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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Dead bodies are left behind on Mount Everest, so why are hundreds of | |
climbers heading into the ‘death zone’ this spring? | |
By Kara Nelson, CNN | |
Updated: | |
10:41 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
Thick murky clouds fill the sky, with freezing winds carrying snow | |
faster than 100 miles per hour. With a frigid –30 degrees Fahrenheit | |
temperature, life-threatening snowstorms and avalanches are frequent. | |
And these are typical conditions on the world’s highest mountain: | |
Mount Everest. | |
The behemoth towers 29,032 feet (8,849 meters) between Nepal and Tibet | |
in the Himalayas, with its peak surpassing most clouds in the sky. | |
An attempt to climb Everest requires months, sometimes years, of | |
training and conditioning – even then, reaching the summit is far | |
from guaranteed. In fact, more than . | |
And yet the mountain still draws hundreds of climbers who are | |
determined to reach its peak every spring. Here’s what it takes to | |
make the climb and what has motivated some climbers to summit the | |
world’s highest peak. | |
‘I thought I was in pretty good shape’ | |
Dr. Jacob Weasel, a trauma surgeon, successfully summited Everest last | |
May after conditioning for nearly a year. | |
“I would put on a 50-pound backpack and do two hours on a stair | |
stepper with no problem,” Weasel told CNN. “So, I thought that I | |
was in pretty good shape.” However, the surgeon said he was humbled | |
after discovering that his fitness was no match for the lofty | |
athleticism required by the mountain. | |
“I would take five steps and have to take 30 seconds to a minute to | |
catch my breath,” Weasel recalled of his struggle with the lack of | |
oxygen available while ascending Everest. | |
Climbers aiming for the summit usually practice an acclimatizing | |
rotation to adjust their lungs to the thinning oxygen levels once they | |
arrive on the mountain. This process involves mountaineers traveling | |
upward to one of the four designated camps on Everest and spending one | |
to four days there before traveling back down. | |
This routine is repeated at least two times to allow the body to adapt | |
to declining oxygen levels. It increases a climber’s chances of | |
survival and summiting. | |
“If you took somebody and just plopped them up at the high camp on | |
Everest, not even on the (top), they would probably go into a coma | |
within 10 to 15 minutes,” Weasel said. | |
“And they would be dead within an hour because their body is not | |
adjusted to that low of oxygen levels.” | |
While Weasel has successfully summited dozens of mountains, including | |
Kilimanjaro (19,341 ft), Chimborazo (20, 549 ft), Cotopaxi (19,347 ft), | |
and most recently Aconcagua (22,837 ft) in January, he said none of | |
them compares to the high-altitude of Mount Everest. | |
“Because no matter how well you are trained, once you get to the | |
limits of what the human body can take, it’s just difficult,” he | |
continued. | |
At its highest altitude, Everest is nearly incapable of sustaining | |
human life and most mountaineers use supplementary oxygen above 23,000 | |
feet. The lack of oxygen poses one of greatest threats to climbers who | |
attempt to summit, with levels dropping to less than 40% when they | |
reach the Everest “death zone.” | |
‘It’s difficult to survive up there’ | |
The first target for mountaineers is Everest base camp at approximately | |
17,000 feet, which takes climbers about two weeks. Then they ascend to | |
the three remaining camps stationed along the mountain. | |
Camp four, the final one before the summit, sits along the edge of the | |
death zone at 26,000 feet, exposing climbers to an extremely thin | |
layer of air, subzero temperatures, and high winds powerful enough to | |
blow a person off the mountain. | |
“It’s difficult to survive up there,” Weasel told CNN. He recalls | |
passing bodies of climbers who died on the mountain – which isn’t | |
uncommon. The bodies of the fallen mountaineers are well-preserved, | |
exhibiting little to no decay due to the intense cold temperatures. | |
“I am probably more familiar with death and the loss of life than | |
most people,” the surgeon said. “For me it was just a reminder of | |
the gravity of the situation and the fragility of what life is… even | |
more so motivation for appreciating the opportunity.” | |
High-altitude cerebral edema (HACE) is one of the most common illnesses | |
climbers face while attempting to summit. “Your brain is starved of | |
oxygen,” Weasel said. | |
HACE results in the brain swelling during its attempt to regain stable | |
oxygen levels, causing drowsiness, trouble speaking and thinking. This | |
confusion is often accompanied by blurred vision and sporadic episodes | |
of delusion. | |
“I had auditory hallucinations where I was hearing voices [of | |
friends] that I thought were coming from behind me,” Weasel recalled. | |
“And I had visual hallucinations,” he added. “I was seeing the | |
faces of my children and my wife coming out of the rocks.” | |
Weasel recalled crossing paths with a friend, Orianne Aymard, who was | |
trapped on the mountain due to an injury. “I remember staring at her | |
for like five minutes and just saying, ‘I’m so sorry,’” Weasel | |
said. | |
“I’ve spent over a decade of my life training to help people as a | |
surgeon, and being in a position where there’s somebody who requires | |
