Killian Jornet's Everest summit might not have happened

Even Tenzing Norgay got a photo at the summit of Everest.

http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1702756_1516365,00.html

Suunto wrote:

scam_watcheroo wrote:

A broken clock is still right twice a day. Whatever Dan's background may be, we are evaluating the evidence and judging the merits of the evidence and so far Dan looks much more convincing than Kilian.

Agreed. Seems best case scenario is that Suunto watches are not reliable.

They're plenty reliable, the issue is that he was using low accuracy mode to save battery. I have an older Suunto so this may have improved, but for me low accuracy mode is not reliable to 54 meters.

PisaPrados wrote:

Which makes sense because Mt Everest summit is in a Plateau, so probably Kilian reached the perimeter of such plateau and didn't go to the midpoint of it.

You are talking crap

Being a good runner doesn't make you a good climber

My apologies if already addressed, but what was Jornet's explanation for his GPS not indicating he actually made it to the summit? Thank you.

In his defense, Jornet makes very strong statements:

1. The barometric altitude, which peaks at 8600m, does show a 200m drop before another 300m climb - that is consistent with a drop in air pressure, or some recalibration issue.

2. He says he has summit photos that will be released in the documentary movie.

Wait until the movie is released, or you will end up with egg on your faces. Whoever wrote the piece and cites Jornet's cutting switchbacks in a mountain race as evidence that Jornet is a habitual cheat does not know much about mountain racing.

Extraordinary feats like Jornet's may raise suspicions for all kinds of reasons. However, he has aborted attempts before, and I highly doubt he would risk his reputation over some prank with poorly manipulated GPS data.

Querfeldein wrote:

In his defense, Jornet makes very strong statements:

1. The barometric altitude, which peaks at 8600m, does show a 200m drop before another 300m climb - that is consistent with a drop in air pressure, or some recalibration issue.

2. He says he has summit photos that will be released in the documentary movie.

Wait until the movie is released, or you will end up with egg on your faces. Whoever wrote the piece and cites Jornet's cutting switchbacks in a mountain race as evidence that Jornet is a habitual cheat does not know much about mountain racing.

Extraordinary feats like Jornet's may raise suspicions for all kinds of reasons. However, he has aborted attempts before, and I highly doubt he would risk his reputation over some prank with poorly manipulated GPS data.

I think we’d all agree that extraordinary feats require extraordinary (or at least some) evidence. Not sure we’ve seen any evidence other than data suggesting he was short of the summit. I’m skeptical of anyone who says I have pictures, but you’ll have to wait to see them.

Querfeldein wrote:

In his defense, Jornet makes very strong statements:

1. The barometric altitude, which peaks at 8600m, does show a 200m drop before another 300m climb - that is consistent with a drop in air pressure, or some recalibration issue.

2. He says he has summit photos that will be released in the documentary movie.

Wait until the movie is released, or you will end up with egg on your faces. Whoever wrote the piece and cites Jornet's cutting switchbacks in a mountain race as evidence that Jornet is a habitual cheat does not know much about mountain racing.

Extraordinary feats like Jornet's may raise suspicions for all kinds of reasons. However, he has aborted attempts before, and I highly doubt he would risk his reputation over some prank with poorly manipulated GPS data.

Yeah, all that and I just can't imagine why he'd turn back if he was already that close.

Suunto wrote:

I think we’d all agree that extraordinary feats require extraordinary (or at least some) evidence. Not sure we’ve seen any evidence other than data suggesting he was short of the summit. I’m skeptical of anyone who says I have pictures, but you’ll have to wait to see them.

The pictures he says he has from the second attempt are of his watch on the summit... does that make sense to anyone? As an aside, he surely knows how tall Everest is; if I got to the top and my watch said 8700m and not 8,848m, I'm not sure I would take a picture of my watch. Also, didn't he say his watch had died? But, non of that is what doesn't make sense to me - what doesn't make sense is why a photo of his watch is secret and he can't show it right now? Why? How in the world would a photo of a watch need to be secret or it will spoil the film? Even if it all works out and he was on the top - I really need an explanation of why this watch picture had to be kept secret for so long, because right now, I can not imagine any plausible story for that unless they are still generating the image. Can anyone explain why a watch photo would need to be secret?

