quote:

Many of the guides I spoke with said they have been approached to host film crews, but said the crews had no “story line” and were going to be there in case there was another tragedy. Apparently there are as many as 8 separate crews preparing to be at base camp.

Last Chance posted:

Old thread
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3626517&pagenumber=1
thread summary:










https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n15c52gN60

The North Tower posted:

Updated list - we're pretty much out of the typical range by now, with 2-15, 17 and 26 all taken - sorry if you weren't able to enter with a number you wanted, but I did follow request solely in chronological order, and there's always next year for the big 20-year-anniversary party!

-2
enziarro, bonus for 3 dead climbers, sherpa quintuplets

-1
stab

0
Zo

1
Pick
HEY VAPER

2s are all taken for now
SaltLick
SteveVizsla
sleepycat

3s are all taken for now
Pale Ale, with a bonus for all climbers, no sherpas
Demonachizer, with a bonus if one of them is a Count
Gripen5, with a bonus for 1 sherpa, 2 climbers

4s are all taken for now
Minrad
captainobliviou, with a bonus for K2 having more than Everest
Bunnita

5s are all taken
Angela Christine
polpotpotpotpotpot
I Greyhound, with a bonus for all climbers, no sherpas

6s are all taken
Dely Apple
Grim Up North
StoneOfShame, with a bonus of Alyssa Azar being one of the deaths

7s are all taken
elwood
The North Tower
redreader:
<8 (Caltrain deaths as of the end of the day March 13, 2015, PST) - (please pick an exact number to be eligible for the prize--locking you in at 7 for now)

8s are all taken
LongDarkNight
Ogive
mistressminako

9s are all taken
Plinkey
Fatkraken, with a bonus for 6 on the Tibetan side and 3 from the Nepalese side
Catpain Slack, with a bonus for 2 sherpas and 7 climbers

10s are all taken
Chris!
effervescible
lilljonas, with a bonus for 2 sherpas and 8 climbers

11s are all taken
Doctor Schnabel
Paramemetic
Default Settings, with a bonus for one being spectacularly stupid

12s are all taken
Rondette
Catpain Slack:
2-12 (2D6), with a bonus for all climbers (please pick an exact number to be eligible for the prize) - locking you in at 12 unless you change it
spinst, with a bonus for 2 sherpas, 10 climbers

13s are all taken
Man Whore
littleorv
I Own Soulz

14s are all taken
Crusty Nutsack
Lolance, with a bonus for 2 sherpas and 12 climbers
Nuggan

15s are all taken
The Fuzzy Hulk
Van Kraken
Leperflesh

16
dirtycajun
Hijo Del Helmsley

17s are all taken
Picnic Princess
ranbo das
Sanguinary Novel, with a bonus for 2 sherpas, 15 climbers

19
gggiiimmmppp, all climbers

20
Daedra

22
BaronVonVaderham, 5 sherpas 17 climbers

26s are all taken
Leperflesh
Stoat
Germstore:
2-26 (1D6+1D20) (please pick an exact number to be eligible for the prize, and also pick your bonus, since 1D6 sherpa and 1D20 climbers is too vague) - locking you in at 26 for now unless you change it

34
Gehenomm, all climbers

41
Josef K. Sourdust

162
Happy Hedonist:

7,025,000,000
Butt Wizard

SteveVizsla posted:

I was in a bookstore the other day that had a ton on climbing, so I took photos of the fronts and backs and typed this up. I didn't include Touching the Void, Into Thin Air, High Crimes, anything by Krakauer, etc.

Everest

Everest - The First Ascent: How a Champion of Science Helped to Conquer the Mountain - Harriet Tuckey, 2014. This won a bunch of awards last year. Tuckey's father was Dr.Griffith Pugh, the scientist and strategist on Hilary's team in 1953 as well as the father of altitude medicine.

Blind Descent: Surviving Alone and Blind on Mount Everest - Brian Dickinson, 2014. Brian's Sherpa turns back 1,000ft from the summit, but dumb Brian decides to still try and summit, alone. He reached it, then lost his vision and had to climb down blind, relying on "his Navy survival training, his gut instinct, and his faith."

