Frightening pictures from Mount Everest that have taken the internet by storm. Why don't they pick up the dead on Everest Corpses on Mount Everest

This article was written not to intimidate beginners to climb mountains, but so that climbers of any qualification know and remember that any climb in the mountains is dangerous, and climbing the most difficult mountains in the world is deadly. Let's consider one example: climbing the highest Peak of the world, and the most desirable for many climbers - (Chomolungma), 8844 m.

Chomolungma(Tib. Everest, or Sagarmatha(from Nepali - the highest peak of the globe, with a height according to various sources from 8844 to 8852 meters, is located in the Himalayas. It is located on the border of Nepal and China (Tibet Autonomous Region), the peak itself lies on the territory of China. It has the shape of a pyramid; the southern slope is steeper. With glaciers flow down the massif in all directions, ending at an altitude of about 5 thousand m. On the southern slope and edges of the pyramid, snow and firn are not retained, as a result of which they are partially exposed.

This mountain does not forgive pride and vanity. She kills those who underestimated or overestimated their strength. The mountain has no sense of pity or justice, it kills according to the principle - surrender - die, fight - survive. According to statistics, about 1,500 people have climbed Everest. From 120 to 200 remained there (according to various sources). Among these 200 people there are those who will always meet new conquerors. According to various sources, there are eight openly lying bodies on the northern route. Among them are two Russians. From the south there are about ten.

WHO FIRST CONQUERED EVEREST?

The message that spread around the world in early May 1999 left none of the climbers indifferent. According to ITAR-TASS, the body of Mallory, the leader of the English expedition of 1924, was found 70 meters from the summit of Everest. In accordance with this information, the Russian press, based on comments from specialists, including mine, clearly concluded that Mallory had reached the summit. And therefore it is necessary to rewrite the history of the conquest of the highest mountain on Earth. (Until now, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Norgay Tenzing, who climbed Everest on May 29, 1953, were considered the first climbers). However, as it turned out later, the body was found much lower - at an altitude of 8230 m; It is not clear where ITAR-TASS received other information.

“Yes, in the mountains there lie hundreds of corpses frozen from cold and exhaustion, who fell into the abyss.” Valery Kuzin.
“Why are you going to Everest?” asked George Mallory.
“Because he is!”

I am one of those who believe that Mallory was the first to reach the summit and died on the descent. In 1924, the Mallory-Irving team launched an assault. They were last seen through binoculars in a break in the clouds just 150 meters from the summit. Then the clouds moved in and the climbers disappeared.
The mystery of their disappearance, the first Europeans remaining on Sagarmatha, worried many. But it took many years to find out what happened to the climber.
In 1975, one of the conquerors claimed that he saw some body off to the side of the main path, but did not approach so as not to lose strength. It took another twenty years until in 1999, while traversing the slope from high-altitude camp 6 (8290 m) to the west, the expedition came across many bodies that had died over the past 5-10 years. Found among them. He lay face down, spread out, as if hugging a mountain, his head and arms frozen into the slope.
The climber's tibia and fibula were broken. With such an injury, he was no longer able to continue his journey.
“They turned it over - the eyes were closed. This means that he did not die suddenly: when they break, many of them remain open. They didn’t let me down - they buried me there.”
Irving was never found, although the bandage on Mallory's body suggests that the couple were with each other until the very end. The rope was cut with a knife and, perhaps, Irving could move and, leaving his comrade, died somewhere lower down the slope.

In 1934, the Englishman Wilson made his way to Everest, disguised as a Tibetan monk, and decided to use his prayers to cultivate willpower sufficient to climb to the top. After unsuccessful attempts to reach the North Col, abandoned by the Sherpas accompanying him, Wilson died of cold and exhaustion. His body, as well as the diary he wrote, were found by an expedition in 1935.

A well-known tragedy that shocked many occurred in May 1998. Then a married couple, Sergei Arsentiev and Francis Distefano, died.

Sergey Arsentiev and Francis Distefano-Arsentiev, having spent three nights at 8,200 m (!), set out to climb and reached the summit on 05/22/2008 at 18:15. The ascent was made without the use of oxygen. Thus, Frances became the first American woman and only the second woman in history to climb without oxygen.

During the descent, the couple lost each other. He went down to the camp. She doesn't.
The next day, five Uzbek climbers walked to the top past Frances - she was still alive. The Uzbeks could help, but to do this they would have to give up the climb. Although one of their comrades has already ascended, and in this case the expedition is already considered successful.
On the descent we met Sergei. They said they saw Frances. He took the oxygen cylinders and left. But he disappeared. Probably blown by a strong wind into a two-kilometer abyss.
The next day there are three other Uzbeks, three Sherpas and two from South Africa - 8 people! They approach her - she has already spent the second cold night, but is still alive! Again everyone passes by - to the top.

