Climbers pack up as Sherpas say they won't go up Everest. The Sherpas want to unionize.

[Electric Monk]

Scores of mountaineers were departing Mt. Everest on Thursday after Nepalese officials failed to break an impasse with anguished Sherpa guides who want to halt climbing following last week’s devastating avalanche.

A meeting at Everest base camp between Sherpas and Nepalese government officials ended with no change in the Sherpas’ position: Most don’t want to scale the mountain this year out of respect for the 16 guides who were buried under the snow and ice Friday, and because of fears of more avalanches.

Even before the meeting, many major expedition teams had called off their climbs in deference to the Sherpas’ wishes, and several more followed suit on Thursday. The few foreign teams that signaled they might still attempt to ascend the world’s tallest peak when climbing season opens in May were facing a barrage of criticism from the mountaineering community that they would be forcing Sherpas to do so against their will.

“Even without this ‘official’ closure, the mountain was effectively shut down anyway,” Alan Arnette, a veteran mountaineer, wrote on his blog Thursday.

The unprecedented standoff has pitted some trekking companies and the Nepalese government – which earns $3.3 million a year from climbing permits and millions more in Everest-related tourism revenue – against the Sherpas, the small, peaceable Himalayan tribe whose people are the workhorses for the expeditions. As the number of foreign climbers paying as much as $100,000 for a chance to summit Everest has grown in recent years, the Sherpas, who hope to earn $5,000 a year, have begun to agitate for better death and injury benefits.

Nepalese officials insisted that the mountain wasn’t closed and any team that wanted to climb could do so.

more
http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-everest-sherpas-climbers-20140424,0,2220228.story

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mount-everest-expeditions-cancelled-due-to-sherpa-walkout-1.2618730

This is a good thing, imho.

[BillZBubb]

1. Good for the Sherpas!

They have been taken advantage of long enough.

[bettyellen]

2. good! it's true the wealthy can be so callous about the Sherpas' lives.

[Separation]

3. Its been getting worse every year

You have these rich doctors, lawyers, who have no business being on Everest or other mountains like K2. They have their Sherpa guides carrying all their gear and when the climbers get into trouble, the Sherpas put their life on the line by basically dragging a person down 5-10k feet or to the base camp with a doctor.

IMO they deserve waaaaay more money and benefits than what they are currently getting. Either that or have the climbers stage their own bottles, rig their own lines to the summit, and carry their own ladders for crevice crossing.

On the other hand I was really wanting to see if that guy was going to be able to BASE jump off the summit in May. Its been done before on Everest, just not from the summit. I guess that can wait until the Sherpas get fare wages and benefits.

[brewens]

5. The whole Everest thing creeps me out. They say you now pass dead bodies and stuff going

up there. People have gotten in trouble and have been left behind to die. Part of the problem I hear is that when you get on that last leg, it's really not a technical climb at all and anyone could do it at a reasonable altitude. They get summit feaver and even though they may be having problems, they think they can make it and make it back down. It's crazy to let most of those people up there and risk lives for that.

[Arugula Latte]

13. It's on their bucket list and they want bragging rights, so they feel entitled to summit

no matter what.

One of the most egregious examples of this privileged attitude was Martha Stewart, who brought an espresso maker with her on her Everest adventure.

[Electric Monk]

14. That was the 1996 Sandy Hill Pittman / NBC expedition?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/etc/news.html

"The Decadence of Social Climbing."
Miranda Devine. The Daily Telegraph (Australia). May 16, 1996.

"The greedy modern obsession to conquer Mount Everest is captured beautifully in the one anecdote about the latest disastrous expedition that killed eight people at the weekend. Rescued climber Sandy Hill Pittman, described as a Manhattan socialite, had taken an espresso coffee machine with her up the mountain.

"It is just such western decadence and self-indulgence that has turned the pristine Himalayan landscape into a giant garbage dump of discarded oxygen bottles and soup tins and has lured increasing numbers of moneyed pseudoadventurers to an early grave.

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/Mountain-Get-Out-Of-My-Way-3331165.php

LAST WEEK'S issue of the New York Observer, the cheeky pink weekly that brings a fresh breath of East Coast cruelty to our little provincial capital, ran a remarkable photograph.

A group of women was gathered around what appeared to be a Coleman lantern. The caption said the women were chatting informally while squatting together in a tent somewhere in the mountains of Bhutan. One of the women was Martha Stewart; she was, naturally enough, delivering a warming beverage to the other women. They were all smiling like crazy.

Another one of the women was Sandy Hill Pittman, who was, according to the story, recovering from the rigors of her messy divorce from MTV founder Robert Pittman by leading a media-funded assault team on the summit of Mount Everest. Details were available at the NBC Web site -- NBC was one of the sponsors of the glamour team.

[tammywammy]

15. Sandy Hill was on the mountain during the disastrous 1996 climb.

When climbers got stuck on the mountain during a blizzard. That was the deadliest year until now.

[Arugula Latte]

17. Yes. That was the disastrous season that Jon Krakauer wrote the book "Into Thin Air" about.

Fascinating read.

[TBF]

4. Solidarity. nt

[dilby]

6. Oh no, Rich people can't climb a mountain anymore and take advantage of an impoverished people.

What will happen in the world, maybe these rich guys will have to climb something local and carry their own gear.

[2naSalit]

7. Glad they are. nt

[Skittles]

8. I guess they are sick of performing tricks for rich assholes

[Grins]

9. Unionize?

They're Freedumb Haters!!!

[AngryAmish]

10. Soak them for every dime

Mountain climbers, as a class, are complete assholes.

[KG]

11. !

[Electric Monk]

12. Toon kick

[Jefferson23]

16. ha ha, love it. K&R