The ethics of mountaineering

[BJG]

I was just reading this piece in the Guardian questioning whether it's right for climbers to traipse past the dying on their way to the Everest summit.

 

Mount Everest: the ethical dilemma facing climbers | World news | The Guardian

 

But can it ever be right, in the words of mountain leaders Chris and Simon Holloway, for climbers to "carry on to the summit, while there are living people dying behind them"?

 

Tricky one. I certainly don't blame people for doing it, though I could imagine it could play on your conscience afterwards...

[witch]

The article I read stated that experienced climbers would rarely leave the dying but it was suggested that those who were less experienced, having got that far, would not turn around and not get to the top to save someone. I have also read that these people are not really save-able but I cannot see how they would know that.

The recent deaths were caused, it said, by the climbers having to wait at the last stop for too long, depleting their energy and oxygen supplies, and that they were not experienced enough to realise that they could not make it up , and that they had to remember that the top was only half way - you have to get down again.

Personally I cannot imagine ever being able to walk past someone in that state.

The litter at the top of the mountain apparently is pretty bad too.

[Garacesh]

has human life come to count for less than the fulfillment of a personal ambition?

 

Nailed it.

 

When we live in an age where the net value of a life is lower than, say, an iPhone, Laptop, Car or other such item, I doubt people that pay $10,000 are going to 'waste it' by not reaching the summit if they think they can. Personally, I'd stop. I know I would. There's no way in hell I could leave somebody dieing there like that. I'd walk past the dead - most likely with a heart full of sorrow and regret - but to leave a person I might have a chance of helping to their demise? no.

[mats]

It's disgusting really, passing the dying. And caused, as noted in the comments in that article, by people paying to get to the summit and consequently getting a 'damn the rest of you' attitude. Never happened before guided ascents became comonplace. Probably made easier by being one of the dozens of other people also passing the stricken.

[Andrew_C]

Perhaps they had considered the possibility of this happening, and of them being the ones left behind... For every ten successful summits, there is one death. That is the fact you have to accept before you get there, it is still bloody dangerous. It could be even more so struggling down with a 3/4 dead body.

[AMLinington]

Although to play devils advocate, these people are not going into the climb blindly. They are aware of the risks and should have a contingency plan. I don't think people should climb alone either. It is a sad state of affairs today when people put their own ambition over the lives of others, but equally, when all your supplies are planned and packed down to the last granule and everything you need you have to carry, I can't see how people would have spare oxygen or equipment for others on the mountain. This then puts them at risk. Climbing Everest is not like climbing mount Snowdon - it is a tough endurance trek with harsh conditions. If you have not planned properly and die as a result why should others put their own lives at risk to save you? Why should others waste all the time, effort and money they put into properly planning their expedition? Why should other climbers put themselves at risk to carry you down when it is unlikely you will live through the descent (although obviously no-one has the right to decide this as it is tantamount to 'mercy killing').

 

IMO all Climbers should climb as a group and if one fails the group should be responsible for returning them to a base camp. If you choose to take the risk and climb alone then you also choose to accept the potential consequences - even is that is death. A more basic analogy is speeding. If a driver chooses to exceed the speed limit, they are therefore by default accepting the consequences. Including but not limited to fines, points, loss of licence, etc. They are also therefore, by choosing to speed, accepting that if they hit someone doing 60 in a 30 zone and that person dies of injuries related to the excess speed, then they are responsible for that persons death. Although it must be said that you can kill someone hitting them at 5 miles an hour if they hit their head or break a rib and puncture a lung, this is just an illustration.

 

So by the same logic, if you CHOOSE to climb Everest poorly planned, on your own without sufficient supplies, you are choosing to accept the consequences of your actions. OFC accidents happen, but this is why you plan - you arrange to go in a group and you arrange for the group to take responsibility for injured party members. It's not a day out in picturesque countryside - it is a dangerous activity and should be treated with the appropriate respect.

Edited May 29, 2012 by AMLinington

[witch]

TBF though, many of those who die ARE in a group and DO start off with the correct level of supplies etc - they are just worse affected by the cold/lack of oxygen/ whatever. There is certainly an argument about not stopping as your own supplies could be fatally depleted if there are two of you using them, and then two people might die. I did read a book I think where the climber did explain that you just dont have the energy or the ability to drag someone down the mountain. I think his group left several people before they were actually dead as there was nothing they could do.

