Stuff You Should Know - Are there dead bodies on Mount Everest?

Episode Date: March 26, 2009

Every year, adventurers brave the elements and attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Yet dangers abound, and more than a hundred bodies litter the mountain. Listen in and learn more about Mount Everest in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit bona.com slash Bona Clean. On the new podcast, The Turning Room of Mirrors, we look beneath the delicate veneer of American ballet and the culture formed by its most influential figure, George Balangene. He used to say, what are you looking at, dear? You can't see you,

only I can see you. What you're doing is larger than yourself, almost like a religion. Like, he was a god. Listen to The Turning Room of Mirrors on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck. How you doing, Chuck? I'm great, man. This, let's just stop right here, Chuck. We've got something to shamelessly plug. I want to just get it over with. I feel really bad about this. Why call it anything other than what it is? Right. Okay, so everybody, Chuck and I just made, and Jerry. Jerry was a huge part of it. Agreed. Our

producer, Jerry, it would have just been steaming had Jerry not been involved in this, right? Agreed. Chuck and I just recorded our first spoken word album. Right. We have joined the likes of Jack Kerouac and Barack Obama, except our spoken word album's on the economy, economics, right, Chuck? Yes, indeed. We took the path less traveled, did something that's kind of obscure and people, you know, aren't talking about much these days. Right. What's it called, Chuck? It is called the Stuff You Should Know, Super Stuffed Guide to the Economy. And it is super stuff because it's long and it's detailed and it's got interviews with experts. There's a... We go on site, we leave the studio, chicken farm. That's not a spoiler. Right. Don't worry about it. But yeah, so it's up for

sale on iTunes right now, right? Uh-huh. And it is for sale. It is. I know you folks are always saying, I can't believe you're podcaster free. Well, we took your advice. Yeah, thanks for that. Hopefully this will allow us to keep doing what we do. Yeah, so that's... Have we reached the end of the shameless plug? Oh, wait. Yes. So if you want to go buy it, that would be totally fine with us. That would be great. Okay, so that now we've reached the end of the shameless part. Yes. And it's time to get into your shameless segue. Yeah, which is this. Have you ever mountain climbed? I know you've rappel, but where you ever on a mountain? To rappel, one must climb. Now, I've never actually rock climbed, but I've done plenty of hiking in the mountains. I got you.

But not rock face climbing. That's... Was there snow in any of these mountains? Were you up so high that there's like perennial snow? Oh, yeah, sure. Really? Yeah. Where? Like Colorado, stuff like that. Huh. Wow, that's pretty impressive. I didn't know that was shocking. I know. I see you like wearing your little shorts and hiking boots with like thick socks kind of pushed down. Yeah, so far so good. Yeah, and just kind of hiking along what most people would call like a hill or something like that. Certainly not like where there's... Like Kennesaw Mountain? Kind of, yeah. Which is... I can't say anything because it's way out of my league. Kennesaw Mountain is, let alone the Rockies. No. I mean, trust me, dude, I'm not... You won't think I'm a Sherpa like scaling the Mount Everest

or anything like that. Yeah, and I think at this point I can tell you I've left untoward behind and Sherpa is now my favorite word right now. Okay. I love that word. It just rolls off the tongue. Sherpa. They're cute little guys. Yeah, agreed. Okay, so you have done some mountain climbing. So you can speak to what we're going to talk about with reasonable authority. Yes. I can defer to you when I get confused inevitably. So Chuck, have you ever read Into Thin Air? I have not, but I did read Into the Wild, which is John Crackauer. Is that his name? Yeah, John Crackauer. He is a journalist for Outside Magazine and he knows how to take an outdoor event and turn it into a good book. Into the Wild is a great example. Chris McCandless, who actually went to school

down the road at Emory and decided that he was going to go to Alaska and basically just didn't quite do it right. Yeah. Died after three months of exposure to the elements, I think. There's some varying theories on why I died, but that's not what this is about. Okay, well no. Into Thin Air is much, much more pertinent to this topic. Correct. Okay, so that's actually about an expedition on Mount Everest and that took place in May 1996. He was actually on this one, right? Yes, he was, which is one of the reasons the book is so incredible. I bet. And it was a complete cluster of an expedition. Really? Eight people died, accounting for more than half the deaths on Everest that year. Really? It's one expedition. Wow. There was a rogue storm that whipped up and

it killed some people and others were lost and then they died, but then other people went after them to try to rescue them and then they died. And it was just more like a, let's get out of here whenever we can. You basically just have to write everybody off, right? And like I said, it's a very, very good book. But one of the things that I took from it is that, number one, Mount Everest is a total bear as far as mountains go. Completely inhospitable for humans. Yeah, you want to talk about, you want to talk a little bit about Everest? Yeah, I guess we should get a couple of stats out of the way. All right, let's do it. Everyone knows it's the tallest peak in the world. Yeah, they call it the roof top of the world.