The Mountain: My Time on Everest - Ed Viesturs, 2013. Viesturs explores the history of the mountain, various tragedies, etc. while giving accounts from his 11 trips and 7 summits of Everest.

Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season - Nick Heil, 2009. Largely focuses on the 2006 deaths, particularly David Sharp (the Brit who alive but everyone kept walking right by), but also goes into how the popularity of Everest is causing riskier expeditions, bad climbing teams out for money, idiots climbing, and all of the stuff we routinely talk about.

Above the Clouds: The Diaries of a High-Altitude Mountaineer - Anatoli Boukreev, 2002. Covers his life climbing, including Denali, K2, and the 1996 Everest climb. He died on Annapurna in 1997.

The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest - Anatoli Boukreev, 1999. The 1996 Everest disaster from one of the climbers who saved people. This edition includes some stuff from after the tragedy, along with co-author DeWalt's rebuttal to Krakauer about Into Thin Air.

High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places - David Breashears, 2000. Climber and filmmaker Breashears explores the why of climbing, with particular focus on Everest and the 96 climbing season.

Left For Dead: My Journey Home from Everest - Beck Weathers, 2001. Weathers was part of the 1996 climb, was left for dead, but managed to survive. Covers the climb, his survival, and his "life journey."

My Father, Frank: Unresting Spirit of Everest - Tony Smythe, 2013. Frank Smythe climbed various Himilayan mountains in the 30s, and in 1933 reached within 800ft of Everest's peak.

Touching My Father's Soul: A Sherpa's Journey to the Top of Everest - Jamling Norgay, 2002. Jamling was the Climbing Leader in 1996. He blends the story of his 1996 climb with ones from his father's climb as well as giving an inside look at Sherpas.

K2

Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day - Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan, 2013. Follows the stories of the two sherpas who survived K2 in 2008, out of the 13 who climbed it.

No Way Down: Life and Death on K2 - Graham Bowley, 2011. Another about K2 in 2008.

One Mountain Thousand Summits: The Untold Story of Tragedy and True Heroism on K2 - Freddie Wilkinson, 2011. Yet another about the 2008 deaths.

The Last Man on the Mountain: The Death of an American Adventurer on K2 - Jennifer Jordan, 2011. About the 1939 climb and death of K2's first victim, Dudley Wolfe. The author is the one who found his body 60+ years later.

K2 the 1939 Tragedy - Andrew Kauffman, 1993. Another about the 1938 and 1939 climbs.

Savage Summit: The Life and Death of the First Women of K2 - Jennifer Jordan, 2005. Only 6 women have climbed K2 (as of the book's publishing), and half died on the way down. This covers all 6.

K2: Triumph and Tragedy - Jim Curran, 1989. The 1986 climbing season of K2, when 27 summited but 13 died.

K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain - Ed Viesturs, 2010. The mountain's history and 7 of the most deadly years.

OTHER MOUNTAINS

One More Step: My Story of Living with Cerebral Palsy, Climbing Kilimanjaro, and Surviving the Hardest Race on Earth - Bonner Paddock, Neal Bascomb, March 10 2015. Self explanatory.

Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow: The Dark Side of Extreme Adventure - Maria Coffey, 2005. Interviews with top climbers, widows of dead climbers, the families of climbers, etc. Coffey's husband Joe Tasker died on Everest in 1982.

The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters: True Accounts of Rescue from the Brink of Death - Edited by Hamish MacInnes, 2003. 35 First hand accounts.

Tilting at Mountains: Love, Tragedy, and Triumph on the World's Highest Peaks - Edurne Pasaban, 2014. The first woman to climb all 14 8,000 meter peaks.

Mountains In My Heart: A Passion for Climbing - Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, 2014. First woman to climb all 14 8,000 meter peaks without oxygen.

Reinhold Messner: My Life at the Limit - Reinhold Messner, 2014. Interview between Messner and Thomas Huetlin. Covers climbing, Antarctica, hiking across the Gobi and Tibet, being a member of the European Parliament, "his encounter with and study of Yeti," male/female roles (he is against eating ice cream with girls), and other stuff.

