Hacker Cinema
Everest
2008 · TV series · 59 min episodes · 1 season
Based on the true story of the first Canadians to ever make it to the top of the world's tallest and most historic peak. A proud moment for Canadians and an adventure that is filled with bitterness, broken relationships and the bodies of four dead men.
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Climbing Everest has become more and more ridiculous year after year. What was once a frontier pushing expedition has turned into a sport for rich idiots who are practically being dragged up and down the mountain by their sherpas and expedition leaders. There may be an occasional experienced climber but mostly the mountain is filled with rich tourists who have hardly any climbing skills.
This is well portrayed in the Discovery documentary Everest, which shows a group of people attempting to get to the summit. The mountain is so full of people that are queues of people waiting in line while inexperienced climbers ahead move slowly through the bottle necks (narrow ledges and ladders, etc).
The documentary also portrays the death of climber David Sharp [1] who was left to die up in the mountain. In the documentary, it is shown that he was found during descent in a very bad condition. There is some controversy if this is true and whether he was actually found on the ascent instead. If he was found during the descent, leaving him might be considered acceptable since the party who found him would have been exhausted, low on oxygen and the daylight fading fast.
But if the situation is (as some have suggested, and the Wikipedia article says) that he was actually found on ascent and left to die while going for the summit instead, it is very morally questionable thing to do. Going to the summit, which is essentially only a tourist attraction at this point, instead of attempting to save a man's life is something that I might never comprehend. Even if the chances of saving that man were slim, not attempting the rescue is questionable.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sharp_(mountaineer)