They do, for good reason. And quick aside, there is a discovery microsite on Everest and it has a 360 degree panoramic view. You remember, you showed me that like my first week here. It's amazing. It was unbelievable. And I said to myself, that is awesome. And this Josh dude has it going on. That's all it takes. That's how I've collected all of my friends. That's how the magic starts. Yeah. You send him the Everest photo. Yeah, I just pay it out a little bit at a time. Start with the Everest photo. And then before you know it, you're sitting up at night. You actually feel like you're there when you look at this panoramic picture and so much so that I don't feel like I need to climb it. You can almost hear the wind whipping. Yeah, so, okay, so give me some more

stats. So yeah, tallest peak in the world. What's the peak? How tall is it? 29,035 feet, which is 8,850 meters for our friends who don't live in the US or Liberia or Burma. Correct. Right. Very well done. Little shout out, insider shout out to our listener mailer, she wrote in with that. And the mountain itself shares a border with Nepal and Tibet, but the actual peak is in Nepal. So India is not involved? Not as far as I know. Why did you say that? You're trying to throw me off my game. Yeah, don't worry about it. Chuck, no one can throw you off your game. Right. Not even me. Josh messes with me sometimes, people, but it usually gets cut out. I have a feeling this will make it in. So Chuck,

I have a question for you. Shoot. What is the worst season to go on Everest? Well, really anything outside of May and June. May to June. Yeah, that's when you want to climb Everest. So May to June is the time you want to go. Yes. Oh, well, okay, gotcha. So Josh, an average day, if you want to talk weather, an average day in May of 2008 was minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit, which is minus 27 degrees Celsius. True. And winds of 51 miles an hour. 81 kilometers. Right. Very good. So that's during the most hospitable time of the year, barring no like freak storms and unusual activity. Yeah. Other times of the year, the jet stream passes directly by the summit, which is in May to June. The jet stream does not do

that, which is why that's the time to go. Gotcha. And you can get winds up to like, you know, 120 miles an hour. And mine is 118 miles an hour, which would be 189 kilometers an hour and minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. So which is minus 73 degrees Celsius. Right. So you cannot imagine. Have you ever been up in a tall, tall building? Um, yeah. In the wintertime? No. Outside? No. Okay. I climbed the Empire State Building. There's no mountain climbing, certainly no Colorado hiking, no tall buildings in the wintertime. Right. But you've been to Malta. That is true. I just a few years ago, Emily and I were at the top of the Empire State Building around Christmas time. Nice. And dude, that's the Empire State Building. And I thought I was going to die.

The wind and the cold. Really? And that's the Empire State Building. So imagine Mount Everest at 29,000 feet. Well, were you properly outfitted on the roof of the Empire State Building? Oh, yeah. I mean, I wasn't wearing my shirt. Have you established a base camp by then? Yeah. On the, on the ground floor. The security guard comes out and is like, what are you doing? Right. Yeah. Okay. So, so Chuck, I think we got it down. Mount Everest is not the place to be, especially with your Empire State. Alligator, that's pretty good. Thanks. Okay. So, um, and we've also established that people die on Everest. How many was there? 189 so far? Yeah, that's the, that's the current count. And you said that 2000 people have died or have, have

successfully summited Everest. Right. That was as of a few years ago. That was the count. The BBC told me 1300. Well, you know, so somewhere between there, for every stat, there's another stat when it comes to stuff like this and equal and opposite stat, like some guy might have snuck up to Everest and not officially logged it with the BBC, you know. Well, the problem is, is that, if you die on Everest, apparently you stay on Everest. Pretty much. Yeah. Which is what your article is about, right? Yeah. It's much, it's a suicide mission to try and bring a body down from the death zone. And the death zone is above 26,000 feet. That's like the final area above the final base camp where you go to reach the summit. And that's where most people die. Okay. And not everybody

who's died on Everest is still there, but a significant portion is like of the 189, there's 120. And also we should probably say before you sharpen your pencils and email us, we're working off of what like 2004 stats right here. Yeah. So at least several people have died since then, I think. I know at least one guy died in 2006 on Everest. Right. The thing is, is you can't even bring your oxygen canister down. Obviously a trash zone. A dead person and an oxygen canister, not the same thing, but it kind of puts their perspective like you are going up there and getting back down and you're lucky to escape with your life basically. Exactly. Yeah. And from what I've read and been described to me to try and bring a body down is a suicide mission for everyone