Beyond the Mountain - Steve House, 2012. About his life climbing mountains, including climbing a new route on Nanga Parbat.

The Last of His Kind: The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer - David Roberts, 2009. Photographer and adventurer who has nine first ascents in North America, as well as a cartographer who charted Denali, the Grand Canyon, Everest, and others.

Conquistadors of the Useless - Lionel Terray, 2008. Autobiography. Terray was considered a national hero when he started climbing mountains following WW2. One of National Geographic's 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time.

The Beckoning Silence - Joe Simpson, 2003. Simpson, a subject of Touching the Void, goes on the last climb of his life, the north face of Eiger.

Annapurna: The First Conquest of an 8,000-meter Peak - Maurice Herzog, 2010. One of Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time.

The Will to Climb: Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna--the World's Deadliest Peak - Ed Viesturs, 2012. His three attempts to climb the mountain, while covering the history of others who have tried.

Fiva: An Adventure That Went Wrong - Gordon Stainforth, 2013. In 1969, teenage Stainforth and his idiot twin brother decide to climb the highest rock face in Europe, with no experience or gear. It didn't go well.

Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters - James M. Tabor, 2008. On a climb of Mt McKinley in 1967, seven members of 12 man team became stranded and died. Tabor "uncovers" controversies and cover-ups.

Denali's Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America's Wildest Peak - Andy Hall, 2014. Another on the 1967 climb of Mt McKinley, this one by the son of the then-park superintendent. This one focuses on the actual story, along with the story of the people trying to rescue the stranded climbers, and what could have been done differently.

Surviving Denali: A Study of Accidents on Mount McKinley 1903-1990 - Jonathan Waterman, 1991. Pretty straight forward.

The Naked Mountaineer: Misadventures of an Alpine Traveler - Steve Sieberson, 2014. A lighthearted look at climbing smaller mountains (Matterhorn, places in Borneo, etc.) and the people he meets and adventures he has.

Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident - Donnie Eichar, 2014. Includes photos, the climbers' journals, government files, etc., along with the author retracing their steps. I'm including this one on the subject because it came out late last year so hopefully actually covers the truth instead of still trying to push it as a mystery/aliens.

Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why - Laurence Gonzales, 2004. Self explanatory, with a focus on mountains.

CAVES & DIVING & ETC

Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Cave on Earth - James M. Tabor, 2011. Using journals, interviews, etc. Tabor covers two explorers as they both try to reach the deepest point on earth in 2004 - Bill Stone in the Cheve Cave of Mexico, and Alexander Klimchouk in a supercave in Georgia (the country). Both spent months underground and one cited review mentions "deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations. . ."

Beyond the Deep: The Deadly Descent into the World's Most Treacherous Cave - William Stone, Barbara am Ende, 2002. In 1994, 45 people go into the Huautla Cave in Mexico, led by the author. People die, floods force people back, and the two authors pushed on for another two weeks and set the record for deepest cave dive.

Diving into Darkness: A True Story of Death and Survival - Phillip Finch, 2008. Two of the world's top divers traveled to Bushman's Hole in the Kalahari Desert, one dies and one barely survives.

Fatal Depth: Deep Sea Diving, China Fever, And The Wreck Of The Andrea Doria - Joe Haberstroh, 2004. Follows divers trying to reach the Andrea Doria in 1998-1999, when three people died. Goes into the history of the ship along with the divers' lives and what pushes them to dive just to bring back a teacup.

Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration - David Roberts, 2014. Douglas Mawson's crazy expedition to Antarctica in 1913.

The Last Season - Eric Blehm, 2007. Backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson mysteriously vanishes in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

dad gay. so what posted:

somebody should poo poo on the OP's dick

Josef K. Sourdust posted:

She was the first Canadian woman of south Asian descent to become a human popsicle in a $8,000 down suit on the world's highest rubbish tip.

And no one will ever take that record from her.

