Mountaineer Memorials
By Thomas on February 2, 2008 | No Comments »
What an amazing feat it must be to have summited the highest mountain in the world and lived to tell the tale. However, the large number of memorials in the Khumbu region bears witness to how many people have not come back to share their stories but perished in their attempt to climb Everest.
Among the memorial cairns along the trail to Gorak Shep, we came across one dedicated to Scott Fischer who, among others, died in the infamous 1996 expedition to Everest. I had read Jon Krakauer’s excellent book “Into Thin Air” in which he gave a recollection of this tragic event. Standing in front of Fischer’s memorial on the way to Everest suddenly made the whole thing much more real to me. Climbing Mt. Everest or its surrounding peaks, however commercialized it has become, is a very serious undertaking. By the end of the 1996 climbing season, fifteen people had died, making it the single deadliest year in the history of Mt. Everest.
Topics: Nepal | No Comments »
