Imagine planning your trip to Everest and getting ready. Training. Buying supplies. You feel powerful, strong - you are going to conquer nature, on nature's turf!
And then you sit in a queue with hundreds of other people who were all able to afford the same modern protective gear that's semi-trivialized the entire endeavor.
I feel bad, and I'm not even there.
It's kind of like going to visit a national park for a hike and it's just swarming with people and you lose the whole "in nature" vibe you were going for.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I feel like anyone climbing Everest right now probably knows that, as sad as it is to say that. If a mountaineer wants something legit dangerous as hell they'd do K2 or Annapurna or Nanga Parbat.
Or go to the north pole. Which I looked into yesterday and is surprisingly difficult still in 2019, even more so as summers get chaotic up there.
Sometimes they even leave a bunch of corpses behind like in 2015 when people 22 died or 2014 when 16 people died or 1996 when 12 people died and so on and so forth
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
edited May 2019
every time i hear about someone dying climbing everest, my first instinct is to laugh, and then i feel kinda bad, but then i laugh again because it probably cost that person more money than i made last year to go on their little hiking trip and then the mountain killed them because they didn't take it seriously, or they got cocky, or they just lost the draw.
edit: like, being from wyoming, you learn a real, real healthy respect for nature and her capriciousness. the best-maintained, most popular hiking trails can turn on you in an instant and eat you up, bones and all. climbing a mountain that tall, that dangerous, is spitting in fate's face. i have no sympathy for some poor fool who falls out of sight when fate finally blinks.
Sometimes they even leave a bunch of corpses behind like in 2015 when people 22 died or 2014 when 16 people died or 1996 when 12 people died and so on and so forth
what a bunch of assholes
unless they were sherpas and not tourists I guess
Imagine planning your trip to Everest and getting ready. Training. Buying supplies. You feel powerful, strong - you are going to conquer nature, on nature's turf!
And then you sit in a queue with hundreds of other people who were all able to afford the same modern protective gear that's semi-trivialized the entire endeavor.
I feel bad, and I'm not even there.
It's kind of like going to visit a national park for a hike and it's just swarming with people and you lose the whole "in nature" vibe you were going for.
This was every single park we went to in Utah in April, except for one of the stops at Canyonlands where my uncle and I just sat on a rock ledge and ate lunch and just...observed for a couple hours. The Grand Canyon was a fucking zoo, and would have been way better with just, 90% fewer people.
Sometimes they even leave a bunch of corpses behind like in 2015 when people 22 died or 2014 when 16 people died or 1996 when 12 people died and so on and so forth
what a bunch of assholes
unless they were sherpas and not tourists I guess
The 1996 climbing season was unusual because only one of the twelve fatalities was a Sherpa but going all the way back to 1922 when seven Sherpas died because George Mallory was the wanker you'd imagine a British explorer-mountaineer to be the statistics are extremely disproportionate
I feel like anyone climbing Everest right now probably knows that, as sad as it is to say that. If a mountaineer wants something legit dangerous as hell they'd do K2 or Annapurna or Nanga Parbat.
Fun fact: that queue was the cause of two deaths on that day.
A friend of mine said, "Man, climbing Mount Everest is the most white people thing I ever heard of. You'd never catch a Mexican doing that." I...think she might be right. Also she is Mexican so she probably has more authority on the second part than I would.
Let's be real though, climbing Everest is extremely hard and extremely dangerous. The reason it looks like that is because in a season you might get a handful of days where a summit attempt is possible and an entire month's worth of guys will give it a go.
Also the Sherpas are terribly compensated and the local people are quite deprived. Typically the foreign climbers are some of the strongest supporters of putting more money into the region, compensating Sherpas more etc. They also bring a lot of money into the area, and are encouraged to come.
It is a depressing picture. I can see why people want to climb it though. If you're a mountaineer it's the ultimate climb. You literally cannot find a higher mountain obvs, so it's a dream for them. And a pretty damn impressive achievement.
"Impressive" is a real eye-of-the-beholder kind of thing. It's the highest peak in the world, but I'd hesitate to describe it authoritatively as "the ultimate climb", especially since I'm not a climber and have no idea what the criteria for evaluating a climb might be. Assuming "highest point on the Earth above sea level" represents "the ultimate climb" seems simplistic at best.
