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| Edited: 03/09/08 20:20 |
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If you want to climb 8,000m peaks then you have to accept the very high chance of death - very high for something that is a leisure activity. Everest's 10% chance of death is more dangerous than fighting in Iraq and this is something you do for fun? this is your hobby? K2 apparently is even more so. I have to question do these people not have families? What to they say to them before they set off to climb K2? "Goodbye Babes, I love you very much, just not enough to put you ahead of my fanatical desire to climb yet another remote spire of rock and ice which very easily could kill me. Hope you understand." Surely to have the expertise and physical ability to attempt an 8,000m summit requirtes you to have learn myriad and numerous ways of keeping yourself safe. I have learnt how to watch the weather and when it's time to go back down. We all have an understanding of how dangerous the high places can be and we take account of this on our trips and days out. Yet, I believe, that the greatest of us, those who can assault Himalayan giants, have to ignore all they have learnt before they can even consider climbing such a peak. To begin such an endeavour is to show such recklessness for one's safety as to be polarised to all the principles you'd learn on even a Scout camping trip. There is a point when you cannot be skilled enough, cannot be well enough equipped, cannot be fit enough - and if you go past that point then you are a reckless fool. That point is trying to climb K2. Controversial, but I think 8,000m mountaineering is a very selfish thing to do. I say this knowing someone who has summitted K2 and gone beyond Everest's North Col. It's very hard on the family.
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 I think it's generally accepted that mountaineers are 'selfish' people, even amongst the people who take part. Joe Simpson has dedicated a lot of time to writing about the seemingly absurd motives for climbing and a lot of it has to do with addiction as far as i can tell. Partners do know what they are getting themselves into when they choose to go into a relationship with these people. These are dangerous environments but skill goes a long way, and random accidents can happen to anyone at any time. It's too easy to spend your life in a meaningless rut- are the people who do this using the fantastic gift they've been given in a better way than those people who climb mountains?
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 I think for many of them it isn't a leisure activity at all - it's their business and their way of earning a living. I doubt if it begins that way, but once you get caught up in the game of attracting sponsorship, or clients, or corporate motivational speaking gigs..... I suppose whether it's selfish or not depends very much on who's left behind to pick up the pieces.
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 Leave them alone. Until commerce bit deep and those who shouldn't go high were able to do so merely because they had the money to buy a place on a trip, expedition members were chosen mainly for their incredible technical abilities, stamina, hard won experience. This enabled/enables them to limit their exposure to risk to extreme objective dangers, eg the one in thousand day rockfall just as they were front tipping their way across an exposed icefield or an unforecast storm rolling in or the serac choosing to tumble during the half hour when it could have fallen at any time during the previous five years - minimising their risk due to ability to move fast. Too often their gambles were lost but the greater majority succeeded. They climb because to live without climbing is impossible. Can you imagine Haston, Scott walking the dog in the park, growing fat in front of the safe TV, repainting the bedroom every 2 years to keep their partners 'happy'? Yes this is selfish but we are all selfish. Even Mother Theresa was selfish because for her to live any other way would have been unbearable.
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 Neath Nath, what kind of name is that? Go and live a little, do something at least a little scary or dangerous and get yourself out of that 'comfort zone' preferably doing something you enjoy. (without endangering others)You will be a better person for it.... If you survive, of course! The sort of person that wants to do these extreme things (8000ers etc) would in all probability be misserable and a nightmare for there families if they were forced through imotional blackmail, financial reasons etc not to participate in their dreams to conqour.... If that doesn't get you going, maybe eat more red meat.
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 You only get one go at this life, it isn't a rehearsal. Experience as much as you can before the lights go out. 
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 quite right mike. i'm off to run across the motorway with my eyes closed. or should i relegate that to the 100th thing i try before i die?
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I heard the M1 was very busy!
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 the chance of a mountaineer killing someone else is really slim. do you drive neath?
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 ...the chance of a mountaineer killing someone else is really slim... Errr... yeah it is. Last time a mountaineer nearly killed me was nearly 30 years ago. There I was, minding my own business, stuck in a queue of about 20 people on Jack's Rake in the Lakes, when this rock-climber peeled off the crag above me and nearly took me the quick way down to Stickle Tarn. Fortunately, I held my ground, despite nearly having my arm ripped off, and the rock-climber did a couple of cartwheels and stopped just on the edge of a sheer drop. For the record, it doesn't bother me in the slightest if someone wants to top themselves in the outdoors, so long as they don't involve me in it!
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