed

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"Into Thin Air" is still one of the best book/movie titles I've ever seen. It's perfect.

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Read that book and it was excellent. Even for someone like me who is not really a reader


As for the Netflix Documentary, that was some unreal coverage.

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In a row?

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Fun fact: I use 37 when needing a random number almost exclusively because of that scene.

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There are also a good number of solid docs about K2 on Youtube, one that comes to mind is the BBC one called Ghosts of K2.

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I remember watching a documentary about that Jimmy Chin guy climb Meru a few years back. That was very rad. Not sure why anyone would take that risk.


That was an excellent show

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I started rock climbing at 8 and heights just don't get to me.

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I used to like bouldering because I never really got far off the ground. Beats any weight room workout. I tried rock climbing a few times and peeled off a wall in Little Cottonwood Canyon on belay and gave myself a concussion. I didn't like it enough to continue. My friend Peri still makes fun of me for that, and always walking my bike down Portal Trail in Moab.

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Ed Viesturs

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He was on the mountain when I claimed Cho Oyo and also Everest. Nice guy and humble as most of the true great mountaineers are. Despite the number of "mountaineers" now the real community has always been very small especially when I was active and "everyone" has crossed paths with most everyone at some point in those days.

Ed is one of only IIRC 44 people and the first American to be credited with climbing all 14 8000ers.

I will let everyone ITT in on a dirty little secret. It is unlikely that ANYONE has ever actually gotten to all 14 true summits. 7 of them have false summits where the majority of people turn around often by mistake because some have prayer flags and markers at the false summit. The main one is the one I mentioned in a previous post: Shishapangma. I don't ever mention my climb there because I didn't go to the true summit (maybe 5% of people that have "summited" Shishapangma have). My failure was not time or weather it was just lack of balls. The last 10 vertical meters is a knife edge cornice about a 100m long that is dangerous as all hell. To do it you almost have to do a cheval, some may do it on foot on the side but they are truly nuts. A cheval is when you put one leg on each side of the knife edge and shimmy up, I think it is French for on horseback or something. I know someone is thinking I saw that Netflix doc where that Nepalese dude Purja climbed all 14 on camera. I am not saying he didn't go to the true summit but where the camera was where he summited and they had their packs laying was NOT the true summit. Been there done the same thing. BTW Ed did not summit Shishapagma the first time he climbed it but there is photographic evidence he did his second time. He shimmied up (via cheval) and touched the summit with his hand and shimmied back down. This is one of the greatest mountaineers reduced to tactics a 5-year-old would use to maneuver across a 2x4 4 feet off the ground.

Found this video it's short and looks like it's at the summit you said everyone stops at. Their group looks like it's the only one there and they point to the true summit and say maybe next time, it's sketchy.
YouTube
Looks like some amazing views from up there !

Everyone in this thread needs to get together over beers and some Obtuse stories.