Everest Avalanche

The Sherpa guides had climbed up the slope early in the morning to fix ropes for climbers and prepare the route for mountaineers when the avalanche hit, officials are quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

The identities of the dead and missing have not been officially disclosed, tourism ministry spokesman, Mohan Krishna Sapkota, told the BBC.

He said a search and rescue operation was now under way and that three helicopters have been sent to the area.

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia and Australia will sign a deal specifying who handles any wreckage from missing flight MH370 that may be recovered, including the crucial "black box" flight data recorders, local media reports.

Malaysia is drafting the agreement "to safeguard both nations from any legal pitfalls that may surface during that (recovery) phase," the New Straits Times reported on Friday.

To bad they have to risk their lives to climb a mountain for people who cant climb it themselves.

The first demand is that the fixing and maintenance in the Icefall should be the the job of the foreigners. They want to climb it so bad, go ahead and earn it.

Chile's long tradition of mining developed during the 20th century and has made the country the world's top producer of copper.[14] An average of 34 people per year since 2000 have died in mining accidents in Chile, with a high of 43 in 2008, according to figures from the state regulatory agency National Geology and Mining Service Spanish: Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería de Chile abbreviated to SERNAGEOMIN

Nepal’s ministry of tourism and civil aviation announced a new fee of $11,000 per climber in January of this year....

EDIT Where does all that money go?

Can Everest be done without Sherpas?

Darío Segovia had only been working at San José for three months before the accident on August 5. He had taken the job because he had been unemployed and has three children, but had been planning to look for something else. “He earned 450,000 pesos ($930) a month. This wasn’t his shift – he was doing overtime to earn a bit extra,” his sister said.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f3ea0c16-d557-11df-8e86-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2zHllrJSc

in a global economy nobody wants to work a job where they are paid under $10k a season and may die,

Time to bring a howitzer to BC?

You shouldn't be on an 8000 meter peak if you are not prepared for self rescue. Hundreds of clients waiting for "a team of experts" to refix lines for their retreat speaks volumes about the current state of affairs on Everest.

the clients are peak baggers who want to be the second person around the water cooler in some corporate office building who can brag about standing on the highest place on earth

In one of the finest mountaineering books ,"Everest The West Ridge " ( Sierra Club-Ballantine Book,1966 ), Tom Hornbein writes about the death of Jake Breitenbach in the Icefall on March 23,1963. Those days are long gone.& still traversing the Icefall on foot doesn't make any sense when there is an alternative. I can not think of any amount that is worth that risk. Playing roulette with hired peoples lives isn't climbing by "fair mean

very clear that there were just three significant ascents of Everest:

There is something unseemly about having Sherpas take the bulk of the risk in the Khumbu Icefall while clients acclimatize on nearby peaks.

Ken M. I'm curious how the whole "insurance" thing works/could work. Not for some lesser being but a brother human. Not sure why you're projecting "dick like behavior" on some who are genuinely interested in helping. No, I'm not a fan at all of the merit badge corporate climbing culture invading Everest.

But as others have said, this is a big part of the Nepalese tourism economy. Any reason why it shouldn't be taxing westerners appropriately and handling that tax well?

$.02,
pc

They're also well aware that they are able to tolerate hardship in a way that we can't. I think the only western person they really feel is equal or stronger than themselves is Messner.

For what it's worth I believe that Messner's solo was from the Chinese side, and not via the Khumbu.

If the hiker/clients made an effort to be climbers perhaps there would be mutual respect.

With this much $$ involved + the allure of the highest mountain in the world, it's hard to imagine that the show won't go on to some degree.

when ever i go climbing. You?

de·ter transitive verb \di-ˈtər, dē-\
: to cause (someone) to decide not to do something

: to prevent (something) from happening

Most of the "clients" are clueless about the objective hazards of the icefall.

If the application process required them to survive a round of russian roulette they might have a better idea,..

It seems like the mountain guides in Europe keep their mountains pretty safe.

Incredibly potent mix of motivations. I felt that lure for years. Its sad that the most popular route is guarded by an insane amount of seracs. I can't think of any other mountain where folks willingly put themselves in such a situation so commonly.

Apples and oranges though. Even the safest 8000 meter peaks have higher death rates than almost all the mountains in Europe. Unless people stop climbing, the death rate for an 8000 meter peak will likely never be as low as it is on most European peaks.

Do Sherpas climb on their own or only as a way to gain employment. I am sure some do but I would guess many do not spend their off time climbing.

It seems like the mountain guides in Europe keep their mountains pretty safe. Well, relatively safe, since there are still occasional deaths from avalanches and other objective hazards.

A small comment. If sherpa are paid per "season" the pay is necessarily not proportional to risk. They might better be paid based on hours at altitude and trips through the ice fall. This might even encourage clients to carry some of their own equipment. Or even cook their own meals

"Meanwhile, the Sherpa guides are considering declaring this season as “Black Everest Year” and giving a rest to the summit of Mt. Everest this year –

This is now more about the future of the Sherpa economy than foreigners climbing mountains.

For many years, the most lucrative commercial guiding operation on Mt. Everest has been a company called Himalayan Experience, or Himex, which is owned by a New Zealand mountaineer named Russell Brice.