“My heart sank when I realized that this man in the red and black suit was alive, but completely alone at an altitude of 8.5 km, just 350 meters from the summit,” recalls the British climber. “Katie and I, without thinking, turned off the route and tried to do everything possible to save the dying woman. Thus ended our expedition, which we had been preparing for years, begging money from sponsors... We did not immediately manage to get to it, although it was close. Moving at such a height is the same as running under water...
Having discovered her, we tried to dress the woman, but her muscles atrophied, she looked like a rag doll and kept muttering: “I am an American. Please, do not leave me"…
We dressed her for two hours. “My concentration was lost due to the bone-piercing rattling sound that broke the ominous silence,” Woodhall continues his story. “I realized that Katie herself was about to freeze to death.” We had to get out of there as quickly as possible. I tried to pick Frances up and carry her, but it was no use. My futile attempts to save her put Katie at risk. There was nothing we could do."

Not a day went by that I didn't think about Frances. A year later, in 1999, Katie and I decided to try again to reach the top. We succeeded, but on the way back we were horrified to notice the body of Frances, she was lying exactly as we had left her, perfectly preserved under the influence of low temperatures. No one deserves such an end. Katie and I promised each other that we would return to Everest again to bury Frances. It took 8 years to prepare the new expedition. I wrapped Frances in an American flag and included a note from my son. We pushed her body into the cliff, away from the eyes of other climbers. Now she rests in peace. Finally, I was able to do something for her." Ian Woodhall.

A year later, the body of Sergei Arsenyev was found: “I apologize for the delay with photographs of Sergei. We definitely saw it - I remember the purple puffer suit. He was in a bowing position, lying just beyond Jochen's "subtle rib" in the Mallory area at approximately 27,150 feet. I think it's him." Jake Norton, member of the 1999 expedition.

But in the same year there was a case when people remained people. On the Ukrainian expedition, the guy spent a cold night almost in the same place as the American woman. His team brought him down to the base camp, and then more than 40 people from other expeditions helped. Got off easy - four fingers were removed.

“In such extreme situations, everyone has the right to decide: to save or not to save a partner... Above 8000 meters you are completely occupied with yourself and it is quite natural that you do not help another, since you have no extra strength” . Miko Imai.
“It is impossible to afford the luxury of morality at an altitude of more than 8,000 meters”
In 1996, a group of climbers from the Japanese University of Fukuoka climbed Everest. Very close to their route were three climbers from India in distress - exhausted, sick people caught in a high-altitude storm. The Japanese passed by. A few hours later, all three died.

“The corpses on the route are a good example and a reminder to be more careful on the mountain. But every year there are more and more climbers, and according to statistics, the number of corpses will increase every year. What is unacceptable in normal life is considered normal at high altitudes.” Alexander Abramov.

“You can’t continue climbing, maneuvering between corpses, and pretend that this is in the order of things.” . Alexander Abramov.

The mountain kills in different ways, sometimes sophisticated, but every year an increasing number of climbers travel to its foot to test their fate and their strength.

Common causes of death at such altitudes:

– cerebral edema (paralysis, coma, death) due to lack of oxygen,
– pulmonary edema (inflammation, bronchitis, rib fractures) due to lack of oxygen and low temperatures,
– heart attacks due to lack of oxygen and high stress,
– snow blindness,
– frostbite, the temperature at such altitudes drops to -75,
– but the most common thing is exhaustion from exertion, because... At such an altitude, the human digestive system almost does not work; the body eats itself, its muscle tissue.

Frostbite:

Tina Sjogren

Climber Beck Withers was twice left on the side of a mountain, thinking he was frozen to death, but he survived, remained disabled and wrote the book Left for Dead (2000).

As early as 1924, Everest climbers noted that after nine weeks spent at intermediate altitudes, a person can rise to 8530 m and sleep two or three nights at an altitude of up to 8230 m. Ascents in free balloons were first shown in the seventies of the last century An unacclimatized aeronaut, having risen to such heights, quickly lost consciousness and died. If people are exposed to reduced pressure in a pressure chamber at sea level, then at a pressure corresponding to an altitude of 7620 m, they lose consciousness after 10 minutes, and at a pressure corresponding to an altitude of 8230 m, after 3 minutes.

The highest known altitude at which there is a permanent population is 5335 m. In the Andes at this altitude there is a mine village called Aconquilcha. They say that the miners prefer to rise from this height to 455 m every day and not live in a special camp built for them by the mine administration at an altitude of 5790 m.

Everest climbers also noted that during the process of acclimatization, their physical condition improved up to a height of 7000 m. Above that, rapid and serious exhaustion of the body occurred, manifested in progressive weakness, drowsiness, the inability to restore lost strength and gradual muscle atrophy.

