This week, Mount Everest claimed the life of 3 climbers and 1 Sherpa, still two other climbers are missing — is the risk of death really worth the adventure?
Article: Why would someone risk their life to climb a mountain when the odds of surviving may not be in their favor? For survivors, Everest is the ultimate high, but with triumph also come tragedies. And no one understands that more than the families of those who recently died trying to reach that ultimate high.
Three dead – two missing
In the wake of recent tragedies, today, Retired Staff Sgt. Chad Jukes, 2nd Lt. Harold Earls and Capt. Elyse Ping Medvigy reached the summit of Mount Everest and achieved that ultimate high. In doing, so they hoped to shed light on the uphill battle that …show more content…
Since 1953, more than 250 people have died trying to reach the summit. But the most dangerous part of climbing Mount Everest is not trying to reach the summit — it’s trying to get back down. All three deaths occurred on the descent.
After Jon Krakauer, wrote the bestseller, Into Thin Air, detailing his harrowing experience on Mount Everest, in which, only two of the six mountaineers who reached the summit survived, it was believed that climbers who die scaling Mount Everest lack the experience needed to navigate the mountain’s treacherous topography. However, a study conducted in 2008 by an international research team led by Massachusetts General Hospital investigators and published in Science Daily concluded that most deaths on Mount Everest happen above 8,000 meters, and during the descent into an area known as the “death zone.”
Strydom had reached the final camp from the summit before she and her husband, Robert Gropel, both began suffering from high-altitude pulmonary edema, which caused fluid to build up in Strydom’s brain. Her husband survived the descent and was taken to a Nepal hospital for treatment, according to the Sydney Morning
Article: Why would someone risk their life to climb a mountain when the odds of surviving may not be in their favor? For survivors, Everest is the ultimate high, but with triumph also come tragedies. And no one understands that more than the families of those who recently died trying to reach that ultimate high.
Three dead – two missing
In the wake of recent tragedies, today, Retired Staff Sgt. Chad Jukes, 2nd Lt. Harold Earls and Capt. Elyse Ping Medvigy reached the summit of Mount Everest and achieved that ultimate high. In doing, so they hoped to shed light on the uphill battle that …show more content…
Since 1953, more than 250 people have died trying to reach the summit. But the most dangerous part of climbing Mount Everest is not trying to reach the summit — it’s trying to get back down. All three deaths occurred on the descent.
After Jon Krakauer, wrote the bestseller, Into Thin Air, detailing his harrowing experience on Mount Everest, in which, only two of the six mountaineers who reached the summit survived, it was believed that climbers who die scaling Mount Everest lack the experience needed to navigate the mountain’s treacherous topography. However, a study conducted in 2008 by an international research team led by Massachusetts General Hospital investigators and published in Science Daily concluded that most deaths on Mount Everest happen above 8,000 meters, and during the descent into an area known as the “death zone.”
Strydom had reached the final camp from the summit before she and her husband, Robert Gropel, both began suffering from high-altitude pulmonary edema, which caused fluid to build up in Strydom’s brain. Her husband survived the descent and was taken to a Nepal hospital for treatment, according to the Sydney Morning