March 26, 2009 • 25 mins
Every year, adventurers brave the elements and attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Yet dangers abound, and more than a hundred bodies litter the mountain. Listen in and learn more about Mount Everest in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck. How you doing, Chuck?
I'm great, man. Let's just stop right here, Chuck, We've
got something to shamelessly plug. I wanted to just get
it over with. I feel really bad about this. I
(00:22):
call it anything other than what it is, right, Okay,
So um, everybody, Chuck and I just made and Jerry
Jerry was a huge part of it, agreed, our producer, Jerry.
It would have just been steaming had Jerry not been
involved in this, right, agreed. Chuck and I just recorded
our first spoken word album. Right. We have joined the
(00:43):
likes of Jack Kerouac and Barack Obama except our spoken
word albums on the economy economics? Right, Chuck, We took
the path less traveled, did something that's kind of obscure
and people you know are talking about much of these days. Um,
And what's it called, Chuck? It is called the Stuff
you Should Know, super Stuffed Guide the Economy. And it
(01:03):
is super stuff because it's long and detailed and we've
got interviews with experts. There's we go on site, we
leave the studio, chicken farm, not just that's not just
a boiler, worry about it. But yeah. So it's up
for sailor and iTunes right now, right um, and it
is for sale, it is. I know you folks are
always saying I can't believe your podcasts are free. Well,
(01:24):
we took your advice, so yeah, thanks for that. Hopefully
this will allow us to keep doing what we do. Yeah.
So that's have we reached the end of the shameless plug.
So if you want to go buy it, that would
be totally fine with us. That would be great. Okay,
So that now we've reached them the same as yes,
and it's time to get into your shameless segue. Yeah,
which is this? Have you ever mountain climbed? I know
(01:47):
you've repelled, but where you ever on a mountain to
repel mine was one must climb? Now, I've never actually
rock climbed, but I've done plenty of hiking in the mountains,
but not rock face climbing. That's was there snow in
any of these mountains? Were you up so high that
there's like perennial snow. Really yeah, where like Colorado stuff
(02:07):
like that. Huh wow, that's pretty impressive. That was shocking.
I see you like wearing your little shorts and hiking
boots with like thick socks kind of pushed down. Um,
so far, so good. Yeah, and just kind of hiking
along what most people would call like a hill or
something like that. Certainly not like where there's like kenne
Saw Mountain kind of yeah, which is I can't say
(02:30):
anything because it's way out of my league. Kenna Saw
Mountain is let alone the Rockies. I mean, trust me, dude,
I'm not You won't think I'm a sharpa like scaling
the mount Everest or anything like that. Yeah, And I
think at this point I can tell you left untoward
behind and sharpa is now my favorite word right now. Okay,
I love that word. It just rolls off the tongue.
(02:53):
You're cute little guys. Yeah, agreed, Um, okay, So you
have done some mountain climbing, so so you can speak
to what we're going to talk about with reasonable authority.
I can defer to you when I get confused, inevitably, So, Chuck,
have you ever read into thin air? I have not,
but I did read Into the Wild, which is John
hour That his name, yeah, John crack Our. He is
(03:13):
a journalist for Outside magazine, and he knows how to
take an outdoor UM event and turn it into a
good book. Into the Wild is a great example. Chris McCandless,
who actually went to school down the road at Emery
and decided that he was going to go to Alaska
and basically just didn't quite do it right. Yeah, died
(03:37):
after three months of exposure the elements. I think there's
some varying theories on why I died, but that's not
what this is about. Okay, Well, no, we're thin Air.
Into thin Air is much much more pertinent to this
topic than I think. Okay, So, Um, that's actually about
an an expedition on Mount Everest, um and that took
place in May. He was actually on this one, right, Yes,
(04:00):
he was, UM, which is one of the reasons the
book is so incredible. UM. And it was a complete
cluster of a um of an expedition. Eight people died,
accounting for um more than half of the deaths on
Everest that year. It's one expedition. UM. There was a
(04:21):
rogue storm that whipped up and it killed some people
and others were lost and then they died, but then
other people went after them to try to rescue him,
and then they died. And it was just more like
a let's get out of here whenever we can. You
basically just have to write everybody off right, um. And
and like, like I said, it's a very very good book. Um.
But one of the things that I took from it
(04:43):
is that number one, Mount Everest is a total bear
as far as mountains go, completely inhospitable for humans. Yeah,
you want to talk about you want to talk a
little bit about Everest. Yeah, I guess we should get it.
Just a couple of stats out of the way. Everyone
knows just the tallest peak in the world. They call
it the roof top of the world they do, and
good reason. Quick aside, um, there is a Discovery micro
(05:06):
site on Everest and it has a three hundred and
sixty degree panoramic view. You shall remember you show me
that like my first week here. It's amazing. It was unbelievable.
And I said to myself, that is awesome. And this
Josh dude has it going on. That's all it takes.
That's how I've collected all of my friends. That's how
the magic starts. You send him the Everest photo. Yeah,
I just I pay it out a little bit at
(05:27):
a time. Start with the Everest photo. It's really cool.
You're sitting up at night. You actually feel like you're
there when you look at this panoramic picture, and so
much so that I don't feel like I need to climate.
You can almost hear the wind whipping. Yeah, so okay,
So give me some more steps. The tallest peak in
the world, share which is what's the peak? How? How
it tall? Is it thousand thirty five ft which is
(05:50):
eight thousand, eight hundred and fifty meters for our friends
who don't live in the US or Liberia or Burma? Correct?
