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| Green Boots on Mount Everest. Photo: Dominic Goff |
The body of “Green Boots,” an Indian climber who died in 1996 and is believed to be Tsewang Paljor, lies near a cave that all climbers must pass on their way to the peak. Green Boots now serves as a waypoint marker that climbers use to gauge how near they are to the summit. Green Boots met his end after becoming separated from his party. He sought refuge in a mountain overhang, but to no avail. He sat there shivering in the cold until he died.
The message I would take from seeing these remains would be, "Turn back!"
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Via Uncertain Times
Read more at Smart News
Via Uncertain Times
Given that Everest is rapidly becoming a 'been there, done that' extreme theme park, and that it's effectively become a snaking line of people following in each other's footsteps, perhaps it would make sense to charge a significant levy on each climber, toward an eventual collection of bodies... and a clean-up of the thousands of oxygen cylinders that parties of climbers have tossed aside on the way.
ReplyDeleteOr, maybe we should just view it as leaving modern 'Otzi's on the hill for future archaeologists to find.
I wonder what they'll make of it?
Are these people sacrifices? Ritual suicides? Pilgrims to the mythical peak who depart their bodies and enter the void?
The one thing we know that is sure, is that every climber knows there's a chance they could die up there, and that their fellows may not have the resources to bring them down. So, sad as it is to see this man's body lying there, it's a result of his own choice.
Where lone sailors die at sea, are we concerned in the same way at their bodies sinking in the deeps?
I'd read about the trash accumulation on Everest but I never thought about human detritus. It sounds altogether hellish.
ReplyDeleteBut it's true, Sharktooth!
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