[quote]watch photo wrote:

The pictures he says he has from the second attempt are of his watch on the summit... does that make sense to anyone? As an aside, he surely knows how tall Everest is; if I got to the top and my watch said /quote]

go pro camera has gps and timestamp

Lots of people get closer than Jornet's GPS track shows and turn back. At that altitude, a fatigued climber might take hours to climb a hundred vertical feet. A climber might have also navigation problems, especially when trying to summit in the middle of the night.

cpr wrote:

Correct, this is a distance calculation on a sphere, not on topology.

Do you get a different result if you assume a flat earth?

...Suddenly very skeptical.

Wouldn't have doubted before, but data and disturbing lack of evidence refuting this data, and now secret "told ya so photos to be released soon, but not yet" all point to BS.

Reading about the guys who were there makes me believe that THEY think he did it. I don't doubt there zeal for this belief. Starting to think a lot of people may have been fooled here.

cpr wrote:

Is it a proper way to download with the bookmarklet, by the way? (I never used Strava until this morning.)

I set that bookmarklet to download the full details. For the version I use, I fixed it so that it actually parses the date and time I see on the Strava page for when the run started (but not corrected for timezone, to be fixed in the future).

The public version you are using doesn't bother parsing the shown date and time. It just puts you back 2 weeks in time as the start time no matter the activity.

Read it in the article..... wrote:

[quote]watch photo wrote:

The pictures he says he has from the second attempt are of his watch on the summit... does that make sense to anyone? As an aside, he surely knows how tall Everest is; if I got to the top and my watch said /quote]

go pro camera has gps and timestamp

Why did the GPS on his GoPro work but not his watch? If it was just for the GoPro god and timestamp, why not take it of his face rather than his watch?

Can someone who follows mountaineering more closely give more context on exactly how damning the GPS evidence is? Like, I know my watch has trouble when there are skyscrapers around - do watches actually work on mountains this big, and does the crazy weather cause problems?

The other thing I'm wondering about is how common this lack of data is, both for Killian and for climbing big mountains more generally. Like, does Killian usually document things a lot better than this, and if so, that's weird. But maybe it's hard to document things on Everest for some reason - so, do most people climbing Everest document better than this?

I read Killian's statement that he sent to Ian Corless, did that make sense to people who understand this stuff? Killian should show his secret images to a neutral third party, preferably someone who understands mountaineering, so that way the third party can tell us whether he's telling the truth without Killian having to show us the secret images .

I have reviewed close to 100 ascents, on film, I writing or from friends, and the one thing all summiters have in common is a summit shot. Would you not stick around for your medal if you won the Olympics?

If this is from Dan Howitt, I wouldn't pay it much/any attention. As stated previously, he's known to have a large chip on his shoulder about anyone who sets well-known mountain records. He went to set some - Rainier and, I think, Mt. St. Helens - quite awhile back and wasn't able to do so and apparently gets personally distraught by the success of others. He will spend a great deal of time (and has offered good sums of money to people to re-set their records in order to prove they did what they did - I don't know that he's ever actually paid anyone, though, as his demands become increasingly ridiculous throughout the communications) trying to debunk what someone has done. Someone I'm very close with has dealt with him questioning their record despite plenty of proof and witnesses and, as stated previously, Chad K. had to deal with Dan's crap, too.

While I do not understand why Kilian won't share a photo of himself and/or his watch at the summit, I can see one benefit. By not doing so, people will continue to talk about this and the more people who talk about it, the more people who will be interested to see when the movie/video comes out. Basically it's a win-win in terms of marketing because if he does have the photos to prove it, all the naysayers are proven wrong AND it really doesn't hurt him to not release them now.

Atomic Party Chair wrote:

Basically it's a win-win in terms of marketing because if he does have the photos to prove it, all the naysayers are proven wrong AND it really doesn't hurt him to not release them now.

On the other hand, maybe he just isn't releasing the photos because they don't exist, or because he wants more time to put his story together. That said, if you don't have photos, wouldn't it be better to be honest about it from the beginning?

This story is so intriguing, because I really can't tell if he summited or not. It would be really shocking if someone so high profile shot himself in the foot so majorly, but on the other hand I can see him being confused and disoriented at high altitude, a misunderstanding snowballing with a supportive/credulous crew, and not wanting to let everyone down.

Dan’s still at it apparently.

Past claims...

http://www.summitpost.org/phpBB3/2003-denali-hoax-1906-denali-hoax-t60468.html

https://mountaineerfrauds.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/summit-claim-controversies/

Proceed with caution reading what Dan writes.