8000 meter guiding: Good Bad or NFW?

[Rodchester]

In an earlier post AlpineK wrote:

"In any case claiming to guide on an 8000M peak is fucked up. A person with little O2 can hardly take care of themselves let alone guide. Especially when there are such high stakes.. like the huge fee clients pay to get to the top."

I have never done an 8000 meter peak but have always been curious and know many who have. My understanding of the 8000 meter game goes this way.

MOST! 8000 meter expeditions are run one of three ways:

1. Non-commercial: This is the more traditional way. It can mean that the fees permits and equipment is funded by governments, individuals, etc. They can be small and fast or large and slow.

2. Commericial unguided: This is a way that has really taken off. Small groups of climbers gang together to pay for the permits, fees, and equipment,(foods fuel, porters). However no one is guided and all are on thier own. Individuals can be sponsored if the wish, but the expedition is not. Some times the permit holder profits and sometimes they do not. These can be small and large at the same time. Part of the permit may work together in classic siege style while others go lighter. Most all solo climbers use this arrangment.

3. Commercial guided: This is the one that draws the evil eye of many climbers. Clients pay a set amount for everything and they are guided. The level of guide service will vary from company to company and expedition to expedition. These are usually run by "companies" and usually seek to make a profit.

There are variations of each. Often commercial guided expeditions will allow some climbers to buy into the permit but nothing else. They are on thier own on the mountain. Some times they buy into the permit and some equipment, but are not guided.

In actuality, very few people or companies guide 8000 meter peaks and very few 8000 meter peaks are guided.

Everest has drawn everyone's attention, but the 8000 meter peak that is guided the lost is by far Cho Oyo in Tibet.

Also very few guide companies use gas on any 8000 meter peak besides Everest. I have never heard of anyone guiding K-2 od Kachenjunga (Spelling?)

So I am interested to hear what people think regarding the guiding of 8000 meter peaks.

Are some clearly guidable?

Are some not guidable?

How is guiding on an 8000 meter peak different than a lesser altitude peak?

Should the guide standard be lower, ie less services on an 8000 meter peak?

Should the client's abilites be higher on an 8000 meter peak? If so how much higher?

If you just want to spray start your own thread. I am curious to see what others think and believe. ok spray some...but don't hog the ball.

[JayB]

For commercial guided climbers on any peak, it's Caveat Emptor.

[Wopper]

I heard Rodchester hires guides to take him up the Tooth.

[Rodchester]

Notice he said guides, as in plural. It take at elast two and two sherpas.

[Alpine_Tom]

If you get good weather and site your high camp correctly, you can do the whole thing in one push from base camp. You need to spend some time acclimatizing first.

[Figger_Eight]

"If you get good weather and site your high camp correctly, you can do the whole thing in one push from base camp. You need to spend some time acclimatizing first."

Well yeah...that's how I do the tooth.

8000m peaks: I think it depends what you mean by guiding. A guy can be hired to hold your hand, take care of the logistics and tell you where to stand, where to walk and where to shit. But there aren't too many people in this world who can drag your ass down from above 8000m - and the ones who can aren't "guiding".

[ 01-20-2002: Message edited by: Figger Eight ]

[RURP]

This is RURP.

Oh yes. And don't forget to bring an ice axe.

RURP has spoken.

[Dru]

Guiding high peaks trivializes them. Lets say you wanna do Everest these days - and you are trying to raise some $$$ for a light weight alpine style expedition to the Kangshung face... then it turns out your postman, your mayor and your dentist's wife have all been guided up the normal route and Everest is so common place that no one will fund you cause guiding Everest has made the peak BORING

Actually I think guiding in general is not a good thing but there are some people that want to make money and climb and if they can find people willing to pay them to climb with them, more power. as long as they dont start offering Guided First Ascents then dragging clients up my secret projects!

[Rodchester]

DRU:

I do agree that "guiding" everest has made it boring in the public eye. The street cannot see the difference between a dog route done siege style and a first ascent done alpine style with difficult techinical sections.

As far as guiding in general goes, it is as old as climbing itself.

[AlpineK]

I've met folks who guide 8000 M peaks. The ones I've met are all good climbers with lots of experience.

