The most expensive trekking trip
The question of Everest
A lot of people are asking about an attempt of Everest. What people don’t realize is that, the big-E is not something you can just plan or schedule, it’s not something you simply treat as a project. It means dedicating your life to high-altitude mountaineering, investing on a lot of experience – no short-cuts. Some has tried 3 or more times and still wouldn’t succeed (even if they have 5 years of high-altitude mountaineering experience).
I remember this high-school student who ‘interviewed’ me when I visited The North Face shop in Shangri-la, asking if it is possible to climb Everest in 1 year (w/o prior high-altitude experience), or asking other question summing up to a message that means, short-cutting the ‘plan’, skipping experience building, or training and all. Well, I simply said, yes you can make an attempt but you will probably die. It’s difficult to explain the difficulties of climbing at high-altitudes, much more – the death zone altitude. It’s not easy to make people aware, that climbing from the south route’s camp4 (to summit) will take 15-17 hours (1-way), beyond 26,000ft, with 40% and less air, temperatures of -50C or colder, and winds at 50kph (and could easily climb up to 100mph when the jet-stream ‘normalizes’), plus the fact that you’re carrying loads of gears, O2 bottle, ice-axe & crampons and wearing a ton of gear that will remind you of the astronaut who walked the surface of the moon. Did I mention that your most-likely resting hear-rate is probably +50% of your normal? That your oxygen in blood (O2 saturation) is probably less than 80%? That your body is actually dying slowly (internal organs slow dies at death-zone, most organs will shut down, ex. digestive system)? That you will experience severe hypoxia that you’ll convince yourself that you can actually fly when you jump off the ridge? That it’s normal to have a ‘buddy’ with you because you’re hallucinating, and that buddy of yours will tempt you to sleep (then die)?
Climbing Everest is a very serious undertaking. Erase all those non-sense crap that technology or full-support will make it a cakewalk. All those support does not make it any easier, just a little bit more convenient! End of the day, you still need to walk up that big hill on your own. Your real buddy is either hours ahead, or hours behind you, you’ll be on your gadamn own! And without experience, you’ll most likely die! You’re probably lucky if you got sick before Camp1. They call it “the most expensive trekking experience of your life” (‘coz you paid 60-70,000$ only to reach base-camp, hahahaha!).
A lot of people are asking about an attempt of Everest. What people don’t realize is that, the big-E is not something you can just plan or schedule, it’s not something you simply treat as a project. It means dedicating your life to high-altitude mountaineering, investing on a lot of experience – no short-cuts. Some has tried 3 or more times and still wouldn’t succeed (even if they have 5 years of high-altitude mountaineering experience).
I remember this high-school student who ‘interviewed’ me when I visited The North Face shop in Shangri-la, asking if it is possible to climb Everest in 1 year (w/o prior high-altitude experience), or asking other question summing up to a message that means, short-cutting the ‘plan’, skipping experience building, or training and all. Well, I simply said, yes you can make an attempt but you will probably die. It’s difficult to explain the difficulties of climbing at high-altitudes, much more – the death zone altitude. It’s not easy to make people aware, that climbing from the south route’s camp4 (to summit) will take 15-17 hours (1-way), beyond 26,000ft, with 40% and less air, temperatures of -50C or colder, and winds at 50kph (and could easily climb up to 100mph when the jet-stream ‘normalizes’), plus the fact that you’re carrying loads of gears, O2 bottle, ice-axe & crampons and wearing a ton of gear that will remind you of the astronaut who walked the surface of the moon. Did I mention that your most-likely resting hear-rate is probably +50% of your normal? That your oxygen in blood (O2 saturation) is probably less than 80%? That your body is actually dying slowly (internal organs slow dies at death-zone, most organs will shut down, ex. digestive system)? That you will experience severe hypoxia that you’ll convince yourself that you can actually fly when you jump off the ridge? That it’s normal to have a ‘buddy’ with you because you’re hallucinating, and that buddy of yours will tempt you to sleep (then die)?
Climbing Everest is a very serious undertaking. Erase all those non-sense crap that technology or full-support will make it a cakewalk. All those support does not make it any easier, just a little bit more convenient! End of the day, you still need to walk up that big hill on your own. Your real buddy is either hours ahead, or hours behind you, you’ll be on your gadamn own! And without experience, you’ll most likely die! You’re probably lucky if you got sick before Camp1. They call it “the most expensive trekking experience of your life” (‘coz you paid 60-70,000$ only to reach base-camp, hahahaha!).
posted by Garduch at 11:51 PM
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