Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigtime
That's painting with a pretty wide brush. With the exception of the odd person like Anatoly that are superhuman in those conditions, most of us would end up dying if we tried to intervene and help another climber. Up in the death zone it is usually regarded as suicide to attempt it. Throw in factors like your brain functioning in a hypoxic state and you may not even realize the full extent of what is going on with your fellow climbers.
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I can accept your argument on the way down. You could be close to death yourself and decide to save yourself rather than add another death to the list. But if you are still going up I would consider the summit a failure. Maybe the problem is that for a year all they think about is reaching the top so when they get into altitude and aren't thinking straight reaching the summit becomes more important than the lives of your teammates. Or because they are all paying for guides to get them up they feel that safety should be the guides responsibility. Either way, something is seriously wrong with a situation that values life so poorly.