Now's the time to climb Mt. Everest!

Where'd I put my snowshoes?

 

Try not to trip over the dead bodies. About 188 of them, a few of which you have to step over, perfectly preserved in a frozen state of agony.

http://travel.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1891086,00.html

Nate

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 9 2006, 06:17 PM) [snapback]346679[/snapback]</div>

It takes me longer than that down here at sea level!

If I ever get to the top of Everest it'll be in the tourist bus, once they build the eight lane freeway from Kathmandu to the summit.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 10 2006, 12:48 PM) [snapback]347082[/snapback]</div>

Now that makes my blood boil!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 10 2006, 02:48 PM) [snapback]347082[/snapback]</div>

Does that mean the first car to drive up Everest will be a Prius?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 10 2006, 02:48 PM) [snapback]347082[/snapback]</div>

The first flight over Everest was between WW I and WW II, on April 3, 1933. I do believe you need a supercharger or such to boost manifold pressure. Still "plenty" of air, you are only above about 1/2 of the atmosphere.

CORRECTION: I misremembered a calculation done a long time ago. Actually at Everest's summit, you are above 2/3 of the atmosphere. Must have been base camp for 1/2. For more information, see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/everest/exposure/without.html

- Tom

 

The 1st successful climb to Everest without bottled oxygen was in 1978. For people that are very-well conditioned living at high altitudes, it's possible to climb a day at 28,000-30,000 feet, but it's like diving for five minutes before coming up for air - the very edge of endurance.

Running at 14,000 feet is hard enough.....

 

I prefer a challenge. I'm going to wait 48,000 years until it's 1,000 higher.

 

FWIW, i'll be backpacking rim to rim of the Grand Canyon next summer... 4 days total, with an elevation change of over 10,000 ft from bottom to top - granted, it's not at Everest elevations, but a difference of that much (especially when ascending) is really rough on the system.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naterprius @ Nov 10 2006, 12:48 AM) [snapback]346746[/snapback]</div>

Ha! They are not really dead. They have cleverly frozen themselves to be thawed out in 48,000 years so they can be first up the higher Mt. Everest. (Talk about competitive)

 

You'd think a mountain that big would be so heavy it's sinking, not growing.

Global warming is probably heating the rock by 1/60000 degree a year making it expand.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Nov 10 2006, 02:52 PM) [snapback]347085[/snapback]</div>

teehee!

 

Picture of a Prius II on the way to the top of Pikes Peak from my Honda Insight on August 2005. Altitude in the picture was at least 12,000 feet (above the timberline).

This August, I did the Pike's Peak Marathon in 9hr 45min - double my flatland marathon time. At the summit of Pikes Peak, sunburn is worse than at the lake, humidity is only 15%, air pressure is 60%. If you want to know what running there is like, sprint on a treadmill, then speed walk with the incline at 10 or 12% and breath only thru one nostril. :blink:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 9 2006, 10:17 PM) [snapback]346679[/snapback]</div>

Will the stock Integrity tires work for this, or do I need to upgrade?

Tom

 

As strange as it now seems, at age 51, I was in Nepal in 1974 and was involved in an international climb to the Anapurna sanctuary. The pass to enter is 22,063 ft. It almost killed me. There were 13 of us climbers and 5 Sherpas along with 45 porters. It took us 10 days to get from Pokra a small town about 100 miles from Katmandu to base camp. Once there we roped up and started our acent. We traversed the pass and were on the back side, a sheer ice face, when the climber above me yelled ROCKS. I looked up just in time to get hit squarely in the helmet by a large cunk of ice and the inpact knocked me off my feet and I started to slide. I suffered a concussion and a deep gash in my left thigh requiring 27 stiches presumably from my own ice axe. I could not continue the climb. I was left behind hanging from pitons at 20,000 ft while the team went on to finish the climb and returned 2 days later to pick me up. Weather cooperated and there were no storms and as witnessed by this email I did survive. Had it not been for the team and a Sherpa named Ela Tashi I would have died there on a friged, icy, pass so far from the comforts of home.

I can't even conceive of another 10,000 feet higher without O2. Every step at 22,000 is an agony. I was in the best shape of my life and had trained in the highest mountains the Americas had to offer for 22 months prior to leaving. Only first rate medical attention, good conditioning, and most of all good luck, did I survive. Every day since then has been a gift. It has not been easy to forget the cruelty of fate and nature.

I received a telegram 28 years ago from Ela Tashis family that he had died in a similar accident in almost the same spot with a German team. What a loss. His body has never been found.

It was the adventure of a lifetime and I was so fortunate to have been at the right place at the right time to partake of such an adventure, but it came at a very dear price. Of the original 18 climbers and Sherpas on that climb, and my best and most trusted friends, only 3 of us are still here. All others died persuing that insatiable drive to climb ever higher and push the extremes of endurence and luck.
-Paul R. Haller-