Killian Jornet's Everest summit might not have happened

Douglas Haston wrote:

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?

Ueli Steck didn't get a summit photo of his south face of Annapurna solo. He claims that he lost his camera in an avalanche. He was still awarded the Piolet d'Or for it.

Oblate spheroid, plz wrote:

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?

Yes indeed! :)

This remark was added because on a local the earth is never modelled as a sphere but each region has its own "distortion" -- as we all know the earth is not a sphere anyways ;)

Ah, thanks. I am mostly interested in basic geodata processing, so mist probably won't do anymore on this, keep up your good work!

annapurna wrote:

Douglas Haston wrote:

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?

Ueli Steck didn't get a summit photo of his south face of Annapurna solo. He claims that he lost his camera in an avalanche. He was still awarded the Piolet d'Or for it.

Perfect example. There was endless controversy over that and some people still don’t believe he did. The difference was he had people who watched him with a telescope and sherpas who saw a headlight near the summit where he said he was. Also, his route was redone just days after by two climbers who confirmed his discription of the route to be accurate. He couldn’t have known unless he did actually climb it.

If you don’t have photos or GPS, you’d better have witnesses, and even then there will be some who won’t believe you. The lesson - which Killian and his team would have known from what happened - take photos and keep GPS data - exactly as he did for all his other record climbs. Why change it for Everest?

annapurna wrote:

Douglas Haston wrote:

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?

Ueli Steck didn't get a summit photo of his south face of Annapurna solo. He claims that he lost his camera in an avalanche. He was still awarded the Piolet d'Or for it.

He probably had a film crew get it from base camp. Pretty easy to follow that line from the bottom.

On the other hand, there is the notorious case of Tomo Cesen, in the 80s considered the greatest ever solo alpinist...until he got busted faking the South face of Lhotse. Potentially a foreshadow of this case... Career of a great athlete at stake.

Dougal Haston wrote:

annapurna wrote:

Ueli Steck didn't get a summit photo of his south face of Annapurna solo. He claims that he lost his camera in an avalanche. He was still awarded the Piolet d'Or for it.

He probably had a film crew get it from base camp. Pretty easy to follow that line from the bottom.

On the other hand, there is the notorious case of Tomo Cesen, in the 80s considered the greatest ever solo alpinist...until he got busted faking the South face of Lhotse. Potentially a foreshadow of this case... Career of a great athlete at stake.

Why do you say, "He probably had a film crew"? The story is out there and you can read about it. It was a controversy. No film crew. There were some witnesses who saw part of his ascent and other people verifying his account of the route.

Such an inspiring investigation... I'm sure Kilian won't sleep tonight knowing that.

lol

Dougal Haston wrote:

annapurna wrote:

Ueli Steck didn't get a summit photo of his south face of Annapurna solo. He claims that he lost his camera in an avalanche. He was still awarded the Piolet d'Or for it.

He probably had a film crew get it from base camp. Pretty easy to follow that line from the bottom.

On the other hand, there is the notorious case of Tomo Cesen, in the 80s considered the greatest ever solo alpinist...until he got busted faking the South face of Lhotse. Potentially a foreshadow of this case... Career of a great athlete at stake.

yeah whatever happened to Tomo? like killian, tomo had a huge track record of bada$$ feats, but he got too greedy and faked one on everyone and booom, went home devastated.

annapurna wrote:

Dougal Haston wrote:

He probably had a film crew get it from base camp. Pretty easy to follow that line from the bottom.

On the other hand, there is the notorious case of Tomo Cesen, in the 80s considered the greatest ever solo alpinist...until he got busted faking the South face of Lhotse. Potentially a foreshadow of this case... Career of a great athlete at stake.

Why do you say, "He probably had a film crew"? The story is out there and you can read about it. It was a controversy. No film crew. There were some witnesses who saw part of his ascent and other people verifying his account of the route.

So Ueli had no summit photo and there was controversy. Apparently Kilian has no summit photo, and if so, there will be controversy. Ueli at least had some corroborating witnesses, which apparently Kilian does not.

Nice attempt to dodge the Tomo Cesen factor.

All of this goes away when Kilian produces the goods.

Dougal Haston wrote:

annapurna wrote:

Why do you say, "He probably had a film crew"? The story is out there and you can read about it. It was a controversy. No film crew. There were some witnesses who saw part of his ascent and other people verifying his account of the route.

So Ueli had no summit photo and there was controversy. Apparently Kilian has no summit photo, and if so, there will be controversy. Ueli at least had some corroborating witnesses, which apparently Kilian does not.

Nice attempt to dodge the Tomo Cesen factor.

All of this goes away when Kilian produces the goods.

I'm not taking any sides here, okay? You said everybody has a summit shot. I simply wanted to mention Steck as an example where it's not always the case. Yes, as much proof as possible is a good thing.

You are taking sides- with the inane.

Whatever, Mr. "I have reviewed close to 100 ascents"

So, is Killian claiming that he somehow teleported above his final ascent which was 700' below the peak, took a go pro time stamp in the dark, all within 11 seconds of his suunto watch continuously recording location, then went back down? That seems to be his case right now and his go pro time stamp is reserved for a movie? Yeah Right! Didn't happen.

Raymond Lambert wrote:

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

If he ran out of gas.

Here's a reason... wrote:

Raymond Lambert wrote:

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

If he ran out of gas.

Thank you already, well played ;)

Impartial observer wrote:

JJ1 wrote:

Looks like Kilian was pretty darn close to the summit, either by GPS tracking error or navigational error.

Pretty close doesn't cut.

A small change in lateral position corresponds to hundreds of feet in elevation because of the steepness. The final climb to the summit is the hardest. Hillary step, bottleneck, etc...

He's quite expert at using GoPro we know from that mountain top running video uploaded here earlier. Would have loved to see an epic Everest final climb video like that one.

The burden of proof is on the climber. Was it met here? I don't know enough about mountaineering to know.

Oblate spheroid, plz wrote:

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?

Supposedly the Islamic Golden Age could prove the earth was "round" by astrolabes thousands of years ago, but we can't even agree if a 21st century person summitted the highest mountain?

Killian needed one of these running pants to carry a damn phonE!!!!!!!!

https://www.underarmour.com/en-us/mens-ua-outrun-the-storm-speedpocket-pants/pid1305203-001

Technological regression wrote:

Oblate spheroid, plz wrote:

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

Supposedly the Islamic Golden Age could prove the earth was "round" by astrolabes thousands of years ago, but we can't even agree if a 21st century person summitted the highest mountain?

This post shows a complete lack of understanding of the technology involved, but good try.