Quote:
Originally Posted by NHAero
Before I experienced disc injury and muscle loss in left foot and lower leg in 2006 I spent a fair bit of time hiking the NH White Mountains in winter, finishing all 48 summits over 4,000 ft in the early 2000s. No altitude issues there, but serious adverse winds, cold, and snow and ice. Some I did solo and some with a friend, and we always had a turnaround time no matter how close we were to a summit.
My last peak in the winter was Mt Jefferson, which has a fairly indistinct peak that has three "summits". The first time I attempted it was in thick pea soup clouds - I couldn't see 20 ft. This is before GPS (not that I would want to rely on that). I kept going up because I could retrace my steps in the snow. The summit cone had blown free of snow and was just ice, so I couldn't retrace my route (hard to read crampon tracks :-). I turned around because I didn't want to get lost up there, probably within a few hundred feet of the true summit. The mountain will be there for another try!
I do get it that for many of these Everest climbers it's a long-held dream, once in a lifetime. But I'd still have a turnaround time if I was in that line.
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I think most climbers, even on something as “touristy” as Everest, do have a turnaround time. The window for a summit attempt is pretty much May, and that’s it. If you aren’t heading back to Camp 4 by 11:00am, you have probably made a mistake. I think the reason this gets violated is the taste of success so near plus some sunk-cost fallacy combined with hypoxia which leads to poor judgement. Consequences are rapid and harsh above 26,000 ft.