At altitudes of 6500-7000 m there is a slow depletion of the body, but this is smoothed out by the process of acclimatization, so that headaches and other symptoms of mountain sickness disappear, and for some time the climber’s health improves. But over time, appetite disappears, tissues begin to deplete, energy and performance decrease. The table below shows the longest stays of climbers on Everest at various altitudes:

Climbing to a height of more than 8000 m requires such colossal stress that it is unlikely that anyone is able to repeat it during the same expedition. Full recovery after such an ordeal takes many weeks.

Many ordinary people ask the question with horror: “Why aren’t the corpses removed from the mountain and buried?” But how can you explain to a person who has not been there what kind of mountain it is? That from a height of more than 8,000 thousand there are not many chances to descend on your own, and to remove a corpse you need to organize an entire expedition, which will cost a lot of money. But the main problem is that the whereabouts of most of these corpses are unknown.

Rescue work on Everest

Camp after the storm:

Many books have been written on the topic of Everest, many films have been shown. And yet, NS statistics do not decrease every year.

In 2006, there were 11 fatal accidents out of 450 successful ascents (2.4% mortality), and the overall (1922-2006) mortality rate is 6.74%.

Division by year:

1922-1989; 285/106 (37.19%)
1990-1999; 882/59 (6.69%)
2000-2005; 1393/27 (1.94%)
1922-2006; 3010/203 (6.74%)

Despite such chronological data, there were quite a lot of successful expeditions to Everest. Thus, the first successful ascent of a group of two people took place on May 5, 1982. The leader of the expedition, Evgeniy Tamm, identified the first assault group consisting of V. Balyberdin and E. Myslovsky. Phenomenally resilient and resistant to oxygen starvation, Balyberdin led a relatively weak participant. Myslovsky’s ascent was difficult: to some extent, the doctors’ conclusions were justified. He dropped his oxygen equipment, suffered severely from the cold, and was suffocating. His partner gave him his oxygen mask and supported him psychologically in a dramatic moment. The assault on the top of the world by this first group was successful.

Somewhat later, nine members of the expedition climbed Everest. And their rise was dramatic. Very serious assistance had to be provided to the climber V. Onishchenko: at an altitude of 7500 meters he had an attack of acute mountain sickness with a sharp drop in blood pressure. He needed resuscitation. Myslovsky with frostbite on his fingers and toes, and V. Khreshchaty, who made a night climb to the summit with frostbitten feet, had to be urgently taken out of the base camp by helicopter. Climber Moskaltsev fell into a crack and received a traumatic brain injury. Everest was reluctantly conquered by athletes. Nevertheless, this massive ascent took place.

The 1982 expedition was an outstanding achievement in world mountaineering. The participants were awarded government awards. Balyberdin and Myslovsky received the Order of Lenin. But, unfortunately, later the record-breaking conquest of Everest was completely forgotten.

Summit 8844 m

And despite everything, Everest remains one of the most beautiful eight-thousanders in the world. But we must always remember that we cannot conquer the mountain, it can either let us in or not. And we can conquer our weakness and cowardice. And I immediately remembered the words from V. Vysotsky’s song...

If a friend suddenly turns out to be
And neither friend nor enemy, but so...
If you don't understand right away,
Whether he is good or bad,
Pull the guy to the mountains - take a risk,
Don't leave him alone
Let him be in conjunction with you -
There you will understand who he is.

If a guy is in the mountains - no,
If you immediately become limp - and down,
Stepped onto the glacier - and wilted,
I stumbled and screamed
This means there is a stranger next to you,
Don't scold him, drive him away:
They don’t take people like that up here either
They don't sing about people like that.

If he didn’t whine, didn’t whine,
Even though he was gloomy and angry, he walked
And when you fell off the cliffs,
He moaned, but held on
If I followed you as if into battle,
Standing at the top, drunk,
So, as for yourself,
Rely on him.

The editors of “ALP” obviously apologize if they used other people’s photo materials. Due to the fact that 50% of the photos were taken from Google Image, the authors are unknown. Therefore, please, if the actual author recognizes his photo work in this material, please contact us, we will definitely indicate the copyright or remove it at the request of the owner.

It is estimated that more than 200 people died trying to reach the summit of Everest. The reasons for their death are as varied as the weather at the top. Climbers face a variety of dangers - falling off a cliff, falling into a crevice, asphyxiation due to low oxygen levels at high altitudes, avalanches, rockfalls and weather that can change radically in a matter of minutes. Winds at the summit can reach hurricane force, literally blowing climbers off the mountain. Low oxygen levels cause climbers to suffocate, while oxygen-deprived brains leave them unable to make rational decisions. Some climbers who stop for a short rest fall into a deep sleep, never to wake up. But ask any climber who has conquered the mountain and reached the 29,000-foot summit, and they will tell you that apart from all these dangers, the most memorable and most disturbing part of the climb was the many perfectly preserved bodies of those who died on the way to the summit. .

