Because It's There : Climbing Mount Everest

"Mount Everest is still a very dangerous mountain, and climbing it will never become a walk in the park, because it's way above the limits of what most people can do."  "By analyzing climbing data, we provide accurate information on the chances of success and on the chances of dying, thereby helping climbers make an informed decision about whether to attempt this great peak."                                  Professor Raymond Huey, University of Washington

"The researchers found that a contemporary 60-year-old climber has about the same death rate -- about 2 percent -- as a 48.5-year-old in the earlier period, suggesting '60 is the new 40' when it comes to summiting Everest. The probabilities of summiting were similar for men and women."                              University of Washington researchers

A newly-published study has concluded with interesting but also predictable results. Published by the journal PLOS One, the findings represent a comprehensive view of climbing success and the rate of death to date, on the world highest peak. The 29,000-foot peak, once thought unassailable, has traditionally been sacred to the people of the region, the abode of a goddess who is worshipped by the Sherpas who call the mountain Chomolungma, Mother Goddess of the World.

Twice as many mountaineers successfully climb Mount Everest, pictured, now than three decades ago — but the death rate remains at around 1 per cent, a study has found

 

 

 

 

 Between 1990 and 2005, one third of the  mountaineers who set out to climb Mount Everest reached the summit. Between 2006 and 2019 that success rate doubled to two-thirds realizing success in their bid to reach the top, point out the University of Washington researchers. Current expeditions are likelier to succeed in scaling the mountain, using supplemental oxygen. The thin air at the topmost levels of the mountain, known as the 'Death Zone' can cause high altitude sickness in even the most fit people.

That condition produces brain fog, impacts judgement, creates tiredness, sapping energy when lower air pressure and low oxygen levels wreak havoc in the brain. Climbers acclimatize to lower oxygen levels by gradually approaching the thinner atmosphere, returning from camp 4, for example, to camp 5 to gradualize the impact on their body function. With the use of supplemental oxygen canisters the risk of acquiring mountain sickness is dramatically reduced.

There have been mountaineers, the elite in the field, who have managed to reach the summit eschewing supplemental oxygen; over the years that number has reached up to several hundred ambitious and highly experienced climbers. Another useful climbing tool is the fixed ropes put in place at particularly dangerous places on the mountainside to enable climbers to maintain footing, and not stray from the most direct route to the summit. That dangerous and highly skilled pre-preparation work is usually undertaken by Sherpas under direction from a head Sherpa.

Reaching 29,030 feet above sea level, the summit of Everest in the Himalayas attracts around 500 climbers wanting to scale the world's tallest peak each year. Pictured, the Everest base camp

Communication has improved substantially, and that has been a huge help, since accurate weather reports warn mountaineers what they will be encountering, and with that information, plan when to set off for best possible ascent conditions to the summit -- and when to lay low and wait out the kind of atrocious weather conditions at high altitude that Mount Everest is known for; sudden snowstorms and winds strong enough to rip tents off the mountainside, often trapping summiteers for days in their tents waiting for the storm to pass.

Expedition leaders have gained invaluable experience with repeat climbs, as have the indispensable Sherpas whose climbing prowess has long been acclaimed as essential to the success of a climbing expedition. All those things considered, climbing Everest is extremely dangerous. Roughly one percent of people who attempt the climb succumb to accidental death. Even after a successful ascent the rigours of the descent after an exhausting climb claim more lives than does the ascent itself.

Between 1990 and 2004, 2,211 climbers dedicated their endeavours to mounting the peak, a number that increased to 3,620 people from 2005 to 2019, a rise of about 64 percent. Increasingly, inexperienced climbers take on the challenge of the summit as a prestigious feather in their cap as it were, leading to crowded conditions at narrow precipices and passes when time is of the essence, creating long wait times and adding to exhaustion and danger.