Josef K. Sourdust posted:

Rondette, having looked at the photo of your books, I think you'd be the perfect poster to start a mountaineering thread in Book Barn.

Demonachizer posted:

I was happy when that Canadian lady died but felt a little guilty. Now that I am watching the documentary I am even happier and don't feel guilty at all.

enziarro posted:

this guy snowboarded everest. it went very well; he is now famous for having done so

ThePutty posted:

pentyne posted:

Certain top tier travel agencies have someone on site who can refuse to let someone go past base camp 4 if they don't think the person is capable of it. The travel agency the Canadian lady went with seemed to be the "discount" option.

Zeike posted:

theres 2 in there right?

Happy Hedonist posted:

Successfully hang glides off of Everest, dies in car accident 4 years later.

SaltLick posted:

She'd probably have been fine if she didn't waste 30 minutes up there loving around.

mookface posted:

The Canadian lady's story is hilarious.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/m/episodes/2012-2013/into-the-death-zone

Here is a link to a documentary about it. She was a loving idiot.

Last Chance posted:

OP, can you add this previous thread to your list:

2015 thread

im not mad, i just want some acknowlegdgement, thanks in advance

Serak posted:

The Australian girl who was aiming to be the youngest woman* to climb Everest is having another go this year
http://www.alyssaazar.com.au/blog/

*Assuming that only white people count


Yes, truly it was a lack of self-belief that killed those 19 sherpas last year.

Cuntpunch posted:

Touching the Void is one of the most amazing stories ever.

For you NPR folks out there, apparently they still have available an old story about an Everest expedition they covered back in '88: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4581895

a pipe smoking dog posted:

Joe Simpson is a crevasse wanker

a pipe smoking dog posted:

That story about George Mallory scaling an unclimbable cliff because he'd forgotten his pipe and no-one being able to figure out how he did it.

My grandma taught Mallory's children piano, though I think it was several years after he had died.

quote:

"My friend George Mallory .... once did an inexplicable climb on Snowdon. He had left his pipe on a ledge, half-way down one of the Liwedd precipices, and scrambled back by a short cut to retrieve it, then up again by the same route. No one saw what route he took, but when they came to examine it the next day for official record, they found an overhang nearly all the way. By a rule of the Climbers' Club climbs are never named in honour of their inventors, but only describe natural features. An exception was made here. The climb was recorded as follows : 'Mallory's Pipe, a variation on route 2 ; see adjoining map. This climb is totally impossible. It has been performed once, in failing light, by Mr G. H. L. Mallory.'".[58]

pentyne posted:

Now that Nepal has slashed the price of the climbing license by 50% or higher you're going to get even more people who lack a fundamental knowledge of mountain climbing and think that a few months in the gym and a few weeks with the Sherpas will get them to the summit effortlessly.

Bishop posted:

ive done around 25 deeper than 200ft and a lot approaching that. Deep diving and cave diving are two somewhat separate things. You can deep dive or cave dive or both. In my experience a lot of cave dives are deep and long enough that we use mixed gas ( non air- oxygen nitrogen helium) mixes, and have to follow a decompression schedule, meaning you have to switch gasses and hang out at certain depths

My deepest dives are ocean: when I go deep I'm mainly worried about the narcotic effects of my various breathing gasses. If I'm dicing a rebreather I want to make sure it's properly maintaing a partial pressure of oxygen that won't make me have a seizure and die. I'm also worried about being able to launch a surface marker, which I have to attach to a 400+ ft reel and then inflate at depth. If your reel jams while it's heading to the surface you just have to let go or it's an elevator ride to hell

Brillo_Pad posted:

Savage summit was really bad imo. Disappointing because the subject (history of women climbing k2) is very interesting. I just couldn't stand the writing.

I've read no way down, into thin air, and buried in the sky as well - what would you recommend next?

YeahDavidLeeRoth posted:

dont bother with high crimes unless you wanna read the author whining and defending his dumb as gently caress wife for 200 pages.

Damo posted:

Nain Singh deserves a lot more attention. A little backstory about how awesome he is and how crazy what he accomplished was. There's a good little blurb about him and the actual process of mapping in his days, in the book Maphead by Ken Jennings.


