9 dead, 3 injured in slide on Everest

[pipedream]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/18/world/...che/?hpt=hp_t2

(CNN) -- Nine Sherpa guides were killed and three others were seriously injured Friday after a high-altitude avalanche on Mt. Everest, officials said. Others were missing, but their numbers were not immediately known. A group of about 50 people, mostly Nepali Sherpas, were hit by the avalanche at more than 20,000 feet, according to Tilak Ram Pandey, with the mountaineering department of the tourism ministry. The avalanche took place just above base camp in the Khumbu Ice Fall. The climbers were accounted for, Pandey said. "Rescue teams have gone ... to look for the missing."

Between May 15 and 30 is usually the best window for reaching 29,028 foot peak. Climbers and guides had been setting the ropes for the route, acclimating to the climate, and preparing the camps along the route, said Janow. Climbers arrive in April to acclimate to the altitude before heading toward the summit of the world's highest mountain. Ethnic Sherpas acts as guides for the mostly-foreign clients.

The spring climbing season is the busiest of the year. Some 334 foreign climbers have been given permission to climb Everest over the next couple of months, with an estimated 400 Sherpas helping them, mountaineering official Dipendra Poudel said. Until the late 1970s, only a handful of climbers reached the top each year. The number topped 100 for the first time in 1993. By 2004, it was more than 300. In 2012, the number was more than 500. The deadliest year on Everest was 1996, when 15 people died. Another 12 climbers were killed in 2006.

Not a nice place to be caught in a slide

[neufox47]

Damn... that sucks bad, I hope the guide companies take care of the sherpas families. Guessing this was a very large avalanche?

[strawjack]

that sucks.

[SB]

Very sad to hear this, vibes to all affected.

[Brianskis]

They are now saying deadliest single day in Everest's history... 12 dead. Horrible.

[pipedream]

Hitting closer to home, 5 of the deceased were sherpas working for Seattle-based Alpine Ascents International:
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/5...255796301.html

Horrible tragedy. Hopefully the only of the season.

[PNWbrit]

Hitting closer to home.

Yeah. Was worried for a friend guiding there for RMI when I heard this morning.
.

[foreal]

Yeah, a lot of PNdub homies over there this time of year. That mountain continues to be a shit-show fueled by corporate greed/BS....IMO obviously.

+++++vibes+++++for the families of those involved. Fuck.

[TBS]

sent up mountain to set up camp and check conditions for other climbers. what a scary job those men perform.

Yeah, a lot of PNdub homies over there this time of year. That mountain continues to be a shit-show fueled by corporate greed/BS....IMO obviously.

+++++vibes+++++for the families of those involved. Fuck.

Felt the same way when I heard. Sherpas put their lives on the line to make it easier for clients paying $60k to tic off a bucket list item.

[Bromontana]

Felt the same way when I heard. Sherpas put their lives on the line to make it easier for clients paying $60k to tic off a bucket list item.

Yeah very sad considering they're carrying most of the weight and risk, only to be paid a small portion of the $$.

Looks like you can donate from here, a fund is set up for the families:

https://www.americanalpineclub.org/n...-support-fund/

[monkfish]

The Sherpas are on strike (esquire.com)

[TBS]

good for them, they should get paid as much as the western guides.

My first thought too.

Any guides care to edumacate me as to why they are worth more than a climbing Sherpa, other than perhaps knowledge of English or No. Euro languages/customs? Not trying to be snarky, just smarter.

[wooley12]

Glad to hear about the strike. Sad it took a tragedy but it almost always does. More climbers with more gear wanting more support for better summit odds. The Sherpa is spending 10X more time at risk than guide and 200X more than a climber. And the Sherpas "at risk" time is growing. Don't know what it cost's to raise a family but the insurance should pay WAY MORE than enough and full medical. Another $1000 on top of an average of $40k per climber wouldn't deter many I'd bet. Hope they have their own Cesar Chavez/Jimmie Hoffa.

[PNWbrit]

DEATH AND ANGER ON EVEREST
BY JON KRAKAUER

Depending on their talent, experience, foreign-language skills, how many loads they carry up and down the mountain, and how generously they’re tipped by their clients, climbing sherpas generally take home between two and eight thousand dollars at the conclusion of an Everest expedition, which commences for them in late March and typically ends around the first of June. If a climbing sherpa dies on the job, his family receives a million rupees (approximately ten thousand five hundred dollars) from the insurance his employer is required to provide. By any reasonable measure, neither these wages nor insurance payouts are fair compensation for the risk involved. But in Nepal, where the median annual income is less than six hundred dollars, most of the sherpas’ countrymen would eagerly take similar risks for the opportunity to receive that kind of pay.

