Everest's INDUSTRIAL Age: Death Toll Rises & Costly Rescues Require Action #everest #mountains

Angela Benavides is a High-Altitude Mountaineering and Climbing journalist for Explorers Web - https://explorersweb.com/

PLEASE SUPPORT the families of Sherpa and mountain workers who have died while working in the mountains, check out this video: https://youtu.be/Htd_l89ejJY

The two Polish climbers mentioned in the video who flew in from Kathmandu to rescue Carlos Soria on Dhaulagiri are Bartek Ziemski and Oswald Pereira.

As of May 18 there are over 200 summits of Mount Everest with hundreds of others still moving forward to make their attempt to climb to the summit of Mount Everest.

There are eight deaths as of May 18th, including for Sherpa, an Indian woman attempting to become the first to climb Everest with a pace maker, a Moldovan climber named Victor Brinza fell ill at South Col and passed away.

The weather is holding. Families around the world anxiously await news from their loved ones to hear a report from the mountain 

And if any of you watch my shorts, you’ve heard about new records Kami Rita Sherpa has summited Everst for the 27th time, he is 53 and the holder of the record for most summits of Everest

And Kenton Cool has summited Mount Everest for his 17th time, becoming the person with the most summits for a non Nepali.

And a 16 year old climber from China….The Chinese girl Sui Cho Yuan successfully reached atop Everest via the south slope at 5:42am on May 15



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Transcript

Thom Pollard: 0:00

Two more deaths on Everest bring the number to eight this season and there are over 200 successful summits. It is peak season on Mount Everest, and the drama continues. Apparently there is a problem in the ice fall where some more ice has fallen from a hanging surfac has stopped teams from leaving base camp for their summit bids but the weather is settled and the long weather window continues. Many hundreds of people are still making their way or endeavoring to make their way toward the summit. I have a great interview with explorers web reporter and journalist Angela Benavides is from her home in Spain will elucidate and elaborate on many of the stories that are taking place on Everest and throughout the Nepal Himalaya. One of the deaths on the mountain was an Indian woman who was endeavoring to become the first and oldest Indian woman but the first to climb the mountain with a pacemaker a very interesting story. Indeed, if it didn't end so horribly. It would be something perhaps we could take some time to comment on. Angela will talk about that. If any of you have been watching my shorts that I've posted. You've also heard about the new record set by Kami Rita Sherpa who has summited Everest for his 27th Time incredible he's 53 years old and still going and also Kenton Cool. He has summited Everest for his 17th time becoming the person with the most summits for a non Nepali and interestingly, a 16 year old climber a Chinese girl sweet show you won successfully reached the top of Everest via

the South Col route at 5: 1:38

42am on May 15, it is an interesting time indeed, when the Mount Everest season is in its peak, and Angela Benavides today has informed me that she has already written for stories and I'm sure her day or evening because she's about five hours ahead of me is probably still going strong as the stories continue to unfold and evolve on Mount Everest Dhaulagiri and beyond. And after the interview with Angela, you're going to want to stick around because I'm going to give the results of two amazing polls that I did on Everest mystery. The answer is coming up after the interview before the end of this video. And another poll question. Before we get to the interview with Angela Benavidez. From explorers web. I want to let the Mallory and Ervin sleuths know that I'm working on an awesome story about Mallory and Ervin about the mystery. And that story should be ready by the 99th anniversary of their disappearance, which is on June 8 of this year. And boy have things really changed since then, wherein in 1924. After the death and disappearance of Mallory and Ervin, it took weeks for the news to reach home. Now, the news is instantaneous. And Angela has said that Everest, it's changing so much that people have right at their pockets, the ability to post instantly on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and text their families literally or call their families from the summit of Mount Everest. It's really an immediate age. Angela has called it the Industrial Age of mountaineering. And it surely rings true here we began our conversation talking about social media and how instantaneous it is. And then we moved on to talk about some of the important stories that are taking place on Everest and throughout the Nepal Himalaya. Here's my conversation with Angela, enjoy. But what I find it hard to explain is that if you asked me oh, well, there's a record number of people there are lots of Summit. No one has yet posted on super big traffic yams when there might be but if they are no one speaking about them, right you have teams trying to coordinate in order to avoid them. We have a beautiful, long summer window right now. And yet we have news of people passing away every single day which is you know when you see it from an informative point of view is just information but the huge drama behind someone dying on a mountain. It's enormous for the families for the friends the people in Boulder engage with them, even if even on social media, right as

