If anybody here has dreams of spending his child's college fund on a dream climb to the top of Everest, you might want to book sooner rather than later.

Sherpas are starting to get mightily pissed off at doing all the work, taking most of the risks, and getting killed - for peanuts.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/04/everest-sherpas-death-and-anger.html

16 of them got killed by falling ice on the Khumbu Icefall last week. Not too long ago, there was a well-publicized fistfight between a couple of sherpas and a couple of Europeans.

They're getting cranky and tired of being treated like draft animals by rich white people, and I guess I can't blame them. They want more money for hauling our toilet paper and granola up the mountain and breaking trail for our sorry asses.

Better to get pissed off than to fall off.

It's a free market, and as best I can tell; they're holding all the cards. If they organize properly, they can force the issue. If not, then it will go to the lowest bidder.

Another good article on the subject

The Value of a Sherpa Life

I guess I'd feel guilty if they were breaking trail for my sorry ass.

They're welcome to price themselves out of the market and go back to farming in that beautiful tropical paradise.

The families were offered $400 as compensation for their deaths. Frankly, I think the climbing companies should pony up $10,000 a piece as those families lost their breadwinners.

They sherpas do all of the work, which is a tremendous amount under dangerous and difficult circumstances...and they spend a great deal of time on the most dangerous parts of the mountain in order to get it done. The climbers are paying up to $90,000 each for their Everest attempt, and the Nepali government charges $10,000 per climber just for a permit. The sherpas make very little for the amount of money that is being spent and made by others on Everest, and for the work that they do.
None of the climbing activity on Everest would be possible without the sherpas...and none of the money being made on Everest would be possible without the sherpas.

The sherpas should hire the NFL players union. However if they do that they will have to hire consultants to teach them obnoxious and felonious behaviour. The profitable part of the Everest climbing industry would disappear w/out the sherpas as most of the guided are incompetent.

mike r

I would think that one trip up one of those hills carrying their own gear would change anyone's mind on how much the porters should be payed.

heard on the news the average salary for sherpa not climbing the mountain is like $400 a year. The mountain guides can make $5000 in 3 months.

Put a 5 year moratorium on the mountain. That would dampen some of the yuppie enthusiasm for the reckless stunt, and the Sherpas would get a taste of reality, at $400 per year.

I fellow I know almost had his brother die on the ill fated Everest expedition that became "Into thin Air". Beck Weathers damn near died and lost some fingers and toes. Last I heard, has some permanent disability of some sort to this day.

Beck Weathers:

International Brotherhood of Sherpas ?


Denny

Personally I think they should shut down the whole mountain. At least until the climbing companies go up there and cart down all of their darn garbage. Shameful the trash they've left up there.

Spoiled ass [bleep]' sherpas.




Travis

Looks like loads of fun.


Travis

Like a bunch of friggin bleeding heart liberals on here. The sherpas should make more! And the fast food workers!

Isn't Weathers the guy who was left sitting on a snow bank for hours because everybody who looked at him was certain he was already dead?

You can mock, or you can get in on the ground floor of a unique business opportunity. Bangladeshi sherpas. They're slow, but they work cheap and don't complain.

UNIONIZE!!!

I'm gonna replace these spoiled ass sherpas with a bunch of guys from Gary, Indiana.

It will be my way of helping the planet because nobody will ever make it up that mountain ever again.



Travis

Every time I see something unfair that makes people money I don't think "that's not fair, it should change". I think "that's not fair, why didn't I think of that".

You're mad because I thought of Bangladeshis first?

Are you mocking your own thread?

Why, you don't think it's appropriate?

Sherpas Of Bangladesh.

"Screw them expensive regular sherpas, ah'm a'gwine up that mountain with some cheap SOB's!"


It has a nice ring to it...

For those not interested in seeing your Sherpa live to see another day, we now offer a discounted Bangladeshi version. Ask your mountain-climber-agent-guy for details...



Travis

Without a doubt.
Those experienced sherpas on Everest are capable of incredible feats of strength and endurance, routinely. Krakauer, an experienced climber himself...who has first hand experience dealing with the sherpas on Everest, says that their wages are not commensurate with the work they do nor the risk involved.

Sorry folks, but when $400.00 keeps a family of 27 fed and clothed for 12 months, that's a bit of a game changer when talking pay scales.


Travis

I'm thinking we better make sure they stay employed over there. What would happen to all the jobs the illegal Mexicans are doing if those Sherpa's decided to illegally immigrate here?

Bet them sherpas would be some cabbage pickin' [bleep]!

And you wouldn't need trucks! Just have them carry the haul to town!



Travis

Sherpas are the most under paid and disadvantaged workers in the outdoor industry. The big money interests should pick up the slack!!

This is one of the few cases that I would be for unions!

Go Sherpas!

