Dead Bodies Are Landmarks on Mt. Everest

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Green Boots on Mount Everest (Dominic Goff)

There Are Over 200 Bodies on Mount Everest, And They’re Used as Landmarks

By Rachel Nuwer Smithsonian.com

More than 200 people have died in their attempt to scale Mount Everest. The mountain offers seemingly endless options for kicking the bucket, from falling into the abyss to suffocating from lack of oxygen to being smashed by raining boulders. Yet climbers continue to try their skills – and luck – in tackling Everest, despite the obvious dangers. Indeed, the living pass the frozen, preserved dead along Everest’s routes so often that many bodies have earned nicknames and serve as trail markers. Here are a few of the more colorful tales, adapted from Altered Dimensions:

 



The body of “Green Boots,” an Indian climber who died in 1996 and is believed to be Tsewang Paljor, lies near a cave that all climbers must pass on their way to the peak. Green Boots now serves as a waypoint marker that climbers use to gauge how near they are to the summit. Green Boots met his end after becoming separated from his party. He sought refuge in a mountain overhang, but to no avail. He sat there shivering in the cold until he died.

In 2006, English climber David Sharp joined Green Boots. He stopped in the now-infamous cave to rest. His body eventually froze in place, rendering him unable to move but still alive. Over 40 climbers passed by him as he sat freezing to death.

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3 COMMENTS

  1. I love the mountains more than anything! 400 km from me there is a wonderful ski resort Dombay. I have been there many times and I love to celebrate the new year there. The last time I was there for the new year 2019 and I took a trip to the old mountaineering cemetery. There are about 50 graves there. The oldest dates back to 1930. There are buried the best masters of sports in mountain climbing of the USSR. When I asked the guide why they were buried here and not at home (they also have relatives), I was told: climbers are a special kind of people and even after death they want to be among their favorite peaks, which they conquered or intended to conquer.
    Mountains change consciousness. I know it by myself. You sit at a height of 4200, look at this whole mortal world below and think about how life is insignificant, down there ….

  2. Yup, alpha male turned out to be beta. I’ve been beta for my whole life and I don’t need to climb 8 km to prove it. The very same goes with my bank account and for those sitting there where the fake rainbow ends, tax the shit out of them, no more 100k euro adventures.

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