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LONDONER · 09-09-2015, 03:41 PM

The coming of the glacier men

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-3418456...a&ns_fee=0

09-09-2015, 07:36 PM

That is good closure for families I'd imagine. I know on really high altitude mountains like the death zone on Everest, it's basically expected that if you die you are left there, just because of the difficulty and energy needed to get the bodies down. There's the Rainbow Valley on Everest which is a very nice sounding name for a pretty sad and macabre place.

LONDONER · 09-09-2015, 08:33 PM

Emiliano Wrote:That is good closure for families I'd imagine. I know on really high altitude mountains like the death zone on Everest, it's basically expected that if you die you are left there, just because of the difficulty and energy needed to get the bodies down. There's the Rainbow Valley on Everest which is a very nice sounding name for a pretty sad and macabre place.

Yes, that as well as the thousands of tons of junk that the climbers have left there as well. Maybe it would stop the would be climbers if the Nepalese Government introduced a law that everything that climbers took with them had to be brought down as well. I know that if you go on vacation to the Maldives that is the case. The islands have no means of disposing of rubbish.

09-09-2015, 10:12 PM

LONDONER Wrote:Yes, that as well as the thousands of tons of junk that the climbers have left there as well. Maybe it would stop the would be climbers if the Nepalese Government introduced a law that everything that climbers took with them had to be brought down as well. I know that if you go on vacation to the Maldives that is the case. The islands have no means of disposing of rubbish.

Yeah I've seen in documentaries that oxygen tanks get littered all around too, and just how crowded and commercialized and poorly organized a lot of it is. It's really sad though, you'd think the people that go there would have a little more respect for the mountain and nature in general.

09-09-2015, 10:15 PM

Never gave that too much thought. .
The mess climbers leave behind from the "lightening the load" tactic..
So many lives lost on this dangerous climb..

09-09-2015, 11:44 PM

Anocxu Wrote:Never gave that too much thought. .
The mess climbers leave behind from the "lightening the load" tactic..
So many lives lost on this dangerous climb..

The Matterhorn is one of the most dangerous mountains, I think it has a higher death rate than Everest. That's true though, I guess when people are struggling to survive, they don't view it as littering.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about mountain climbing :/

If I ever got serious about it, it'd be the Eiger that I'd want to climb. But that's a deadly one too.

09-10-2015, 02:21 AM

Emiliano Wrote:The Matterhorn is one of the most dangerous mountains, I think it has a higher death rate than Everest. That's true though, I guess when people are struggling to survive, they don't view it as littering.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about mountain climbing :/

If I ever got serious about it, it'd be the Eiger that I'd want to climb. But that's a deadly one too.

I have great respect for daredevil climbers..
I still have yet to understand embracing such a high risk ..
I guess i'll learn some day.

09-10-2015, 02:42 AM

Anocxu Wrote:I guess i'll learn some day.

Do you have mountain climbing fantasies too?

09-10-2015, 02:49 AM

Emiliano Wrote:Do you have mountain climbing fantasies too?

No..
I'd love to understand the dare devil mindset..
I understand adrenaline junkies..but extreme climbers are 'wired ' so differently

09-10-2015, 03:27 AM

Anocxu Wrote:No..
I'd love to understand the dare devil mindset..
I understand adrenaline junkies..but extreme climbers are 'wired ' so differently

I'm barely even on the same planet as the guys who climb mountains, but it's something I'd really like to do later in life, so I'm just talking out of my ass here, but the appeal to me is about
1 - being in that sort of extreme physical and mental condition and then pushing that to the limit. Realizing the power in your own body.
2 - the psychological impact of being able to withstand that sort of activity, the feeling that you can overcome any challenge.
3 - going into some of the most intense and intimidating landscapes and environments in nature and surviving it. To be humbled and empowered at the same time. Like I can't imagine what it must feel like to summit Everest - to feel so small compared to the world but also to achieved such a physical and mental challenge.

It's what I imagine astronauts to feel like.. To see earth and be forced to confront at the same time how huge and how tiny it is. How mind blowing incredible and how vastly insignificant human achievement is.

I've never been on an airplane or anything, but I've been to the top of the Empire State Building... The feeling I get up there, to imagine being 30X that high.... That's crazy insane. What the world must look like from there.

Anyway let me stop, I'm getting harder off this thread than I ever did from the couch one.