(you can only see the people at max zoom-level, they are really tiny)
It is probably Kala Pathar (the most accessible point to view Mt. Everest from base camp to peak, according to Wikipedia [0]) since the photo was taken from Pumori.
None of those little ant people are really climbing though.
Also, the resolution should have been much more than a gigapixel to make that part more interesting :)
I immediately saw the HUGE tent camp in the front though.
Climbing Mount Everest is more dangerous than attempting suicide!
Suicide attempt fatality rate: 9%
Everest attempt fatality rate: 2%
Climber fatality from attempts through 2006:
http://www.adventurestats.com/tables/EverestAgeFat.shtml
Suicide estimate from NIH:
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention/index.shtmlFor some interesting discussion on Everest fatalities, try this one [4]. "No shortcuts to the top" by Ed Viesturs and the well known "Into thin air" by Jon Krakauer are two good books on the subject, if you want to read more.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-thousander [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2 {4] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1978295
I guess I'm wrong. Thanks for the correction.
Thanks for the pointers, never would have found them.
(We do travel 4 hours by car to Uruguay to buy wine/champagne liquor for a fraction of the prices here though.)
There's also a big camp right at the bottom of the picture on the soil next to the glacier. There are at least two dozen tents there.
How did anyone ever figure out how to climb that thing before there were satellites or planes? I don't even see how they are getting from the base camp up past the broken up glacier area.
(I'm not some mountaineering snob - I tire climbing hills for a decent toboggan run)
A lot of people go to Base Camp as tourists, but the numbers drop dramatically at each higher camp. There's probably a case to be made that Base Camp should be toned down.
There aren't that many people truly climbing the mountain.
3,142 people have climbed Everest, with 219 dying trying.
It isnt disneyland, and I am not shocked at how much Everest has turned into disneyland, we definitely fundamentally disagree.
The footage I've seen was indeed from (and up to) the basecamp. I was quite shocked at what I saw, but I obviously misremembered exactly what it was - the trail to the basecamp. I certainly did not think all those people were reaching the summit, but I did think they were going higher.
I feel like a bit of an idiot, and needed to get that off my chest.
Speaking of aerial photos though, Over The Himalaya (http://www.amazon.com/Over-Himalaya-Koichiro-Ohmori/dp/09385...) has some staggering photos from the region if you like that sort of thing. Out of print, but worth tracking down.
They walk up that thing, its called Khumbu icefall. Basically the valley glacier spilling out in slow motion. Its incredibly dangerous (as you probably surmise), even though its at the bottom. Since the ice is all cracked up, many people fall into the cracks. Believe the local sherpas do most of the work each year to find a safe route through that mess.
Does anyone know why? Is this photo taken early in the day so there there's no-one going for the summit yet? Or does the route to the summit go somewhere where the camera can't see?
1. Of the 3 mountains, look at the peak of the center one (Lhotse).
2. Below that, the right half is big chunky snow, and the left half is smooth, icey looking snow.
3. Look at the line where the smooth left half meets the chunky right half. - Halfway up that you can find CAMP 3. [You'll see little ant people marching up that centerline - follow them to their tents.]
Also once you see CAMP 3, you actually see tracks in the snow. There's a manmade line going diagonally up/left across the center mountain, up the rock face, and then continues up/left to the little snow valley where Everest hits Lhotse along the horizon line. I suppose somewhere around there is CAMP 4.