re: Beginners Guide to Climbing Everest (The Mountain)

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Everest is for the weak.

K2 or Kangchenjunga or bust.

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I'm probably too handsome to be risking so much, but my body was made for these types of challenges.

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probably the most quintessential OT statement somebody could come up with.

I didn't read the whole thread so I may be repeating but this is coming from someone with 30 years of rock and alpine climbing and multiple 8000 meter peak summits and failures.

If you are thinking about Everest as a first major alpine assent it is just stupid. You will pay mid to upper 5 figures for people to drag you up the South Col route (which is a slog) and you will suffer for weeks.

If you do Everest first:

you will never be comfortable and likely scared shitless the whole time

it will be nothing but pure agony for the majority of the time you are above base camp

if things go sideways you want have any experiance to fall back on, you won't know what to do and will likely die unless someone is "kind" enough to help your noob arse

you won't have any idea how your body deals with altitude, I have short roped some of the fittest people I have ever seen off of mountains far lower than Everest with cerebral and or pulmonary edema. I have also watched 2 men and a woman die because they bit off more than their body could chew.


I have seen plenty of first timers on serious mountains and they are nothing but a danger to themselves and others. I have sat on my arse in the death zone watching my summit window die as noobs floundered on the Hillary step and backed up dozens of climbers.

If you are serious about Everest take the time to learn the craft. Expose your body to increasing altitudes and make sure you have the genetics for the task, it is not just fitness some people's bodies will just not function at altitude.

I know the idea of paying a commercial guide 75 large to tick off a bucket list bullet point is attractive but that isn't what alpine climbing is about. Now there is nothing wrong with going the commercial route to handle the logistics (which are SIGNIFICANT) but without a lot of previous alpine experience having them drag you up the South Col really isn't climbing Everest.

For someone that can't tie a prusik, thinks jumars are some exotic foot and can't self-arrest, Everest needs to be a 10 year plan with climbs of increasing difficulty and altitude each year. I am not saying it can't be done, noobs do it every year, but they mainly prove they have a high tolerance for suffering not that they can climb a mountain.

i'm sure there's a butch jones motivation video out there somewhere ... good as any place to start ...

I've done some exhilarating things in my life, but none of that sounds fun, or desirable, to me

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I've done some exhilarating things in my life, but none of that sounds fun, or desirable, to me

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Anyone that says 8000 meter peak climbing is anything but 90% suffering is lying. Crappy (if any) sleep and forcing liquids and food down your gullet for weeks on end when the last thing you want to do is eat and drink is not fun. You do this all for 15-45 minutes on the summit. It sounds so glorious until you are there. Most get down (if they live) and bask in the accomplishment but never even consider it again, then a small group of the insane get summit fever and can't wait for harder and/or higher.

Told my wife the same thing a few days she told GTFO and that I was crazy... Definitely going to do it

Dude left out one key thing. Bring money. Lots of money. Climbing and travel and equipment and support teams are not cheap.

There are bodies up,there that are used as trail markers.

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Green Boots is the name given to the unidentified corpse of a climber that became a landmark on the main Northeast ridge route of Mount Everest.[1][2] Though his identity has not been officially confirmed, he is believed to be Tsewang Paljor, an Indian climber who died on Mount Everest in 1996.

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