Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Everest Test...

This^^^^^^^^^^^

Do you value glory or do you value doing the right thing....... integrity matters

Read or watch "Touching the Void"

There was no saving David Sharp. At that altitude, and his length of time being there, he was not able to climb down the mountain even with assistance. And that's the only way you can get down from that point. Be conscious, and be able to move your own legs. You can't be carried down from that altitude.

If you wish to invoke human morality, decency, or kindness......you could sit there with him so he doesn't die alone. And that surely endangers you.

The older I get, the more I appreciate the things I did that were done for the right reason. The thought of leaving someone to die when I could have helped save their their life, is so foreign to me that i can't even imagine it. And yes I have had that decision to make. Not on a mountain, but in the jungles of Viet Nam. It was right then and would be right in the future. Life is so much more important than money, its not even on the same scale.

After reading Into Thin Air, I agree. There's not a big divide between life and death up there. That's why there's so many dead bodies up there. Not through callousness but that trying to remove them would risk other lives.

That is grown man territory, you are ultimately responsible only for yourself.
No one goes there expecting to be rescued.

Willing to bet, your thoughts here,

and there, might be different,

After a month at Base camp, @15k to 20k elevation, a couple years of prep, 100k in cash.....

People who climb Everest are a different breed, different calling. Different mindset.

Something happens up there, your likely on your own, that fact is accepted before you even begin.

Great post. Sharp would've probably agreed.

I couldn’t leave someone to die even if he’s a moron. I love hiking deep into wilderness and rugged country but just can’t understand the allure of Everest. Pay a bunch of money to almost die just so you can say you did it? Doesn’t appeal to me

Somebody said to ask that question before you go up.
If the guide says to leave him do you really want to use him.
He may turn on you.
He can make up any story.

I would take the time to wrap him up in a tarp and aim him toward base camp and gently shove him over the edge.

If you want to almost or maybe actually die, a wing suit is a lot cheaper.

In this incident, both guides and the expedition leader told their clients to leave Sharp and continue taking care of themselves. That's their job.

There are several examples of climbers and guides canceling their own ascent to assist climbers in need. If a rescue is possible, they'll do it.

Yeah.

Thing is, a rescue from near the summit of an immobilized climber isn't really ever going to be a possibility. At least not one with a good chance of ending up with one or less dead.....

That seems to be the issue here - that rescue wasn't possible. He apparently was a dead man waiting for the end and nothing could be done to save him. Knowing that he can't be saved turns a different light on it.

Any sane person would stop to help but many climbers are far from sane.

There's a climbing shop in Boulder called Neptune Mountaineering(next door to the King Soopers that got shot up) that has jars of toes, ears, and noses that people lost to frost bite. They have them on display like trophies.

I agree with the opportunity to summit.

If it were so easy to rescue people and high chance of survivorship on rescue attempts...then there wouldn't be so many bodies up there and some kind of concierge rescue service would probably exist.

I read an account of the training required to try the climb. To make it in good circumstances and perfect weather requires training comparable to running a distance race in the olympics. Hauling someone down from near the summit would be very difficult but worth trying.

This the account from Russell Brice, the expedition leader. It was his climbers who saw Sharp on ascent and again on descent.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i-did-not-leave-a-climber-to-die-on-everest-450074

Russell Brice of New Zealand runs the respected guiding company Himalayan Experience (Himex). He has multiple 8,000m summits under his belt. His team was on the north side of Everest in 2006, and Sherpas from his outfit had attempted to aid Sharp late in his distress.

Brice returned to Everest the following year. During their expedition, Sherpas from his team cleared three bodies off the route: one at 8,300m, one at 8,600m and Sharp’s body at 8,500m. With as much dignity as is possible in the circumstances, they dragged Sharp’s body to the nearby cliff edge and pushed it over the side of the North Face. The reason for such removals is detailed at this Quora answer. The Sherpas also tried to remove the Green Boots corpse; however, it was under snow, and earlier efforts to move it had failed as it was frozen in place.