Very well done, uh little shout out insider, shout out
to our SNAr mail or. She wrote in with that, um,
and the mountain itself shares a border with Nepal and Tibet,
but the actual peak is in Nepal, so India is
not involved, not as far as I know. Um, why
(06:13):
did you say that you're trying to throw me off
my game? Yeah, don't worry about it. Checking No one
can throw you after game, right, not even me? Josh
messes with me sometimes people, but it usually gets cut out.
I have a feeling this will make it in so
check out. Have a question for you, Shoot, what is
the worst season to go on Everest? Well, really anything
outside of um May in June May to June. Yeah,
(06:35):
that's when you want to climb Everest. June is the
time you want to go. Yes, oh well, okay, got so, Josh.
An average day, if you want to talk weather, an
average day in May of two thousand and eight was
minus seventeen degrease fahrenheit, which is mine degrees celsius true
and wins of fifty one eighty one KOs right, very good.
(06:57):
So that's during the most hospitable time in the year,
barring no like freak storms and unusual activity. Other times
of the year, the jet stream passes directly by the summit,
which is in made of June, the jet stream does
not do that, which is why that's the time to go.
And you can get winds up to like, you know,
a hundred and twenty miles an hour and miles an hour,
(07:20):
which would be a hundred and eighty nine kilometers an
hour and minus a hundred degrees fahrenheit. So which is
minus seventy three degrees celsius. Right, so you cannot imagine.
Have you ever been up in then a tall, tall building?
Um get in the wintertime? No outside, Okay, I climb
the Empire. There's no mountain climbing, certainly, no Colorado hiking,
(07:42):
no tall buildings in the wintertime. But you've been to Malta.
Um I just a few years ago, Emily and I
were at the top of the Empire State Building around
Christmas time and dude, that's the Empire State Building and
I thought I was gonna die the wind in the cold,
and that's the Empire stabling. So imagine Mount Everest at
twenty nine feet Well, were you properly outfitted on the
(08:05):
roof of the Empire stuff? Yeah, you established a base
camp by then, yeah, on the on the ground floor
comes out. I was like, what are you doing? Right? Yeah? Okay, So, so, Chuck,
I think we got it down. Mount Everest is not
the place to be, especially with your Empire state allegory.
That's pretty good, thanks, okay, so um and we've also
(08:26):
established that people die on Everest. How many was there?
Eighty nine? So that's the that's the current count, and
you said that two thousand people have died or have
have successfully summitted Everest. Right, that was as of a
few years ago. That was the count, And the BBC
told me, well, you so somewhere between there for every stat,
(08:48):
there's another stat when it comes to stuff like this
and equal enough isite stant like some guy might have
snuck up to Everest and not officially logged it with
the BBC. You know. Well, the problem is is that, um,
if you die on Everest, apparently you stay on Everest
pretty much. Yeah, which is what your article is about, right, Yeah,
it's much. Uh, it's a suicide mission to try and
(09:12):
bring a body down from the death zone. And the
death zone is above twenty six feet. That's like the
final area, above the final base camp where you go
to reach the summit, and that's where most people die.
And not everybody who's died on Everest is still there,
but a significant portion is, like of the nine, there's
(09:32):
one twenty. And also we should probably say before you
sharpen your pencils and email us, we're working off of
what like two thousand four stats right here, So at
least several people have died since then. I think I
know at least one guy died in two thousand six
on everest Um. The thing is is you can't even
(09:52):
bring your oxygen canister down. Basically, a dead person and
an oxygen cancer not the same thing. But it kind
of puts it in perspective like you are going up
there and getting back down and you're lucky to escape
with your life, basically exactly. And from what I what
I've read and had been described to me, to try
(10:13):
and bring a body down is as suicide mission for
everyone involved. So it's like, you can't save this person
because you put your entire crew at risk, So you
just have to march on um. Now that's kind of
the predominant view of people who who climb everest Um.
But it seems like it's starting to change, like technology
(10:34):
is advancing enough, and people's gear and and oxygen equipment
it's getting good enough so that that that sentiment is
almost um being outlived. It's already been outlived obviously. Sir
Edmond Hillary is the guy who summited everest for the
first time. With their debates about that too, did they
(10:55):
think nor Gay beat him? Uh? Well, George Lee Mallory
actually is an other climber and there's there's some speculation
as to who actually got there first, because Mallory was
found dead and actually in the article there's a picture
of his i know, petrified, frozen, headless body. It is
a cool picture. Yeah, yeah, his head is just pretty
much withered away. The weird thing is is like if
you look at his left hand, it's totally intact, Like
(11:19):
it looks like he's just laying there if you just
look at his arm. But where did they find him?
I mean, did they find him at the summit or
they think he made it to the summit and started
to climb down and died maybe exactly. I think that's
the speculation. They did not find they found beneath the summit,
And there's speculation as to whether what you said, whether
he made it all the way down and died on
the way back, or whether he never made it all
(11:40):
the way up and he would have been before Hillary.
So that's that's a pretty big deal. Yeah. He was
in the twenties, right, Yeah, And it looks like he
was running around in like a burlap sack. I think
it's not good climbing. It weathered some over the years. Well.
Either way, the first person to be to document their
place at the top of Mount Everest is Sir Edmund
(12:03):
Hillary and he did it with the nepolie serpa tending
nor Gay, who's just got the best name. Yeah, he's
got Sherpa right there. And then Tensing in nor Gay.
