Climbing Mount Everest

[BigToque]

I'm having a little difficulty trying to figure this out.

Is everest more of a gradual slope that you need to train to successfully navigate your way to the top? Or is it such that you need to actually scale and need real rock climbing experience to get to the top?

 

[sciencewhiz]

http://imdb.com/title/tt0120661/

 

[GagHalfrunt]

It's steeply uphill until you get to the top, then tends to fall away rather sharply.


It's a business now. Companies take groups of climbers and have huge support teams of Sherpas rigging ropes and ladders, setting up waystations and camps and carting up food, supplies and oxygen bottles for the climbers to use. The climbers mostly walk uphill and clip onto ropes that are already there. They're not hammering in pitons as they go.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

You don't need too much experience, as you can have a guide but this is the layout.

I'm not sure what the exact numbers are but it works like this.

You go to base camp, and stay there for a while, and acclimate yourself. Then you go up, against, and go to camp 2, and acclimate yourself, and then base 3 etc.. Its a gradual process where you get your body to use oxygen as efficiently as possible

The climb isnt straight up, but there are parts where it is just a wall of ice. Other parts, are just a gradual slope.

 

[Spineshank]

Elevation sickness is not fun.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: Gnrslash4life
Elevation sickness is not fun.

That's what makes the climb difficult. The way the trails are rigged by the tour operators any physically fit person could handle the climb except for oxygen deprivation. Very few people can deal with getting that little oxygen. VERY experienced, superstrong climbers often fail because of how their bodies process oxygen and less fit, less experienced people often succeed because they can handle the thin air.

 

[YoungGun21]

Long.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: BigToque
I'm having a little difficulty trying to figure this out.

Is everest more of a gradual slope that you need to train to successfully navigate your way to the top? Or is it such that you need to actually scale and need real rock climbing experience to get to the top?

It is a very long gradual climb but the trouble comes mostly from the extreme altitude and the weather. The combination makes for a very very challenging climb.

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: Gnrslash4life
Elevation sickness is not fun.

i think the elevation thing is the main problem
the trail is well established
the problem is whether you can adjust and deal with the altitude

and the weather, you have to hope you don't freeze/get frostbite or get caught in a blizzard and die

other than that, it isn't too hard

 

[AnandTech Moderator]

http://dsc.discovery.com/conve...ond/everestbeyond.html

 

[SSSnail]

It's long, cold, exhausting and possibly deadly; it's one of those thing that after you've done it, you'd look back and ask yourself "WTF did I do that for?".

 

[LS20]

just pay a sherpa lots of money to carry you piggy-back all the way up

its on my life's things to do.. since ive already sky-dived... time to scale a tall mountain

 

[Wuffsunie]

Try reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. That'll give you a pretty good idea what it's like.

 

[NoShangriLa]

Anyone with money can easily do it today. Have a chopper or balloon drop you off as close to the top as possible and plenty of supplies & a large/experience support mules.