Left for dead

Helped along by one Christmas present (reference 2), I have now finished reading another (refence 3), thus completing the current swing through the Everest region.

With Seaborne Beck Weathers being the pathologist from Texas whose guided tour up Everest went badly wrong.

Despite his manifest irresponsibility in climbing dangerous mountains while responsible for a young family, Weathers does manage to come across as a likeable chap who has managed to weather a pretty bad spell. And the book is a useful complement to Krakauer's earlier account, despite his full coverage of the management of calls of nature in such places. I have noticed before that people from the US seem to rather into this sort of thing - while I prefer British reticence.

He also points up the rather odd fact that people who climb mountains often talk about the exhilarating purity of the high mountains - but often have get through a great deal of squalor to get there. And while it seems that Everest is a lot better than it was in this regard, the climbing camps there still sound as if they have a great deal in common with the traveller encampments which sometimes disfigure the green spaces here in Epsom.

Some interesting thoughts about will power in connection with the postal worker who died after summitting. Not in great shape and got himself to the top by will power - which was done when he got there, leaving him nothing to come down with, always rather more dangerous than going up. Also in connection with the need to keep active and keep lethargy at bay when the cold starts to get to you: all too easy to slip away into a fatal sleep. He also tells us that human digestion more or less grinds to a halt at this altitude, so the body is burning through about three pounds of muscle a day. Is that why people look so gaunt and grim after major operations? Water is another problem, as the dry air sucks out seven litres a day, and getting that amount back in when in a freezing blizzard can be a problem. If this is what it takes to keep depression at bay the healthy way, one might do better to pop some pills. For which see reference 5.

Krakauer had rather left me with the impression that the people who pay guiding companies to take them up mountains are not really climbers at all, just hill walkers with a lot of money. Which impression was clearly rather unfair. Weathers, in common with all the other clients on his tour, had done a great deal of climbing. He was a bit old and he was not in the first division with the Hastons (dead) and Messners (alive), but he had plenty of experience and a shot at Everest was a reasonable ambition from that point of view. He also disputes Krakauer's comments about his new boots: modern high altitude boots are just shells and do not need breaking in; they either fit or they don't. Still, his new boots did not fit, despite being identical to the their predecessors, so I think I vote with Krakauer!

His laser retouched eyes breaking down and leaving him more or less blind at high altitude, probably the immediate cause of his personal disaster, seems to have been bad luck. A break down which no-one had foreseen.

But it was the depression which really did for him. A depression which first struck him down when he was a student and which he only managed to keep at bay by climbing. With an effect on his family not unlike being an alcoholic: he was just not there for far too much of the time. It seems that real men in Texas don't talk to their wives about such matters and certainly don't go to a doctor. Perhaps, in part, because he was one himself. Would he be struck off or put under supervision if he came clean?

I was surprised to read that his wife was the first person to write and thank the Nepalese pilot who managed to snatch her husband off the top of the Khumbu Icefall, a place the helicopter involved was clearly not intended to be. He had rescued a lot of people in his time, but she was the first person to write and thank him in that way.

I close with a note for those Tories doing their best to bring US-style health care to this country: Weathers is a partner in a firm of pathologists which has the contract for some Dallas hospital. The very high cost of the US medical system has the benefit for him that he can afford a much fancier life style than I would have thought a hospital pathologist here in the UK could manage. Not least taking $50,000 (and more) trips to the mountains from time to time.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/everest.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/festal-cheese.html.

Reference 3: Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest - Beck Weathers with Stephen G. Michaud - 2000.

Reference 4: Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster - Jon Krakauer - 1997.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/04/belgravia.html.