I love that guy's name. That's that's your fake name
when you check in the hotels, isn't it. Why did
you do that? I tell you things in confidence. Thank you,
Chuck to change my name. This brings up a point though,
that he's he's obviously the most well known serpa ever.
(12:27):
Have you ever heard of any other Sherpa? I have,
but I never retained their names, like Tensing nor Gay. Well,
they get a raw deal, as my point, Like you
always see the guy, you know, the white dude and
the jam Sport North face gear on top of Everest,
and you don't see like there's like two on the
outside of the frame. It's their third trip up that week.
You know, they're like big deal. Did you ever see
(12:47):
the episode of The Simpsons where Homer climbs Mound Springfield
and the two Sharps are like doing cartwheels on the
way down and dragging him up while he sleeps at night. Yeah, yeah,
I imagine that that's probably. I think it's a thankless job,
is what I'm saying. I think of the world, they
need to form a union or something. So how did
we get on Hillary? Well, you said that he was
(13:07):
the first man. Okay, well, I know, I know what
I was going to say. He lived until two thou eight,
so he lived to see a lot of people follow
in his footsteps and die and um. In two thousand
and six, this guy named John Sharp. I believe he
died on the mountain. I think of exposure maybe, and
(13:30):
as many as forty climbers passed right past him and
not like him and didn't see him like past him,
noted he was dead, dying, dying, and just kept going
because that that mentality is still around, like hey, it's
too dangerous, right. The thing that so Hillary came out
(13:50):
and publicly criticized the people who didn't even do anything
make an attempt um. And then the thing that really
kind of drove that criticism home was the following year,
a Nepalese woman was successfully rescued by an American climber,
very experienced American climber, but she was in virtually the
same spot under virtually the same conditionings, and he got
(14:12):
her out. But forty people walk past this guy just
under the assumption that, And I can imagine it's drilled
into your head like if you die or you're dying,
we're going to leave you here. But I don't think
that's necessarily I don't think that necessarily has to be
the case anymore as that that American guide proved by
saving the Nepalese woman. Right, And this is this is
(14:32):
me speculating here, but I bet a certain amount of
this too, in addition to having that drilled in your head,
is it's so much effort and a lot of money
to go on one of these expeditions and not you know,
some people climb it more than once, but a lot
of people this is there there one shot and they
hear this, and they might see someone dying and they think,
(14:53):
you know, I can't ruin my opportunity to climb Everest
and potentially die in the process to rescue the stranger
or so it's pretty sad. And I know there's a
lot of controversy. Well there was. There's definitely one guy
who has probably received the most public eye or of
anybody who's let somebody die on ever. So his name
is Ian Woodall, and he actually figures as basically the
(15:15):
villain in Into Thin Air. He was actually he was
on the mountain when crack Howard's expedition went pear shaped,
and um so crack Hower was. You know, these expeditions
were very close together and oftentime, like coming into the
same place at the same time, and they try to
stagger it kind of like golf, except much much deadlier.
(15:36):
Um where so everybody's not hitting the same points at
the same time, right, Yeah, Well, what All apparently was
not down with waiting for anybody. I think his famous
quote in the book is will make it to the
top any time, we damn well please, or something like that.
So he's unwilling to coordinate with other expeditions. He um
(15:56):
wouldn't allow another expedi and I think craik Iur was
expedition to use his radio to call for help um
for whatever reason, I don't remember. I read the book
like a decade ago, but he craik Are definitely doesn't
like this guy. And basically, if he doesn't say in
so many words, he insinuates that this people died on
(16:17):
the mountain because of this man's action or in action. Right. So,
and there was actually one another climb that would all
went on where he Yeah, he was with a dying woman.
He and his partner Kathy o' doubt his his wife actually,
but I think they're they're climbing partners as well. Um,
we're going on their initial ascent, right, and um came
(16:41):
upon a woman and what is her name? Her name
is Francis are Arcentievay. Um. Yeah, and she was laying
there dying, and so they went over and hung out
with her for an hour and tried to see what
they could do. And what happened, well, they left her
behind and she said apparently the last words she said,
we're don't leave me behind. And they were forced to
(17:03):
leave her behind. And I didn't know that part about
the end of thin Air that he figured into that book,
but apparently he went back in two thousand seven to
bury her body up there. He did, with a couple
of others. She had. He was racked with guilt, apparently, Yeah,
she had. Um. I read an article in the Daily
Mail about him doing that. Um, And it was right
(17:24):
before he was actually on the mountain. They were interviewing
a via satellite phone. Um, and apparently Fran as everybody
called her, had become kind of this um ghoulish landmark,
like I think Cathy O'Dowd put it, like you get
to Fran and turn left, because she was right there
on the trail and and you know, apparently like in
(17:47):
like a kind of a really horrible frozen state. And
also her husband was on the climb with her and
he died. They assumed they never found him again going
to get help. Um. So yeah, it's a horrible story.
They both left their a son behind, I believe. Um.
But yeah, so so what all wanted to go barrier
and uh he ultimately ended up like lowering down, lowering
(18:10):
her down and dropping her down the north face instead. Yeah, um,
but yeah, he's not a very well liked person among
a lot of climbing circles. I get the impression. Well,
I know there's certainly a lot of controversy around that. Um.