involved. So it's like, you can't save this person because you put your entire crew at risk. So you just have to march on. Right. Now that's kind of the predominant view of people who climb Everest. But it seems like it's starting to change. Like technology is advancing enough and people's gear and oxygen equipment, it's getting good enough so that sentiment is almost being outlived. It's already been outlived. Obviously, Sir Edmund Hillary is the guy who submitted Everest for the first time. Right. I thought there were debates about that too. Did they think Norge beat him? Well, George Lee Mallory actually is another climber and there's some speculation as to who actually got there first because Mallory was found dead. Right. And

actually in the article, there's a picture of his petrified frozen, headless body. It is a cool picture. Yeah. Yeah. His head is just pretty much withered away. The weird thing is, is like if you look at his left hand, it's totally intact. Right. Like it looks like he's just laying there if you just look at his arm. Yeah. True. But where did they find him? I mean, did they find him at the summit? Or did they think he made it to the summit and started to climb down and died maybe? Exactly. I think that's the speculation. They did not find, they found him beneath the summit and there's speculation as to whether, what you said, whether he made it all the way down and died on the way back or whether he never made it all the way up. Gotcha. And he would have been

before Hillary. So that's, it's a pretty big deal. Yeah. He was in the 20s, right? Yeah. 1924. And it looks like he was running around in like a burlap sack. I think it's weathered some over the years. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Well, either way, the first person to be, to document their place at the top of Mount Everest is Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa. He did it with Nepalese Sherpa, Tenzing Norge. Right. Who's just got the best name. Yeah. He's got Sherpa right there and then Tenzing and Norge. I love that guy's name. That's, that's your fake name when you check in the hotel, isn't it? Tenzing Norge. Why'd you do that? I tell you things in confidence. Thank you, Chuck. You know, to change my name. This brings up a point though that he's, he's

obviously the most well-known Sherpa ever. Have you ever heard of any other Sherpa? I have, but I never retain their names like Tenzing Norge. Well, they get a raw deal is my point. Like you always see the guy, you know, the white dude in the Jansport North Face gear on top of Everest and you don't see like, there's like two Sherpas. Yeah. The two Sherpas like outside of the frame. Yeah. It's their third trip up that week. You know, they're like big deal. Do you ever see that episode of The Simpsons where Homer climbs Mount Springfield? Yes. And the two Sherpas are like doing cartwheels on the way down and dragging them up while he sleeps at night. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine that that's probably, I think it's a thankless job is what I'm

saying. Yeah. I think of the world. They need to form a union or something. So how did we get on Hillary? Well, you said that he was the first man. Okay. Well, he did not perish. I know, I know what I was going to say. He lived until 2008. So he lived to see a lot of people. Dying. Follow in his footsteps and die. And in 2006, this guy named John Sharp, I believe, he died on the mountain. I think of exposure, maybe. Probably. As many as 40 climbers passed right past him. Yeah. And not like past him and didn't see him. Like past him, noted he was dead right dying, dying and just kept going because that mentality is still around. Like, Hey, it's too dangerous. Right. The thing that it's a Hillary came out and publicly criticized the

people who didn't even do anything really make an attempt. And then the thing that really kind of drove that criticism home was the following year. A Nepalese woman was successfully rescued by an American climber, a very experienced American climber, but she was in virtually the same spot under virtually the same conditions. And he got her out. But 40 people walked past this guy just under the assumption that, and I can imagine it's drilled into your head. Like if you die or you're dying, we're going to leave you here. Right. But I don't think that's necessarily, I don't think that necessarily has to be the case anymore. Right. As that American guide proved by saving the Nepalese woman. Right. And this is me speculating here, but I bet a certain amount of

this too, in addition to having that drilled in your head is it's so much effort and a lot of money to go on one of these expeditions and not, you know, some people climb it more than once, but a lot of people, this is their, their one shot and they hear this and they might see someone dying and they think, you know, I can't ruin my opportunity to climb Everest and potentially die right in the process to rescue the stranger. So it's pretty sad. I know there's a lot of controversy. Well, there was, there was definitely one guy who has probably received the most public ire of anybody who's let somebody die on Everest. His name was Ian Woodall. Yeah. And he actually figures as basically the villain in Into Thin Air. He was actually, he was on the mountain