Bolded part is some awesome secret agent mapping poo poo. Early mappers/cartographers were pretty bad rear end, just in a different way from mountaineers

Lincoln posted:

Wait, how do you even boil water at that altitude? I mean, you can boil it, yeah, but how hot can it possibly be?

quote:

Here's a link to an interview with Sandy Pittman from 2006, ten years after the Everest Disaster. She's talking with a reporter to discuss a few things from up on the mountain.

She starts off by mentioning that she doesn't talk about Everest much, as it was "Terrible. At the time, I was in mourning for the loss of our expedition leader, Scott Fischer, I was stunned by my own near-death experience, and my husband had filed for divorce a few months before I went to Everest. It was pretty much the worst year of my life." It's easy to distinguish that she'd been having a hard time with her husband on top of other things, which wasn't evident at all in Into Thin Air. Next, she talks about how much she liked the way Anatoli Boukreev portrayed the climb in his book, and how she wished she'd been able to see Everest how she did years after the experience. She says, "I wish I could've seen Everest then as I do today. I was privileged to have been on Everest three times, and in '96 with such a wonderful team."
Later on in the interview, the subject turns to a very awkward piece of equipment that she'd allegedly brought up the mountain:
A cappuccino maker.

In her defense, she describes the coffeemaker she brought up the mountain as such: "But my coffeepot is a single stovetop aluminum percolator thing that weighs less than two pounds. Once you have the coffee made, you put a little hot water and a spoonful of powdered milk into a lidded mug and shake it really hard to make it foamy. Then you pour coffee into the mug, and it's like a fake cappuccino. I thought it was clever. The men do it and people say, "The dude really loves his java." I do it and they say, "She's so spoiled."" This gives no support that the coffeemaker was an actual cappuccino machine. Sandy was known for bringing luxury items on the trip, but you have to give her some credit for putting up with a fake cappuccino every day. This says a lot for her, because she acted like she couldn't survive without her laptop, cell phone, fax machine, etc. in the novel.
She rounds off the interview with a statement. "I haven't climbed since '96... I wasn't really in a position to keep climbing. I still think climbing any mountain is a great and worthy goal, and no person should be so... judgmental of other people to dismiss Everest... just because it's already been climbed. I assume that everybody... has his own reasons for being there, and I'm not in a position to judge who's got adequate or inadequate experience. We're all adults and capable of making our own decisions."

quote:

Around 1880, the Tsangpo River was still a mystery. Was this river, which flows from west to east through Tibet, perhaps the same river that flows into the Bay of Bengal under the name of Brahmaputra, as Nain Singh thought? To find this out, the colonial government of India sent a Sikkimese pundit named Kinthup into Tibet, together with a Chinese lama, as whose servant he would act. They were to throw logs into the Tsangpo, fifty logs a day for ten days. Along the Brahmaputra, surveyors would be on the lookout for these logs. However, the lama proved unreliable. He wasted time on flirting with various women and eating and drinking with his colleagues, and then sold Kinthup to a Tibetan lama. After seven months in slavery, Kinthup managed to escape, and travelled east along the Tsangpo. His master nearly captured him, but he fled into a Buddhist monastery, and the head lama bought him from his previous owner.
Despite all, Kinthup was still dedicated to his task, and after a few months he asked permission to make a pilgrimage, and used his leave to cut and mark the logs. He did not throw them in the water yet - it was eighteen months since he had left India, and he realized that no one would be looking for the logs any more. So Kinthup returned to the monastery, some time later asked for permission to make a pilgrimage again, and went to Lhasa, where he had a fellow Sikkimese bring a letter to the survey authorities to tell about his fate, and announce when he would be throwing the logs into the river. Kinthup returned to the monastery, and on his next leave threw the logs into the river as announced. Only then he returned to India, but there disappointment awaited him. His letter had not reached India, and his report of his travels was not believed.

