Day 5: Mount Everest Webquest

Role1
Member of the climibing community
You may choose to examine Mount Everest from the viewpoint of a member of the
international mountain climbing community. Mountaineers (as they are called)
climb mountains, provide gear, guide others up mountains, hire helpers and
set up travel plans for mountain climbing adventures.

State the Problem: Mount Everest is a dangerous place to be and its most ultimate consequence is death!!!

Give Evidence: An example of Mount Everest's dangers are from a climber who was known as Sharp, who was 1000 ft below the peak and was deprived of oxygen. 40 passed by him and left him there to die. More than 4,000 have tried, 660 succeeded, 142 have died. There is an area known as the death zone which is above 25,000 ft. There is sparse oxygen there, fierce winds, negative 100 degrees below wind chill, impaired judgement, blizzards, avalanches, mile deep crevaces, sheer terrain, and fatal mountain sickness. It is difficult to breathe without supplemental oxygen. You have a low chance of surviving if you stop on the way up because you can't go on. Also, when in the death zone you can barely eat or drink. There is an oxygen level one third of that at sea level, which means you will have to breathe 4 times faster or 50 times in a minute. There is air dry enough to drop your water content level in blood from 50% to 15%. When you get a parched throat you may start to have hacking coughs, which are strong enough to crack ribs. Its low temperatures can cause hypothermia, exhaustion, and hallucinations.

Examine Contributing Factors: Some contributing factors that make this a dangerous mountian are that if you fall and are losing breath, normally no one would stop and help you. It is cold at the mountain so you have a high chance of freezing. This mountain can turn ordinary people into believers, which may cause you to climb to your death. Your personality type can make it difficult for people to enforce rules on the mountain. Impaired Judgement will cause you to do things that you would not normally do so you have a higher chance of making stupid decisions. The money put in the expedition will make people just forget about fallen climbers and the only thing they have on their mind is the summit. The summit will always be there, someones life will not.

Propose a solution: one solution would be not to climb this mountain at all or you might die or you could at least prepare for a climb on this mountain by climbing other smaller mountains to gain experience of mountain climbing.

Info was provided by Why We Explore, Los Angeles Times, and Deadly Peak.