At high altitude you aren't working with much O2 and its well documented that your ability to think and make good decisions goes way down.

As a guide you are suppose to keep your client safe and get them to the summit. Thats a lot of resposibility for a person with diminished brain power. On top of that your client's paid you a lot of money to get them to the summit. Like any person paying for a service they expect results. They might say thats not the case, but I think there are some high unspoken expectations. Plus the more people you can get to the summit the beter your business will do in the future.

I think that is too much presure to put on one person despite their experience level. Guides do dumb stuff at lower elevations (RMI lunch break below Ingraham ice cliffs in the 80s); lack of O2 just makes it worse.

There are lots of things that humans can do but probably shouldn't. I think we can expect more events like on Everest in '96 if guiding big peaks continues.

Also its too easy to set up a scam where you get clients to pay your way to an 8000 M peak and then you ditch them on the summit day.

[ 01-21-2002: Message edited by: AlpineK ]

[klenke]

So, you wanna climb an 8,000 meter peak?Then check out this webpage: http://www.everestnews.com/stats.htm

Your chances of not coming back alive will be pretty clear afterward.

As for Christine Boskoff's endeavor to climb K2, one should note that only 5 women have summited the peak but only 2 have come down alive. So, based on these paltry numbers, her statistical chance of living through the climb if she summits is 40%.

[Dru]

Despite the argument he gives below the stats table, to include all deaths vs all summiters gives a false number, as the deaths include attempters who do not summit. Put simply if you die of overexertion trying to eat a monster chappati in basecamp you qualify for a "death on the mountain" using his stats. Only about one in three or less of Attempters ever Summit so the % death ratio is skewed at least 3 times too high. But hey, how are you gonna brag if the death figure isnt wildly inflated?

[Rodchester]

Be curious to see what the deaths rates are by climbers attempting:

x deaths for every climber attempting summit.

[klenke]

Yeah, that's right.Now I remember that oddity in the tallying system. I too lot it was an inflated way to do a stat. I would have done it like you say: number of deaths per attempted ascent (where "attempted" includes those who succeeded and those who didn't succeed). If you don't leave base camp, it doesn't count as an attempt.

However, the stat for women I stated is corrected. Five have summited. Three died on the way down.

[Dru]

is 5 a large enough sample we can be confident in the statistics, though?

remember what the fatality rate was for the matterhorn after the first ascent.

[forrest_m]

it seems to me that there are two separate ethical issues here:

1) is it ethical for a client to buy the services of a guide on an 8000 m peak? i would say sure, and it is up to the client to make sure that he is getting what he/she paid for. if they don't realize that part of what they are paying for is the judgement of the experienced guide (i.e. arguing if the guide wants to descend, even though it's the last summit attempt of their $100k climb), tough shit. if experienced climbers look down on them for being guided, tough shit. they should be up there for their own reasons, not to impress rock and ice magazine.

i think the commercial non-guided expedition falls into the same category. maybe "expedited" expeditions is a good name for these, it seems totally reasonable to me to pay someone to deal with the hassles and paperwork.

2. i think the crux is whether is is ethical for people to sell guiding services for 8000 meter peaks. i've always thought that the obligation of a guide is to be strong enough for himself AND his clients. obviously, an accident could happen on a 3000 meter peak in the alps, too, but generally speaking, a guide can offer this as a guarantee. above 8000 meters, even great climbers cannot always even be strong enough to save themselves, much less anyone else. i don't think it gets guides off the hook to say "well, people recognize that the level of service given by an 8000 meter guide is less than that of a guide in the alps." i think it is the responsibility of an ethical guide to be able to say: "if you cannot be responsible for yourself, it would be unethical for me to take you there. it would be wrong for you to rely on my abilities because i myself cannot even rely on them."

by this logic, offering expedited services is ethical, since one can offer a fair guarantee of being able to deliver supplies, permits, etc. as promised and can give a refund if not.

[klenke]

There's only one thing to do then:BAN ALL GUIDING SERVICES!!!

The mountain doesn't care WHO you are! You could be Messner or just plane messed up, it still could have you for lunch and crap you out of a glacier 10,000 years later.