Angela Benavides: 4:39

well. It's it's hard and then sometimes we are like, sorry for my bad English. It's like it's dehumanized in the sense that it's just okay. Yeah, so just someone else someone else dying because he shouldn't be there. We aren't voluntarily turned to to price ourselves with moral judgment, we to sound fair of course, right? Oh, we have this there was an Indian woman who passed away today. And it's really sad. And she wanted to be the first person summiting Everest with a pacemaker. So it didn't work, obviously. But I don't know, it's so easy to surprise yourself, because it's not something you do on purpose, right? It's just the automatic reaction. Oh, what were you doing there with a pacemaker, or we shouldn't have been there. Those are moral judgments that we are not really entitled to do. But then we have this day after day,

Thom Pollard: 5:45

Everest is always under a magnifying glass no matter what. So we've put ourselves there willingly and put ourselves in a firing line, so to speak, by promoting our grand adventures on the highest mountain in the world. But, but you're right, so when somebody dies, it from the outside, it tends to be a statistic. Ooh, this is so interesting. But there's eight families right now mourning the loss of a loved one, and teams trying to organize and get the information out without having anything incorrect going out. And so you search through the internet. I went, and after that gentleman from Moldova passed away, I think yesterday that I found a picture of him is wonderful photograph of him excitedly tracking to the Khumbu and he was just this kind of cool guy going on an adventure and he's gone now. And it is a lot of drama. But there's also a lot of successes you had I read that on climbing the Seven Summits they had 44 cents successful a sense, front and back as 100% summit success right now. So there's a lot of good things that you're seeing happening, but can you give me a little rundown Have you had said dollar Giri, there was a rescue there.

