Everest

scamalert wrote: »

muhaha isnt the process still dragged out ? to adjust to alltitude for 3-4 weeks prior to climb. As seen documentary posted about woman who made it, and found it quite interesting that most will do 200km hike to prepare physically for lack of oxygen.

Yeah its dragged out, you need to acclimatise your bodyfor a few weeks at lower altitudes before going that high. In total an Everest attempt should be a five year plan if starting from scratch with you doing a different mountain every year until trying Everest on the 5th. It can of course be done quicker but this is the advice given to me by a Sherpa I know who has been on top of Everest several times. Basically take your time and tick off your 6,000m then 7,000m then 8,000m mountains and see how your body reacts on each one. Only after coming through all that without problems can you think about a summit attempt on Everest.

Also at what altitude they start using oxygen tanks, if its 8000m wouldnt oxygen tanks compensate for the AS to eliminate any side effects of low oxygen ?

It differs by the person but mainly above 7,500m you use oxygen. From what I've heard the oxygen helps but it is still not a complete solution. Its all about how many hours you spend within the death zone. For these guided climbs the lead Sherpa will want his clients to spend no more than 12 hours from Camp 4 to summit and back down to Camp 4 again, it is typically a maximum of 8 hours up and four hours back but traffic jams can extend those timings and put a descending climber in difficulty with altitude sickness as they can wait for an hour or two just have a clear go at getting down the fixed ropes .

iirc the longest recorded time anyone who has spent in the death zone and stayed alive was Scott Fisher in 1995 who was up there for 31 hours. He had oxygen but he just couldn't summon the energy to even stand up. Even at one stage his spoke to his wife back in New Zealand on a satellite phone who begged him to try to get down but his brain was barely functioning at that point and he passed away shortly thereafter. The book Into Thin Air gives an excellent account of what happened.

Muahahaha wrote: »

Yeah its dragged out, you need to acclimatise your bodyfor a few weeks at lower altitudes before going that high. In total an Everest attempt should be a five year plan if starting from scratch with you doing a different mountain every year until trying Everest on the 5th. It can of course be done quicker but this is the advice given to me by a Sherpa I know who has been on top of Everest several times. Basically take your time and tick off your 6,000m then 7,000m then 8,000m mountains and see how your body reacts on each one. Only after coming through all that without problems can you think about a summit attempt on Everest.




It differs by the person but mainly above 7,500m you use oxygen. From what I've heard the oxygen helps but it is still not a complete solution. Its all about how many hours you spend within the death zone. For these guided climbs the lead Sherpa will want his clients to spend no more than 12 hours from Camp 4 to summit and back down to Camp 4 again, it is typically a maximum of 8 hours up and four hours back but traffic jams can extend those timings and put a descending climber in difficulty with altitude sickness as they can wait for an hour or two just have a clear go at getting down the fixed ropes .

iirc the longest recorded time anyone who has spent in the death zone and stayed alive was Scott Fisher in 1995 who was up there for 31 hours. He had oxygen but he just couldn't summon the energy to even stand up. Even at one stage his spoke to his wife back in New Zealand on a satellite phone who begged him to try to get down but his brain was barely functioning at that point and he passed away shortly thereafter. The book Into Thin Air gives an excellent account of what happened.

Your posts are excellent and very informative.

Do you know, was Scott Fisher alive for 31 hours in the death zone? What's the longest anyone has been in it and survived do you know?

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

So that the lives and literal limbs of Sherpas aren’t put at risk.

But it seems sherpa lives are worth way less than that of yet another clown of a tourist who reckoned he didn't need any of that prep n acclimatising craic

1 in 25 die - it could be you

Muahahaha wrote: »

Yeah its dragged out, you need to acclimatise your bodyfor a few weeks at lower altitudes before going that high. In total an Everest attempt should be a five year plan if starting from scratch with you doing a different mountain every year until trying Everest on the 5th. It can of course be done quicker but this is the advice given to me by a Sherpa I know who has been on top of Everest several times. Basically take your time and tick off your 6,000m then 7,000m then 8,000m mountains and see how your body reacts on each one. Only after coming through all that without problems can you think about a summit attempt on Everest.




It differs by the person but mainly above 7,500m you use oxygen. From what I've heard the oxygen helps but it is still not a complete solution. Its all about how many hours you spend within the death zone. For these guided climbs the lead Sherpa will want his clients to spend no more than 12 hours from Camp 4 to summit and back down to Camp 4 again, it is typically a maximum of 8 hours up and four hours back but traffic jams can extend those timings and put a descending climber in difficulty with altitude sickness as they can wait for an hour or two just have a clear go at getting down the fixed ropes .

iirc the longest recorded time anyone who has spent in the death zone and stayed alive was Scott Fisher in 1995 who was up there for 31 hours. He had oxygen but he just couldn't summon the energy to even stand up. Even at one stage his spoke to his wife back in New Zealand on a satellite phone who begged him to try to get down but his brain was barely functioning at that point and he passed away shortly thereafter. The book Into Thin Air gives an excellent account of what happened.

Would you consider doing an AMA?
I think it would be really interesting and I'm sure lots of people would love to hear what you have to say!

josip wrote: »

Muahaha, agree completely with all you've said but am curious why you were so certain that you weren't physiologically suited to going high based on 1 peak?

What was your acclimatization schedule before doing Mera?
.

My acclimatization before Mera was as good as you can get- before even meeting up with the Sheraps for the Mera expedition I had independently followed the exact same route you did- i.e the Everest Base Camp trail but we split off and went up the Goyko Valley, climbed Goyko Ri, then dropped over the Cho La pass and into the Khumbu Valley before climbing Kala Paatar and visiting Everest Base Camp itself.

