I am just a recreational climber but my motivation is a mix of overcoming myself and enjoying beauty of nature.
The challenge in climbing is very real (not that dissimilar to startup) - you have to plan ahead, check conditions, execute well and know when to bail out. Sometimes I say that climbing is the real thing and business is just for fun - when you screw in business you probably won't die. But noone wants to die in the mountains either.
The beautiful thing about mountains is that it does not matter who you are back in civil life. There is no difference if you have fame or money back home. It is up to your skill, training and determination.
And of course when getting to mountain by yourself the connection and enjoyment is much better than by cable car.
Depends on the person. The original climbers probably went for things like extreme personal challenge, or fame. I'm sure there are climbers now as well (now that climbing Everest has been commoditized a bit) who do it for the novelty.
That's a pretty harsh characterization of their motivation. I'm guessing when you're standing on the top of that summit you establish a connection with nature that you can't get from simply running a marathon. I'd absolutely celebrate anybody who achieves that. The world needs more people who are willing to step so far out of their comfort zone to achieve seemingly impossible things.
> I'm guessing when you're standing on the top of that summit you establish a connection with nature that you can't get from simply running a marathon.
I don't claim to know anything about their motivation, but the accounts I've read are somewhat different than the romantic image you seem to have. For example, I submit this:
"The only food I'd been able to force down over the preceding three days was a bowl of Ramen soup and a handful of peanut M&M's. Weeks of violent coughing had left me with two separated ribs, making it excruciatingly painful to breathe. Twenty-nine thousand twenty-eight feet up in the troposphere, there was so little oxygen reaching my brain that my mental capacity was that of a slow child. Under the circumstances, I was incapable of feeling much of anything except cold and tired."
establish a connection with nature that you can't get from simply running a marathon
That's bullshit talk. What does that even mean?
I think mental illness is much more appropriate, because you can "connect with" nature just as well by climbing smaller mountains. No, these people are attracted to Everest specifically because it's so extraordinarily difficult there's a 2% chance they won't come off it alive, or possibly lose body parts.
There's something wrong with you if you're willing to risk your life that easily.
What does connecting with nature even mean? It would seem that at the peak there'd be relatively little of what I call "nature".
Seems like if you'd like to connect with nature in an extreme way go on a safari or to a rain forest, or even just Yosemite. You may be able to brag, "I survived Yosemite", but it seems a tad more sincere.
More evidence that we have trouble thinking about probability as applied to our daily lives.
That's a 2% chance over a four day period. I don't know if that number is accurate- it's from the article, if you've read it- but even though it looks small, it's actually huge.
For comparison, in the US 6860 people die per day, and we have a population of 312 million. That means over a 4 day period, you have about a .009% chance of dying; that's a 200,000% increase. And keep in mind that's the death rate for EVERYONE in the U.S., including 90 year-olds riddled with cancer. I don't even want to think about the percentage difference in death rate using the Mt. Everest cohort, which tend to be younger, healthy males.
I can't think of a single activity that's riskier, except for actively trying to kill yourself, which by the way, only has a 5% probability of death.
I'd be willing to assume a lot more personal risk to be the first person to do something like land on Mars or summit Everest, especially if it's not even clear that it can be done, than to be the 50th. Even more so if there is some compelling scientific benefit to going (which, thanks to robotics, there really isn't anymore, at least for brief boot/flag-planting visits).
There are extremely limited cases where it would be worth sacrificing someone's life to accomplish something (jumping on a grenade to save a bunch of other people, perhaps where acting saves other people). I could see people willingly sacrificing themselves for sufficiently otherwise unobtainable knowledge, but it would be immoral if not voluntary.
It's probably also worth noting that the first man to successfully scale Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary, has publicly voiced his disgust with those who leave their fellow climbers to die on the mountain.
I think it's ok to leave dead bodies on the mountain to make your ascent, but not ok to leave someone who could possibly be saved. Taking any substantial risks to the living to recover bodies is completely unacceptable -- Everest is as good a grave as any.
I wouldn't take the 4% risk of death from climbing Everest at all just to be #50 in a single climbing season, though. I'd be willing to accept a 50% risk of death to be the first person on Mars.
> Taking any substantial risks to the living to recover bodies is completely unacceptable
Why? This is a cultural conclusion that can be debated and modified. People are already risking their lives just by being on Everest, so it can't just be risking life == bad.
Bringing up Mars in this discussion makes me think of Olympus Mons. The same kinds of folks attracted and willing to risk their life on being the 1000th person to reach the top of Mt. Everest may be even more attracted to being the first person to scale the tallest mountain in the star system.
Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it's 'crazy', an 'illness', or even remotely illogical.
Of course, I wouldn't know what to characterize it other than sheer sense of adventure. I can totally understand going for the highest achievement one can pull off, and it certainly might seem like lunacy to many.
As far as the Sherpas go, they are born into the mountains. It's their world. They scale the mountains because that's what they know how to do best. It's their way of life (just like your way of life might be being an entrepreneur).
Because Everest is on the tick list that non-climbers recognize and because a lot of the lower mountains are much, much harder and nobody will guide them. There is a reason Gasherbrum IV has only been climbed four times (five if you count the 1985 Kurtyka-Schauer route, which is still regarded as one of the most impressive alpine climbs ever), Gasherbrum III has been climbed twice, Khunyang Chhish twice, Bainthha Brakk twice, Latok I. There are lots of other "obscure" remote peaks with one or zero ascents that are way harder, more adventurous, and serious than Everest. Climbing Everest solo post-monsoon by a new route in 1980, or from the north as a party of two without carrying ropes or sleeping gear in 1986 is absolutely impressive. Trudging up the normal route with support does not count as climbing to anyone who climbs.
Some things I'll never understand in this world.
How about just running a marathon instead?