In the spring of 2012, more than a month into the climbing season, he became increasingly worried about a bulge of glacial ice three hundred yards wide that was frozen tenuously to Everest’s West Shoulder, hanging like a massive sword of Damocles directly over the main route up the Nepal side of the mountain. Brice’s clients (“members,” in the parlance of Himalayan mountaineering), Western guides, and Sherpas repeatedly had to climb beneath the threatening ice bulge as they moved up and down the mountain to acclimatize and establish a series of higher camps necessary for their summit assault.

One day, Brice timed how long it took his head guide, Adrian Ballinger (“who is incredibly fast,” he wrote in the blog post excerpted below), to climb through the most hazardous terrain:

It took him 22 min from the beginning to the end of the danger zone. For the Sherpas carrying a heavy load it took 30 min and most of our members took between 45 min and one hour to walk underneath this dangerous cliff. In my opinion, this is far too long to be exposed to such a danger and when I see around 50 people moving underneath the cliff at one time, it scares me.

Adding to Brice’s concern, some of his most experienced Sherpas, ordinarily exceedingly stoical men, approached him to say that the conditions on the mountain made them fear for their lives. One of them actually broke down in tears as he confessed this.

So on May 7, 2012, Brice made an announcement that shocked most of the thousand people camped at the base of Everest: he was pulling all his guides, members, and Sherpas off the mountain, packing up their tents and equipment, and heading home.

He was widely criticized for this decision in 2012, and not just by clients who were forced to abandon their dreams of climbing the world’s highest mountain without receiving a refund for the forty-three thousand euros they had paid him in advance. Many of the other expedition leaders also thought Brice was wildly overreacting.

The reputation of Himex took a major hit.

The truly scary thing about Guck's photo is the total lack of snow and ice on the Hilary Step.

KETCHUM, Idaho — SIXTY years ago this week, as Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay approached the summit of the world’s highest mountain, they were stopped by a 40-foot wall of rock and ice. It was, Hillary later wrote, “a formidable looking problem ...We realized that at this altitude it might well spell the difference between success and failure.
Employing the skills he had learned in the New Zealand Alps, Hillary jammed his feet, hands and shoulders into a thin crack between a ridge of ice and the rock and, as he put it, “levered myself” up the wall. Then he brought Tenzing up on a tight rope, and together they climbed the final 300 feet to become the first humans to stand on the summit of Mount Everest.

Are there any other mountains in that area?

It's time to skip the icefall by using cargo type helicopters to carry all supplies & people from the Base Camp to a forward camp above it.

Who the hell would want to slog past corpses, sh#t piles and oxygen tanks? What is the fun in that anyways?

Personally, I enjoy digging through piles of frozen sh#t to set up my tent on piles of frozen sh#t. Isn't that what mountaineering is all about?

Climbing Everest has become such a sh*tshow....I can't imagine being around that many people on a mountain. To me, the prestige is simply not worth it.

If I were to head over there, it would be for one of the lesser peaks with no crowds, in order to have a true adventure.

First on my list....Ama Dablam.

Most Sherpa mountain guides have decided to leave Mount Everest, a guide told the Associated Press on Tuesday. The walkout comes after at least 13 Sherpas died in an avalanche Friday – Everest's deadliest disaster.

Earlier Tuesday, Nepal's government appeared to have agreed to some of the Sherpas' demands in the threatened boycott, such as setting up a relief fund for Sherpas who are killed or injured in climbing accidents, but the funding fell well short of what the Sherpas wanted.

The Nepal National Mountain Guide Association in Kathmandu will try to negotiate with the Sherpas and the government because a total boycott would harm Nepal's mountaineering in the long term, the group's general secretary, Sherpa Pasang, said.

After a memorial service at base camp Tuesday, the Sherpas in the camp discussed their options, said guide Dorje Sherpa, who attended. He said most of them were planning to pack and leave as early as Wednesday.

"It is just impossible for many of us to continue climbing….There are three of our friends buried in the snow, I can't imagine stepping over them. We want to honor the members we lost, and out of respect for them we just can't continue," he said.

He was widely criticized for this decision in 2012, and not just by clients who were forced to abandon their dreams of climbing the world’s highest mountain without receiving a refund for the forty-three thousand euros they had paid him in advance. Many of the other expedition leaders also thought Brice was wildly overreacting.

The reputation of Himex took a major hit.

Problem is, Amadablam is not far off the same sh#t show, by the standard route anyway. Fixed the whole way and crawling with guided parties last I heard.

Why do or would non-climbers give a rats ass about conga lines on Everest?

If I were to head over there, it would be for one of the lesser peaks with no crowds, in order to have a true adventure. First on my list....Ama Dablam.

One of those turning back is Ed Marzec, 67, a retired lawyer from Los Angeles and self-proclaimed “tough guy”

Marzec said he hoped the horrific disaster would at least lead to better working conditions for the local guides.

Meanwhile they also report that a high level delegation of government officials, commercial expedition leaders, and heads of climbing agencies, along with military and police, are flying up to base camp in two helicopters tomorrow to try to persuade the Sherpas to go up anyway.

Meanwhile they also report that a high level delegation of government officials, commercial expedition leaders, and heads of climbing agencies, along with military and police, are flying up to base camp in two helicopters tomorrow to try to persuade the Sherpas to go up anyway.