The $400 is what the Nepali government pays the family of a sherpa who was killed on Everest. The same government charges a permit fee of $10,000 per climber for an Everest attempt.
In Nepal, the median annual income is about $600. The climbing sherpas' countrymen would likely gladly take the risks for the pay that experienced sherpas are capable of earning...'experienced' being the operative word here.
The climbing sherpas are a special people.

We either need a Sherpa charity to start, or the sherpas need to start weavin' paracord.



Travis

Or they need to start waitin' tables.

Wasn't there a thread on here recently about waiters and waitresses not getting the respect, or the pay, that they deserved...?

Pretty simple IMHO, if you think you are not making enough, then ask for more and if they won't.. quit.

Its never been more simple than that.

I suspect even though its backbreaking work, that the tips they recieve and the ability to work where they did offset some, and how much do they really need to live off of?

I know when I guided hunters, it sure wasn't for the cash. And when I decided I'd had enough fun breaking even, I demanded double my rate and they couldn't or wouldn't So I no longer guide.

IBEW

International Brotherhood of Everest Workers.

Why the heck does the Campfire care about Alpine climbing?

+1. If they don't like it don't work there.

laffin'

Climbing Everest is far from 'Alpine climbing'.

Well, there's about a couple handful of folks that have done Everest in Alpine style. May be more now, but I've not really followed climbing for about a decade.

Very doggone few, especially compared to the numbers of people who have attempted it...and the numbers of people who have been successful. Alpinists don't use sherpas, fixed ropes, or bottled oxygen...and they don't have a line of fixed camps (stocked) along the way. It's completely self-sufficient. That's WAY different from the 'expedition' style of climbing that is overwhelmingly done on Everest these days.

Personally, I think you have got to be about half crazy to desire to do that climb.

I do think it's appropriate. Which gets back to why would you start it in the first place.

Just who was it that made the Sherpas climb? Seems they had a choice and knew what the going rate was.

Doesn't seem all too different that what those of us see when we hunt Africa.

Jesus. Why does anybody start a thread in this forum? Are you serious?

Don't ask again.

Seriously. Your first post reeked of righteous indignation, then you mocked it.

So yeah, I asked why you would start it in the first place.

Seems juvenile.

I thought the entire purpose of the Hunter's Campfire was to be juvenile?



Travis

Sorry, of course you're right.

So this was awesome.

Can't get the article to pull up yet.
Fort Worth Star Telegram. Today

Big part of the Sherpas say they are not climbing this year and are heading off the mountain.
Still 3 bodies missing under the snow, they said they would not walk on their friends under the snow.

Yes,

His brother is a dentist in the ATL area. Beck is a pathologist in Dallas.

On the climb, he had problems with the intense UV exposure at that altitude because he had done RK on his eyes years before. Blinded, his guide left him to help some others and never came back to get him. Beck overnighted in the open, passed out from hypothermia, then awoke and found the strength to stumble down back into camp. His mates were sure he was going to die, so they made him comfortable in a tent and left him. Next day, he wasn't dead! He was airlifted off of the mountain and survived. From that, I lost any appetite to climb tall, cold mountains with or without Sherpas.

How much do you tip a sherpa?

Supply and demand will fix . The sherpas hold the winning hand they just need to up their daily rates 10x normal. Make the teams buy them a heavy duty life insurance policy and they in turn would have to make that many less dangerous climbs bailing out these ungrateful nature lovers .

8th graders always have the best righteous indignation

There is probably a load of youngster who have done nothing but dream of carrying sh1t up a mountain that will gladly step in and take over when the sherpas strike. I do think the climbing companies should pony up some money- at least they would look better to the Nepalese!

Ya, actual piles of frozen sh$t at base camp the way I read it.

With respect to the money situation my first guess is the Nepalese government is screwing the deal with the Sherpas
by coming between the Sherpas and the employers.

Birdwatcher

If I remember correctly, didn't a Nepalese army officer set a record for the highest assent in a helicopter to get him out?

Mike

ehh. what the hell else they going to do? what with their brown leathery skin, squinted eyes, stubby sausage fingers and giant lungs. walmart greeter? i don't think so.

get back to work sherpa's or we're bringing in the mezzicans.

Well the last thing I"d be worried about among trash and O2 bottles and such, is something actually thats natural and biodegradable.

Of course from our point of view they should get more. But then I"d assume they are getting more already than they should be by farming or such. And that they choose to do this, not forced labor so to speak.

But then if they were even given say 100,000 life insurance policy for them, would that not possibly equate to a million or more for one of us? Point being whats the cost of living there and if you pay them more, what would they do with it?

Certainly I"d hope they make more than other jobs. Just like miners should make a bit more than farmers due to the inherent risk... but they probably already are.

I want to know where all the environmentalists are? How come know one is screaming to shut Everest climbing down. I mean, where else is so much trash left behind by hikers that is acceptable?

I'm sure those Sherpa men are doing what they need to do, to support their families. As it was mentioned, their will always be others to step in, if some decide to strike.