I know that there's also been efforts. It's a big
trash dump too, which is what's really sad, because like
you said, people will just dump their gear to make
(18:32):
it easier on the way down. And uh, I got
a good stat for you here. Uh, we're talking a
hundred and twenty tons of trash each year or left
behind the mountain verse by climbers. Wait each year. I
thought that was total each year, says ABC News. Holy
and climbing teams in China. They lead expeditions now to
go up and clean some of the stuff up, and
(18:53):
they're trying to get some of these bodies down that
are within you know, safe reach. Because if me think
about there's a hundred and twenty bodies on Everest, the
ones that are up in what'd you call it the
death zone? Um, they're they're pretty preserved, like you can
see in that picture of George Mallory, right, Um, so
they're close to trails generally, so that it I mean
(19:15):
imagine that. Imagine climbing Everest knowing that your own mortality
is at risk and then having like these reminders along
the way. I felt that way at the Empire State Building.
Did you were there a lot of dead bodies on
the Empire State up the stairs? You know, every couple
of days it's an elevator. So I got you. I
really had nothing to complain about. There's no stairs in
the Empire State Building like a violation of I'm sure
(19:36):
there are stairs, but you don't climb them to get
to the observation deck. That's why you're still just doing
the Rockies, buddy. Yeah, so okay, Well, Chuck, UM, I
guess we've answered that question. Dead bodies, Uh, hopefully less
as they retrieve them, if they can retrieve them, and
hopefully less as time goes on, because I know that
(19:59):
every year that goes by a fewer and fewer people
are dying because of climbing technology, satellite phones and stuff
like that, and possibly maybe a change in mentality about
what happens to you if you get injured or you
get exhausted. It's a new bang up generation of service
as well. Yes, there's no tensing nor days though he's
(20:19):
he's the one last of a breed. Yeah, well again,
thank you for listening to that. Are their dead bodies
on Mount Everest? You can read more about it. It's
a Chuck article, which means it's the market quality. You
can type in dead bodies Mount Everest and it's gonna
come up in our handy search bar on how stuff
works dot com and UM while I'm sitting here thinking
(20:40):
about a new UM pseudonym to come up with when
I check into hotels. Um, Chuck's gonna talk about our blog. Yes,
our blog is up. It's been up for a little
while now, and we've gotten some of you find folks
leading comments and we'd like to see more of it.
And I just want to say every Friday, I do
a little podcast recap on the blog where we just
(21:03):
mentioned the shows that were release that week. And that's
a good chance for you guys to to chat with
us about it. If you have any comments about that
week's show, we log on, we'll answer you back, We'll
answer your questions. And uh, it's a good way to
reach us. Do you want to mention the cartoon? Oh yeah,
even better? There's a for Friday the March. There's a
blog post where Josh and I are actually have been
(21:24):
made into a comic strip by an artist named Greg
Williams for the Tampa Tribune in Tampa, Florida, and it's
regarding our junk Mail podcast and it's up on our
blog now and it's awesome. It's really really good. It
is very cool. Um he he found the one moment
of scatological humor out of all of our podcasts and
amplified it like a million times. It's he did a
(21:45):
good job. And also I never realized how round my
head is until I saw it in cartoon form, and
he clearly used a compass to draw to draw me. Um,
so yeah, I have a big round head. That's good.
Yeah it looks nice. But yeah, that's up and blog
and thank you to Mr Greg Waynes. Yes we're doing that.
We feel very honored. Yes, and now and I know
(22:08):
what's time. It is listener mail, So chuck, the bring
has occurred, the toned down bring, as per the request
of some the listener mail chime, let's do it? Uh
this one? Um wait, wait wait, there's no high coup
in here, is there? Well, there's a brief one. Hi's
are brief? All right? I said, no more highkus. But
(22:31):
this one's funny because, um, originally I called high coups
that were corrections correction coups. I thought it was kind
of funny. But Jonathan M. Pesky of Redlands, California wrote,
as this one correction coup, No, such a clunky moniker.
Try high correction that is a little more clever, much
more better. So it's more bid. Getting on with the
(22:54):
correction coup. H I know, and uh I think last
week we mentioned the listener mail someone wrote in about
the MK Ultra video game. Yeah, the guy who's on acid.
While he wrote us, right, can we listen to a
little click at that real quick? Let's do that because
it was funny. Uh. In it, you were a weird
costumed a man with a gun for an arm, and
(23:16):
you went through and violently killed everything in your midst.
The world you were in was very interesting, different colors,
the walls moved, weird sounds. There was a talking dog.
It's your sidekick, so right, he wrote us in, And
I was really really disappointed to find out. We had
quite a few people email us and tell us that
it was not a game called MK Ultra. It's a
(23:37):
game called m d K. And while there was a
weird costume man with a gun on his hand and
a talking dog and lots of weird trippy things in
dark sense of humor, it apparently had nothing to do
with the MK Ultra. So I was disappointed to learn that.
But I want to thank rue from Atlanta Ali boy
(23:59):
eat has uh you think you practiced? That's not bad? Robbie, Yeah, Alejandro, Okay,
Charlie and Michael or and they all are video game guys,
I guess. And they wrote in um tell Us that
(24:21):
they had played m d K. It was a PC
game and it looked pretty cool. I looked at it
on YouTube. I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, it's pretty rad,
but there's no um there's no mk ultrack going on. Well,
thanks to everybody who wrote in. And if you want
to write to us about your video gaming experiences, or
just to say hi, or to suggest a new pseudonym
for me when I check into hotels, send it to
(24:44):
stuff Podcasts at how stuff works got com for more
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two thousand of Camery. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck. How you doing, Chuck?
