woman gets grief for using helicopter for part of her Everest climb

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140805-mount-everest-sherpa-mountain-climbing-jing-wang-avalanche/

Whose Post-Avalanche Everest Ascent Sparked Outrage Defends Her Feat
To achieve her remarkable climb, Wang Jing helicoptered over a treacherous icefall.

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Because Wang insisted on climbing Everest when virtually every other Nepal-side expedition had abandoned their plans, and because she used a helicopter to bypass the difficulties of the Khumbu Icefall, where three unrecoverable bodies of avalanche victims were still buried, her Everest ascent has been mired in controversy—derided as being in poor taste, the indulgence of a rich "pseudo-mountaineer" who breached basic climbing ethics and ushered in a debased new era of "helicopter mountaineering."

Nowhere has the criticism been more vehement than in Wang's home country, where Chinese blog sites have been inflamed with outrage, some of it misinformed.

"Helicopter Jing, you're imbued with the stench of your money-bought certificates and honors ... The holy Everest has been dirtied by you, a cunning and ugly person!" said one angry commenter on Weibo, a Chinese social media site. "This is a permanent shame in the history of Everest climbing. This is a notorious joke in mountaineering circles!" another weighed in.

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[el_bryanto]

1. I played a little softball in Jr. High and a little in highschool

One of our big insults to batters was to say "He's a looker." The implication being that real men swung away, apparently without looking at the ball. This story kind of makes me think of that; this woman is being mocked for not doing things the stupid dangerous way.

But then again, I'm not a mountain climber and maybe don't have the right mentality to understand how it's cheating to avoid a life-threatening Icefall.

Bryant

[hobbit709]

2. sort of like running a marathon and using a car for the uphill parts.

[el_bryanto]

6. Well like i say I don't have the right mentality

not for a Marathon either - so if you run uphill on a marathon what are the odds of plummeting to your death?

Bryant

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. The controversy is because of the boycott of climbing for the year that she broke

From the article:

Once on the mountain, Wang was unaware of the uproar brewing around her. Some of it was undoubtedly rooted in resentment that Wang had the south side of Everest virtually to herself. (See "Maxed Out on Everest" in National Geographic magazine.) She also had the persistence—or, some would argue, the insensitivity—to proceed when other expeditions with hundreds of high-paying Western clients had folded up and gone home, their plans willingly canceled out of respect for the dead and considerations of safety or unwillingly abrogated by threats of violence from activists in Base Camp seeking to enforce a climbing boycott for political and economic leverage.

The question of whether it was disrespectful to climb after the tragedy of April 18 is not easy to answer. Many grieving Sherpas who wanted to go home after the death of so many of their brothers might say yes. But many would have stayed and worked if they hadn't felt intimidated by threats from activists using the tragedy to press the sclerotic Nepali government for labor reforms.

See, for instance: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11174909

[el_bryanto]

11. Ah - that seems more reasonable.

Thanks for clarifying.

Bryant

[joeybee12]

3. If the conditions aren't right for climbing, don't climb it...

But I'd like to know if the woman was aware of the ice fall before heading out there...and decided in advance she'd use a helicopter...if she got there and paid all that money and then found that it was impassable, I don't blame her, but she can't claim she scaled Mt. Everest.

[Xyzse]

4. Still very hard to do.

Climbing Mountains such as Everest is in the demesne of the very rich or very skilled climbers who have found sponsors to support their passion.

[former9thward]

5. You can say you were at the top of Everest

and that is an accomplishment. But you can't say you climbed it.

[Coventina]

7. Warning: Rantish

From what I've read and seen on documentaries, the situation at Everest is almost out of control.

It's overcrowded for conditions, rich idiots get themselves (and others) in trouble because they aren't trained properly for the ascent, people have to be left to die, because no one can afford the energy to bring them down if they get past a certain point, it's getting very polluted, because again, people cannot or will not clean up after themselves. And, it's a highly dangerous place on a GOOD day, for the best trained and most knowledgeable.

It's gotten to the point with stories like this and many others that I look upon people who want to climb Everest as simply selfish a-holes who want to have something on their bucket list that will outshine anyone else they happen to talk to at a cocktail party.

[Mnemosyne]

18. Bodies litter the place, along with air cylinders and other trash. Pigs. nt

[Baclava]

8. Why climb when you can fly - 'First Helicopter Landing on Everest's Summit'

Ever since Hillary and Norgay claimed first dibs to the summit of Everest in 1953, others have attempted their own "firsts" on the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) peak. But on May 14, 2005, test pilot Didier Delsalle, 48, of the French company Eurocopter made Everest and aviation history by landing his unmodified turbo engine AS350 B3 helicopter on the world's tallest mountaintop

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0509/whats_new/helicopter_everest.html

[JVS]

9. Oh good. Now my dream of of setting a record for most hotdogs eaten on the summit of Mt. Everest...

is getting close to fruition. Better start saving money for that ride.

[Baclava]

13. Don't worry - the world is still full of adventure

[Taitertots]

14. Now my dream is possible

I want to fly to the top, take some pictures and laugh at all the people who climbed to the top.

Maybe bring a jacuzzi up there and hang out for a few hours.

[JVS]

15. Smoke cubans and flick my ash on the peons who have to do their own climbing.

[Taitertots]

16. Smoking might not be the best idea

Last edited Wed Aug 6, 2014, 12:30 PM - Edit history (1)

Low oxygen and oxygen tanks don't mix with fire.

I might just shake up some champaign and make it snow on them.

[Taitertots]

12. Millionaires carried to the top by Sherpas are upset that she used a helicopter

[mokawanis]

17. She's not that different than most of the climbers on Everest

Sherpas usually do most of the hard labor and dangerous work. They carry loads, put up ropes, set up camps, and guide climbers up and down the mountain.

Getting to the peak is still dangerous and difficult, but anyone who's in decent shape and can come up with tens of thousands of dollars can do it.

The golden age of mountaineering (Buhl, Messner, Herzog, and others) ended when big money entered the picture.

[mythology]

19. I live in the Boston area and I mock people who have bumper stickers

saying "this car climbed Mount Washington". But then again, my vacation this year will be spent hiking a 14er. So I feel justified in looking down on people who need a car to hike up 6,000 mountain.

She should absolutely not claim to have climbed Mount Everest. She took the easy way out. It happens. I'm pretty sure she's one of the many people who try to ascend Mount Everest that shouldn't. But I guess at least she didn't die up there.

[SidDithers]

20. Rosie Ruiz gets grief for using subway for part of her Boston Marathon...nt

Sid