In any case, the commodification of the climb is what is being bemoaned here, and I think that is possible to do without disparaging the locals or discounting whatever benefits tourism to the area might confer to them. To that end, I think the photograph does a very good job of symbolizing the nature of that state of affairs, and it's... well, it's certainly uncomfortable to look at.
apropos Sherpas, a lot of them are finding work in Norway, repairing or building stone paths that help reduce the immense wear and tear on nature from all the tourists.
Like, all over the place. Hundreds of paths. Because they're amazing at it - and the nepalese build stone paths the same way we do, or used to, as it's damn near impossible to find someone here with the skills to do this. Not to mention the endurance. They use local stone, and hand power. The result is quite beautiful, especially after a couple of years when the weathering of the raw rock matches the surrounding landscape.
They only work in the summer months, and get paid according to regular norwegian tariff agreements - which in a year earns them 100 nepalese annual wages.
It's been quite a boon for Khunde, the village most of them comes from - a lot of the wages of the people who go go into a fund managed by the village council, which hands it out like, for higher education for a son of the village, or compensating a widow, etc. One thing they especially mention is that they don't have to send anyone up Mt Everest anymore.
very mildly interesting fun fact, I guess. But well, now you know. Admiration for work on stone paths is what p much any norwegian will think of when they hear "sherpa" these days, at somewhere near them, odds are some popular trek is or has been getting an upgrade by them.
"Impressive" is a real eye-of-the-beholder kind of thing. It's the highest peak in the world, but I'd hesitate to describe it authoritatively as "the ultimate climb", especially since I'm not a climber and have no idea what the criteria for evaluating a climb might be. Assuming "highest point on the Earth above sea level" represents "the ultimate climb" seems simplistic at best.
In any case, the commodification of the climb is what is being bemoaned here, and I think that is possible to do without disparaging the locals or discounting whatever benefits tourism to the area might confer to them. To that end, I think the photograph does a very good job of symbolizing the nature of that state of affairs, and it's... well, it's certainly uncomfortable to look at.
It's the ultimate climb because it is the highest mountain, and extremely forbidding and inhospitable even if Annapurna, K2 and others have higher fatality rates . Even with everything that has been done to make it safer and more accessible you've still got somewhere between a 1% and 10% chance of dying on the mountain depending on the year.
70% of ascent attempts in most years take place on the safest week. I think it's a powerful photo, Everest has definitely been commercialised. I don't think there's anything wrong with climbing it though, and it has brought benefits to the local people through money and tourism, yeah maybe it'd be more aesthetically pleasing if people spread their ascent attempts throughout the year to avoid unsightly queues. Multiple times the fatality rate, though. And while it looks busy, less than five thousand people have climbed it ever. That's not a lot!
Also I gotta say sneering laughs at people who wanted to climb a mountain for the joy of it and died doing so is pretty low and reprehensible behaviour IMO.
I know it's cool to be all "ugh whitey tourists" but there's nothing wrong about wanting to go to the Himalayas and climb some of the most beautiful and incredible mountains in the world. "Oh well they knew the risks" yeah they did and it's still fucking sad they died, Christ.
"Impressive" is a real eye-of-the-beholder kind of thing. It's the highest peak in the world, but I'd hesitate to describe it authoritatively as "the ultimate climb", especially since I'm not a climber and have no idea what the criteria for evaluating a climb might be. Assuming "highest point on the Earth above sea level" represents "the ultimate climb" seems simplistic at best.
In any case, the commodification of the climb is what is being bemoaned here, and I think that is possible to do without disparaging the locals or discounting whatever benefits tourism to the area might confer to them. To that end, I think the photograph does a very good job of symbolizing the nature of that state of affairs, and it's... well, it's certainly uncomfortable to look at.
It's the ultimate climb because it is the highest mountain, and extremely forbidding and inhospitable even if Annapurna, K2 and others have higher fatality rates . Even with everything that has been done to make it safer and more accessible you've still got somewhere between a 1% and 10% chance of dying on the mountain depending on the year.