I couldn't in all honesty 'enjoy' any success I had in climbing a mountain like that if it meant that someone I passed, who might have lived, had died because I did not stop.

 

It is a bit harsh to say they are choosing to accept the consquences - any more than those of us who drive cars, fly, or eat a cream bun are choosing to die because we know the risks. Of course there are risks, but you mitigate them as far as you can. People make mistakes and it would be dreadful to think that a fellow human wouldnt stop because it is their own fault...

Edited May 29, 2012 by witch

[Garacesh]

@witch, @AMLightfoot, that being said, the scenario assumes you find someone dieing, decide to help, then continue up the mountain.

Unless you find someone at the very summit dieing, you'll always have enough resources to get yourself/your team down with plenty to spare for the new person, because you still have more than 50% of your supplies left. Say you're halfway up everest, you've only used 25% of your supplies (theoretically), and would have ample reserves to begin your descent immediately, 'carrying' the extra person. If that person used zero resources, you'd get to the bottom with 50% left, granted, impossible, but I doubt that one person would use as much as your entire party. You'd likely only encounter problems giving some resources to a rescued climber after 75% of the way up, but still reasonable amount spare for just one extra person.

 

But even my argument has holes. What if you come accross a party of 6, all near-death and depleted resources? What then?

[mavhc]

No.

 

------

[AMLinington]

I think @witch has a point - climbing Everest and K2 are endurance events, they are not 'simple' climbs. Given enough time and blister plasters even I could probably manage to wander up Mount Snowdon, but Everest is a totally different ballgame and it ravages you. That being said, if you have enough energy and drive to walk on past a dying person clearly you are not THAT ravaged. You still have to come down again too. I don't think it is right to leave people to die, but I'd have to question whether or not they should be there in the first place. Perhaps some of the blame should lie with companies that organise and promote climbs for people rich enough to pay rather than for people who are fit enough.

 

You'll never answer this question because you will always hit the brick wall of 'Who are you to tell me what I can and can't do?'. You will never stop people from capitalizing on extreme sports. Two words: Darwin Award.

[kili]

I've never climbed Everest but I have climbed smaller mountains such as Mont Blanc and the Grand Paridso . The problem as I see it with Everest is that most amateurs (myself included) who get to this height just don't have the energy or strength to actually do anything other than put one foot in front of the other let alone pick someone up and carry them down.

 

It's tragic and non professional climbers are being badly led but some just refuse to listen when they are advised to turn back and the consequences are terrible.

I've been with parties up Kilimanjaro on a number of occasions and had to literally drag individuals with altitude sickness off the mountain because they refused to stop and go back, had our group not done so there would certainly have been more deaths.

 

I would like to think I would stop and help someone down but at that height (the death zone) I doubt I would be fit enough to do so.

 

A terrible waste of life.

[witch]

The problem as I see it with Everest is that most amateurs (myself included) who get to this height just don't have the energy or strength to actually do anything other than put one foot in front of the other let alone pick someone up and carry them down.

 

 

I would like to think I would stop and help someone down but at that height (the death zone) I doubt I would be fit enough to do so.

 

A terrible waste of life.

 

I think that @kili has just hit the nail on the head

[Ketlane]

Read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Honest, pretty accurate, thought-provoking, informative for those of us not lucky enough to have climbed in the Himalayas.

[GrumbleDook]

That level of climbing is something special and there are similar discussions on other fields. Outdoor (sea) swimming is another area where you have to consider yourself before anyone else. The loss of one life is tragic but the loss of two due to attempts to rescue someone is avoidable ... heartbreaking, but avoidable.

[PiqueABoo]

I've been with parties up Kilimanjaro on a number of occasions and had to literally drag individuals with altitude sickness off the mountain

 

I dragged myself off Mt. Kenya with altitude sickness as a teen.. bitterly, bitterly disappointed but you have to be seriously ignorant/mad to risk pulmonary edema etc. Have also had the dying broken person on a titchy english mountain experience and have been too close to that myself elsewhere. Not that I'm remotely up to it, but I wouldn't go anywhere near Everest because of the company I'd be in.

