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BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull
I was almost more shocked by Russell Brice. Telling his "boys" he's frightened for their safety not because of Everest but because he's totally heard they're in danger of being kneecapped by their own countrymen was pretty disgusting. The silence in that tent as he pushed his theory was deafening. Also, him in voiceover talking up how Sherpas are inscrutable Orientals who don't want to reveal what they're feeling... which was in sharp contrast to the film's touching interviews with Sherpa climbers and their families. What a surprise, take people out of the context of talking to their combination benefactor/boss/exploiter and they are a lot more open.

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BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull

Perhaps a hamster posted:

I got the impression he was only pushing that theory for the cameras/clients to prevent any potential animosity from certain idiot clients unable to understand why Sherpas wouldn't want to continue the season after just experiencing the deaths of their friends. Didn't one of the Sherpas basically said just that in his interview as well, while adding that he's not heard of any threats?

Oh I got that impression too, but to push the theory on his Sherpa employees too? I found that really offensive, and it makes me wonder if he actually believes that idea to some extent. Maybe it isn't just the story he thinks his clients want to hear, it's what he wants to believe too, and he managed to convince himself it must be true.

Did you catch the bit where he had the gall to tell his team of Sherpas they were just being intimidated by a few bad apples, and tried to imply they should tough it out and climb anyways? That they were harming their reputation and livelihood by not being happy clappy smiling helpful cutesy Sherpas? Ugh.

Brice is probably the best of a bad lot. What a hosed up business.

BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull

gohuskies posted:

In other Himalayan news, Shishapangma struck early - three guys fell in a crevasse and two of them died. The crevasse was snowed over and they were just sitting on it, eating lunch or something, when the snow bridge went.

According to this earlier story on the same incident, Everest Base Camp's sheer altitude has killed two trekkers who weren't even going to try to summit.

BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull
The serial killer's name is Chomolungma.

BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull
IIRC, there's routes up Everest itself that have killed something like 50 or 75% of the ten or so people who have ever attempted them. (With the reason for so few attempts being that they're so ridiculously dangerous that you only try them if desperate to do something almost nobody has done.)

BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull
Trying to repeat the Hornbein route followed by all the rest was almost suicidal, but he never got that far. This accident happened during an acclimatization climb. :(

simplefish posted:

I thought he was solo climbing but the article implies he had a sherpa?

Also I've read it before but forgotten, what was the deal with fixing ropes?

He had a Sherpa friend who was to be his climbing partner in this attempt, iirc. You don't try the Hornbein route solo.

Fixing ropes makes it easier to climb up and down between camps several times, which they have to do to establish camps, stockpile supplies at them, spend time acclimating at altitude, go back down to recover, climb back up, etc. If the real climbers are prepping for pulling a bunch of rich assholes up the mountain later on, the ropes make that process a lot easier too of course.

BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull
This discussion got me googling some things and I just learned that there are a number of tall (7000m+) peaks in the Karakoram Range which have never been summited, such as Gasherbrum VI, and at least some of these other Karakoram mountains have even more technically difficult rock climbing than K2.

If they attracted as many attempts as K2, they probably wouldn't be as deadly, however. What makes K2 "The Savage Mountain" is combining risk factors: difficult/steep climbing, 8600m, exceptionally awful and rapidly changing weather, and sheer remoteness from civilization.

On that last point, the name "K2" is its original name, as far as anyone knows. The locals didn't know it existed before the British surveyed the Karakorams and gave them designations of K1, K2, K3, etc. Since it's so far from anything, if you get in serious trouble, you are probably going to die without anyone mounting a rescue attempt. The Pakistani military is the closest thing to a rescue service, but they don't have the type of helicopters needed to attempt high altitude rescue, and weather frequently prevents them from even being able to fly to the K2 base camp.

BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull
Heh. Wikipedia has this awesome quote about K2:

quote:

The surveyor's mark, K2, therefore continues to be the name by which the mountain is commonly known. It is now also used in the Balti language, rendered as Kechu or Ketu[13][16] (Urdu: کے ٹو‎). The Italian climber Fosco Maraini argued in his account of the ascent of Gasherbrum IV that while the name of K2 owes its origin to chance, its clipped, impersonal nature is highly appropriate for so remote and challenging a mountain. He concluded that it was:

quote:

... just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars. It has the nakedness of the world before the first man – or of the cindered planet after the last.

BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull
The description of that pitch where he's climbing with nothing but the friction of his shoes against a steep smooth surface and needing to maintain velocity going up because there are absolutely no cracks for holds and if he stops he's just gonna slide off is quite :catstare:

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BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull

OMGVBFLOL posted:

denali's climbing season isn't a week long

also, not an expert, but I'm guessing that with the summit about 9000 ft lower there's probably not as big a problem with bottlenecks on the final summit push, what makes traffic jams on Everest problematic is that people are getting stuck in the death zone for far too long

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