70% of ascent attempts in most years take place on the safest week. I think it's a powerful photo, Everest has definitely been commercialised. I don't think there's anything wrong with climbing it though, and it has brought benefits to the local people through money and tourism, yeah maybe it'd be more aesthetically pleasing if people spread their ascent attempts throughout the year to avoid unsightly queues. Multiple times the fatality rate, though. And while it looks busy, less than five thousand people have climbed it ever. That's not a lot!
I think you’re in the clear opining that laughing at people’s deaths is not a good look, but this is definitely about more than “aesthetics”. I can say I think there’s something... odd? Sad? Darkly comedic? about doing something recreational that results in death? The incongruity of desired outcome and actual outcome certainly seems like it could be made comical. Less funny when applied to individual cases, but as an idea, I feel like there’s comedy there. Tragedy+Time, right?
My first instinct is certainly to roll my eyes at the assertion that it’s “impressive”, but that has more to do with my values and what I’d rather spend my time doing, and it’s not really anybody’s responsibility to live up to that, so I’ll politely disagree and leave it at that.
I’m just thinking out loud at this point, I don’t think anything you’ve said is wrong headed or off base. I’m trying to understand my visceral reaction to that photo, which was definitely not positive.
If you had everything you needed to wander around on Mars in general you could climb Olympos Mons no problem because it's a very very shallow ascent, and there's no ice/horrible storms to rip you off the mountainside/steep cliffs etc. Plus lower gravity so easier to go up stuff.
Only trouble is that it's massive. It'd be like walking to the middle of France from the border. You'd be walking for weeks to get there.
Sometimes they even leave a bunch of corpses behind like in 2015 when people 22 died or 2014 when 16 people died or 1996 when 12 people died and so on and so forth
what a bunch of assholes
unless they were sherpas and not tourists I guess
If you had everything you needed to wander around on Mars in general you could climb Olympos Mons no problem because it's a very very shallow ascent, and there's no ice/horrible storms to rip you off the mountainside/steep cliffs etc. Plus lower gravity so easier to go up stuff.
Only trouble is that it's massive. It'd be like walking to the middle of France from the border. You'd be walking for weeks to get there.
Incidentally my favourite bit of Mountain history is about K2. There was a massive Trigonometric Survey in British India and where possible they wanted to use the local names but K2 is so remote that there wasn't one, nobody from the nearest habitations to it had really seen or named it. They were going to give it a different name of a surveyor but the Society rejected it so it just stuck with the reference name of Peak "K2" mostly by accident. Italian Mountaineer Fosco Maraini considered the name to be extremely appropriate however, in one of my favourite poetic descriptions of nature, he said K2 was...
... just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars. It has the nakedness of the world before the first man – or of the cindered planet after the last.
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
If you had everything you needed to wander around on Mars in general you could climb Olympos Mons no problem because it's a very very shallow ascent, and there's no ice/horrible storms to rip you off the mountainside/steep cliffs etc. Plus lower gravity so easier to go up stuff.
Only trouble is that it's massive. It'd be like walking to the middle of France from the border. You'd be walking for weeks to get there.
If you had everything you needed to wander around on Mars in general you could climb Olympos Mons no problem because it's a very very shallow ascent, and there's no ice/horrible storms to rip you off the mountainside/steep cliffs etc. Plus lower gravity so easier to go up stuff.
Only trouble is that it's massive. It'd be like walking to the middle of France from the border. You'd be walking for weeks to get there.
Also all the aliens
I believe the preferred nomenclature is undocumenteds, dude.
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
Also I gotta say sneering laughs at people who wanted to climb a mountain for the joy of it and died doing so is pretty low and reprehensible behaviour IMO.
I know it's cool to be all "ugh whitey tourists" but there's nothing wrong about wanting to go to the Himalayas and climb some of the most beautiful and incredible mountains in the world. "Oh well they knew the risks" yeah they did and it's still fucking sad they died, Christ.
The average Everest climb trip costs the climber 45 grand.
You'll forgive me if I don't weep for the wealthy dying on an unnecessary adventure. Spending $45,000 to climb a mountain, oh how brave and neat, pfft.
We're destroying the climate on those mountains. For no reason but vanity and pride. So you can post pictures on your Facebook.
I got sympathy for the Sherpas that die certainly, but the tourists? That's just rich folks doin dumb rich folk shit.