I'm great, man. Let's just stop right here, Chuck, We've
got something to shamelessly plug. I wanted to just get
it over with. I feel really bad about this. I
(00:22):
call it anything other than what it is, right, Okay,
So um, everybody, Chuck and I just made and Jerry
Jerry was a huge part of it, agreed, our producer, Jerry.
It would have just been steaming had Jerry not been
involved in this, right, agreed. Chuck and I just recorded
our first spoken word album. Right. We have joined the
(00:43):
likes of Jack Kerouac and Barack Obama except our spoken
word albums on the economy economics? Right, Chuck, We took
the path less traveled, did something that's kind of obscure
and people you know are talking about much of these days. Um,
And what's it called, Chuck? It is called the Stuff
you Should Know, super Stuffed Guide the Economy. And it
(01:03):
is super stuff because it's long and detailed and we've
got interviews with experts. There's we go on site, we
leave the studio, chicken farm, not just that's not just
a boiler, worry about it. But yeah. So it's up
for sailor and iTunes right now, right um, and it
is for sale, it is. I know you folks are
always saying I can't believe your podcasts are free. Well,
(01:24):
we took your advice, so yeah, thanks for that. Hopefully
this will allow us to keep doing what we do. Yeah.
So that's have we reached the end of the shameless plug.
So if you want to go buy it, that would
be totally fine with us. That would be great. Okay,
So that now we've reached them the same as yes,
and it's time to get into your shameless segue. Yeah,
which is this? Have you ever mountain climbed? I know
(01:47):
you've repelled, but where you ever on a mountain to
repel mine was one must climb? Now, I've never actually
rock climbed, but I've done plenty of hiking in the mountains,
but not rock face climbing. That's was there snow in
any of these mountains? Were you up so high that
there's like perennial snow. Really yeah, where like Colorado stuff
(02:07):
like that. Huh wow, that's pretty impressive. That was shocking.
I see you like wearing your little shorts and hiking
boots with like thick socks kind of pushed down. Um,
so far, so good. Yeah, and just kind of hiking
along what most people would call like a hill or
something like that. Certainly not like where there's like kenne
Saw Mountain kind of yeah, which is I can't say
(02:30):
anything because it's way out of my league. Kenna Saw
Mountain is let alone the Rockies. I mean, trust me, dude,
I'm not You won't think I'm a sharpa like scaling
the mount Everest or anything like that. Yeah, And I
think at this point I can tell you left untoward
behind and sharpa is now my favorite word right now. Okay,
I love that word. It just rolls off the tongue.
(02:53):
You're cute little guys. Yeah, agreed, Um, okay, So you
have done some mountain climbing, so so you can speak
to what we're going to talk about with reasonable authority.
I can defer to you when I get confused, inevitably, So, Chuck,
have you ever read into thin air? I have not,
but I did read Into the Wild, which is John
hour That his name, yeah, John crack Our. He is
(03:13):
a journalist for Outside magazine, and he knows how to
take an outdoor UM event and turn it into a
good book. Into the Wild is a great example. Chris McCandless,
who actually went to school down the road at Emery
and decided that he was going to go to Alaska
and basically just didn't quite do it right. Yeah, died
(03:37):
after three months of exposure the elements. I think there's
some varying theories on why I died, but that's not
what this is about. Okay, Well, no, we're thin Air.
Into thin Air is much much more pertinent to this
topic than I think. Okay, So, Um, that's actually about
an an expedition on Mount Everest, um and that took
place in May. He was actually on this one, right, Yes,
(04:00):
he was, UM, which is one of the reasons the
book is so incredible. UM. And it was a complete
cluster of a um of an expedition. Eight people died,
accounting for um more than half of the deaths on
Everest that year. It's one expedition. UM. There was a
(04:21):
rogue storm that whipped up and it killed some people
and others were lost and then they died, but then
other people went after them to try to rescue him,
and then they died. And it was just more like
a let's get out of here whenever we can. You
basically just have to write everybody off right, um. And
and like, like I said, it's a very very good book. Um.
But one of the things that I took from it
(04:43):
is that number one, Mount Everest is a total bear
as far as mountains go, completely inhospitable for humans. Yeah,
you want to talk about you want to talk a
little bit about Everest. Yeah, I guess we should get it.
Just a couple of stats out of the way. Everyone
knows just the tallest peak in the world. They call
it the roof top of the world they do, and
good reason. Quick aside, um, there is a Discovery micro
(05:06):
site on Everest and it has a three hundred and
sixty degree panoramic view. You shall remember you show me
that like my first week here. It's amazing. It was unbelievable.
And I said to myself, that is awesome. And this
Josh dude has it going on. That's all it takes.
That's how I've collected all of my friends. That's how
the magic starts. You send him the Everest photo. Yeah,
I just I pay it out a little bit at
(05:27):
a time. Start with the Everest photo. It's really cool.
You're sitting up at night. You actually feel like you're
there when you look at this panoramic picture, and so
much so that I don't feel like I need to climate.
You can almost hear the wind whipping. Yeah, so okay,
So give me some more steps. The tallest peak in
the world, share which is what's the peak? How? How
it tall? Is it thousand thirty five ft which is
(05:50):
eight thousand, eight hundred and fifty meters for our friends
who don't live in the US or Liberia or Burma? Correct?