when Crackcower's expedition went pear shaped. And so Crackcower was, you know, these expeditions were very close together and often time like coming into the same place at the same time. And they try to stagger it kind of like golf, except much, much deadlier where, so everybody's not hitting the same points at the same time. There's no bottlenecks, right? Well, Woodall apparently was not down with waiting for anybody. I think his famous quote in the book is, we'll make it to the top anytime we damn well please or something like that. So he's unwilling to coordinate with other expeditions. He wouldn't allow another expedition. I think Crackcower's expedition, he uses radio to call for help for whatever reason. I don't remember. I read

the book like a decade ago. But Crackcower definitely doesn't like this guy. And basically, if he doesn't say in so many words, he insinuates that people died on the mountain because of this man's action or inaction. So there was actually one, another climb that Woodall went on where he, yeah, he was with a dying woman. He and his partner, Kathy O'Dowd, his wife actually, but I think they're climbing partners as well, were going on their initial ascent, right? Right. And came upon a woman. And what is her name? Her name is Francis Arsenteev. Okay. Yeah. And she was laying there dying. Yes. And so they went over and hung out with her for an hour and tried to see what they could do. And what happened? Well, they left her behind.

Yeah. And she said, apparently the last words she said were, don't leave me behind. And they were forced to leave her behind. And I didn't know that part about the end of thin air that he figured into that book. But apparently he went back in 2007 to bury her body up there. He did with a couple of others. Because he was racked with guilt, apparently. Yeah. She had done, I read an article in the Daily Mail about him doing that. And it was right before he was actually on the mountain. They were interviewing him via satellite phone. And apparently Fran, as everybody called her, had become kind of this ghoulish landmark. Like, I think Kathy O'Dowd put it like, you get to Fran and turn left.

Yeah. Because she was right there on the trail. It's awful. And, you know, apparently like in like a kind of a really horrible frozen state. And also her husband was on the climb with her and he died. They assumed they never found him again, going to get help. So yeah, it's a horrible story. They both left their son behind, I believe. But yeah. So, Woodall wanted to go barrier. And he ultimately ended up like lowering her down and dropping her down the North Face instead. Oh, really? Yeah. But yeah, he's not a very well liked person among a lot of climbing circles. I get the impression. Well, I know there's certainly a lot of controversy around that. I know that

that there's also been efforts. It's a big trash dump too, which is what's really sad. Yeah. Because like you said, people will just dump their gear to make it easier on the way down. And I got a good stat for you here. We're talking 120 tons of trash each year are left behind a mountain at risk by climbers. Wait, each year I thought that was total. Each year says ABC News. Holy cow. And that climbing teams in China, they lead expeditions now to go up and clean some of this stuff up. And they're trying to get some of these bodies down that are within safe reach. Let me think about it. There's 120 bodies on Everest. The ones that are up in what you call it the death zone. Yeah. They're pretty preserved. Like you can see in that picture of George Mallory.

Yeah. So they're close to trails generally. So I mean, imagine that. Imagine climbing Everest knowing that your own mortality is at risk and then having like these reminders along the way. I felt that way at the Empire State Building. Were there a lot of dead bodies on the Empire State Building? Like up the stairs, you know, every couple landings. It's an elevator. So I got you. I really had nothing to complain about. There's no stairs in the Empire State Building. It seems like a violation of our safety rules. I'm sure there are stairs, but you don't climb them to get to the observation deck. I got you. Take an elevator. That's why you're still just doing the Rockies, buddy. Yeah. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. Miami had

become the murder capital of the United States. They were making millions of dollars. I would categorize it as the Wild Wild West. Unleashing a wave of violence. My God. I took a walk into the devil's den. The car fells. They just killed everybody that was home. They start pulling out pictures of Clay Williams body taken out in the Everglades. A world orbiting around a mysterious man with a controversial claim. This drug pilot by the name of Lamora Chester. He never ran anything but grass until I turned over that load of coke to him on the island. Chester would claim he did it all for the CIA. Pulling many into a sprawling federal investigation. So Clay wasn't the only person who was murdered? Oh, no, not by a long shot. I'm Lauren Bright