Edit: not YOU specifically, Solar, I meant the folks who climb Everest and their Facebook
Edit 2: and this isn't a case of me being an edgy unempathetic internet tough guy either. I'm soft as shit, I cry daily, I read a story earlier today about a mailman retiring after 35 years on the same route that I cried over for like five minutes! I got big emotions and I value human life! I also think you win stupid prizes for playing stupid games!
since i'm bored at work and this still hot take topic worthy here is my luke warm take
starting with the national parks analogy
this one is a bit loaded to me because (and i'm not saying bowen implied this at all) its usually an ableist or fat-phobic comment
the mission of the national parks is to protect the monuments and also make them available to the general public
i think with their current funding they do a great balancing act, everyone deserves to see these wonders, so it's great that they're crowded because it means more folks enjoying and appreciating them and more funding.
if you want real solitude and roughness there's plenty of ops out there if you're able bodied, if you're not then these may be the only outlets available to you and my making them easily accessible with minimal environmental impact it encourages everyone to have a stake in maintaining the environmental protection.
now to apply that to everest
all the information i've seen indicates that the tourism is creating ecological disaster, corruption is eating a lot of the money going to the locals, the primary folks pushing the dangerous culture and making the most money are the guide companies, the local communities whose residents are putting their lives at risk are seeing the least benefit.
we've greatly improved safety technology, which should be (and definitely is in a way) reducing deaths, however it primarily been used to lower the barrier of entry
i'm not saying there are folks who don't deserve the experience, but considering the hazards of the situation, everyone involved in the climb needs to be aware of everyone else's abilities and signing off on the commitment based on the risk presented by those abilities.
that's not happening, and people who are not prepared for the climb are being pushed into dangerous situations, which then endangers everyone else on the mountain.
as far as sympathy goes; its not always the asshole who has no business being the mountain and spent their fortune on equipment and people instead of actually being prepared who suffers, sometimes it's the experienced climbers who endangered themselves to prevent some asshole from dying. so just consider that if you're going to be flippant about death on the mountain.
Also I gotta say sneering laughs at people who wanted to climb a mountain for the joy of it and died doing so is pretty low and reprehensible behaviour IMO.
I know it's cool to be all "ugh whitey tourists" but there's nothing wrong about wanting to go to the Himalayas and climb some of the most beautiful and incredible mountains in the world. "Oh well they knew the risks" yeah they did and it's still fucking sad they died, Christ.
The average Everest climb trip costs the climber 45 grand.
You'll forgive me if I don't weep for the wealthy dying on an unnecessary adventure. Spending $45,000 to climb a mountain, oh how brave and neat, pfft.
We're destroying the climate on those mountains. For no reason but vanity and pride. So you can post pictures on your Facebook.
I got sympathy for the Sherpas that die certainly, but the tourists? That's just rich folks doin dumb rich folk shit.
Edit: not YOU specifically, Solar, I meant the folks who climb Everest and their Facebook
Edit 2: and this isn't a case of me being an edgy unempathetic internet tough guy either. I'm soft as shit, I cry daily, I read a story earlier today about a mailman retiring after 35 years on the same route that I cried over for like five minutes! I got big emotions and I value human life! I also think you win stupid prizes for playing stupid games!
Yeah and? It's their dream, they're just doing what they really want to. Maybe they saved for years for that opportunity. There's definitely an argument for protecting the ecology of the mountain by limiting access, but this is just crass man. Nobody is saying you gotta cry your eyes out about it but to laugh about it? That's fucked up. That's not cool man and don't wrap it up in some shit about "respecting nature."
In the most mild of defenses I will say that there is always more to be gained from going to see something yourself rather than viewing it as a picture.
But this is also a case where the difficulty is probably somewhat artificial at this point. If every tourist in that 2019 picture pooled the money they spent on it they could probably build a more reasonable path up to there. Hell, with the amount of money that goes into that every year they could probably build an elevator in the mountain within a decade.
I recall reading that the whip was the first human-made object to break the sound barrier, which was one of those brain-explody moments for me.
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
That's one of my favorite bits from the book IT, where Been is more afraid once he realizes that the pop of Pennywise disappearing is the air rushing in to fill the void he'd been occupying, meaning he was real.
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It's kind of like going to visit a national park for a hike and it's just swarming with people and you lose the whole "in nature" vibe you were going for.