Very well done, uh little shout out insider, shout out
to our SNAr mail or. She wrote in with that, um,
and the mountain itself shares a border with Nepal and Tibet,
but the actual peak is in Nepal, so India is
not involved, not as far as I know. Um, why
(06:13):
did you say that you're trying to throw me off
my game? Yeah, don't worry about it. Checking No one
can throw you after game, right, not even me? Josh
messes with me sometimes people, but it usually gets cut out.
I have a feeling this will make it in so
check out. Have a question for you, Shoot, what is
the worst season to go on Everest? Well, really anything
outside of um May in June May to June. Yeah,
(06:35):
that's when you want to climb Everest. June is the
time you want to go. Yes, oh well, okay, got so, Josh.
An average day, if you want to talk weather, an
average day in May of two thousand and eight was
minus seventeen degrease fahrenheit, which is mine degrees celsius true
and wins of fifty one eighty one KOs right, very good.
(06:57):
So that's during the most hospitable time in the year,
barring no like freak storms and unusual activity. Other times
of the year, the jet stream passes directly by the summit,
which is in made of June, the jet stream does
not do that, which is why that's the time to go.
And you can get winds up to like, you know,
a hundred and twenty miles an hour and miles an hour,
(07:20):
which would be a hundred and eighty nine kilometers an
hour and minus a hundred degrees fahrenheit. So which is
minus seventy three degrees celsius. Right, so you cannot imagine.
Have you ever been up in then a tall, tall building?
Um get in the wintertime? No outside, Okay, I climb
the Empire. There's no mountain climbing, certainly, no Colorado hiking,
(07:42):
no tall buildings in the wintertime. But you've been to Malta.
Um I just a few years ago, Emily and I
were at the top of the Empire State Building around
Christmas time and dude, that's the Empire State Building and
I thought I was gonna die the wind in the cold,
and that's the Empire stabling. So imagine Mount Everest at
twenty nine feet Well, were you properly outfitted on the
(08:05):
roof of the Empire stuff? Yeah, you established a base
camp by then, yeah, on the on the ground floor
comes out. I was like, what are you doing? Right? Yeah? Okay, So, so, Chuck,
I think we got it down. Mount Everest is not
the place to be, especially with your Empire state allegory.
That's pretty good, thanks, okay, so um and we've also
(08:26):
established that people die on Everest. How many was there?
Eighty nine? So that's the that's the current count, and
you said that two thousand people have died or have
have successfully summitted Everest. Right, that was as of a
few years ago. That was the count, And the BBC
told me, well, you so somewhere between there for every stat,
(08:48):
there's another stat when it comes to stuff like this
and equal enough isite stant like some guy might have
snuck up to Everest and not officially logged it with
the BBC. You know. Well, the problem is is that, um,
if you die on Everest, apparently you stay on Everest
pretty much. Yeah, which is what your article is about, right, Yeah,
it's much. Uh, it's a suicide mission to try and
(09:12):
bring a body down from the death zone. And the
death zone is above twenty six feet. That's like the
final area, above the final base camp where you go
to reach the summit, and that's where most people die.
And not everybody who's died on Everest is still there,
but a significant portion is, like of the nine, there's
(09:32):
one twenty. And also we should probably say before you
sharpen your pencils and email us, we're working off of
what like two thousand four stats right here, So at
least several people have died since then. I think I
know at least one guy died in two thousand six
on everest Um. The thing is is you can't even
(09:52):
bring your oxygen canister down. Basically, a dead person and
an oxygen cancer not the same thing. But it kind
of puts it in perspective like you are going up
there and getting back down and you're lucky to escape
with your life, basically exactly. And from what I what
I've read and had been described to me, to try
(10:13):
and bring a body down is as suicide mission for
everyone involved. So it's like, you can't save this person
because you put your entire crew at risk, So you
just have to march on um. Now that's kind of
the predominant view of people who who climb everest Um.
But it seems like it's starting to change, like technology
(10:34):
is advancing enough, and people's gear and and oxygen equipment
it's getting good enough so that that that sentiment is
almost um being outlived. It's already been outlived obviously. Sir
Edmond Hillary is the guy who summited everest for the
first time. With their debates about that too, did they
(10:55):
think nor Gay beat him? Uh? Well, George Lee Mallory
actually is an other climber and there's there's some speculation
as to who actually got there first, because Mallory was
found dead and actually in the article there's a picture
of his i know, petrified, frozen, headless body. It is
a cool picture. Yeah, yeah, his head is just pretty
much withered away. The weird thing is is like if
you look at his left hand, it's totally intact, Like
(11:19):
it looks like he's just laying there if you just
look at his arm. But where did they find him?
I mean, did they find him at the summit or
they think he made it to the summit and started
to climb down and died maybe exactly. I think that's
the speculation. They did not find they found beneath the summit,
And there's speculation as to whether what you said, whether
he made it all the way down and died on
the way back, or whether he never made it all
(11:40):
the way up and he would have been before Hillary.
So that's that's a pretty big deal. Yeah. He was
in the twenties, right, Yeah, And it looks like he
was running around in like a burlap sack. I think
it's not good climbing. It weathered some over the years. Well.
Either way, the first person to be to document their
place at the top of Mount Everest is Sir Edmund
(12:03):
Hillary and he did it with the nepolie serpa tending
nor Gay, who's just got the best name. Yeah, he's
got Sherpa right there. And then Tensing in nor Gay.