On top of Goyko Ri and Kala Paatar I was grand, I felt great and had no difficulty with the thin air. I wasn't breathless and didnt have any headaches. In fact on the summit of Kala Paatar there was some Israelis there I had gotten to know and they were having a "victory spliff" and we even had a few puffs of that before descending ! But the following week on Mera was a different proposition, I don't know what it was but after about 6,000m I didn't feel great at all. It started with mild headaches which got worse and grew into a bit of dizziness. Nothing I couldnt handle but getting to the top of these mountains is only 50% of the challenge complete, you still gotta get back down again and being dizzy is not a good situation to be in on a steep descent. So for me that was it, I was well acclimitised having spend the previous two weeks at altitude and summitting two 5,500m hills but going to 6,476m was a step too far. I recognised the dangers of going even higher on other mountains so my Everest dream was put to bed there and then. I've no regrets, most people are simply not made to be at those altitudes and have their full faculties at the same time.

Tomw86 wrote: »

Your posts are excellent and very informative.

Do you know, was Scott Fisher alive for 31 hours in the death zone? What's the longest anyone has been in it and survived do you know?

Yeah iirc Fisher was alive for the full 31 hours in the death zone in 1995, the satellite phone call to his wife in NZ was proof of that.

As for the longest up there and surviving I don't know but would say that there can be no doubt that record is held by a climbing Sherpa and that it probably isnt even recorded in any meanginful sense. Sherpas from the Khumbu region of Nepal have been studied by medical scientists and they are said to have around about 20-30% more capacity in their lungs than us mere mortals who grew up at sea level. I know some Sherpas on the K2 expedition that Ger O'Donnell died on due to an avalanche were in the death zone for more than 24 hours and still got down alive. There is probably longer out there but even for Sherpas the odds of surviving a full 24 hours in the death zone are not great.

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

How much do Sherpas earn I wonder?

I imagine it would be seen as a very lucrative profession for a poor Nepalese farmer ploughing fields with yaks. The average wage in Nepal is 48 dollars a month.

c. $125 per day per climb, according to the wiki article I just read. Earnings of up to $5,000 per year compared to the Nepalese average of $700.

pc7 wrote: »

I don't think she did go back up in the end, but with 4 kids aged 6-11 I think she was nuts to do this at all without doing a few 8000 m climbs first (or at all).



Like others mentioned, it should be something like scuba diving, all climbs recorded, you have a license and can only do the big ones with experience (not money)

I would be equally as critical of the bird with the 4 children. People are referring to these pseudo climbers as ‘selfless’, are they all spelling the word incorrectly.....? .I just can’t understand how anyone could classify them as anything other than utterly selfish

Yurt! wrote: »

Anyone who sees those 8000m+ behemoths and doesn't half think to themselves: "I wonder if I could climb that?" is lying to themselves. These places have a powerful draw, and I can see why people want to try to tackle them.

Nail on the head there Yurt and thats exactly how it was for me, once you see the size of these mountains you start wondering if you can get to the top of them. People become obsessed with the idea usually over many years and it becomes their dream which is the point that rational thought can go out the window

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

How much do Sherpas earn I wonder?

The best of them earn very well by Nepalese standards but they still dont earn all that much given their unique talents in mountaineering. Life in Nepal is very cheap, my worst memory of this was when on one trip there we were held up by a road traffic accident whereby a bus driver had an argument with the bus conductor and he knocked him over and killed him. A big crowd gathered and there was lots of commotion for about two hours and it all ended with the driver paying the conductors widow $200 at the side of the road under orders from the police. She was wailing with grief with her dead husband still lying on the road and the price of his life was a measly $200, it still disturbs me to this day :mad:

arctictree wrote: »

Fascinating stuff. Why can't you just use a full breathing apparatus like divers use, then you could breath normal air all the way to the top?

As said it is the weight of the tanks. A scuba tank will get you around about 50 minutes of oxygen at 20 metres underwater. With Everest you're expecting to spend about 12 hours in the death zone. Suddenly you need a lot of oxygen which means heavy tanks, lots of them ferried up the summit trail by the Sherpas. But there is only so many they can bring up there.

I’m not a mountaineer or trekker, but 1st trek I’ve done was to EBC back in 2004. It was at end of November/start of December so was towards the end of season. I made it all the way to EBC and top of Kala Pataar, but main problems I had was severe headaches and tooth pain where I had fillers. But I think the main reasons for this was the extreme cold in the evenings and nights, it would go to minus 20 I think. I gave up smoking Indian bidi after day 1 when I realized the physical exertion needed. I didn’t smoke again till a fellow trekker gave me a Marlboro light on the top of Kala Pataar!! Then I legged in back down to Lukla as fast as I could, doing for every 2 days of what I had already paid for in 1, just because I wanted to get out of the difficult evening/night conditions. Back in Kathmandu I drank and smoked like crazy to celebrate.
The trek was amazing, the scenery and route is truly magical, the Sherpa guide and people you meet along the way are wonderful. The trek is difficult at times going up, and you never know how your head will cope with the altitude. Luckily I was able to complete it despite my problems, but I met others much fitter than me who didn’t get anywhere near EBC.
I would agree with muahaha and say that Nepal and its mountains is the most amazing country I have visited. Kathmandu is a beautiful city to spend time in, it has a real winter sports vibe to it without losing any of its oriental magic. I arrived there after traveling India for 2 months and it felt a bit like arriving in Las Vegas after backpacking around India!! There was a famous pizza restaurant in Thamel that was crazy busy with tourists all the time.
It was the holiday of a lifetime so can understand why people are so obsessed with Everest.