The Worst Disasters in Mountaineering

Comments · 388

• DR

  @Druzica18 · 1 month ago

  You couldn't PAY me to set foot on Mount Everest. At this point, it's the world's tallest coffin.

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• VO

  @vonkug · 1 month ago

  When I was maybe eight years old, my brother, father, mother, and I climbed up the backside of Half-Dome in Yosemite.  Got to the top, looked down at how high I was and learned right then and there I was apoplectically terrified of heights.  My father, seeing my legs start to give, grabbed me by my pack, and did that superhuman parent strength thing and fucking YEETED me like 8ft away from the edge.  I don't climb things anymore.

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• JL

  @jldisme1 · 1 month ago

  You skipped a HUGE one. An avalanche on Mount Everest killed 16 Nepali mountain guides on April 18, 2014, making it one of the deadliest days in the mountain's history.

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• CA

  @CaitiCat · 1 month ago

  HAPE is High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (not pulmonary embolism). It’s fluid build up in the lung tissue

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• MU

  @MusicFlyte · 1 month ago (edited)

  The Scottish pronunciations are sending me. Never heard someone say Cairn Gorm this way before (should be said as 'kern-gorm') and the school teacher's name is Beattie (pronounced 'bee-tee'). Still a very sad case, all the same. Scotland's weather can be deadly and change when you least expect it.

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• AS

  @ashamed.2b.american · 1 month ago

  As someone struggling with homelessness I wanna hear more about the cave that was "fitted with a heating system"

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• MG

  @mgen278 · 1 month ago

  So basically the last guy was the first Alpine Divorce that had innocent people as collateral damage? Seriously, who sees their girlfriend hasn’t made to the hut after an entire night during a storm & doesn’t freak out a bit? And then notice that a bunch of kids he’s responsible for are also not there & still do nothing? He must’ve really hated his gf.

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• AN

  @andywindes4968 · 1 month ago

  Krakauer’s book contains numerous errors.  Some can be attributed to faulty memory related to altitude, others appear to be outright fabrications.  There have been many other books written about the event, and I would recommend any of them over Krakauer’s work.

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• BR

  @bretmannix304 · 1 month ago (edited)

  Krakauer&apos;s account was severely rebuked by many world class mountaineers that were on the mountain.<br>The Climb by Anatoli Bookreev, a fantastic mountaineer, was accepted by the community as a much better account.

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• SU

  @susanmclare · 1 month ago

  I grew up in the cairngorms at an outdoor centre where I ended up working for years. These were the type of instructors you’d come across sometimes- in it for the love of the game, focussed on climbing higher, going more extreme… they seemed to care more about enjoying themselves than the fact they’re paid to make sure the kids enjoy themselves. I didn’t personally work with anyone who was careless with safety issues but then this was years after the Cairngorms tragedy so people didn’t take that lightly. <br><br>Seeing how one or two of these guys would sometimes prioritise their own enjoyment of the outdoors, it’s not hard to see how something like that tragedy could happen- taking the faster kids with him so he can enjoy a more challenging hike with them- leaving all the inexperienced and weaker hikers alone together. You just don’t do that, and this is not a place to be outside overnight with no shelter in winter. <br><br>It’s a privilege getting to introduce young kids to enjoying the outdoors and learning how to navigate it, thankfully most instructors see it that way but those thrill seekers are coming from a different perspective.

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• PU

  @Puffletiri · 1 month ago

  The channel Adventures Gone Wrong does a couple, very in depth and well-researched 1996 Everest videos. I highly recommend her!

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• TA

  @tamsinmoye · 1 month ago

  Bonus trivia - you mentioned the names of the Nazi mountaineers who later succeeded in climbing the north face of the Eiger - one of whom was Heinrich Harrer - who subsequently ended up stuck in the Himalayas at the outbreak of WW2, escaped POW camps multiple times, became mentor to the (current) Dalai Lama as a boy, and went on to write &quot;7 Years in Tibet&quot;.

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