I love that guy's name. That's that's your fake name
when you check in the hotels, isn't it. Why did
you do that? I tell you things in confidence. Thank you,
Chuck to change my name. This brings up a point though,
that he's he's obviously the most well known serpa ever.
(12:27):
Have you ever heard of any other Sherpa? I have,
but I never retained their names, like Tensing nor Gay. Well,
they get a raw deal, as my point, Like you
always see the guy, you know, the white dude and
the jam Sport North face gear on top of Everest,
and you don't see like there's like two on the
outside of the frame. It's their third trip up that week.
You know, they're like big deal. Did you ever see
(12:47):
the episode of The Simpsons where Homer climbs Mound Springfield
and the two Sharps are like doing cartwheels on the
way down and dragging him up while he sleeps at night. Yeah, yeah,
I imagine that that's probably. I think it's a thankless job,
is what I'm saying. I think of the world, they
need to form a union or something. So how did
we get on Hillary? Well, you said that he was
(13:07):
the first man. Okay, well, I know, I know what
I was going to say. He lived until two thou eight,
so he lived to see a lot of people follow
in his footsteps and die and um. In two thousand
and six, this guy named John Sharp. I believe he
died on the mountain. I think of exposure maybe, and
(13:30):
as many as forty climbers passed right past him and
not like him and didn't see him like past him,
noted he was dead, dying, dying, and just kept going
because that that mentality is still around, like hey, it's
too dangerous, right. The thing that so Hillary came out
(13:50):
and publicly criticized the people who didn't even do anything
make an attempt um. And then the thing that really
kind of drove that criticism home was the following year,
a Nepalese woman was successfully rescued by an American climber,
very experienced American climber, but she was in virtually the
same spot under virtually the same conditionings, and he got
(14:12):
her out. But forty people walk past this guy just
under the assumption that, And I can imagine it's drilled
into your head like if you die or you're dying,
we're going to leave you here. But I don't think
that's necessarily I don't think that necessarily has to be
the case anymore as that that American guide proved by
saving the Nepalese woman. Right, And this is this is
(14:32):
me speculating here, but I bet a certain amount of
this too, in addition to having that drilled in your head,
is it's so much effort and a lot of money
to go on one of these expeditions and not you know,
some people climb it more than once, but a lot
of people this is there there one shot and they
hear this, and they might see someone dying and they think,
(14:53):
you know, I can't ruin my opportunity to climb Everest
and potentially die in the process to rescue the stranger
or so it's pretty sad. And I know there's a
lot of controversy. Well there was. There's definitely one guy
who has probably received the most public eye or of
anybody who's let somebody die on ever. So his name
is Ian Woodall, and he actually figures as basically the
(15:15):
villain in Into Thin Air. He was actually he was
on the mountain when crack Howard's expedition went pear shaped,
and um so crack Hower was. You know, these expeditions
were very close together and oftentime, like coming into the
same place at the same time, and they try to
stagger it kind of like golf, except much much deadlier.
(15:36):
Um where so everybody's not hitting the same points at
the same time, right, Yeah, Well, what All apparently was
not down with waiting for anybody. I think his famous
quote in the book is will make it to the
top any time, we damn well please, or something like that.
So he's unwilling to coordinate with other expeditions. He um
(15:56):
wouldn't allow another expedi and I think craik Iur was
expedition to use his radio to call for help um
for whatever reason, I don't remember. I read the book
like a decade ago, but he craik Are definitely doesn't
like this guy. And basically, if he doesn't say in
so many words, he insinuates that this people died on
(16:17):
the mountain because of this man's action or in action. Right. So,
and there was actually one another climb that would all
went on where he Yeah, he was with a dying woman.
He and his partner Kathy o' doubt his his wife actually,
but I think they're they're climbing partners as well. Um,
we're going on their initial ascent, right, and um came
(16:41):
upon a woman and what is her name? Her name
is Francis are Arcentievay. Um. Yeah, and she was laying
there dying, and so they went over and hung out
with her for an hour and tried to see what
they could do. And what happened, well, they left her
behind and she said apparently the last words she said,
we're don't leave me behind. And they were forced to
(17:03):
leave her behind. And I didn't know that part about
the end of thin Air that he figured into that book,
but apparently he went back in two thousand seven to
bury her body up there. He did, with a couple
of others. She had. He was racked with guilt, apparently, Yeah,
she had. Um. I read an article in the Daily
Mail about him doing that. Um, And it was right
(17:24):
before he was actually on the mountain. They were interviewing
a via satellite phone. Um, and apparently Fran as everybody
called her, had become kind of this um ghoulish landmark,
like I think Cathy O'Dowd put it, like you get
to Fran and turn left, because she was right there
on the trail and and you know, apparently like in
(17:47):
like a kind of a really horrible frozen state. And
also her husband was on the climb with her and
he died. They assumed they never found him again going
to get help. Um. So yeah, it's a horrible story.
They both left their a son behind, I believe. Um.
But yeah, so so what all wanted to go barrier
and uh he ultimately ended up like lowering down, lowering
(18:10):
her down and dropping her down the north face instead. Yeah, um,
but yeah, he's not a very well liked person among
a lot of climbing circles. I get the impression. Well,
I know there's certainly a lot of controversy around that. Um.
