Last night I just finished a week and a half of binging five docu-seriesā on Mt. Everest climbing expeditions. To say they were addictive is putting it mildly. It became an obsession from the moment I heard this first line of dialog.Ā
"Right now, more than 250 daring men and women are climbing toward the summit of Mt. Everest, the highest point on earth. Some will succeed. Most will fail. Seven will die."Ā
Forget the āWhy does a man climb a mountain, because itās thereā BS. These people are clinically insane. Why does a guy who lost both his legs to frostbite come back two years later to be the first person to climb as a double amputee? Why does someone climb when itās pretty much a certainty youāre going home with fewer fingers or toes than you started with? That's absolutely nuts.
But a funny thing that happens when you binge watch Everest documentaries. After about three episodes you somehow think youāre now and expert and could probably make the climb yourself. As it stands I know about the dangers of the Khumbu Ice Fall. I can wax poetic about the Lohtse Face, a 1000 foot sheer ice cliff you have to climb to get to Camp Two. I know the route to get to Camp Three. Camp Four? Itās just below the āDeath Zoneā, the altitude where you literally start dying once you enter it and that's not an exaggeration. You start dying. Yeah, that's where ya lost me.
So back to Base Camp. Thatās what Iāll do. Iāll hang out there. Cook for the guys. Make coffee. Itās perfect for me.Ā Until I learned itās an 11 day hike to an elevation of 17,000 feet and I could easily die from altitude sickness and HAPE (high-altitude pulmonary edema) where your lungs fill with fluid and you drown. Your brain can also swell and kill you. Yeah Base Camp ainātĀ gonna happen either.Ā
So as I watched, I jotted down all the reasons why I wonāt be climbing Everest anytime soon. Here they are. Feel free to add your own.Ā Ā
- Itās hard.Ā
- Temperatures can reach -30Āŗ F and I donāt like the cold.Ā
- Avalanches can sweep you down the mountain at any time.Ā
- To cross the infinitely deep crevasses, you have to walk across ladders from Home Depot tied together with nylon rope. Hell, I wonāt even borrow the neighborās ladder to clean my gutters.Ā
- The trek to the Summit from Camp Four starts at midnight. Itās dark at midnight. Iām not climbing a mountain in the dark.Ā
- Hypoxia. A lack of oxygen to your body. They give you bottles of oxygen. But other teams steal your oxygen if you donāt hide it well enough. Seriously? Stealing oxygen? What a-holes.
- When people die, they leave them you up there. Look to your left. Look to your right. What do you see? Dead people.Ā
- When people are dying, they leave them up there. Look to your left. Look to your right. What do you see? Someone dying.
- When you get to the top you have 18 minutes to look around. Thatās it. 18 minutes. Just enough time for a couple of selfies. But don't take off your gloves to take the picture. Your will have frost bite in under 2 minutes.
- You have to climb back down. 80% of the people who die on Everest die on the way down.Ā Nope.
- And last but not least, itās hard.
Finally, as the credits rolled on the last documentary one thought crossed my mind:Ā
WHOāS CARRYING THE F***ING CAMERA? Think about it. It ain't shot with a Go Pro. So while the climbers are cheating death, thereās a guy up there in Zubaz pants and a fanny pack trying to get around you so they can shoot some B-Roll. But that's a photog for you. They do what they gotta do to get the shot at any cost. God bless em.
So if you want to climb Everest be my guest but donāt expect me to be your climbing buddy. Iāve got four seasons of Schittās Creek Iāve got to finish by next Friday.Ā
PHOTO: Getty Images/Discovery Network