Permanent Residents

WARNING: some of the photos in this post are pretty disturbing so if you are squeamish, please skip this one.

All of the highest mountains on Earth rise from the Tibetan Plateau, pushed further into the sky each year by the subduction of India, which is moving slowly but surely northwards into and underneath the continent of Asia. These are young mountains, younger than the Alps, the Andes, and the Rockies. They are the world's newest mountain range. But they are strong. Among them are all of the world's highest peaks: Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, and many more...every mountain on Earth taller than 25,000 feet resides in the two ranges here, The Himalaya and Karakoram. And they are in good company because everything higher than 23,000 feet, more than 100 peaks, is right there in Central Asia.

They are jagged, steep, imposing, indifferent, and utterly unforgiving. No place for humans.



Everest, Lhotse and other nearby mountains

 And Everest is their king. A tyrant king he is too. Bitterly cold, with a nasty penchant for hosting "surprise" storms that pop up with no warning and wipe the mountainside clean with hurricane winds and cold almost beyond measure. Oh, and there's that matter of altitude. The lowest base camp of Everest is far too high for any helicopter to fly, and the summit rises to 29,000 feet - far, far higher than the human body was designed to operate. Climbing is only possible in a small window between May and June when the jet stream is pushed far enough north to give climbers a fighting chance. Those few rare days on Everest when the daytime temperature climbs to a "relatively balmy" 20 degrees below zero, and the wind averages "only" 50 MPH or so, that's when they try.

The grueling journey up - through a system of ever-higher base camps, the glacier crossing between house-sized boulders of shifting ice, the final midnight race against time ascending the Lhotse Face above the "Death Zone" and at last up the Hillary Step to the top of the world - is one of the great human endurance challenges of our planet. And then the lucky ones get to do it all in reverse. Tired beyond tired, mindless and careless with oxygen deprivation, cold to the bone, wanting nothing more in the world than to stop and lay down, they move only because not moving means dying. That is why so many people come to face Everest: it's the most severe test you will ever put yourself through, and if you make it, you can hold your head up high and know that you have stared hardship in the eye and lived to tell the tale.

But the dangers and hardships often win the day: people do die on Everest. There are more than 200 well-preserved bodies lying around on the slopes today. I imagine it's a surreal situation, walking by them and knowing that but for some bit of luck it could very well be you lying there. It is impossible to remove dead climbers because its hard enough for people to just climb down themselves let alone carry a 200-pound block of ice that used to be a person. And due to the extremely cold and dry conditions, lack of predatory animals, and the fact that Sherpas will not go near a dead body, they stay around for a very long time.


A body on Everest

They lie, frozen and utterly still, exactly where they died. Some of them succumbed to hypothermia or one of Everest's infamous storms. Some made a random misjudgment that cost them the rest of their lives. Many of them just laid down for a quick nap and never woke up. They are a fact of life on Everest - it is impossible to climb the mountain without seeing the dead bodies.

"Green Boots"

Gruesome as it may seem, the bodies are often used as landmarks because they are always brightly dressed to stand out, and they are always there. There is "green boots", a resident since the terrible storm of 1996 that killed 8 people and which was documented in the book "Into Thin Air".



George Mallory, who famously uttered "because it is there", lies where he fell to his death in 1924.


Each body has a story, a tragedy, attached to it. These were fathers and mothers, and they had families who knew they were going off to do something dangerous but who never dreamed it would end like this.

This man stopped to rest and never got back up

Still, they are the adventurers. They knew what they were getting into. They have lost their battles with the mountain but it is their kind who show us just what is possible. And sometimes, what is not.



A failed attempt