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- American Donald Lynn Cash, 55, collapsed at the summit as he was taking photographs, while Anjali Kulkarni, also 55, died while descending after reaching the top.
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Jun 20, 2019 · In 2019, 11 climbers died on the breathtaking Mount Everest. It was the deadliest year at the world's highest peak's since 2015, and the fourth deadliest on record. Here are pictures from an ...
May 28, 2019 · Mount Everest is facing its deadliest climbing season in recent years, with at least 11 people reported dead so far in 2019. Christopher John Kulish, a 62-year-old American citizen, was the...
In 2019, 11 people died on Everest during a record season with a huge number of climbers. Videos shared on social media showed climbers waiting in long queues to advance up the mountain. [18] Due to the difficulties and dangers in bringing bodies down, most who die on the mountain remain where they fall.
NameDateAgeBinod Babu BastakotiMay 23, 2024Yeti Mountain AdventureMay 22, 2024May 22, 202440Gabriel Viorel TabaraMay 21, 202448- Overview
- What it’s like to wait in line at 28,000 feet
- Avoiding rush hour the new normal
As the last teams leave the mountain, alpinists and pundits argue about how and why things went awry; exclusive new photos
Climbers line up to move through the Khumbu Icefall, one of the most dangerous sections alpinists must traverse when attempting Mount Everest.
Kathmandu, NepalOn Monday, Christopher Kulish, a 62-year-old attorney from Boulder, Colorado, died at Camp 4, located on the South Col at 26,000 feet, after returning from the summit of Mount Everest. According to Kulish’s brother, an initial assessment indicates Kulish died of cardiac arrest, not altitude sickness.
His death brings the number of fatalities on Mount Everest this season to 11 and raises the full death toll on Himalayan 8,000 meter peaks this spring to 21. With several more days remaining in the climbing season—which effectively ends when the monsoon arrives sometime the first week in June—it is possible the number will continue to rise.
A photo captured last week by Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja Magar showed a near continuous line of hundreds of climbers bottlenecked on the summit ridge of Everest—all trying to take advantage of a narrow window of good weather. The image went viral, sparking an instant debate about whether the mountain is too crowded and forcing a difficult, if familiar, discussion about whether the high number of casualties was due to too many climbers.
Most of those guides and clients depicted in the photo have since left base camp and are now beginning to share their stories. There’s no consensus.
The problem was not limited to one day. Jones helped lead his commercial team to the summit on May 23rd, the day after the infamous photo was taken. “There were two people holding up a line of 50. That was the only problem we had," he says. "They would not move over and let people pass.” Jones estimates it cost the bulk of those waiting about two hours.
“It was just standing still waiting for two people to move over, and they wouldn’t,” Jones continues. In a recent post, longtime Everest blogger Alan Arnette calculated that five of the 11 deaths this season on Everest may have been related to the crowds.
“If you keep going to the summit when you don’t have enough oxygen to get back down, that’s poor decision making,” said Jones’s fellow Alpine Ascents guide, Eric Murphy. “When we’re standing there waiting for these people to go, we lower the oxygen flow down a bit to make sure we’re not going to run out,” Murphy said, describing how his team conserved the bottled oxygen needed for the highest parts of the mountain.
According to Murphy, the slow-moving lines are a leadership issue as much as anything else. “If [the slow climbers] have a Sherpa with them, really that Sherpa should say let’s step aside, let’s rest a little it, and let’s let people pass,” he said, adding, “It puts too much responsibility on a lot of the Sherpa.”
Murphy also pointed to nuances in climbing techniques that slowed down traffic flow. “Some guys clip into every rope with an ascender, even on flat terrain,” he said. An ascender clips onto a fixed rope and prevents a climber from sliding down—when the terrain is flat a regular carabiner is faster and relatively safe as well. The process of attaching and unattaching an ascender might add 10 or 15 seconds for each transition. One Everest climber estimates there are about 500-600 transitions, which equates to roughly two hours or more, some of which could be saved with the simpler process. “That is way slower than just clipping into the rope with a carabiner.”
“The crowds is a headline... It's the lack of experience among people on the mountain,” says Mark Fisher, an experienced guide who was also a member of the National Geography Society-led science team. “People didn't seem to know things like taking care of themselves, being efficient with climbing skills, and being properly prepared for the environment.”
Official final numbers for the 2019 Everest season have yet to come in, but it seems likely that this year will be a record season in terms of summiteers. The Nepalese government issued 381 permits this season according to latest reports—a record—with approximately another 140 permitted climbers attempting the peak from Tibet. (Professional climbing Sherpas working on the mountain are not included in this tally.) Alan Arnette is reporting an unofficial number of more than 700 summiteers this year, which includes climbing Sherpas; the record, set in 2018, stands at 802.
China minimizes the problem of crowding on their side of Everest by issuing far fewer permits, and many outfitters have moved their operations to the China side of the mountain.
The issue isn't just the sheer numbers, but the quality of some guide services serving the influx of climbers on the Nepal side. “The biggest problem, I think, on Everest in general—and people aren’t going to like to hear this—it’s the local companies that are taking inexperienced people, incompetent people, and pulling them up mountain,” Jones says.
Fifteen of the 21 climbers who died on 8,000-meter peaks this year were clients of Nepali-organized expeditions versus international guide services working in conjunction with a local outfitter.
“We strategize constantly about how to avoid the crowds,” Jones explains. “Leaving camp a few hours earlier or later can change your day completely. It’s just another layer to decision-making on Everest... The Western guide services communicate with each other, the other operators not so much…”
It is a sensitive issue because the lucrative climbing industry in Nepal has long been dominated by Western guides and only in the past decade or so have Nepali-owned companies begun to make significant inroads, largely by charging far less than their foreign counterparts and catering to the lower end of the growing market of clients wanting to be guided up the world's tallest mountain.
May 29, 2019 · The pictures were astounding: a single-file line of dozens, if not hundreds, of people, perched on a jagged ridge, tantalizingly close to the summit of Mount Everest.
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May 27, 2019 · CNN —. Another mountaineer has died after summiting Mount Everest, bringing the death toll for the 2019 climbing season to 11 people. American attorney Christopher John Kulish, 62, died...
Jun 1, 2019 · Data on Everest deaths in 2019 was compiled by ABC News and added to Himalayan Database figures where relevant. The 2019 data includes Chris Daly, who died in April while descending from Base Camp.