Kinthup left the survey and became a tailor. Only many years later did geographers realize that his reports and his story were completely correct - and that the Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra were indeed the same river.

quote:

Kinthup, a Lepcha man from Sikkim, was an explorer in the area of Tibet in the 1880s. He is best known for his impressive devotion to duty in surveying a previously unknown area of Tibet.[1]

In the 1870s, the destination of the Tsangpo River (sometimes spelled "Sanpo") was unknown. Some hypothesized that it was the same river that flowed into the Bay of Bengal under the name of Brahmaputra (also known as "Dihang")? To solve this mystery, the colonial government of India sent a pundit explorer, known only as "G. M. N." to follow the Tsangpo and determine its ultimate destination. G. M. N. was accompanied by his assistant, a Sikkimese lepcha named Kinthup.[1] After surveying a good portion of the river, the pair returned to India. In 1880, a Chinese Lama was employed to continue G. M. N.'s work, and Kinthup was again hired to accompany him.[1] However, in May 1881, this Lama sold Kinthup as a slave to another Tibetan lama. All of Kinthup's surveying equipment and notebooks were taken from him, and he served as a slave until March 1882, when Kinthup finally managed to escape.[1] He traveled east along the Tsangpo, and sought sanctuary in a Buddhist monastery, where he was welcomed by the head lama.

Despite this Kinthup carried out his surveying. Over the course of two and a half years, under the guise of religious pilgrimages, he made several long trips, surveying the extent of the Tsangpo and surrounding region, determining that the two rivers were indeed one and the same. Finally, in November 1884, he was able to return to India.[1] It was not until 2 years later that his account was even recorded, and even then, his extraordinary accounts were doubted by some geographers.[1] It was only more than 30 years later, when a proper survey was carried out, was his story confirmed.[1]

elwood posted:

by the way, this blog should probably be in the OP.

http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/everest/everest-2015-coverage/

The North Tower posted:

Can we get a kill count in the OP?

The North Tower posted:

WORDS

The North Tower posted:

Awesome! To clarify, will you draw all 3, or just the first person to pick? I put the guessers in chronological order for each number of deaths.

Dr.Smasher posted:

I thought some 13 year old or 14 year old beat her to the punch, rendering her pre-written book obsolete

quote:

From Tibet over 100 people summited. And from Nepal, six summits, albeit aviation assisted since the climbers flew to Camp 2 instead of climbing through the Icefall.

quote:

In general, the new generation of sherpas are quite different from their fathers and grandfathers. They have more western style education, they are more ambitious, they do not hesitate to show their emotions.

quote:

The Everest Haters, found red meat in this action, using it as further evidence that today’s Everest climbers (and the Haters reject even using the term climber) were incapable of attempting Everest without the support of the sherpas. They were correct.

quote:

Local newspapers called her “legendary”. When asked about helicopters, she refused to comment but two days later said she never used a helicopter and had climbed the Icefall. Her helicopter pilot and new organizer said she had flown into the Camp 2. The Ministry said they would look into it before issuing a final summit certificate.

Finally on June 6, she told Chinadaily she did take a helicopter.

SimianNinja posted:

This is amazing!

Some animation would be pretty sweet. Like rotating corpses or something? Or just go full Blingee?

SC Bracer posted:

Does that banner in devnagiri actually mean anything because I'm pretty sure its gibberish at least in hindi or urdu. Bkhabhachabhakath mbhabathaj ayya(?) hunjhchh???

Also this is my first everest thread and I am enjoying it immensely, even if I'm not ready to bet on dead people.

Butt Wizard posted:

Can the OP please correct the date of the first summit to 1953, not 1952?

FreakerByTheSpeaker posted:

I'm saying one, but with a really specific caveat: it will be ONE OF US!

Picnic Princess posted:

Hey, did any video game nerd ever go to Everest base camp? Wasn't that a prize being given away by the geniuses behind FarCry 4?

Wasabi the J posted:

Best I could do in Pixlr at work...

ChickenOfTomorrow posted:

The irrational self-confidence of Everest climbers is a perfect match for the bitcoiner's misplaced faith in magic internet money.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2zwi8i/brazilian_bitcoiner_is_climbing_everest_and_will/