Or go to the north pole. Which I looked into yesterday and is surprisingly difficult still in 2019, even more so as summers get chaotic up there.
same shit, different century.
edit: like, being from wyoming, you learn a real, real healthy respect for nature and her capriciousness. the best-maintained, most popular hiking trails can turn on you in an instant and eat you up, bones and all. climbing a mountain that tall, that dangerous, is spitting in fate's face. i have no sympathy for some poor fool who falls out of sight when fate finally blinks.
what a bunch of assholes
unless they were sherpas and not tourists I guess
This was every single park we went to in Utah in April, except for one of the stops at Canyonlands where my uncle and I just sat on a rock ledge and ate lunch and just...observed for a couple hours. The Grand Canyon was a fucking zoo, and would have been way better with just, 90% fewer people.
The 1996 climbing season was unusual because only one of the twelve fatalities was a Sherpa but going all the way back to 1922 when seven Sherpas died because George Mallory was the wanker you'd imagine a British explorer-mountaineer to be the statistics are extremely disproportionate
At least they're poorly compensated!
Interesting fact: Our habanero peppers grew in early and I made pizza.
Interestinger fact: I forgot how hot they were, I went to pour some milk, and found out we only had about two sips left.
The bottom left tower is 19 balls; it stays together because of friction from the upper ones holding the lower ones together.
and yes, it's real, there's no glue:
Yeah I think that was implied.
Also the Sherpas are terribly compensated and the local people are quite deprived. Typically the foreign climbers are some of the strongest supporters of putting more money into the region, compensating Sherpas more etc. They also bring a lot of money into the area, and are encouraged to come.
It is a depressing picture. I can see why people want to climb it though. If you're a mountaineer it's the ultimate climb. You literally cannot find a higher mountain obvs, so it's a dream for them. And a pretty damn impressive achievement.
In any case, the commodification of the climb is what is being bemoaned here, and I think that is possible to do without disparaging the locals or discounting whatever benefits tourism to the area might confer to them. To that end, I think the photograph does a very good job of symbolizing the nature of that state of affairs, and it's... well, it's certainly uncomfortable to look at.
Like, all over the place. Hundreds of paths. Because they're amazing at it - and the nepalese build stone paths the same way we do, or used to, as it's damn near impossible to find someone here with the skills to do this. Not to mention the endurance. They use local stone, and hand power. The result is quite beautiful, especially after a couple of years when the weathering of the raw rock matches the surrounding landscape.
They only work in the summer months, and get paid according to regular norwegian tariff agreements - which in a year earns them 100 nepalese annual wages.
It's been quite a boon for Khunde, the village most of them comes from - a lot of the wages of the people who go go into a fund managed by the village council, which hands it out like, for higher education for a son of the village, or compensating a widow, etc. One thing they especially mention is that they don't have to send anyone up Mt Everest anymore.
very mildly interesting fun fact, I guess. But well, now you know. Admiration for work on stone paths is what p much any norwegian will think of when they hear "sherpa" these days, at somewhere near them, odds are some popular trek is or has been getting an upgrade by them.
It's the ultimate climb because it is the highest mountain, and extremely forbidding and inhospitable even if Annapurna, K2 and others have higher fatality rates . Even with everything that has been done to make it safer and more accessible you've still got somewhere between a 1% and 10% chance of dying on the mountain depending on the year.
70% of ascent attempts in most years take place on the safest week. I think it's a powerful photo, Everest has definitely been commercialised. I don't think there's anything wrong with climbing it though, and it has brought benefits to the local people through money and tourism, yeah maybe it'd be more aesthetically pleasing if people spread their ascent attempts throughout the year to avoid unsightly queues. Multiple times the fatality rate, though. And while it looks busy, less than five thousand people have climbed it ever. That's not a lot!
I know it's cool to be all "ugh whitey tourists" but there's nothing wrong about wanting to go to the Himalayas and climb some of the most beautiful and incredible mountains in the world. "Oh well they knew the risks" yeah they did and it's still fucking sad they died, Christ.
I think you’re in the clear opining that laughing at people’s deaths is not a good look, but this is definitely about more than “aesthetics”. I can say I think there’s something... odd? Sad? Darkly comedic? about doing something recreational that results in death? The incongruity of desired outcome and actual outcome certainly seems like it could be made comical. Less funny when applied to individual cases, but as an idea, I feel like there’s comedy there. Tragedy+Time, right?
