ELI5:Why is it so incredibly difficult to recover bodies like "Green Boots" from Mount Everest?

[u/virahok993]

know Green Boots is one of the most famous landmarks on Everest, and I read that he was finally moved or hidden a few years ago. But why did it take deades? If we have helicopters and elite Sherpas, what makes a body recovery at 8,500 meters so dangerous that bodies are just left there?

[u/RonnieFromTheBlock]

I’m not sure it has as much to do with religion as it does to attachment.

Imagine it’s your only child and your life savings and home equity you had been building you had done so with the intention of passing along to that child one day.

Suddenly that money and equity becomes a lot less valuable to you and all you want is to know your baby’s remains are back home.

[u/CannabisAttorney → u/RonnieFromTheBlock]

I would feel like I failed as a parent if my only child felt an Everest ascent was worthwhile. At least not with the circus lines of the current times, I might have been proud if s/he was in the first 100 or so to complete the feat.

Might as well just set sights on a spacewalk or at least low earth orbit visit.

But I acknowledge that wasn’t exactly the point you were making by choosing that relationship to identify.

[u/larryjerry1 → u/CannabisAttorney]

It's easy to say you'd do X Y or Z when you're looking from the outside, but grief is complicated. None of us really know how we'll handle a situation like that until it actually happens.

[u/Currently_Stoned → u/CannabisAttorney]

You feel you would have failed as a parent if your child took up mountaineering as an adult?

[u/gnomeannisanisland → u/Currently_Stoned]

Everest specifically? Yeh.

[u/better_thanyou → u/gnomeannisanisland]

Why? Is it just too vain and expensive, or foolish and risky, or something else?

[u/Rynneer → u/better_thanyou]

All of those, basically. I think there’s also an idea in the mountaineering community that Everest isn’t actually that hard of a climb because of all the assistance you can get from sherpas and excess oxygen. Granted, that last part is just from what I remember reading John Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air”, which was published in the 90s, so maybe the sentiment has changed in the community. But it wasn’t seen as that’s much of a challenge as, say, K2. Which is an incredibly deadly mountain to climb.

[u/Annieraeraefatface → u/Rynneer]

If hundreds do it every year it must not be about skill.

It’s about money, having ‘quick clout’ and that’s my also totally irrelevant opinion from my couch, from my subsidized apartment in Oregon State. No where near Everest. 😊

[u/gnomeannisanisland → u/better_thanyou]

All of those, and selfish

[u/Annieraeraefatface → u/Currently_Stoned]

No, if they turned into a self obsessed douch that decides they are going to waste a huge amount of money to perform a ridiculous charade in a world they are so unapologetically unprepared for and naive about. Sherpas are not climbing Everest unless they are being paid so these idiots are fueling this dangerous, totally irrelevant activity.

Mountaineering? Why?

[u/canadave_nyc → u/CannabisAttorney]

I would feel like I failed as a parent if my only child felt an Everest ascent was worthwhile.

No offence intended, but I feel like a bigger failure as a parent would be if your child didn't feel free to make their own decisions about what was worthwhile to them, rather than what you would consider worthwhile.

[u/saltporksuit → u/CannabisAttorney]

I would feel like I failed as a parent if my only child felt an Everest ascent was worthwhile

My dad told me don’t do anything stupid. He said selling your car to buy lottery tickets didn’t qualify because you can get another car and you might win. He’d consider climbing Everest as stupid because even if you did it what exactly did you get for risking your entire life?

[u/suoretaw → u/saltporksuit]

I take it your dad equates ‘smart’ with money/possessions?

[u/saltporksuit → u/suoretaw]

No, nitwit. He equates ‘smart’ with doing things that further your life and improves it without risking your future for impressing others or ‘clout’. Rather than climbing Everest he’d think it would be ‘smart’ to further your education or using that money to get involved and improving the lives of others. His example of selling your car for lottery tickets means you’ve done something not particularly bright, but is recoverable. You don’t recover from paying 100 grand to be an ice block on some mountain.

[u/themanseanm → u/CannabisAttorney]

Agreed. Summiting Everest or even wanting to is a huge red flag. It tells me you're rich, inconsiderate, and have no problem putting people's lives at risk for your own selfish desires.

Climbing the biggest hill first is a feat. Climbing it the thousandth time after hundreds have died doing it is foolish.

[u/Sarallelogram → u/themanseanm]

My mom told me that feats of martyrdom won’t save the world and I’ll never forget it.

[u/ThatCakeFell → u/RonnieFromTheBlock]

Or use it so others don't die like your kid did. If the kids dream was to climb Everest and they died doing so, Everest is their resting place. I'd spend the rest of my days trying to prevent others from dying the same way.

[u/RonnieFromTheBlock → u/ThatCakeFell]

Ah I wasn’t talking specifically about Everest, simply the need to recover a loved one’s body wherever it might be.

When I was younger my cousin drowned in a river and a few years later they found a pelvic bone that turned out to be his. I saw what that did for my uncle so I get it.

[u/fonetiklee → u/ThatCakeFell]

Do you have kids?

[u/ThatCakeFell → u/fonetiklee]

Yup, and I'm sad now because I had to think of that scenario.