{"id":784,"date":"2014-12-09T19:32:54","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T02:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/?p=784"},"modified":"2015-11-28T22:08:54","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T05:08:54","slug":"everest-excess-of-oxygen-money-and-common-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/everest-excess-of-oxygen-money-and-common-sense\/","title":{"rendered":"Everest: Excess of oxygen, money, and common sense."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"smoking-at-everest\"<\/a>
[If I get dizzy, I can probably get helicoptered down for $$.]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

There, I said it. I’m not ashamed to admit it, and I’m not even a\u00c2\u00a0climber. \u00c2\u00a0Everest is a joke. I have no respect for 99% of people summiting it.<\/p>\n

You learn a lot through the trekking grape vine, and some of it is\u00c2\u00a0actually true. You learn what tea houses have the least offensive
\napple pie. You learn what type of baby powder to sprinkle on\u00c2\u00a0your\u00c2\u00a0body to mask 2 weeks without a shower. And you learn which peaks are\u00c2\u00a0climbed for bragging rights and which ones are actually hard. Take\u00c2\u00a0for instance, Annapurna, which is 757 meters shorter than Everest, but\u00c2\u00a0has a 40-50% death rate. Everest, on the other hand, is a tourist\u00c2\u00a0joke for people with far more money than common sense.
\n
\nAfter a week of trekking, we ended up staying in Tengboche (or\u00c2\u00a0Pangboche or Dingboche or Lobuche… I get all my che’s confused),\u00c2\u00a0where we got to hang around a handful of climbers waiting for some\u00c2\u00a0sheet of ice to fall off of Ama Dablam<\/a> so they\u00c2\u00a0could summit it. One beer led to another, and we ended up hearing\u00c2\u00a0stories from half a dozen sherpas that had each climbed Everest an\u00c2\u00a0average of 7 times each.<\/p>\n

Everest has become so commercial, that little girls, 80 year old men,\u00c2\u00a0and triple amputees can now summit it (albeit with no shortage of\u00c2\u00a0uncomfortable breathless nights). Now you can acclimatize on a\u00c2\u00a0neighboring peak (?Island Peak?) and then be helicoptered to base\u00c2\u00a0camp, where you will be taught how to use crampons for the first time\u00c2\u00a0in your life. That’s right, in some of the high end tours, you don’t\u00c2\u00a0even need prior climbing experience. All you need is anywhere from\u00c2\u00a0$60,000 to $150,000, and you get your own personal sherpas which will\u00c2\u00a0push and pull you at the appropriate times.<\/p>\n

The average Everest expedition consists of 24 tons of equipment on the\u00c2\u00a0back of 600 porters and a similarly absurd number of guides (no,\u00c2\u00a0that’s not a typo). All this, so a handful of westerners can be\u00c2\u00a0pushed\/pulled on kilometers of fixed lines that have been carefully\u00c2\u00a0set up prior, all while eating Cliff Bars, connected to supplemental\u00c2\u00a0oxygen, and eating sushi at the end of the day (no joke– most\u00c2\u00a0expeditions bring cooks).<\/p>\n

I’m sorry. No respect. I’m removing an Everest summit from my\u00c2\u00a0bucket list, and putting my unicycle attempt on Monte del\u00c2\u00a0Estado<\/a> back on the docket. I’m sure Hadji, Tato and Nuni will not\u00c2\u00a0only approve, but volunteer to sherpa up some limbers\u00c2\u00a0de coco<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There, I said it. I’m not ashamed to admit it, and I’m not even a\u00c2\u00a0climber. \u00c2\u00a0Everest is a joke. I have no respect for 99% of people summiting it. You learn a lot through the trekking grape vine, and some of it is\u00c2\u00a0actually true. You learn what tea houses have the least offensive … Continue reading Everest: Excess of oxygen, money, and common sense.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":993,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}