The ghoulish thing to me is that all of those bodies are just sitting up there forever, preserved by the cold, and serve only as landmarks. This bothers me, and it's wrong in multiple ways.
Australian climber left for dead on Everest reaches base camp
AFP (via Yahoo News) ^ | 5/27/06
In an astonishing feat of survival, an Australian mountaineer left for dead shortly after conquering the summit of Mount Everest has been found alive and walked back to base camp in "reasonably good" condition, a colleague said.
Lincoln Hall, 50, had been reported dead by his expedition teammates after reaching the 8,848-meter (29,028-feet) summit of Everest on Thursday but then succumbing to acute altitude sickness as he began his descent.
Hall, one of Australia's most experienced climbers, became disoriented, lay down in the snow and resisted attempts by accompanying sherpas to help him, according to an account of the incident posted on the Internet by his expedition leader, Alexander Abramov.
The two sherpas with Hall were forced to leave him behind when they ran out of oxygen and Abramov issued a statement Friday that the Australian was dead.
But another team of climbers led by American Dan Mazur came upon Hall several hours later and found the Australian alive.
Mazur radioed the news back to camp and in a rescue operation involving about a dozen sherpas and a Russian doctor, Hall was brought to safety.
Duncan Chessell, another Australian climber who organises mountaineering expeditions, said one of his guides on Everest informed him Hall had spent the night in a heated tent at North Col camp, at 7,000 meters altitude.
He was then able to walk Saturday morning into the advanced base camp, which is at 6,400 meters, he told the Australian national news agency AAP.
"He's in reasonably good condition but he doesn't have much memory of things at this stage," Chessell said.
"Basically he's been able to come down under his own steam, without assistance," he said.
"I imagine he got up in the morning after being treated with oxygen and hydration and left (North Col)."
Hall still faces a 22 kilometer (14 mile) trek across loose rocks and ice to reach the Everest base camp at 5,000 meters.
Abramov said earlier on an Everest news website that Hall was suffering "acute psychosis, a disorientation in space" and had been resisting efforts to help him.
He was diagnosed as suffering from acute edema of a brain, a frequently fatal swelling of the brain that occurs at extremely high altitudes.
Hall, who lost several toes to frostbite on an earlier climb, was also said to be again suffering from frostbite.
He was a member of the first Australian team to climb Mount Everest in 1984, but had to stop short of the summit.
He also served as a director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation and was the author of several books, including "First Ascent" and "The Life of an Explorer", and numerous magazine articles.
His second, and now apparently successful, assault on Everest was part of an expedition that included 15-year-old Sydney boy Christopher Harris, who was aiming to become the youngest person to climb the mountain.
Harris turned back short of the summit because of respiratory problems, but Hall continued with a team of sherpas.
Another member of the same expedition, Thomas Weber from Germany, who was visually impaired, stopped 50 meters (165 feet) short of the summit after his sight failed and died during the descent.
The initial decision to leave Hall on the mountain and the erroneous reports of his death are likely to revive debate about the ethics and practices of the high-priced Everest expeditions.
Last week a British climber, David Sharp, 34, died on Everest after being passed by up to 40 climbers who said they were unable to help him.
Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to conquer Everest, joined in a raging controversy over the incident, sharply criticising the climbers who left Sharp to die.
I've heard some great stories about Jacob's Well (cave diving). Never been in there, myself.
Never been a climber, but if I got killed during an ascent, I think it would be kind of fitting for my body to stay there. As to why people attempt this, I always remember the old poem,
The calm is on the water, and some of us would linger by the shore,
For ships are safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.