Could you please at least stop digging yourself deeper with your idiotic Everest = Petronas metaphors. Have you ever been higher than the 2nd story of your own house? High altitude climbing is RISKY. Duh. I've done it before. If the weather turns to crap and you are caught out, you die. Simple as that. If you don't want to die, don't climb big mountains.
There are countless, countless examples of super good climbers getting bad weather high up, and simply walking until they died of exhaustion in the bad weather. Or freezing to death. Or stumbling off cliffs. Or, as happened during a Czech winter attempt on Everest's Northeast Ridge in the 1980's, blown right off the frickin' mountain when the jet stream dips down and gets nasty. Remember the Polish women's expedition on K2? I didn't think so, as you don't know jack about mountaineering.
Guides or no guides, standard route or not, humping up an 8000er is a roll of the dice. Sometimes they come up snake eyes, and people die. Hall and others made Herculean efforts to save not just their clients but ANY fellow climbers on the mountain, as is common practice. The weather got them all (well, almost). What would you know of that kind of strength? Nothing. You have the audacity to Monday night quarterback a team of people that have/had more courage and conviction and strength than you'll ever touch. Deal with it.
The only unique feature about the Everest circus was that a journalist was along for the ride and made a career out of second-guessing the situation later. His analysis was, incidentally, questioned by Boukareev and others with real knowledge of the mountain. Outside magazine, for cryin' out loud, is no authority on mountaineering. That's your source? Get a clue.
I'm just baffled that you do not get this; the concept is not so complex. Big mountains are NOT like BASE. BASE involves control of essentially all variables prior to launch; if we don't want to jump right then and there, in 99% of cases we don't have to. Big mountains set their own rules of play; we play by them, or we stay home. When one commits to a big mountain push, the die are cast. There's often not much turn-back margin for error, even on the South Col "walkup" of Everest. It's over 29,000 feet fer chrissakes. Have you even been over 15k?
Many of the world's greatest mountaineers have died in the mountains - I do not need to mention Alex Lowe who was God Incarnate as example. Even Alex, with his unmatched skills and knowledge and stamina and instincts got caught out in the big ones. It is a game of death that makes BASE look like kids playing in the sandbox, statistically speaking. Damn near a majority of top-end mountaineers end up dead in their sport, something that BASE (thankfully) can't claim nowadays.
Your inability to see the fundamental differences is, I think, symptomatic of your whole attitude in this thread. YOU do not have sole, exclusive understanding of risk. Other people know risk, too, and if their idea of risk is not congruent with yours, it doesn't mean they are off base. They may prefer less or more risk than you, or different types. They are adults and you have not been granted exclusive authority by ANYONE to pontificate on BASE and "The Future of BASE."
And, hey, while you were sitting with your thumb in your bum and your other hand on the keyboard, some of us were out jumpin' and scoping new objects. Are you a BASE jumper, or have you declined to the status of has-been, embittered, wannabee?
D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
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