Apart from the seven-day trek to Base Camp and the two-week acclimatization period there, the ascent to Everest itself lasts 4 days. Climbers begin their four-day climb to Everest at Base Camp, located at the foot of the mountain. Climbers leave Base Camp (located at 17,700 feet), which demarcates Tibet and Nadas, and ascend to Camp No. 1, located at 20,000 feet. After a night of rest at Camp 1, they then go to Camp 2, also known as Advanced Base Camp (ABC). From Advanced Base Camp they climb to Camp 3, where, at 24,500 feet, oxygen levels are so low that they must wear oxygen masks while sleeping. From Camp 3, climbers 3 attempt to reach either the South Col or Camp 4. Having reached Camp No. 4, climbers reach the border of the “death zone” and must decide whether to continue climbing, then stop and rest a little longer, or return back. Those who decide to continue climbing face the most difficult part of the journey. At 26,000 feet, in the “death zone,” necrosis begins and their bodies begin to die. During the climb, climbers are literally in a race against death, they must reach the top and return before their bodies shut down and they die. If they fail, their bodies will become part of the mountain landscape.

Corpses are perfectly preserved in such a low-temperature environment. Considering that a person can die literally in two minutes, many dead are not recognized as such for some time after death. In an environment where every step of the climber is a struggle, rescuing the dead or dying is practically impossible, as is the evacuation of corpses. The bodies become part of the landscape, and many of them become "landmarks", later climbers using them as "markers" during their ascent. There are approximately 200 bodies lying at the summit of Everest.

Some of them:

David Sharp's body still sits near the summit of Everest, in a cave known as Green Shoe Cave. David was climbing in 2006 and near the top he stopped in this cave to rest. Ultimately, he became so cold that he could no longer get out of it.

Sharpe was no stranger to the mountains. At the age of 34, he had already climbed the eight-thousander Cho Oyu, passing the most difficult sections without the use of fixed ropes, which may not be a heroic act, but at least shows his character. Suddenly left without oxygen, Sharpe immediately felt ill and immediately collapsed on the rocks at an altitude of 8500 meters in the middle of the northern ridge. Some of those who preceded him claim that they thought he was resting. Several Sherpas inquired about his condition, asking who he was and who he was traveling with. He replied: “My name is David Sharp, I’m here with Asia Trekking and I just want to sleep.”

A group of about forty climbers left Englishman David Sharpe alone to die in the middle of the northern slope; Faced with the choice of providing assistance or continuing to climb to the top, they chose the second, since reaching the highest peak in the world for them meant accomplishing a feat.

On the very day that David Sharp died surrounded by this pretty company and in utter contempt, the world's media sang the praises of Mark Inglis, the New Zealand guide who, without legs amputated after a professional injury, climbed to the top of Everest using hydrocarbon prosthetics. artificial fiber with cats attached to them.

His body still sits in the cave and is used as a guide for other climbers climbing to the top

The body of “Green Shoes” (an Indian climber who died in 1996) is located near the cave, past which all climbers ascending the peak pass. The "Green Shoes" now serve as a marker that climbers use to determine the distance to the summit. In 1996, Green Shoes broke away from his group and found this rock overhang (actually a small, open cave) to use as protection from the elements. He sat there, shivering with cold, until he died. The wind has since blown his body out of the cave.

The bodies of those who died at the Advanced Base Camp are also left to lie where they froze.

George Mallory died in 1924, the first person to attempt to reach the top of the world's tallest mountain. His corpse, still perfectly preserved, was identified in 1999.

Details: Mallory was the first to reach the summit and died on the descent. In 1924, the Mallory-Irving team launched an assault. They were last seen through binoculars in a break in the clouds just 150 meters from the summit. Then the clouds moved in and the climbers disappeared.
The mystery of their disappearance, the first Europeans remaining on Sagarmatha, worried many. But it took many years to find out what happened to the climber.
In 1975, one of the conquerors claimed that he saw some body off to the side of the main path, but did not approach so as not to lose strength. It took another twenty years until in 1999, while traversing the slope from high-altitude camp 6 (8290 m) to the west, the expedition came across many bodies that had died over the past 5-10 years. Mallory was found among them. He lay on his stomach, spread out, as if hugging a mountain, his head and arms frozen into the slope.

Climbers often place rock debris and compacted snow around their bodies to protect them from the elements. Nobody knows why this body was skeletonized.

The bodies lie on the mountain, frozen in the position in which death found them. Here a man fell off the path and, not having the strength to get up, died where he fell.

The man is supposed to have died sitting, leaning on a snowdrift, which has since disappeared, leaving the body in this strange elevated position.

Some die when they fall from cliffs, their bodies remaining in places where they can be seen but cannot be reached. Bodies lying on small ledges often roll down, out of sight of other climbers, only to be later buried under fallen snow.

American Francis Arsenyeva, who was descending with a group (which included her husband), fell and begged passing climbers to save her. While walking down a steep slope, her husband noticed her absence. Knowing that he did not have enough oxygen to reach her and return to base camp, he nevertheless decided to return to find his wife. He fell and died while trying to go down and get to his dying wife. Two other climbers successfully descended to her, but they knew that they could not carry her off the mountain. They consoled her for a while before leaving her to die.

