By Jeff Ginn Mount Everest is the world’s tallest peak. It is remote, rugged and daunting. Over three hundred climbers have died in pursuit of its peak and many of their bodies still lie frozen where they fell. Given these facts, something quite surprising happened this summer. There was a traffic jam on Everest! Due to weather, typically only a few weeks in May are suitable for the ascent. This year, bad conditions reduced that window of time to a few days. For that reason, hundreds of climbers attempted the summit on the same day. Because there is a single rope that lines the last leg of the journey, the route became terribly congested and torturously slow. In the so-called “death zone” of over 8,000 meters of altitude, that is a recipe for disaster. Eleven climbers died during this year’s window. One of the saddest cases in Everest lore is that of a British climber named David Sharpe. He was an experienced mountaineer. On his third attempt to summit Everest, he decided that he would go solo without the aid of a team or sufficient supplemental oxygen. On his way back down from the summit area, he stopped. Not all of the reasons for his pause are known. What is known is that 40 different climbers passed him on the trail. … [Read more...]