Nick Symmonds Everest Update

I'm still waiting!!!

But anyway. In 1983 I talked to Laurie Skreslet. (Look him up!!!)

His most memorable quote: "My Grandmother can climb Everest the way they do it now."

(Did I mention 1983?)

Erm....I like your post, generally. But Fiji is widely regarded as "an easy climb".

I KNOW Fuji is easy, lol...

my point is that someone like me, who at least has had a modicum of success in running, well - I found it challenging to climb Fuji overnight during July at age 21, at a low bodyweight, very lean.

Therefore, mountains that are actually challenging are like, way way more challenging

Yes there is. It's called the 1,000

POTY!!!

You beat me to it. I climbed Fuji twice and it was easy-peasy. The second time, it was with a group of co-workers and even the chain smoking Japanese guys made it to the top. It was kind of funny there were restaurants and coke machines near the summit.

Why the 1k is harder is because the pace is 99% identical to the 8.

I ran the 1,000 in college at both southwestern and utep. Got down to 230.5. Which is practically 4min mile pace for 2 and half laps. The 1,000 is harder than the 8 because everyone runs it at EXACTLY the same pace as the 8. Just look at Hoey. His 1k record is basically nothing but an extention of his 800m pace

Oh. Right. Gotit. Sorry.

As an athlete and mountain climber, I would like to give my two cents. I hope it does not sound too pretentious…

As some have already mentioned, difficulty and danger are different concepts, so let’s leave aside the risk of being trapped in an avalanche or buried by a serac collapse.
For high mountains, in particular all 14 8000ers, altitude is definitely a major parameter contributing to the overall difficulty. Normal routes on Everest, Lhotse or Cho Oyu, once equipped with fixed lines, are technically not difficult and technically manageable for an average alpinist. But coping with the altitude and hypoxia in the death zone requires other skills that very few possess, even among the toughest and technically best climbers.

Using supplemental oxygen does basically suppress this physiological difficulty, in addition to providing additional advantages like reduced frostbite risk, etc. So yes, climbing Everest along the normal route, having your gear/camps carried/installed by Sherpas and using bottled O2 (especially for those starting using O2 from Camp III or even lower) is not very difficult and achievable for reasonably fit climbers with good acclimatisation capabilities.
Climbing an 8000er without supplemental oxygen is definitely another feat, even on the normal route. And the altitude difference between Cho Oyu (8188m) and Everest (8848m) is again an enormous additional step. It's not for nothing that only about 200 people have managed to reach the summit of Everest without O2.

Previous posters compared the achievement of climbing Everest with supplemental O2 to running a 3:00 marathon and without O2 to a 2:05-2:06 marathon. I would quite agree with this estimate.

Back to Nick Symmonds attempt, I haven’t read anything about it and don’t know whether he is attempting with or without O2. If it is with O2, there is definitely nothing special to brag about, thousands and thousands of reasonably fit climbers have done it before, including many youtubers and internet "celebrities". If he succeeds without O2, then hats off.

There’s plenty of laughably ignorant comments here about climbing Everest or any other mountain over 26k altitude. Most people don’t understand that it’s called the “death zone” because your body is literally dying at that altitude. Combine that with weather you’ve never imagined before, delirium from lack of oxygen, and the climb, the body shuts down. Death can come in minutes or seconds. Getting to the top is less dangerous than then trek back down.

Laurie Skreslet climbed Everest in 1982 via the normal route with Sherpa support and using bottled oxygen. So not that different in essence to the current commercial expeditions.

The point is that almost everyone (about 98%) including Sherpas is using supplemental O2 on Everest, which in practice makes it similar to climbing up to 2000m lower depending on the O2 flow. Most also sleep with O2 at camp IV (7900m) and many even do it at camp III (7300m).

I believe it is a bit disingenuous for those writing about the death zone in their expedition accounts without mentioning that they were in fact no really experiencing the death zone for using supplemental oxygen.

Avalanche and serac collapse are like cars for a marathon, they don’t increase the difficulty.

Altitude, high winds, storms and cold do add to the difficulty though, both while mountaineering or running a marathon.

Base Camp. Not the summit.

abc.net.au

Paraplegic Australian reaches Everest Base Camp by climbing on his hands

https://www.abc.net.au/news/siobhan-heanue/166962

An Australian paraplegic who lost the use of his legs as a teenager climbs to Everest Base Camp in Nepal, using mostly his hands, and the occasional piggyback ride from a friend.

Open link

Climbing K2 is way more difficult than climbing Everest

Nope. 32% was the # of death vs successful summit by 2012. Currently the ratio has lowered to approx 20%.

The 43 deaths were not caused by a single avalanche on the mountain and are not accounted in the number of deaths while climbing Annapurna. They relate to snowstorms in October 2014 in the Annapurna region that killed 43 trekkers, guides, porters and herders. I don’t think a single Annapurna climber died during the event.

I give him props for doing it. It's cool he continues to be so active.

Is he using supplemental oxygen?