Details: Sergey Arsentiev and Francis Distefano-Arsentiev, having spent three nights at 8,200 m (!), set out to climb and reached the summit on 05/22/1998 at 18:15. The ascent was made without the use of oxygen. Thus, Frances became the first American woman and only the second woman in history to climb without oxygen.
During the descent, the couple lost each other. He went down to the camp. She doesn't.
The next day, five Uzbek climbers walked to the top past Frances - she was still alive. The Uzbeks could help, but to do this they would have to give up the climb. Although one of their comrades has already ascended, and in this case the expedition is already considered successful.
On the descent we met Sergei. They said they saw Frances. He took the oxygen cylinders and left. But he disappeared. Probably blown by a strong wind into a two-kilometer abyss.
The next day there are three other Uzbeks, three Sherpas and two from South Africa - 8 people! They approach her - she has already spent the second cold night, but is still alive! Again everyone passes by - to the top.
“My heart sank when I realized that this man in the red and black suit was alive, but completely alone at an altitude of 8.5 km, just 350 meters from the summit,” recalls the British climber. “Katie and I, without thinking, turned off the route and tried to do everything possible to save the dying woman. Thus ended our expedition, which we had been preparing for years, begging money from sponsors... We did not immediately manage to get to it, although it was close. Moving at such a height is the same as running under water...
When we discovered her, we tried to dress the woman, but her muscles atrophied, she looked like a rag doll and kept muttering: “I’m an American.” Please, do not leave me"…
We dressed her for two hours. “My concentration was lost due to the bone-piercing rattling sound that broke the ominous silence,” Woodhall continues his story. “I realized: Katie is about to freeze to death herself.” We had to get out of there as quickly as possible. I tried to pick Frances up and carry her, but it was no use. My futile attempts to save her put Katie at risk. There was nothing we could do."
Not a day went by that I didn't think about Frances. A year later, in 1999, Katie and I decided to try again to reach the top. We succeeded, but on the way back we were horrified to notice Frances' body, lying exactly as we had left her, perfectly preserved by the cold temperatures.

"No one deserves such an end. Kathy and I promised each other that we would return to Everest again to bury Frances. It took 8 years to prepare a new expedition. I wrapped Frances in an American flag and included a note from my son. We pushed her body into a cliff, away from the eyes of the other climbers. Now she rests in peace. Finally, I was able to do something for her." - Ian Woodhall.

Unfortunately, even with modern mountaineering technology, the list of climbers who have died on Everest is growing. In 2012, the following climbers died while attempting to climb Everest: Doa Tenzing (collapsed due to thin air), Karsang Namgyal (collapsed), Ramesh Gulve (collapsed), Namgyal Tshering (fell into a glacier crevasse), Shah -Klorfine Shriya (loss of strength), Eberhard Schaaf (cerebral swelling), Song Won-bin (fall), Ha Wenyi (loss of strength), Juan Jose Polo Carbayo (loss of strength) and Ralph D. Arnold (broken leg led to loss of strength ).

Deaths continued in 2013; The following climbers met their tragic end: Mingma Sherpa (fell into a crevice in the glacier), DaRita Sherpa (loss of strength), Sergey Ponomarev (loss of strength), Lobsang Sherpa (fall), Alexey Bolotov (fall), Namgyal Sherpa (cause of death unknown) , Seo Sung-Ho (cause of death unknown), Mohammed Hossain (cause of death unknown), and one unknown person (died on descent).

In 2014, a group of approximately 50 climbers preparing for the season was caught in an avalanche at an altitude of over 20,000 feet (just above base camp on the Khumbu Ice Cascade). 16 people died (three of them were never found).

Scary footage from the Discovery Channel in the series “Everest - Beyond the Possible.” When the group finds a freezing man, they film him, but are only interested in his name, leaving him to die alone in an ice cave:

The question immediately arises: how is this possible?

based on the materials of the article.

Everest is the highest mountain on Earth (8848 meters above sea level). Its peak rises above the clouds. The mountain attracts many climbers, because to climb Everest is to go beyond the limits of human capabilities. But only a few succeed. The local Sherpas call Everest the Mountain of Death and for good reason. Climber deaths on Everest are common. The slopes of the mountain are literally strewn with the corpses of climbers who were never destined to reach the top

Killing Silence

It is known that the human body feels best when it is at sea level, and the higher a person rises, the heavier it becomes for his body. Already at an altitude of 2500 meters above sea level, a person is “covered” by “mountain sickness”. Low atmospheric pressure reduces the level of oxygen in the blood, and accordingly the climber begins to have a headache, dizziness, insomnia, vomiting, etc...

