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The number of climbers who have died on Mount Everest this spring season now stands at six, but observers say that figure is normal.
Key points:
- Six climbers have died attempting to scale Mount Everest this season
- The CEO of a Global Rescue says his company has carried out almost double the number of climbing rescues
- Alan Arnette, a climbing expert, says the number of deaths "more or less on par" with the annual average
On Sunday, 54-year-old Australian climber Frank Marchetti was among four people who perished trying to scale the world's tallest peak.
This Himalayan climbing season, the sound of rescue helicopters' blades has been heard frequently by hikers.
"We're standing today at close to 50 rescues for the season with still another 10 or so days to go [in the season]," said Dan Richards, the CEO of a company called Global Rescue.
Mr Richards' company offers climbers and other risk-takers the equivalent, he likes to say, of roadside assistance.
"We've got three or four going on right now," he said. "Just comparing that [number of rescues] to last year, we were in the 30 range."
Global Rescue also evacuates the bodies of climbers who perish on the slopes.
Unfortunately for the family of Mr Marchetti, the elevation at which he died makes that impossible.
Mr Marchetti's expedition organisers and Tibetan authorities believe he collapsed and died from altitude sickness approximately 8,300 metres above sea level.
Tibetan authorities said he had been given a traditional snow burial.
Marchetti followed standard practice, expert says
Alan Arnette, a climber and blogger who tracks Everest expeditions, said Mr Marchetti's expedition had followed standard practice — he had reportedly been acclimatising in the Himalayas since early April.
"I followed their team and it appeared they were doing the proper acclimatisation rotations," he said.
"But again, I can't emphasise this enough, sometimes altitude just hits you without any notice at all."
Three other climbers, an American, a Slovak and an Indian also died over a deadly weekend on the world's tallest mountain.
Together with an 85-year-old man hoping to be the oldest Everest climber and famed Swiss alpinist Ueli Steck, the four weekend deaths bring the total this season to six.
"I hate to say this but it's more or less par for the course," Mr Arnette said.
"On average about six people die a year on Everest and we've now reached that average."
How many is too many?
This year, Nepal authorised 371 climbers and China approximately 200, which included mountaineers cashing in permits they couldn't use after 2014's icefall and 2015's earthquakes.
That had prompted fears of overcrowding.
Nepal makes $7.8 million a year just from licensing climbers, and tragedy inevitably prompts the question — how many is too many?
But Mr Arnette said most of the reported fatalities this season appeared to be altitude-related, not over exposure from weather or delays caused by bottlenecks on the climb.
"I don't think you can make the mountain safer," he said.
"What you can do is encourage people to go there that are prepared, they have a sense of personal responsibility."
As he juggled multiple Himalayan evacuations, Mr Richards said his is a growth industry — but he flatly rejected any suggestion it might encourage the unprepared.
"They're not going to perceive that they can be rescued and have their lives necessarily immediately saved, going into an environment like that, just because a company like ours exists," he said.
Topics: death, community-and-society, travel-and-tourism, nepal
First posted