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Community Corner

The Highest Part of The Highest Mountain

Put a straw in your mouth and pinch your nose, now breathe. Here you can take the straw out and unpinch your nose, it’s another world up there. Adrian Ballinger of Squaw Valley, Calif., a six-time summiteer on Mount Everest, explained that the effects of the Death Zone are “felt immediately” as climbers trudge through its daunting gateway at 26,000 ft. In addition to gasping for air, mountaineers are constantly plagued by exhaustion, vomiting, insomnia and disorientation. Therefore, Ballinger said that they must begin acclimatizing at 14,000 ft. in order to adapt to life in thin air. The process of slowly ascending and descending allows the body to produce additional red blood cells to carry more oxygen. However, once climbers enter the Death Zone, they are no longer able to acclimatize and literally start dying. “We don't stay any more than two or three days above 8,000 meters,” said Ballinger.  Although indigenous of Nepal and Tibet, even the Sherpas must take precautions that high up despite having twice the lung capacity of Westerners. “It is a project that demands incredible effort and willpower,” said Ballinger. “To get there you have to work really hard and then on the mountain itself it is super difficult for everyone involved.” Seven-time summiteer Daniel Mazur of Olympia, Wash. agreed saying that the effects of the Death Zone are almost instantaneous.“After one night up there, they are starting to feel very weak,” he said of Everest mountaineers.However, even if something goes wrong, Ballinger and Mazur said that most climbers are reluctant to descend without achieving the glory of the 29,035-foot peak that sits half a mile below the Stratosphere.To put that in perspective, most birds fly at 3,700 ft. during migration, Mount Elbert is the tallest peak in the Rocky Mountains at 14,443 ft., high-level cirrus clouds form at 18,250 ft. and Mount McKinley, the highest point in the United States, towers over Alaska at 20,327 ft.“The summit often seems incredibly close and you have worked for years to get there,” said Ballinger.      Mazur explained that while some mountaineers turn around voluntarily, others “keep going until they collapse.” Having abandoned two out of three summit bids, Chris Warner of Oella, Md. said that despite the time, preparation and the $65,000 that climbers pay for a crack at the top of the world, turning around is always the more difficult yet smarter choice. “It’s like walking up the aisle to get married and realizing that you’ve made a mistake,” he said. Warner added that one of his clients, former Recon Marine Capt. Owen West, turned back at 28,000 ft. on the mountain’s north side in 2001. In contrast, he said that the choice to ignore common sense and continue on is “cowardly.” In doing so, climbers become increasingly susceptible to ailments such as High Altitude Pulmonary Edema in which a person can drown as their lungs fill with fluid and High Altitude Cerebral Edema, a condition that causes brain swelling. “There’s 19 ways you can die on summit day,” said Warner. He explained that above 26,000 ft., the brain’s frontal lobe, which controls things like rationale, judgment and problem solving, begins to shut down.“Two plus two is suddenly seven,” he said. In addition to the altitude, Warner pointed out that fatigue also begins to take its toll in the Death Zone. “It’s like running a marathon six days in a row,” he said. Warner explained that climbers take 10 steps and sit down with intention of resting and then never get up again.However, these problems can be minimized with the use of supplemental oxygen.“It’s the ultimate performance-enhancing drug,” said Warner.He explained that a flow of two liters per minute gives climbers the feeling of being 3,000 ft. lower. In addition, ladders and fixed ropes have been installed over the past 10 years to assist novice climbers, some of whom attempt the highest point in the world without any prior mountaineering experience. “It’s that idea of infrastructure that gets people to Everest,” said Warner.     However, history has proven that for every 10 climbers who go up the mountain, at least one of them is likely to stay there, as fellow climbers usually do not have the strength to get them down. Even those familiar with high-altitude climbing can be consumed by 80 mph avalanches, plummet 150 ft. into a crevasse or get caught in blinding blizzards that hit with little to no warning. From George Mallory and Andrew Irvine in 1924 to Rob Hall and Scott Fischer in 1996, 249 people have never come home from Everest. 

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