But all this is child's play compared to what happens on Everest. Having risen to a height of 8000 meters, you find yourself in the so-called “death zone”. The body cannot adapt to this altitude, because... there is not enough oxygen to breathe. The rate of breaths increases from the usual rhythm (20-30 breaths per minute) to 80-90. The lungs and heart tense. Many people lose consciousness. So in the death zone, almost all climbers use oxygen cylinders for breathing.

The most difficult section of the Everest climb is the last 300 m, nicknamed by climbers “the longest mile on Earth.” The ascent on this last section takes about 12 hours. To successfully complete the section you need to overcome a steep, smooth rock slope covered with powdery snow.

But this is just one of Everest's problems. In addition to oxygen deprivation, snow blindness, dehydration and disorientation may occur. At eight thousand meters, the human stomach can no longer digest food, people lose energy and turn into helpless dolls... The higher you rise, the greater the risk of cerebral or pulmonary edema. At high altitudes there is a rapid accumulation of fluid in the tissues. This often leads to fatal consequences.

Added to all these difficulties are unexpected meteorological hazards: adverse winds, storms, icing, snow and avalanches.

Frostbite can occur in a matter of minutes. As a result, swellings and blisters form, followed by gangrene. An idea of ​​the intensity of the cold is given by an incident that happened to the famous mountaineer Howard Somervell during his attempt to climb Everest in 1924.

At the altitude, Somervell began to cough and felt something stuck in his throat. Then he exhaled with a powerful push and a piece of blood fell onto the snow. Taking a closer look, the climber realized that the airway was blocked by a frozen piece of his own larynx...

Yet Somervell was luckier than many others. He managed to return home.

Corpses in the snow

Everest was officially conquered in 1953. Since then (data for 2012), over 240 people have died while trying to climb to the top. The death zone is replete with corpses, but no one knows exactly how many there are.

Over time, corpses sticking out from under the snow began to be used by climbers as route markers. On the northern route alone, eight corpses are indicated as markers on the map. Two of them are Russian. About ten corpses act as anchor points along the southern route.

"Green Boots" This nickname was given to the corpse of Indian climber Tsewang Paljor, who died in 1996. The man fell behind his group and soon froze. Today, all climbers often set up camp next to his body.

Literally not far from the Green Boots you can see the body of climber David Sharp. In 2005, he stopped to rest near the top, but soon felt that he was freezing. At this time, a group of 30 climbers passed near him. People heard a faint groan and realized that the man lying on the snow was still alive. However, they did not help the dying man. Today, Sharpe's corpse also serves as a point of orientation.

Dead body in a sleeping bag.

In 1996, a group of climbers from the University of Fukuoka, Japan, discovered three dying Indians while climbing Everest. They were caught in a storm and asked for help. However, the Japanese refused to help them. And when they came down, the Indians were already dead.

“It is impossible to afford the luxury of morality at an altitude of more than 8000 meters,” the famous climber Miko Imai commented on the situation. – In such extreme situations, everyone has the right to decide: to save or not to save their partner. At extreme heights you are completely occupied with yourself. It is quite natural that you cannot help another, since you do not have extra strength...

You may ask why no one is evacuating the bodies. The answer is simple. Helicopters cannot rise to such a height, and no one wants to lower bodies weighing from 50 to 100 kilograms.

In 2008, environmental groups were formed to clean up Everest. Participants in the Everest eco-expedition collected 13,500 kilograms of garbage, of which 400 kilograms were human remains.

In low temperatures, these gloomy “distance markers” persist for a very long time. Whenever possible, Sherpa guides push frozen corpses down from the cliffs, away from human eyes. But soon new markers appear at the top.

As already mentioned, no one knows the exact statistics about the number of climbers who died on Everest. Officially, you have to pay $30,000 to get up, but many people don't have that kind of money. So many people start climbing alone or in small groups. Groups try not to register and people simply disappear.

One of the climbers once said: “If you want to prove to yourself that you are mortal, try climbing Everest.”

Three tries

A tragedy that shocked many occurred on Everest in May 1998. Then a married couple, Sergei Arsentiev and Francis Distefano-Arsenyeva, died on the slopes of the mountain.

Frances became the first American woman to reach the summit of Everest without oxygen tanks. Together with her husband, she climbed the mountain, but on the way down they got caught in a snowstorm and got lost. He went down to the camp, she did not. Without waiting for his wife, Sergei Arsentiev went in search of her and died.

In turn, Francis, exhausted, lay on the slope of Everest for two days. Moreover, climbers from different countries passed by the frozen but still alive woman, but they did not help her.

Only the Woodhall couple from England tried to pull Frances down, but they too soon left, as they were putting their own lives at risk.
“We found it at an altitude of 8.5 km, just 350 meters from the top. “My heart sank when I realized that this woman was still alive,” recalls British climber Ian Woodhall. “Katie and I, without thinking, turned off the route and tried to save the dying woman. Thus ended our expedition, which we had been preparing for several years, begging for money from sponsors...

