Tuesday, June 18, 2013
"Everest: waiting time two hours"
I guess this was inevitable.
Sometime in the future we'll probably hear that moon shuttles are outdated and overcrowded...
Sometime in the future we'll probably hear that moon shuttles are outdated and overcrowded...
Joe Shute recently reported in the U.K. Daily Telegraph how times have changed on Mt. Everest:
"Compare this to a new photograph in the June issue of National Geographic magazine, showing the traffic jam of climbers at the Hillary Step, a 40ft near-vertical rock face at 29,000ft that is the last obstacle to the summit. Such is the extent of overcrowding on the mountain that deaths (including four last year) have been blamed on people using up their oxygen supplies and losing body heat as they wait in line in the ''death zone’’ – where the available oxygen in the atmosphere is not enough to sustain human life – to reach the top. In some places, such as on the Lhotse Face at 25,000ft, up to 200 climbers can be waiting in a thin line that snakes down the mountain."