Angela Benavides: 7:05

Okay, so right now what we have on Dhaulagiri is the quite popular climber from Spain. His name was Carlos Soria, he was 84 years old and he was attempting Dhaulagiri stubbornly where it was the 14th time. But he he was injured on like a very, very high, very high, but some 7700 meters, which was right below the summit area. At the end of the traverse, that's a very dangerous, a very bad place to have an accident. And that's what happened. He was apparently some someone slipping down and a piece of fixed rope which went loose something but enough to break his leg. And then he had to be rescued down. Right. And as I said he was the short story is that he was finally lifted today to hospital from camp to where he will be well cared off and well treated. But there's a lot of questions lingering there. Right about how do you react to the rescue because the fact is that they had to ask for help to to police climbers, who were already in Katmandu, they had climbed no like URI before. And they were in Katmandu, I guess planning to go home. But they they asked for the help, they airlifted and dropped them on Camp too. And they had to contribute to the rescue, which is great. I mean, they're amazing people. And it's not the first time they are willing to give a hand to someone in trouble. And the very strong, both of them are extremely strong. But then you say, okay, there were more people on the mountain. There are lots of details that we didn't know, was there. No one else to help? was maybe the people willing to help not skilled enough for such kind of rescues? was Carlos not supported enough in a panda he was right here. He always said that. Yeah, I'm climbing with a lot of Sherpas. But that's what we do in order not to ever need help from anyone else. But then an accident took place and he needed help and his team was not enough. So well. Let's see how this unfold because we have the rescue with a happy ending. And now what we have is a story behind and some open debate that I think it's healthy is necessary that okay with such a blooming industry, the call centers, and that's only my point of view. There should be a rescue service as well as there is you know, the the Khumbu Icefall. It's it's a team specific to open the road on Everest through the Khumbu Icefall. Maybe we need a professional Rescue Service in with really skilled people well paid, right because it's not as simple as asking someone to raise the lights for mountain solidarity, which is great, but well i Not that simple anymore. That's Dhaulagiri on Makalu. We have another rescue, at least one other rescue, but there was some other people in trouble. People who was going without oxygen. And here we have another debate open and also a moral dilemma in which I have to include myself. And I'm thinking a lot about that. Sometimes we media, we promote the mountaineering spirit of no oxygen assisted climbs. But then I wonder if some of the downsides of it is that we have people who are risking too much in order to go without oxygen, and they they reach the summit, they are very slow. And eventually on the way down, they cannot just continue. So well wonder where that pressure from media from the community might have these somber side too. We have that on Everest wellness. I don't know how many summits I am not able to count them anymore. But we do. We might have a record this year. Again, that was record number of permits, and might well be in record number of Summit. Yeah, we have people. You know, the regular guides, as I say on evidence, they are there every year. They have like 1020 Tomato variants because they work there every year. It's like the SDLC is like the mountain guides in the Alps or Denali. Right they they climb the mountain several times per season and it's the same, on average, just you know, at a bigger scale, and Kanchenjunga Kanchenjunga, I'm trying to find out because we have Christine Harry Lau Norway there. I'm still gathering some information. So because though there was there was a summit push, some people retreated. But then Kristin Harila announced she had submitted and we can see it on her tracker, she is engaged in that record quest of summiting the 14 8000ers in six months. And she's got now four of them out of four attempts, which is great. But then also we have this debate right in the distance that in a time of resetting our priorities of rethinking what is the meaning of mountaineering, the spirit of adventure, the sport side of it, not better or worse, just in a moment of crisis. That's what I say when when we reset everything, and we try to understand what's going on right now. Wait, wait, what? What does it mean? Like 2000 people on Everest moving up down the mountain at the same time? Wow. Right. So yeah, that's what I've seen. And that's why it's, it's exciting. On the one side, there's so much going on. It's strange, because everything is like, as a bigger scale. More industrial, I have to say, with more people, but less valuable information.

Thom Pollard: 13:19

Angela, thank you so much for your tireless dedication to the stories that are unfolding on Mount Everest and beyond. In the meantime, we'll certainly keep our eyes on the explorers web home page. I'll post that link in the notes and description of this video. If you have enjoyed what you've heard today, I hope you'll take a moment to subscribe to this channel Everest mystery, and also click the Join button and take a look at the membership. It's very low entry fee to get in to help support me and the work that I'm doing here. Okay, and now to the answers of the poll, I asked a question as an unabashed fan of Mr. Beast, who on his page asked a question if someone offered you $10,000. But if you took it a random person somewhere on planet Earth dies, would you take the $10,000 22% of the people said yes. And you can make the checkout to blank for their name. And then 78% said no way interesting to consider that in about 200 votes that 22% represents more than 40 people who are no longer living because those 40 people would enjoy $10,000 Crazy right? Okay, the next poll question what is more dangerous climbing Mount Everest or driving a car 72% said easy climbing Mount Everest is way more dangerous. And then 28% said, Oh, come on. Driving a car is definitely more dangerous. Interesting, right? Well, the fact is that generally speaking If you have a one in 100 chance of dying, if you try to climb Mount Everest, if you leave base camp that is going up higher on the mountain. Now driving a car, you have a one in 103% chance if you are driving a car in the United States, which makes the odds for dying about equal. So I guess climbing Mount Everest is more dangerous. Amazing. In the coming days. I'll put some more poll questions up. Thanks for your answers. And if you haven't answered and would like to take part in the poll question, go to the Community tab. And you can find the poll questions there. And now I think I hear someone singing. Yep, that's it. Thanks for being here. I really appreciate you for taking time out of your day to spend some time on this channel. Have an awesome day. Be well be kind. Take good care of yourselves and take good care of those people that you love and do a kind act to somebody you don't know today. It will make you feel better and will make them feel better to peace out my friends.