 

I take it some of you read the other angle?:Climber describes rescue near summit of Everest

[Ketlane]

I dragged myself off Mt. Kenya with altitude sickness as a teen.. bitterly, bitterly disappointed but you have to be seriously ignorant/mad to risk pulmonary edema etc.

 

I've recently had to come down of the same mountain escorting someone with altitude sickness. Disappointment isn't a good enough word. But the rapid improvement in his health was fantastic. The old adage "there are three cures for altitude sickness: descent, descent and descent."

[witch]

I thought this shows quite well why people might not stop - I don't think it is as easy a decision as we might think - but what upsets me is that even when they get down safely some of the people don't seem to feel guilty after the event:

 

The biological reality of climbing 8000m+ high mountains is that when you're in the death zone you are burning 13,000 calories a day. The lack of oxygen will have you suffering from hypoxia, it will prevent you from eating as all your blood will be diverted to keep your muscles oxygenated, you will most likely be hallucinating. You do not have a few days in the death zone, you have one day and if you have to stay overnight up on the mountain you are most likely dead anyway. You are starving, you are dying on your feet, and most people can barely manage to lift one foot ahead of the other on the ascent. If you stop to help someone and they can't walk then they are dead and any effort you make to save them could see you dead as well. It is grim, it is horrible, but that's the way it is. Oxygen bottles help but they're heavy and need to be carefully rationed. You get a trickle of extra oxygen to help you along but it is nothing like breathing seaside air.

 

The real problem with everest is that it's filled with amateur climbers who don't respect the mountain and the risks involved. The ethical dilemma isn't whether or not to stop and help someone on Everest. At that point it's too late. People will do what they can but unless they possess superhuman features then what they can do is very little. No one is getting carried down off the mountain. The dilemma as I see it is whether to attempt the climb in the first place, knowing that it is littered with bodies and that it's going to be filled with amateur climbers who will put themselves, their sherpas, and their fellow climbers at risk.

[Pyroman]

Watch this: BBC iPlayer - The Eiger: Wall of Death

[Andrew_C]

The Torygraph today carries a picture of a queue stretching across the image of climbers on Everest. The caption describes a pair of descending climbers suffering snow blindness, delirium, and hypothermia waiting four hours for 300 ascending climbers to pass.

 

 

Anyone interested in the Eiger, or the more general history of early alpine climbing should read "The White Spider" by Heinrich Harrer.

Edited May 30, 2012 by Andrew_C

[Pyroman]

The Torygraph today carries a picture of a queue stretching across the image of climbers on Everest. The caption describes a pair of descending climbers suffering snow blindness, delirium, and hypothermia waiting four hours for 300 ascending climbers to pass.

 

 

Anyone interested in the Eiger, or the more general history of early alpine climbing should read "The White Spider" by Heinrich Harrer.

 

link for the picture?

[Andrew_C]

Can't find it on line!

[Ketlane]

Big piece in today's Times.

 

Stats are pretty scary - not just for Everest:

 

Everest - total ascents since 1953: 3,684; deaths 210; fatality rate 5.7%

 

Nanga Parbat - total ascents since 1953: 287; deaths 61; fatality rate 22.3%

 

K2 - total ascents since 1950: 198; deaths 53; fatality rate 27%

 

Annapurna I - total ascents since 1950: 153; deaths 59; fatality rate 38%

 

Now these stats aren't quite what they seem because many more people will have been involved in those climbs and not made the summit; and many of these deaths will have been of people who didn't reach the summit. But it all makes the H&S scares we seem to suffer daily look pretty trivial!

[witch]

Having looked into it a bit more I can see how and why people dont stop and help - mostly it is just that they are struggling themselves, the person is nearly dead and there really isnt anything they could do that wouldnt result in the death of both the stricken person and themselves.

(WARNING - not pleasant)

 

Having said that - have a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuCnV0unzpA&feature=related

Look at 49.46 onwards when a climber is really struggling and his group do NOTHING to help, even taking pictures of him as he struggles up the ropes. Now THAT is disgusting behaviour

Edited June 3, 2012 by witch