People do this all of the time. It’s called “Poaching” a summit.
If you don’t have a permit then the Nepalese Government won’t recognize your summit. Just like CFA charter you get a certificate from the government for climbing Everest. Also if you have trouble and need rescue ormedical help then there is a potential issue as it won’t be covered. And if you get caught there is a fine of course.
There are plenty of solo climbers (legit and illegit) and these people usually buy a permit as cheaply as possible and go about their merry way. Some of them do not buy a permit and sneak up. A real mountaineer would like to do Everest without support or oxygen and these guys can be utterly fanatical about this so they actually prefer not to have any sort of relationship with the operators. Total purists. A bit risky, but these guys are like alpine jihadis. They answer to a higher cause.
There was a funny incident recently where a chinese guy just short of the summit got literally thrown off the mountain and assaulted by Tibetan sherpas who were angry that he didn’t have a permit. The permits pay part of their salary for putting up public goods like ropes and ladders and they were pissed that this chinese guy was using their stuff and not paying the toll. The sherpas had come to suspect that he hadn’t purchased a permit as he never spoke to anybody and kept his distance from everyone. Being chinese couldn’t have helped him either. As we all know that a) Tibetan Sherpas don’t love Chinese people and b) Chinese people don’t like paying for things and c) like to cheat whenever possible.
Interesting reads. Using the scale in the second link, I would say that Pike’s Peak gave me mild AMS, but it went away once I was off the mountain for a couple hours. I guess that’s what I get for going from sea level (Chicago) to 10k ft. too quickly.
I ski in Kashmir at about the same elevation as pikes peak. I come straight from sea level (i live on the water) each year with a flight and then take a gondola straight up. It sucks. I get absolutely winded just making a few turns for 30 seconds or so. Then I need to rest for about 30 seconds. Followed by another 30 seconds of skiing. By day four I can bomb up and down the mountain. Never had a headache, vomiting, or real dizziness though. Although when you bend over to buckle your boots at that altitude you sometimes feel like you could pass out. With 8000 peaks I’m not afraid of the cold, I’ve seen worse, or even avalanches (which are the midst dangerous part. With avalanches you can be smart and take precautions, aside from that it just boils down to shit luck. Last year in Kashmir I was back country skiing without a beacon, a guide, or an abs airbag by myself. The avalanche risk was high and I knew it. But I thought what the Hell? If it happens it happens. In any case about two minutes after I descend back to the base of the lift, a Russian tourist triggers an avalanche right where I’d been skiing and twelve people are caught in it. Nobody died but these yuppies had all the fancy equipment and from my discussions with them it saved their lives. Two years ago in kashmir a week after I was skiing an avalanche came through and killed 12 Indian army guys on the same place where I skied. I actually took a picture at the army base where it happened with a bunch of the soldiers. Poor bastards. The lesson there is, don’t follow chicken tikka down a mountain. The altitude though scares me. I have no idea what to expect from 8000 meter air and my body. Having seen a guys eyes bulge it from cerebral edema or lose limbs due to frost bite I’m sufficently scared. Passing out from hypothermia and dying just doesn’t worry me as much.
Having equipment is not the same as having background and training. But the luck statement is not true either. Nearly getting killed and possibly endangering rescuers is just dumb.
Dude, if I got in an avalanche nobody would have known. I was in Kashmir by myself just a few miles from the Pakistani border. They might have found some of my bones in the summer if the animals didn’t scatter them first. Nobody would have been endangered. There was no rescue service to endanger. I have avalanche training. You can’t avoid all avalanches in high mountain winter environments, so luck does play a role. You use your brain and hope that it goes well. It may not. Not good enough for you? Then get back on piste and invest in your treasuries. I will add, while there is safety in numbers, there is also risk. Anytime you share a mountain with other skiers/climbers there is always a risk that some jerkoff does something stupid to trigger an avalanche above you. If you are skiing alone you do not have to worry about that. Anytime I see Russian tourists doing any sort of extreme sport I usually bolt in the other direction. The same goes for wall street yuppies like the ones who got caught in the avalanche triggered by the russki. I got drunk with wall street guys two nights after the slide. One of them broke his hand, a former lax player from colby, turned banker. Nice guy. Big guy. D-Pole. He literally broke down in tears describing how it happened. Russian guy traverses right across a cornice and literally cuts of a big 10 ton icy turd on those silly 1 percenters. Doesn’t take any blame for it when confronted after the fact. The wall street guy slid for 50 meters before falling off a 10 foot cliff (when he broke his hand) and slid another 100 meters until coming to a stop buried up to his neck in cement like snow. I told him, “You wall street types are really shit at foreseeing imminent danger from Russians.” Colby lacrosse banker says, “what do you mean?” Tikka says, “Well, first there was the debt default in 1998 and LTCM. Now this. If ever there is a harbinger for a black swan for bankers it is exposure to Russian Risk.”
^^Hmmmm, but if luck plays such a large role how could they have avoided it? Was this avalanche “risk” or knightian uncertainty? Avalanche, power laws, black swans, I feel like it is 2008/2009 and everyone is worshipping Taleb again.
