Conquering Mount Everest was once the holy grail of mountaineering. And it basically still is, though more people are making the attempt than ever. Not everyone who tries the climb makes it home — but why? Here's why Mount Everest is claiming so many lives.
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00:00Conquering Mount Everest was once the holy grail of mountaineering, and it basically
00:04still is, though more people are making the attempt than ever.
00:08Not everyone who tries the climb makes it home.
00:10But why?
00:11Here's why Mount Everest is claiming so many lives.
00:14Mount Everest is more than 29,000 feet tall, which might make you think most victims of
00:19the mountain die by falling, but that's only the second most common cause of death.
00:23According to the BBC, most people who die on Everest are killed in avalanches.
00:27The third most common cause of death on the mountain is exposure or frostbite, which accounts
00:32for around 11 percent of fatalities.
00:34Other causes of death include falling ice, rope accidents, pneumonia, or even drowning.
00:40Surprisingly, more people die on the way down from the summit than on the way up, and route
00:44preparation is dangerous, too.
00:46A total of 120 people have died while working on the routes, with a handful more dying at
00:51base camp, on route to base camp, or during an evacuation.
00:55So really, you're not safe anywhere on Mount Everest.
00:59Mount Everest is one of the most remote places on Earth.
01:01It takes ten days just to get to base camp in Nepal, six weeks to acclimatize, and another
01:06nine days to climb to the top, and that's assuming conditions are ideal.
01:10It's also expensive.
01:12The low-end figure for an Everest expedition is about $30,000, with an average cost of
01:17around $65,000.
01:19And yet one of the things that's been killing people on Mount Everest is something most
01:22of us wouldn't expect — traffic.
01:25In a strange and unexpected development, modern Everest has become something of a tourist
01:30trap.
01:31On the perfect climbing day, you might encounter hundreds of other climbers, all trying to
01:35reach the exact same spot.
01:37So now, much like your favorite theme park, you have to wait in line.
01:41The difference is, if you stand too long in line at a theme park, the only pain and suffering
01:45you'll experience is the endless whining of your children.
01:48If you wait too long in line at Mount Everest, you might run out of oxygen and die.
01:52So bring lots of oxygen canisters.
01:54Or, you know, just stay away from this mountain and go line up for Space Mountain instead.
02:00You can climb Everest from two different base camps, one in Nepal and the other in Tibet.
02:04The governments behind both camps used to be pretty selective about who got to go up
02:08the mountain.
02:09Up until 1985, Nepal tended to allow only one expedition on each route at a time.
02:14But Nepal is not a wealthy nation, and a single climbing permit costs $11,000.
02:20That represents a significant income for Nepal.
02:23In total, the climbing industry is worth about $300 million a year.
02:27The Nepalese government issued a record number of 381 permits in 2019, and announced no intention
02:33of scaling back, despite seeing the highest death tolls since 2015.
02:37Ang Dorji Sherpa, who's summited Everest 20 times, says he's never seen the mountain so
02:44packed.
02:45Do you think things need to change?
02:46Yes.
02:47There are also no official physical requirements for climbing permits, and some of the adventure
02:51outfits operating in Nepal are less than strict about who they'll take to the summit.
02:56That means more inexperienced climbers on the mountain, which means more danger for
02:59everyone.
03:01You might imagine the best time to visit Everest would be high summer, when you don't have
03:04to worry about blizzards and freezing temperatures.
03:06But you can only really climb Everest during the month of May, in a very short window of
03:11time between the winter storm season and the summer monsoon season.
03:14But hey, that's at least balmy spring, right?
03:17Nope.
03:18At base camp, daytime temperatures max out at around 59 degrees Fahrenheit, and at night
03:22they drop to freezing.
03:24That temperature drops roughly 2.7 degrees for every 490 feet of elevation, and the summit
03:29is 11,429 feet above base camp.
03:33On the flip side, some parts of Everest can be hot in May, up to 90 degrees, especially
03:38broad snowy expanses that reflect the sun.
03:41So even in ideal conditions, the weather is going to be bad, and just because you book
03:45your ascent during that narrow window doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be safe.
03:49In recent years, there has been a rash of so-called blue sky deaths, because everyone
03:53wants to climb Everest when the sky is blue, and in the 2019 season, the weather window
03:58was especially narrow.
04:00On May 22nd, 2019, climbers set a record for the most humans to reach the summit in a single
04:05day, with a total of more than 200.
04:09No matter how fit you are, once you reach a certain elevation, your body starts to literally
04:13die, and you still have more than 4,000 feet to go.
04:17At that point, you're racing against your own mortality.
04:20That last 4,000 feet is called the death zone, because there's not enough air there for the
04:24human body to continue functioning.
04:26Outside magazine editor Grayson Schafer described the death zone to NPR, saying,
04:31"...once you get to about 25,000 feet, your body just can't metabolize the oxygen.
04:36Your muscles start to break down.
04:38You start to have fluid that builds up around your lungs and your brain.
04:41Your brain starts to swell.
04:43You start to lose cognition."
04:44When you are at that altitude, every breath you take, it only contains about a third of
04:50the oxygen that it would if you were at, say, sea level."
04:54In the death zone, climbers can suffer from heart attack, stroke, and altitude sickness.
04:59Fluid can accumulate in the lungs, leading to altitude pulmonary edema, which causes
05:03a cough that's sometimes so severe it can crack a rib.
05:06The low oxygen can also lead to transient blindness or hemorrhage in the blood vessels
05:11of the eyes.
05:12And the whole experience is so physically taxing that one study found Everest climbers
05:16typically lose between 10 and 20 pounds.
05:19As a climber's body fails, so does the brain.
05:23Climbers in the death zone can experience high-altitude cerebral edema, which can cause
05:27vomiting and impair judgment.
05:29Some climbers might actually forget they're on Everest and behave irrationally at the
05:33worst possible time.
05:35Some climbers may even experience a kind of psychosis, and there are plenty of reports
05:39of people hallucinating.
05:40The conditions make it very difficult to make life-or-death decisions, for yourself
05:45or anyone else.
05:46Once you're in the death zone, there's very little you can do to help a fellow climber
05:49in distress, meaning that trying to help someone may just result in both of you dying.
05:54Is that theme park starting to sound good yet?
05:57Impaired judgment and high altitudes are not a great combination, but when you add ego
06:01and a heavy financial investment, you've got all the ingredients for death and despair.
06:06There's a phenomenon called summit fever that exerts fierce control over many Everest climbers.
06:11It's partially caused by impaired judgment, but it also has to do with fear of failure
06:15and an unwillingness to spend tens of thousands of dollars to not make it to the top.
06:20You're so close and you want to summit, and you're pulled mentally with this strain of
06:24I want to go up, but I should go down.
06:26People who have spent years preparing for Everest may not be ready to face defeat, even
06:30when it's obvious they're not going to make it.
06:33So instead of turning around and being humble, people push themselves through deadly conditions,
06:38and often, they get deadly results.