People Line Up For Days To Get Into The Apple Sto....To Climb Mount Everest?
OUTSIDE ONLINE – Climber Nirmal Purja posted this photo on Facebook early on May 23. It shows a dense line of climbers on their way to the Hillary Step and then the summit. “I summited everest at 5:30 am and lhotse 3:45 pm despite of [sic] the heavy traffic (roughly 320 people),” wrote Purja, who is currently attempting to climb all 14 of the Himalayas’ 8,000-meter peaks in a single season.
The photo was quickly disseminated by other social media users who couldn’t believe what it depicted, with comments like “I can’t believe this photo from Mount Everest 2019 is real, but apparently it is,” and “this looks like a lot of fun and totally normal and not at all fucked.”
Advertisement
This is WILD. People lined up for like a mile, for hours and hours, not to get the new iPhone or Mac at the Apple Store…to climb to the top of fucking Mount Everest.
I guess there’s a super intense jet stream over the mountain for most of the year, and there’s like a 3 day window in May where you can make the climb in “good conditions” (as good as the conditions on a gigantic frozen mountain can be.) And so many people made the push this year that they’re lined up like your favorite club on Friday night with the dickhead bouncer who won’t let you in without 4 chicks.
All of this would probably be something I would mock because that’s my defense mechanism for something I’d never have the balls to do myself. However, it’s not really that funny considering people are literally dying at an alarming rate.
FIFTEEN deaths on Everest just this year.
Earlier this week, American climber Don Cash died on Everest hours after he had reached the summit. As Alan Arnette reported for Outside, Cash was one of about 200 people who went to the top of the world that day, and he encountered a traffic jam on his way down. “When Cash and his Sherpa guides got to the Hillary Step they were forced to wait their turn for at least two hours,” wrote Arnette. [Outside Online]
Word of advice for all the bucket listers out there – just go on a super long hike in the countryside or something. End it with a climb up a steep hill. Lot more relaxing and fun than freezing to death while waiting in line to climb a snowy icy mountain.