Prayer flags
on the summitt
of
Mount Everest
At least ten climbers have died in the 2006/ 3 month climbing season.
Among the dead was British climber David Sharp, who was apparently left to die by more than 40 climbers who passed him on their way to the 29,035-foot summit.
He was desperate for oxygen and had collapsed along a well-traveled route.
The report angered mountaineers and their tight community, and even prompted Sir Edmund Hillary, who conquered Everest in 1953, to call it "horrifying" that climbers would leave a dying man.
Can they live with their decision to meet their goals at all cost?
They'll have to, won't they.
There is one group of Everest climbers that will never have to justify their actions. They stopped their climb, within a stones throw of their goal to make sure an aussie returned home.
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/National/2006/06/03/1612458-sun.html
I am not a climber. At times the 13 steps to our top floor with a laundry basket seems daunting.
The summitt of Mount Everest is apparently the size of a dining room table.
It is crowded with prayer flags, the only thing allowed to be left.
I do not understand the facination, but then I don't have to.
To each their own.
I am however always happy to see that in this nutso world there is still humanity, and with it, compassion.
These rescuers did not reach the summitt that day, the last day of the season.
They were unable to plant a prayer flag at the summitt.
Instead they re- seeded hope in humanity.
And the mountain gods smile.
http://www.mounteverest.net/
4 comments:
I can not even imagine that a "goal" to climb a rock would be more important than a human life. It does restore hope that there are those that still care. Caring is much more important than a fleeting "goal". Caring is eternal.
I heard this to. It is so sad. Yes goals are important, but never at the expense of another human being. That is just flat wrong. I am glad those climbers will have to live with that for the rest of their lives. They should. Hopefully someday they wont have the same thing happen to them......
I lost a few hours of time reading the website you linked to. It is sad when a personal end goal is more important the life of another person. My heart goes out to the family of Sharp. One never knows, but now the thought that he might have lived had someone taken the time from their own personal quest is there for everyone to think and feel.
some people are so consumed in their own glory of being able to say they have done it that they forget that even sir edmund hilary and those in his party were just that, a party who climbed together.
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