There’s really not that much uncertainty or luck in avalanches. It’s how some people ski their whole lives with a lot of training in the backcountry with out triggering an avalanche, while others go out several times a year and frequently wind up setting off avalanches. It’s not luck that says, “Hey, I dug a quick pit and did a Rutsch block and there’s some sketchy crust layers or some depth hoar, lets try another face.” Or “There’s wind loading on these features, lets look at another line, the temperature fluctuation over the past week followed by yesterday’s snow can’t be good”, etc. OP just doesn’t know.
This is all good shit to know but it won’t remove all uncertainty, Black Swan. And I think you are aware of that? Some of the best and safest people still get screwed now and then. Trying another face or just deciding the situation is too sketch happens all of the time. But plenty of times you accept a certain amount of risk. But you can’t forecast avalanche alpha perfectly. If you could then you could be an avalanche hedge fund manager and wealthy yuppies would pay you lots of money to make sure that they never get caught in a slide like the ones in Kashmir did. By the way, those guys had flown their guide out from Switzerland and were paying him a small fortune to avoid stuff like this. those also had at least three local guides. Fat lot of good it did them. Everyone knew the risk was high.
For the record I was speaking about base camp, not the summit, when I said it is not that cold. Basecamp really isn’t that cold. Sure it’s unpleasant at night, but so is all winter camping. For base camp you don’t even need the high end sleeping bag. A standard minus 20 is fine. For Advanced base camp you want the big daddy sleeping bag. Even on the summit, it is not that cold during the day in good weather without much wind. That ugly frostbite doesn’t happen so much because of the cold but because of the lack of oxygen in your extremities due to the altitude +wind chill + time spent in the death zone + relatively mild cold. Odds are we have all been in colder weather than the top of everest on a sunny windless day. Where we have not been is at at high altitude of 8k+ with 100 mile an hour winds and minus 20 temperatures. I never want to go there.
But that’s a pointless argument to make. It’s similar to: You can be walking down the street and get run over by a car, even if you are “some of the best and safest people”. so?
Awesome story, dude. Do you know how the guide ended up dying? To persevere through that must have taken incredible courage. Hats off to them. I definitely admire people who can make the ethical choice in those situations and live to tell about it.
Ok, I know I’ve mentioned it before but you guys HAVE GOT to see this movie!
Sitting on my couch with a bottle of good wine, 40 inch TV with surround sound all plugged in, this was an experience. I’m still buzzing just thinking about this movie.
I’m not explaining this clearly. My fault. Basically, Black Swans argument seems to imply that if you know everything about the snow you can basically prevent yourself from getting hit by an avalanche. I do not think he actually believes this, but this is the way it sounds. Yes, this is true if you move to Sri Lanka your odds of dying in an avalanche of snow are zero, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m NOT talking about the getting hit by a bus argument.
On a snowy mountain there is always a chance. When you go back country even with all the best equipment and knowledge you are taking a chance. Avalanche Experts take chances all of the time. They are informed chances but ultimately they know that they are risking something. If you want powder then you need to take this chance. Most of the really good powder is in lower parts of the mountain which are frequently exposed to large potential slides.
I went heli-skiing last february at Snowbird, one of the most professional operations you can find, and my brother, who was the first to go, set off an avalanche that could have buried us and potentially killed us if nobody got to us in time. We were led by highly professional mountain experts (one who had been doing this same job for 15 years and the other, who had summited everest before to give you an idea). These are areas that these guys ski regularly as heli guides and prepare trails with dynamite sticks before you go skiing on them. Well, the dynamite they dropped before we landed didn’t trigger the slide, but my dentists brother’s big ass did. Go figure. The snow beneath me dropped about a six inches when it happened and then settled fortunately. Just 20 meters away it was a full on avalanche which fortunately nobody was standing in thankfully.
The four day course I took on avalanches taught me what different snow crystal molecules looked like and gave me all sorts of fancy names for different types and layers of snow. I can just picture myself looking up at the mountain saying to myself as a big avalanche comes barreling at me, “Oh snow metamophosism has caused a deep slab avalanche. Why that happens when old snow, which is weaker than new, breaks off. Gee, that snow will be really hard and cementlike. When it catches me it will probably break a few bones, mayne knock me out, almost certainly bury most of me even with my ABS system.” A lot of good that knowledge will do me then. My best bet will just be to see how fast I can get out if its way.
Bull, your heli outfitter sucked. Your course must have sucked too. The pros that trigger these things are purposely skiing high risk terrain. That’s not an issue of “unavoidable luck” if they purposely knew what they were getting into. Most times they’ve carefully dug pits on each slope and tested it before determining which one was worth attempting if any. As far as slides from above, any pro should know from looking at weather history, etc, what they expect to find on various faces (North south, etc) at various altitudes before they even get there. This will dictate their travel in the terrain along with what they observe, if they decide to travel at all on a given day. Nice try with the google though. Chances are your bro just triggered some sluff at snowbird, but I wasn’t there, so I can’t say.