your help and you are unable to offer any assistance… that feeling of | |
helplessness was tough to deal with,” Weasel told CNN. | |
Aymard survived. She was rescued and suffered from several broken bones | |
in her foot, in addition to severe frostbite on her hands. Despite all | |
her injuries, Aymard is considered one of the lucky ones. | |
‘Their bodies will get frozen into the mountain’ | |
Everest has long been a tomb for climbers who have succumbed to harsh | |
conditions or accidents on its slopes. | |
When a loved one or fellow climber is severely injured or dies on the | |
mountain, it’s routine to leave them behind if you’re unable to | |
save them, according to Alan Arnette, a mountaineer coach who summited | |
Everest in 2014. | |
“What most teams do out of respect for that climber, they will move | |
the body out of sight,” he said. And that’s only if they can. | |
“Sometimes that’s just not practical because of the bad weather, or | |
because their bodies will get frozen into the mountain,” Arnette told | |
CNN. “So, it’s very difficult to move them.” | |
Seeing a corpse on Everest is comparable to seeing a horrible car | |
accident, according to the mountain coach. “You don’t turn around | |
and go home,” Arnette said. “You respectfully slow down… or say a | |
prayer for that person, and then you continue.” | |
It’s been 10 years since on the world’s highest mountain, after | |
an avalanche killed 12 Sherpa guides. And 2023 was recorded as the | |
deadliest year on Everest, with 18 fatalities on the mountain – | |
including five people that are still unaccounted for. | |
The , sometimes impossible. Helicopter rescues and search missions are | |
challenging due to the high altitude and frequently treacherous | |
conditions, resulting in some rescuers dying in their attempt to save | |
others. | |
‘Watching the sunrise from 29,000 feet’ | |
The 3,000 feet climb from camp four to the summit can take anywhere | |
from 14 to 18 hours. Therefore, mountaineers typically leave the camp | |
at night. | |
“That entire night was cold,” Weasel recalled. “It’s dark, | |
it’s windy.” But it was proven to be worth it in the morning, he | |
said. | |
“Watching the sunrise from 29,000 feet and having that pyramid of | |
Everest’s shadow projected onto the valley below you…,” Weasel | |
told CNN. “It was probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve | |
ever seen in my life,” he continued. | |
“It’s weird standing up there and knowing that everything else on | |
the planet is below where you’re standing.” | |
The size of the mountain is humbling, the surgeon said. “I’ve never | |
felt so small,” he recalled. “That mixture of humility and | |
connectedness with something bigger than yourself is the proper place | |
from which we ought to approach our existence on this planet.” | |
Like Weasel, Arnette summited at sunrise, and experienced this same | |
feeling of “smallness.” At the top there were “more mountains | |
than you can count,” Arnette remembered. “It was a sense of | |
enormous gratitude and at the same time I knew I had to get back | |
down.” | |
After about 20 minutes to an hour, climbers typically start to descend | |
back to the base of the mountain. | |
‘Bigger than yourself’ | |
Before leaving for Nepal, Weasel was gifted an eagle’s feather as a | |
beacon for his Native American heritage. | |
He was determined to plant the feather on top of Everest “as a | |
symbol of our people and what we’ve endured for the past several | |
hundred years,” Weasel told CNN. “Showing that our spirit is not | |
broken, but we’re able to rise above the things that have happened to | |
us,” he added. | |
“I remember planting that eagle’s feather on the top of the world | |
and the feeling of real privilege that I felt in representing our | |
people.” And this is why he decided to summit Everest, to be an | |
example that anything is possible for young Native children and his | |
tribe. | |
“Knowing what it’s like up there, for me personally, the only real | |
justification for going and putting your life, and other lives, at risk | |
is if you’re climbing for a reason that is much bigger than you,” | |
said Weasel. | |
Arnette attempted to climb Everest three times before he successfully | |
summited. | |
“My first three tries, I wasn’t clear on my why,” Arnette said. | |
When his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, he looked at | |
his purpose for climbing differently. | |
“I wanted to do it to raise money for Alzheimer’s and honor my | |
mother,” Arnette said. | |
There are approximately 300 people that have been issued a permit from | |
the Nepal government to climb the mountain this year, according to | |
Arnette. And he said . | |
“I think one of the reasons is because we had the 18 deaths last | |
year, and people realize that Mount Everest is a dangerous mountain.” | |
However, he doesn’t believe that should deter climbers from | |
attempting to summit. “I’m a big believer that when you go climb | |
these mountains that you come home a better version of yourself,” | |
Arnette told CNN. | |
“Everest has become too commercialized with ‘you’re stepping over | |
dead bodies’ and ‘it’s littered with trash,’” the mountain | |
coach said. “The reality is that it is a very small degree all of | |
that, but there’s a lot of joy that people get out of doing it,” he | |
continued. | |
“And that’s the reason that we climb mountains.” | |
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