re: Would you climb Mt Everest if someone paid your way?

I'd do it as long as work was ok with the extended time off.

There was a group of guys from Nola who climed a few years back, Jesuit guy's. Some of you may know or know of. I don't think it cost $150k though.

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Would you climb Mt Everest if someone paid your way?

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Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Hell yes!

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I think it is something like $150K to climb Everest.

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It is more in the $40,000-$70,000 range to climb Everest. That's expedition style mind you. However, no reputable establishment will allow you to join their team without proving yourself on other mountains above 6-7k meters. So, now you're having to add in that cost as well. To give you an idea, Mountain Madness, one of the most well known groups, charges $67,000, while 7 Summits, another well known group, charges $42,000. This is all just for your trip, you have to get there, to Katmandu, and get all of your equipment as well.

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I don't think there is much (or any) rock climbing associated with it. I think it's just walking up a big arse, dangerous hill, with a bunch of sketchy passes you must transverse. (I maybe wrong here)

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While it isn't considered a highly technical climb, there are "mountain skills" that are required for the climb. Proper use of fixed ropes, use of high-altitude equipment, and a lot of general mountain expedition knowledge is required to successfully climb it.

Because of recent events and global public backlash several key changes have occurred. Neither Nepal/India nor China will by law grant climbing permits to anyone under 16 (including the sherpa people) and realistically, you're not getting one if you're under 21. Also, because of the recent high number of deaths, China has become very restrictive in their granting of permits to foreigners. It is no longer the free-for-all that it was in the 80s and 90s.

Furthermore, there are now laws requiring certain payments to and insurances for the local Sherpa people who work on the mountain. This almost assures that you're not going to be able to just show up and get to work - you'll have to be with a larger expedition to get the assistance you need.

Lastly theres the consideration of danger. While advances in technology and the shift towards only allowing a more skilled clientele have decreased the likelihood of death, there is still an very high level of risk associated with Everest. The icefalls are the "deadliest" part of the mountain. Those deaths have almost nothing to do with skill and almost everything to do with luck.

The altitude is what kills most outside of the ice falls. We're not just talking about being a little out of breath here. We're talking about people who are in superb shape having to spend hours, literally hours, to walk a couple of hundred yards. Summit day itself is typically 20-30 hours of extreme physical exertion. It is estimated that on summit day people burn between 12,000 and 15,000 calories. To put that into perspective, the average marathoner burns about 3,000 calories in a race. And you can't eat, at least not enough to replace those calories. Even if you could force that much food into your stomach, above 8,000 meters your digestive system just about shuts down. It is called the death zone because no matter what you do, your body starts dying up there. It is just a matter of how long can you survive in that area.

Interesting anecdote - several years ago a Chinese billionaire's son died while attempting Everest. He was several hundred meters from the summit. The father hired a team of over a dozen experienced climbers, all of whom had summited Everest before, to retrieve his son's body. They managed to move it less than 100 meters before giving up and returning to camp. You are as much on your own up there as astronauts are in space. There is no rescue, period.

Sure, for a couple of decades there it was "accessible" to just about anyone who could afford it. We've heard the stories of incompetent morons paying gobs of cash to get someone to haul their dumbasses up the mountain. And then there was the idiot parents that essentially carried their 12 year old up the mountain just so they could claim that their son was the youngest ever. But now because of legal, logistical, and ethical concerns, those days are over and it has once again become a climber's only mountain.



All that being said, I'd go in a heartbeat if I were giving the opportunity.

Whole lotta nope.

NO

I found climbs for around 50k. I want to do it, but can't take that much time off work.

I hate the cold and dont want to die.

Id rather sit in a rocket and let it do all the work

Everest has always been an interesting topic to me mostly because I have wondered at what price would an excursion to the peak be worth? I think it has a greater value, not because it's the tallest peak or the most dangerous, but because at that altitude you can only get there by foot. I won't consider halo jumping onto the peak to count, because that would just be a death wish. I do think that when we have a practical and widespread VTOL-type flyer that is capable of ascending to the peak and back through the wide range of atmospherics with zero issue, it will lose some value of exclusivity as only being assessable by mountain climbing.

I do think space will be much more assessable to many and safe in the next 30 years before this situation with Everest occurs, so I'll probably continue to consider Everest the top challenge that can be done for a human at this time. If you want scale, just consider Olympus Mons on Mars. It is much bigger than Everest, and every foot of it exist in almost zero pressure and no oxygen. While I'm on topic, I might as well digress and leave a thought here than I have also considered. There will eventually be a time when anywhere on earth will be assessable by some type of vehicle regardless of atmospheric pressure or conditions. And once this happens we will have likely figured out how to operate in any type of planetary conditions, within living reason, for planets that we will colonize.

A fascinating thought about space is the amount of things that is capable between 1 atmosphere and a vacuum. Literally a few millimeters of metal keep this boundary separated in space. Now imagine the intense level of pressure acquired by simply going underwater, or by somehow traveling into a gas giant planet without being smashed into a ball of carbon. This makes space seem trivial.