My first instinct is certainly to roll my eyes at the assertion that it’s “impressive”, but that has more to do with my values and what I’d rather spend my time doing, and it’s not really anybody’s responsibility to live up to that, so I’ll politely disagree and leave it at that.
I’m just thinking out loud at this point, I don’t think anything you’ve said is wrong headed or off base. I’m trying to understand my visceral reaction to that photo, which was definitely not positive.
Then I'll believe that there ain't no mountain high enough and I'll let you get to me.
What if I climb my owns Mons Pubis? Can I call you then?
Only trouble is that it's massive. It'd be like walking to the middle of France from the border. You'd be walking for weeks to get there.
what an incredibly unpleasant thing to say
You hear that, everyone?
I'm easy.
You just have to put a little time in.
Also all the aliens
I believe the preferred nomenclature is undocumenteds, dude.
The average Everest climb trip costs the climber 45 grand.
You'll forgive me if I don't weep for the wealthy dying on an unnecessary adventure. Spending $45,000 to climb a mountain, oh how brave and neat, pfft.
We're destroying the climate on those mountains. For no reason but vanity and pride. So you can post pictures on your Facebook.
I got sympathy for the Sherpas that die certainly, but the tourists? That's just rich folks doin dumb rich folk shit.
Edit: not YOU specifically, Solar, I meant the folks who climb Everest and their Facebook
Edit 2: and this isn't a case of me being an edgy unempathetic internet tough guy either. I'm soft as shit, I cry daily, I read a story earlier today about a mailman retiring after 35 years on the same route that I cried over for like five minutes! I got big emotions and I value human life! I also think you win stupid prizes for playing stupid games!
starting with the national parks analogy
this one is a bit loaded to me because (and i'm not saying bowen implied this at all) its usually an ableist or fat-phobic comment
the mission of the national parks is to protect the monuments and also make them available to the general public
i think with their current funding they do a great balancing act, everyone deserves to see these wonders, so it's great that they're crowded because it means more folks enjoying and appreciating them and more funding.
if you want real solitude and roughness there's plenty of ops out there if you're able bodied, if you're not then these may be the only outlets available to you and my making them easily accessible with minimal environmental impact it encourages everyone to have a stake in maintaining the environmental protection.
now to apply that to everest
all the information i've seen indicates that the tourism is creating ecological disaster, corruption is eating a lot of the money going to the locals, the primary folks pushing the dangerous culture and making the most money are the guide companies, the local communities whose residents are putting their lives at risk are seeing the least benefit.
we've greatly improved safety technology, which should be (and definitely is in a way) reducing deaths, however it primarily been used to lower the barrier of entry
i'm not saying there are folks who don't deserve the experience, but considering the hazards of the situation, everyone involved in the climb needs to be aware of everyone else's abilities and signing off on the commitment based on the risk presented by those abilities.
that's not happening, and people who are not prepared for the climb are being pushed into dangerous situations, which then endangers everyone else on the mountain.
as far as sympathy goes; its not always the asshole who has no business being the mountain and spent their fortune on equipment and people instead of actually being prepared who suffers, sometimes it's the experienced climbers who endangered themselves to prevent some asshole from dying. so just consider that if you're going to be flippant about death on the mountain.
Yeah and? It's their dream, they're just doing what they really want to. Maybe they saved for years for that opportunity. There's definitely an argument for protecting the ecology of the mountain by limiting access, but this is just crass man. Nobody is saying you gotta cry your eyes out about it but to laugh about it? That's fucked up. That's not cool man and don't wrap it up in some shit about "respecting nature."
They're also not all unexperienced "tourists"
This statistic obviously has limitations but it shows the nationality of those who have climbed and summited Mount Everest so far
https://haexpeditions.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Summiteers-of-Mount-Everest-by-Nationality-HAE.pdf
But this is also a case where the difficulty is probably somewhat artificial at this point. If every tourist in that 2019 picture pooled the money they spent on it they could probably build a more reasonable path up to there. Hell, with the amount of money that goes into that every year they could probably build an elevator in the mountain within a decade.
So cool