We did not immediately manage to reach her, although she lay close. Moving at such a height is the same as running underwater.
We tried to dress Frances, but her muscles had already atrophied, she looked like a rag doll and kept muttering: “I’m American. Please, do not leave me". We dressed her for two hours and I felt that due to the bone-chilling cold I was losing concentration. And soon I realized: my wife Katie herself was about to freeze to death. We had to get out of there as quickly as possible. I tried to pick Frances up and carry her, but it was no use. My futile attempts to save Frances endangered my wife's life. There was nothing we could do...
Not a day went by that I didn't think about Frances. And then a year later, in 1999, Katie and I decided to try again to get to the top. We succeeded, but on the way back we were horrified to notice the body of Frances, she was lying exactly as we had left her. No one deserved such an end.

Katie and I promised each other that we would return to Everest again to bury Frances. It took 8 years to prepare the new expedition. I wrapped Frances in an American flag and included a note from her son. We pushed her body off the cliff, away from the eyes of other climbers. Finally, I was able to do something for her.

When Prince Siddhartha was born, it was prophesied that he would give up his entire vast inheritance and become a great teacher.
Fearing that the prophecy would come true, his father, the Raja of one of the Indian principalities, surrounded his son with care and comfort.
One of the raja's commands was to clear the city streets of sick and infirm people, the sight and conversations with whom could force Siddhartha to leave the fate of the heir to the principality.

But nevertheless, the prince was concerned about the problems of the commoners.
One day, in the thirtieth year of his life, Siddhartha, accompanied by the charioteer Channa, got out of the palace. There he saw “four sights” that changed his entire subsequent life: an old beggar, a sick man, a decomposing corpse and a hermit.
Then he realized the harsh reality of life - that illness, suffering, aging and death are inevitable and neither wealth nor nobility can protect against them, and that the path of self-knowledge is the only way to understand the causes of suffering.

This prompted him, in his thirtieth year, to leave his home, family and property and go in search of a way to get rid of suffering.

Today we know this great man by the name of Buddha.

At the core of his teaching was the concept of impermanence, that we should live our lives as productively as possible and not fear death.

Buddhists usually face death soberly. Many of them also treat corpses calmly. They make a distinction between a person's body, a temporary shelter, and his soul - an immortal essence destined for eternal real life.

Perhaps because we foreigners lead a much more mundane lifestyle, we are very uncomfortable being around dead bodies. As a rule, they make either a disgusted or disgusting impression on us. We are unable to distinguish between the earthly body and eternal life.
Many of us are afraid of dead bodies, but oddly enough, if the corpse becomes increasingly difficult to identify, then the horror that arose towards it is erased.
We are horrified when we see how a pathologist works with recently deceased people, but at the same time we can quite calmly observe the work of an archaeologist who has dug up the skeleton of a person from the distant past.

One of the things that shocks and surprises people to whom I tell about my climb to Everest is that they think that I climb to the top by stepping over a huge number of corpses.
But why weren’t these bodies brought down and buried according to the canons of the Buddhist religion? they ask me.

But before I answer this question, I'm going to debunk the popular media myth that Everest is literally littered with the bodies of dead climbers.
Debunking this myth is very important because it is what proves that climbing Everest is inherently unethical. Believe it or not, many people even hold a grudge against climbers who climb Everest, believing that they are completely devoid of conscience, that they will stop at nothing to reach the top of Everest, and that climbers are ready to walk to the top even over the corpses of their comrades.

Returning to the theme of the myth, we can say with confidence that Everest is littered with the bodies of dead climbers just as much as Antarctica is littered with the bodies of dead pioneers of Shackleton’s era.

Yes, it is true that more than 200 people died on Everest during their ascents, and that the bodies of the vast majority of them are still on the mountain.
But on the other hand, Everest is a huge territory, and most of the bodies of the dead are hidden in the depths of the Northern Wall, the Kangshung Wall and the Khumbu Glacier. These "burials" are as inaccessible as if the bodies were buried several hundred meters underground. And even more so, not a single climber will stumble or step over them when climbing to the top.

Perhaps the best example of this is on the Northeast ridge of Everest in 1924.
Some people believe that if climbers can find Irwin's body, he will also have a camera with him that could reveal the century-old secret of Everest: whether Irvine and Mallory were on its summit in 1924.

However, for almost 100 years now, climbers have been searching for Irwin’s body on the North Slope... For this, both the visual method and aerial photographs and satellite images are used. But all searches turn out to be in vain, and apparently Irwin’s body will never be found.

There are many more corpses in our city cemetery, and they lie much denser.... Of course, not all are hidden from view, but at the same time, every tombstone marks these bodies, but there are also places where there are no tombstones.... and this means that when I walk with the graves of my relatives, I unwittingly step over or even step on the graves of other people who have been buried for a long time.

