Buddha Basnyat, MD

Everest summit fever is raging.  By the end of May most climbers who are waiting at the Everest Base Camp will have summitted  the mountain or perhaps given up. Most climbers take their time for about 6 to 8 weeks acclimatizing at high altitude ( sauntering around base camp, climbing up and down from camp 2 or 3) and then go for the summit bid from the base camp in 3 to 5 days. As Peter Hackett, a noted altitude expert and an Everest summiteers himself  says  people can live for months at 6000 m, weeks at 7000m but only days at 8000m; that is why 8000m is certainly the death zone. At that altitude your body is unable to acclimatize any more. Acclimatizing basically means the body’s physiological functions coming to terms with the decreased oxygen level ( hypoxia) of the high altitude terrain.

 It is the acclimatization period which may take about 2 months and demands patience, waiting it out in the inhospitable Everest Base Camp or  higher. Gone are the days when climbing was limited to the likes of Eric Shipton, Hillary, Doug Scott, and Tenzing Sherpa. Now many climbers are office workers who may be affluent enough to use the services of a commercial guide to go up the mountain. These office workers may not have adequate time. Indeed some years ago an elderly Japanese team ( all the members were > 55 years and were senior board members) decided that  they wanted to climb Everest as fast as possible without acclimatizing properly. So they brought plenty of oxygen cylinders and  they continually breathed supplemental oxygen right from base camp onwards and successfully climbed the mountain in just over 3 weeks. Then they reported to work in Japan the week after. In Nepal, known for its “bundh” ( strikes) and public holidays,  the shocker was not so much that all the elderly Japanese succeeded but the Japanese work ethics!! Hopefully the Japanese  took the oxygen cylinders off the mountains!!

Delving into the psychology of these climbers is also fun. Many new climbers climb for fun and a sense of excitement.  Some of these new converts in climbing  may also suffer from a midlife crisis and may want to prove that they are still capable of doing great things. They may have peaked in their profession but may feel that physically in their life they have not achieved as much. What could be better for the morale than an Everest feather in your cap!!

Have you noticed there are vastly fewer people who attempt to climb the second highest mountain, Mount K2? It is not just because the mountain is located in remote, violence prone Pakistan. The fact of the matter is that this is just too technical a mountain for Tom Dick and Harry ( and Jane and Kanchi Maya) to try to attempt climbing.

Amazingly a debate has been going on since the days of Mallory and Irvine about the ethics of climbing with and without supplemental oxygen. To this day there are many famous climbers who say that climbing with supplemental oxygen is tantamount to cheating. However medical literature is supportive of studies which show a negative long term impact in the brain and other organs in climbers who survive a non supplemental oxygen usage climb.   

What all Everest climbers know is that they have to descend from the summit. Many climbers forget this important  information in their relentless passion to get to the top. Many prudent climbers have a turn around time, that is if they have not reached the top at a certain time, they turn around to be safe. But this can all be lost in the heat of battle, so to speak. You are so excited to get to the top that the equally arduous descent is all but forgotten. Indeed a recent article in the British Medical Journal concluded that profound fatigue and late times in reaching the summit are  features associated with subsequent death.  Everest climbers  who do not heed the turn around time have successfully reached the top but failed to descend. “That does not count,” is what the great Sir Ed replied when someone said that Mallory may have been up there before the famous duo.

Buddha Basnyat, MD. President, UIAA( Union Internationale Des Associations D’Alpinism), Medical Commission.