[PNWbrit]

i hope he doesn't think it's right but just stating a fact.

It's a regrettable fact. Pretty sure that's what he's explaining.

Almost 200 Nepalese died working as near slave labor on Qatar's World Cup stadiums last year. Sherpaing probably seems a better career choice than that or just the usual high altitude subsistence farming?

[simplypow]

could have way bigger MCI last year in montezuma, and certainly on numerous occasions this year on peak 6 terrain breck. Chtating with an avid in bounds hiker at the resort today who did not quite buy into the possibility of 20-30 people getting buried during a rope drop kamikaze downhill that is otherwise known as first tracks on or around whales tale. Resort management should consider, reconsider, and then go back to the drawring board until they can devise and enforce a policy that requires beacon shovel probe during high risk conditions, or every day for all i care

[XXX-er]

the sherpas need the money and have better lives for the dangerous jobs of getting the rich sahib up the mtn in much the same way a sweatshop garment worker in Bangaladesh has a better life making walmart clothing, its just that to us who play in the mtns the job of high altitude sherpa sounds way more sexy than sweatshop factory worker

nobody sez we should quit shopping at walmart when a factory burns to the ground or even just plain falls down killing hundreds of garment workers but in any case rather than rights or sympathy or whom is more entitled I am pointing out how the rich western sahib can and has changed the lives of a poor far off country forever and the genie isn't about to be stuffed back in the bottle

[strawjack]

the sherpas need the money and have better lives for the dangerous jobs of getting the rich sahib up the mtn in much the same way a sweatshop garment worker in Bangaladesh has a better life making walmart clothing, its just that to us who play in the mtns the job of high altitude sherpa sounds way more sexy than sweatshop factory worker

nobody sez we should quit shopping at walmart when a factory burns to the ground or even just plain falls down killing hundreds of garment workers but in any case rather than rights or sympathy or whom is more entitled I am pointing out how the rich western sahib can and has changed the lives of a poor far off country forever and the genie isn't about to be stuffed back in the bottle

so true and so sad.

[Hugh Conway]

nobody sez we should quit shopping at walmart when a factory burns to the ground

plenty of people do. western groups get a comparatively huge cut for nothing acting as fronts for incountry guides; REI charges $3400 (member price, excluding flights, single supplement, etc) for a basecamp trek; you could pay an all Nepali firm much less likely and all of the money would go local. and the social context for being the first dildo to ride a pogostick from the summit and making money off of that is purely a first world white person problem; because it's a market made by us mostly.

[wooley12]

[totaliboard]

XXX-er, those are some pretty vague and hypothetical statements. You can choose whether or not you support wal-mart or expedition mountaineering. personally, i do not. and my reasons have nothing to do with fires or avalanches.

[wooley12]

I hear what they are saying. If you want me to get maimed or die for you, pay me so that if get maimed or die my family is provided for. Sounds fair. Hope they hold firm.

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/s...nteverest.html

[LeeLau]

plenty of people do. western groups get a comparatively huge cut for nothing acting as fronts for incountry guides; REI charges $3400 (member price, excluding flights, single supplement, etc) for a basecamp trek; you could pay an all Nepali firm much less likely and all of the money would go local. and the social context for being the first dildo to ride a pogostick from the summit and making money off of that is purely a first world white person problem; because it's a market made by us mostly.

It runs about 1800 for a local firm to run that same basecamp trek at 2013 prices in Kathmandu and that's without haggling or pretending to be a poor Malaysian. And I mean all-local Nepalese not expats who moved there to live the dream

[TahoeBC]

I can't even sleep, knowing Kent has such a big hole in his life.

“I can’t help but feel that I have let everyone down,” wrote Kent Stewart, an American climber, in a blog post. “If I don’t ever make it to the top of Everest, I’m afraid there will always be a hole in my life, and frankly, that worries me.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/wo...s.html?hp&_r=0

[totaliboard]

Hey Kent, get over yourself. You haven't let anyone down, cus youre the only one that cares.