So let's stop reacting to tabloid headlines. Everest is not littered with corpses!
Over the past 100 years, less than 300 people have died in this mountain range. There are hundreds of other places on Earth that have had much greater casualties.
But what shocks people so much when we talk about corpses on Everest? Perhaps the fact is that these bodies remain on the mountainside and are not taken to the valleys where they could be buried in the ground.
So why is this happening?

A simple answer to this question is the fact that in most cases it is simply impossible to carry out such an operation.
Helicopters cannot operate at high altitudes due to the thin atmosphere, and on the Tibetan side, their flights in the highlands are generally prohibited by the Chinese government!

Even if a person died in the arms of his comrades, lowering the body from a great height will take all the climbers and sherpas of the expedition, and in the pre-summit zone, even the well-coordinated work of the entire team may not help in the descent.
Most climbers, when stepping above the "death zone", are aware of this fine line between life and death. And they consider their safety as their first priority and not reaching the top at any cost.
In addition, a special operation to remove the body of the deceased from the mountain to the valley will cost tens of thousands of dollars to the family of the deceased, and will also endanger the lives of other climbers taking part in this operation.
Climbers' insurance typically covers search and rescue, but these policies do not cover the recovery of a deceased person.

The bodies of those climbers who died after falling off the route are often unattainable for the rescue team, and in such harsh conditions, these bodies very quickly freeze into ice.

The bodies of those climbers who died from exhaustion, located near the ascent route, are often at the edge of the field of view, or after some time, end up on the slopes of the South-West Face or on Kangshung from the Tibetan side.
A similar thing happened to David Sharp, a British climber who died on the northeast ridge in 2006. His body was removed from the climbing route at the request of his family.
A similar thing happened to the Indian climber Tsevan Paljor, who died in 1996, but his body remained in plain sight in a niche on the north-eastern part of the ridge for almost 20 years: but now it is not there... apparently it was removed from the route.

Yet every year people die on Everest, and in most cases their bodies remain on the mountain. If you attempt to climb to the top and climb to it, you will probably notice several bodies of the dead along the way.

I also walked near the bodies of the dead, but I did not dwell on them. I understood that these few bodies were only a small fraction of those killed who remained here forever over the past decades.
I saw that some bodies were lying along the route, they died from exhaustion, and I could understand how they died, I knew how they suffered and understood that I could not afford to leave my family and friends with such grief.

Please pay attention to this photo. It shows a view of the Everest route from the third stage. The photo was taken from a height of 8600 meters. If you study it in detail, you can see four corpses on the slope of Everest.
Two bodies lying close to the route most likely died from exhaustion. One body is 50 meters below, partially covered in snow, and another is hanging over the edge of a rocky area. These bodies were carried by climbers away from the trail, which was essentially the equivalent of a burial.

In general, in this section, near the third step, there is a large number of bodies of the dead, this is due to the fact that from here, the top of Everest seems to be at arm's length, and this deceptive fact forces climbers to move to the top despite their condition, when the right decision was would turn down.

Let me remind you once again that this photo was taken at around 8600 meters and only about 100 people a year pass this section, and those who found the strength to reach such a height are already having difficulty finding the strength to fight for their own survival.
Only in this photograph did I discover the bodies of two more dead climbers, because in fact, with my own eyes I saw only two on this step...
But as paradoxical as it sounds, these two bodies helped me survive the ascent

I have since removed this photo from my blog to prevent inappropriate comments and conversations.
I have left here only a low-resolution version of the photo, which would make it very difficult to distinguish the bodies of the dead.

Some people who hear about bodies lying on Everest say that the mountain should be closed to climbers in memory of those who remained there forever.
I don’t quite understand this approach, but I think that this opinion arises when people do not know at all what mountaineering is, what climbing to the tops of mountains is.
Climbers who go to Everest understand and know about the risks, they themselves decided to take this risk, because mountaineering and victories enrich their lives.

Of course, not everyone believes that such a risk is worth the reward, but this is the choice of every climber. Mountaineering and the mountains are not a place where it is wise to interfere with the choices of others.
I don’t know a single climber who would like the mountain to be closed for climbing in memory of those who died, of those who took risks and their risk was higher than they could overcome.

Perhaps it would be easier if people saw climbing Everest as a metaphor for life. And if you want to live life, you must accept that from time to time you will see corpses, because the dead are part of real life.
Perhaps this look will help to more soberly assess the situation with Everest and understand what the corpses on the mountainside mean.
Every death is a tragedy for the loved ones of the deceased, but death is an unchangeable part of our existence. Death accompanies us all throughout our lives. And when someone dies, we can learn to be more merciful and become a better person.

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If you can't go to Everest, don't go...

A well-known tragedy that shocked many occurred in May 1998. Then a married couple, Sergei Arsentiev and Francis Distefano, died.

“In such extreme situations, everyone has the right to decide: to save or not to save a partner... Above 8000 meters you are completely occupied with yourself and it is quite natural that you do not help another, since you have no extra strength.” Miko Imai.