Pacheco. Join me for Murder in Miami. Listen to Murder in Miami on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1968, five black girls dressed in oversized military fatigues were picked up by the police in Montgomery, Alabama. I was tired and just didn't want to take it anymore. The girls had run away from a reform school called the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, and they were determined to tell someone about the abuse they'd suffered there. Picture the worst environment for children that you possibly can. I believe Mt. Mays was patterned after slavery. I didn't understand why I had to go through what I was going through and for what. I'm writer and reporter, Josie Duffy Rice. And in a new podcast, I investigate how

this reform school went from being a safe haven for black kids to a nightmare, and how those five black girls changed everything. All that on Unreformed. Listen to Unreformed on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, okay, well Chuck, I guess we've answered that question. 120 dead bodies, hopefully less as they retrieve them, if they can retrieve them. And hopefully less as time goes on, because I know that every year that goes by fewer and fewer people are dying because of climbing technology, satellite phones, stuff like that. And possibly maybe a change in mentality about what happens to you if you get injured or you get exhausted. It's a new bang up generation of sherpas as well. Yes, there are no tensing

norgays there. He's the one. Yeah, last of a breed. Yeah. Well, again, thank you for listening to that are there dead bodies on Mount Everest. You can read more about it. It's a Chuck article, which means it's the market quality. You can type in dead bodies, Mount Everest, and it's going to come up in our handy search bar on howstuffworks.com. And while I'm sitting here thinking about a new pseudonym to come up with when I check into hotels, right? Chuck's going to talk about our blog. Yes, our blog is up. It's been up for a little while now. And we've gotten some of you find folks leaving comments and we'd like to see more of it. And I just want to say every Friday, I do a little podcast recap on the blog where we just mentioned the shows that were released

that week. And that's a good chance for you guys to chat with us about it. If you have any comments about that week's show, we log on. We'll answer you back. We'll answer your questions and it's a good way to reach us. You want to mention the cartoon? Oh, yeah, even better. There's a for Friday, the March 20th. There's a blog post where Josh and I actually had been made into a comic strip by an artist named Greg Williams for the Tampa Tribune in Tampa, Florida. And it's regarding our junk mail podcast. And it's up on our blog now. And it's awesome. It's really, really cool. It is very cool. He found the one moment of scatological humor out of all of our podcasts and amplified it like a million times. Right. It's that he did a good job. And also, I never

realized how round my head is until I saw it in cartoon form. And he clearly used a compass to draw to draw me. Yeah. So yeah, I have a big round head. That's good. Yeah, it looks nice. But yeah, that's up on our blog. And thank you to Mr. Greg Williams. Yes, for doing that. We feel very honored. Yes. And now, and I know what time it is. Listener mail. So Chuck, the bring has occurred with the tone down bring as per the request of sound. The listener mail chime. Let's do it. This one. Wait, wait, wait. There's no haiku in here, is there? Well, there's a brief one. Oh, I can see a brief. All right, let's go. I said no more haikus, but this one's funny because originally I called haikus that were

corrections, correction coups. I thought it was kind of funny. But Jonathan M. Pesky of Redlands, California wrote us this one. Correction coup no. Such a clunky moniker. Try high correction. That is a little more clever. Much more better. Yeah. So it's more better. Getting on with the correction coup. I know in, I think last week we mentioned the listener mail someone wrote in about the MK ultra video game. Yeah. The guy who's on acid while he wrote us. Right. Can we listen to a little clip of that real quick? Let's do that because it was funny. In it, you were a weird costume demand with a gun for an arm. And you went through and violently killed everything in your midst. The world you were in was very interesting,

different colors, the walls moved, weird sounds. There was a talking dog. It's your sidekick. So right. He wrote us in and I was really, really disappointed to find out. We had quite a few people email us and tell us that it was not a game called MK ultra. It's a game called MDK. And while there was a weird costume man with a gun on his hand and a talking dog and lots of weird trippy things and dark sense of humor, it apparently had nothing to do with MK ultra. No. So I was disappointed to learn that, but I want to thank Rue from Atlanta. Yes. Ali. You think you practiced this? Ali. That's not bad. No. Robbie. Yeah. Alejandro. Okay. Charlie and Michael.

Well, wow. And they all are video game guys, I guess, and they wrote in to tell us that they had played MDK. It was a PC game and it looked pretty cool. I looked at it on YouTube. I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, it's pretty rad, but there's no, there's no MK ultra going on. Well, thanks to everybody who wrote in. And if you want to write to us about your video gaming experiences or just to say hi or to suggest a new pseudonym for me when I check into hotels, send it to stuff podcast at howstuffworks.com for more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you the war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff

stuff that'll piss you off the cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. On the new podcast, The Turning Room of Mirrors, we look beneath the delicate veneer of American ballet and the culture formed by its most influential figure, George Balangene. He used to say, what are you looking at, dear? You can't see you. Only I can see you. What you're doing is larger than yourself, almost like a religion. Like he was a God.

Listen to The Turning Room of Mirrors on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.