It is the roof of the world and, in its own right, the peak of peaks to climb to its apex. In Nepal, Everest is known as Sagarmatha («the forehead of heaven») and is not for less. At 8,848 meters above sea level, it is the highest peak on earth (except for the Mariana Sea Mountain, which reaches 11,000 meters deep). Before, long before, the writer and explorer Alexandra David Néel came to Namche Bazaar (base camp from where you usually ascend the mountain), many other adventure seekers had tried it. Some succeeded. Others don’t. However, you will be surprised to know that the 150 bodies that were abandoned on Everestmany of them have a curious mission today.
The “death zone” and the bodies abandoned on Everest
To put yourself in the situation, imagine that you are on a mountain thousands of meters high. The temperature does not exceed -15º in the month of July, which is when most amateur adventurers set out to climb a few thousand. You are perfectly fine and, suddenly, you start to feel dizzy, vertigo and you can’t help but vomit. You are at about 7200 meters, in camp III and the Sherpa who accompanies you recommends that you come back because you have altitude sickness.
You decide to abandon, but there are those who continue for a few hundred more meters, specifically until the 7900 meters of altitude where Camp IV is located. From here you enter the section known as the «death zone.» It is less than 1 kilometer of route in which additional oxygen is essential to stay alive. There are cases of mountaineers who have reached the summit but, of course, this is not your case.
If you decide to continue through the death zone with your oxygen bottle, since you have been lucky and the altitude sickness has not overcome you, you will discover that, suddenly, at 7500 meters your limbs start to freeze, you barely feel them. Any pothole in the snow becomes an important obstacle to overcome and all this without adding the usual oxygen in very small quantities that the bottle supplies, without which you would surely have died by now.
The bodies of Everest that were never found
150 bodies were never found, but it is known that there are more than 200 bodies abandoned on Everest. The most curious, and perhaps macabre, thing is that some of them are used as reference points.
One of the most famous who also inspired an episode of The Simpsons is known as Peter Boardman. He died sitting and was discovered in that same position in 1992. Ten years after his disappearance.
Other bodies found on the way to the ascent of Everest are «the greeter» (pictured above)which seems to greet in a lying position – hence its name -, and another – which also served as a reference – «green boots» (in the image below), a still unidentified Hindu, who died during the Everest Disaster, which occurred in 1996, the cause of which was a terrible snowfall.
Other famous abandoned remains are those of David Sharp, who is found very close to “green boots”, who, as we told you in the article “Green boots, the macabre story of the corpse of an Everest climber” was definitively buried in 2017, and the bodies of Francys and Serge Arsentiev, Bruce Herrod and Shriya Shah-Klorfine who died at 8300 meters.
Today, its location is a landmark and a reminder to new explorers to beware of taking unnecessary risks.
If you were interested in this article about the bodies abandoned on Everest, you may want to know these 5 shocking facts about Mount Everest.
Images: JohnThannon, strangeremains, discoverywill.