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Comparisons between the two periods show that:

• Summit success rates from the first period to the second period have essentially doubled; two-thirds of climbers now reach the summit, verses one-third previously
• The overall death rate of around 1% hasn't changed
• A contemporary 60-year-old climber has the same success rate (about 40%) as a 40-year-old climber in the prior period -- i.e., 60 is the new 40
• A contemporary 60-year-old climber has the about the same death rate (about 2%) as a 48.5-year-old in the earlier period
• More women are attempting the climb in recent years (14.6%) verses the previous period (9.1%)
• Women and men had very similar odds of success or death in both periods

 

In Perspective

"There are more Western doctors, more facilities, more medical supplies and more equipment to manage that situation in the Everest Base Camp than anywhere else in Nepal."
"Any climber who has any sense of attachment to Nepal, or any sense of fairness or right or wrong would agree."
"Those climbers are up there because of a chosen avocation, or sport, and they're fine. And I think they all know that. You might see some occasional pleas or cries for help, but they have to think, 'I'm up here by choice."
"It's with manual labour and toil and engineering and risk that the sherpas go in there [Khumbu ice fall infrastructure] and put the ice screws in and fix the lines and position the ladders. That's why we hear reports of climbers being trapped. Some of the climbers I talked to today said they can't go down to get this thing fixed."
"Some are talking about taking helicopters to shuttle them back and down across through the icefalls so they don't have to climb. But I sure hope somebody is saying they should use those helicopters elsewhere in Nepal because there should be a great deal of demand for that equipment elsewhere."
Wally Berg, Canadian mountaineer

In this photo, released on Monday, a rescue helicopter is shown at Mount Everest’s south base camp. (6summitschallenge.com/Reuters)

"We all rushed out to the open and the next moment a huge wall of snow just piled on me."
"I managed to dig out of what could easily have been my grave. I wiggled and used my hands as claws to dig as much as I could."
"I was suffocating. I could not breathe. But I knew I had to survive."
Bhim Bahadur Khatri, 35, sherpa cook, Everest Base Camp

What Mr. Berg, who operates an adventure company out of Canmore, Alberta, and who has himself climbed Mount Everest repeatedly feared, has in fact occurred. A handful of helicopters was diverted from search-and-rescue operations in Nepal's earthquaked zone, to rescue the estimated 170 people who were on the slopes of the world's tallest mountain. A relative handful remain, and will be taken off the mountain by Wednesday.

There were nineteen climbers whom the avalanche killed -- triggered by the 7.8- magnitude earthquake that devastated Kathmandu and surrounding area -- whose bodies will be taken off the mountain for return to their families and burial. The injured are being treated. The death toll in Nepal itself, with many of its isolated villages still to be reached by rescue crews, has surmounted five thousand, with countless thousands of people having sustained injuries, some very serious.

Mr. Berg's observation that the mountaineers take risks when they decide to trek up Mount Everest is quite correct; most of them are fairly well provisioned, with food enough and medicines to last them weeks. But in the event of emergencies and when natural events occur of such disastrous proportions people tend to lose perspective, knowing that many have died and there is no guarantee that aftershocks causing other avalanches will not recur, and they prefer to be evacuated, their aspirations of summiting shattered.

The reality is, as Mr. Berg has observed, people die on the mountain year on year. As did 16 sherpas last year, in one fell swoop in the Khumbu Icefield area, cancelling that season's climbs. The Khumbu Icefall, a perilous portion of the climb, just above Base Camp, has become infinitely more treacherous since the avalanche began with huge rocks being dislodged from a promontory directly above the Icefall, rendering all the preparatory ascent/descent work done annually by sherpa volunteers useless, and stranding mountaineers on the slopes above.

Some climbers posted appeals on social media for help. "Huge disaster. Helped, searched and rescued victims through huge debris area. Many dead. Much more badly injured. More to die if not heli ASAP", wrote Romanian climber Alex Gavan. The response to his appeal ensured that those on the mountain were taken away from the area posing such potential danger to them.


A rescue chopper carrying people down to Everest base camp on Monday. (Nima Namgyal Sherpa/AP)

Mr. Berg's long experience in Nepal and his care for the country and its people were front and centre in his statements, that many from within the climbing community have been assailed with grim sadness and yet a sense of inevitability. Seated on a major fault line, Nepal is quite simply vulnerable to the tectonic shifts taking place in the bowels of the Earth where an Indian plate and a Nepali plate grind against each other, gradually shifting Nepal itself under Mount Everest in incremental steps long into the geological future.

There is a "long and deep sentimental and emotional attachment to the people. They are humble; they have great integrity and inner spiritual strength and resilience. We care for them and we're thinking about them. A lot of us from the developed world who have been to Nepal and love it, I know, are wrenched with this loss of those ancient medieval streets that we used to walk", stated Wally Berg, of a country and a people that have taken his heart.