I know that there's also been efforts. It's a big
trash dump too, which is what's really sad, because like
you said, people will just dump their gear to make
(18:32):
it easier on the way down. And uh, I got
a good stat for you here. Uh, we're talking a
hundred and twenty tons of trash each year or left
behind the mountain verse by climbers. Wait each year. I
thought that was total each year, says ABC News. Holy
and climbing teams in China. They lead expeditions now to
go up and clean some of the stuff up, and
(18:53):
they're trying to get some of these bodies down that
are within you know, safe reach. Because if me think
about there's a hundred and twenty bodies on Everest, the
ones that are up in what'd you call it the
death zone? Um, they're they're pretty preserved, like you can
see in that picture of George Mallory, right, Um, so
they're close to trails generally, so that it I mean
(19:15):
imagine that. Imagine climbing Everest knowing that your own mortality
is at risk and then having like these reminders along
the way. I felt that way at the Empire State Building.
Did you were there a lot of dead bodies on
the Empire State up the stairs? You know, every couple
of days it's an elevator. So I got you. I
really had nothing to complain about. There's no stairs in
the Empire State Building like a violation of I'm sure
(19:36):
there are stairs, but you don't climb them to get
to the observation deck. That's why you're still just doing
the Rockies, buddy. Yeah, so okay, Well, Chuck, UM, I
guess we've answered that question. Dead bodies, Uh, hopefully less
as they retrieve them, if they can retrieve them, and
hopefully less as time goes on, because I know that
(19:59):
every year that goes by a fewer and fewer people
are dying because of climbing technology, satellite phones and stuff
like that, and possibly maybe a change in mentality about
what happens to you if you get injured or you
get exhausted. It's a new bang up generation of service
as well. Yes, there's no tensing nor days though he's
(20:19):
he's the one last of a breed. Yeah, well again,
thank you for listening to that. Are their dead bodies
on Mount Everest? You can read more about it. It's
a Chuck article, which means it's the market quality. You
can type in dead bodies Mount Everest and it's gonna
come up in our handy search bar on how stuff
works dot com and UM while I'm sitting here thinking
(20:40):
about a new UM pseudonym to come up with when
I check into hotels. Um, Chuck's gonna talk about our blog. Yes,
our blog is up. It's been up for a little
while now, and we've gotten some of you find folks
leading comments and we'd like to see more of it.
And I just want to say every Friday, I do
a little podcast recap on the blog where we just
(21:03):
mentioned the shows that were release that week. And that's
a good chance for you guys to to chat with
us about it. If you have any comments about that
week's show, we log on, we'll answer you back, We'll
answer your questions. And uh, it's a good way to
reach us. Do you want to mention the cartoon? Oh yeah,
even better? There's a for Friday the March. There's a
blog post where Josh and I are actually have been
(21:24):
made into a comic strip by an artist named Greg
Williams for the Tampa Tribune in Tampa, Florida, and it's
regarding our junk Mail podcast and it's up on our
blog now and it's awesome. It's really really good. It
is very cool. Um he he found the one moment
of scatological humor out of all of our podcasts and
amplified it like a million times. It's he did a
(21:45):
good job. And also I never realized how round my
head is until I saw it in cartoon form, and
he clearly used a compass to draw to draw me. Um,
so yeah, I have a big round head. That's good.
Yeah it looks nice. But yeah, that's up and blog
and thank you to Mr Greg Waynes. Yes we're doing that.
We feel very honored. Yes, and now and I know
(22:08):
what's time. It is listener mail, So chuck, the bring
has occurred, the toned down bring, as per the request
of some the listener mail chime, let's do it? Uh
this one? Um wait, wait wait, there's no high coup
in here, is there? Well, there's a brief one. Hi's
are brief? All right? I said, no more highkus. But
(22:31):
this one's funny because, um, originally I called high coups
that were corrections correction coups. I thought it was kind
of funny. But Jonathan M. Pesky of Redlands, California wrote,
as this one correction coup, No, such a clunky moniker.
Try high correction that is a little more clever, much
more better. So it's more bid. Getting on with the
(22:54):
correction coup. H I know, and uh I think last
week we mentioned the listener mail someone wrote in about
the MK Ultra video game. Yeah, the guy who's on acid.
While he wrote us, right, can we listen to a
little click at that real quick? Let's do that because
it was funny. Uh. In it, you were a weird
costumed a man with a gun for an arm, and
(23:16):
you went through and violently killed everything in your midst.
The world you were in was very interesting, different colors,
the walls moved, weird sounds. There was a talking dog.
It's your sidekick, so right, he wrote us in, And
I was really really disappointed to find out. We had
quite a few people email us and tell us that
it was not a game called MK Ultra. It's a
(23:37):
game called m d K. And while there was a
weird costume man with a gun on his hand and
a talking dog and lots of weird trippy things in
dark sense of humor, it apparently had nothing to do
with the MK Ultra. So I was disappointed to learn that.
But I want to thank rue from Atlanta Ali boy
(23:59):
eat has uh you think you practiced? That's not bad? Robbie, Yeah, Alejandro, Okay,
Charlie and Michael or and they all are video game guys,
I guess. And they wrote in um tell Us that
(24:21):
they had played m d K. It was a PC
game and it looked pretty cool. I looked at it
on YouTube. I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, it's pretty rad,
but there's no um there's no mk ultrack going on. Well,
thanks to everybody who wrote in. And if you want
to write to us about your video gaming experiences, or
just to say hi, or to suggest a new pseudonym
for me when I check into hotels, send it to
(24:44):
stuff Podcasts at how stuff works got com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff works dot com, brought to you by the reinvented
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