Remember to Tip Your Sherpas
By Rocky Thompson on June 3rd, 2011
This is easily the oddest story of mountaineering in the Himalaya this season. A woman suffering from cerebral edema was price-gouged on the mountain by Sherpas for supplemental oxygen on the way down, and then she was abandoned to die by them later. You should read the whole store by Stewart Green on the Kangchenjunga climb, it’s insane. The woman survived with a lot of help from other climbers after several harrowing nights on the way down the mountain. When they hit base camp, of course the guys who were harassed by the Sherpas confronted them. It ended in a huge fight with one guy wielding an ice axe and a western-movie-bar-style brawl. Esh, remember to promise this Kangchenjunga crew a nice tip if you book them next year.
Tags: Climbing, himalaya, mountaineering, sherpa, survival
This story really irritates me. This is a classic story of an entitled garbage rich American doing something they SHOULDN’T be doing and in effect risking everyone else lives in the process and then wining and crying about it when other people don’t want to get themselves killed.
Rich Everest tourists take advantage of these Sherpas ALL the time. They expect the Sherpa to hold their hand and carry them up the hill. And then they expect the Sherpas to sacrifice THEIR lives to keep these incompetent tourists alive.
Because Rich Entitled American lives are soooo much more valuable then the poor 3rd class Sherpa lives. *roll eyes*
I totally defend what the Sherpas did in this instance. When you go to Everest don’t expect to be babied. It’s a all men for themselfs up there.
It’s a known fact that when you go down on the mountain you can’t expect people to carry you down. When that happens EVERYONE could die including you. It’s selfish.
When you sign up for Everest You should know what risks you are taking, and expect that, yes, you could die. It should be your responsibility to take care of yourself and your responsibility to accept the risks that you signed up for. Yes including DEATH.
No one forced her to go to Everest. Why should she force other people to risk their lives for her incompetence? It was HER choice. Live with it.
Oh and when it come to his oxygen tank. Why should the Sherpa have to give her his tank?
And I think 400$ is a fair price when you consider the base cost of the tank and then the cost of his labor of hauling the tank up the mountain in the first place. And it’s not like the rich American can’t afford it!
Wow, you’re an idiot. These people paid for help, they deserved to get help. Beyond that, its a matter of human decency to help others in distress. Helping a person down a mountain does NOT equate, automatically to “risking everyone’s lives.” She paid Sherpas for assistance and knowledge, it is their job to provide it. Otherwise, these “poor 3rd world country” Sherpas would be even poorer. The “fat rich americans” provide them with a standard of living that is far above anything they might have otherwise. The huge paychecks they get in the first place encompass the costs of assisting in a dangerous expedition. That is the exact point in hiring/paying them in the first place. Jackass.