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General Climbing Discussion

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Bolting Mt Everest 12-May-2005 At 12:16:37 PM ShinToe Warrior

Message

On 12/05/2005 Take! wrote:
>I spose from one perspective it could be seen as very arrogant for us to
>sit here with our mod-cons and say these things about the development of
>commercial climbing/trekking in the area, how about the livelyhoods of
>the locals who rely on the tourism, how do they feel about it?

Yah, excellent points, We sit here on chockstone and bitch about everest and how it should be managed,
how the south col route is "too easy" etc etc - issues that the vast majority of people and indeed the
sherpas/high altitude porters/sirdars may regard as esoteric or irrelevant. It's apparently a reasonably well
paying if risky job for them, so I suppose whinges about style might mean zip as far as they are
concerned. Anything like bolted ladders on the Hillary Step that helps them get up and down a little more
safely - well we might just have to suck eggs and deal with it. most of us won't even get near the place
anyway. If I ever have enough cash to do everest, I would do my best to make sure that I had already
got enough mountaineering skills, and experience on some 7000m & 8000m+ mountains before I thought
about everest. I would want to be able to cope and have a chance of surviving if things went pear-shaped
on any mountain, especially an 8K+ one.

STW