Skip Navigation

Record-breaking mountaineer denies climbing over dying porter on K2

www.theguardian.com Record-breaking mountaineer denies climbing over dying porter on K2

Fellow climbers say video footage shows Kristin Harila’s team walking over body of frostbitten man during record ascent

Record-breaking mountaineer denies climbing over dying porter on K2

Fellow climbers say video footage shows Kristin Harila’s team walking over body of frostbitten man during record ascent

33

You're viewing part of a thread.

Show Context
33 comments
  • Honestly, I wouldn't care if these hikers themselves died en masse trying to go up Everest or whichever mountain alone. Let them keep doing it. It's like those people who jump or fall into the Grand Canyon—I don't think there should be barriers, if they are dumb enough to get too close and fall in then, in the words of Jerry Seinfeld, that's a shame. My concern is their exploiting people who are far poorer than them to accompany them on this unnecessary journey, which they may not even want to do, only to sometimes perish.

    If fishermen die while doing a hobby, that's a tragedy but they chose to participate in it. But if they had paid some poor individual to help them in a dangerous fishing situation, at a lake or something, and this was a common practice because people with more resources wouldn't take such an unnecessarily risky job, then I would also say fishing at that location should just be banned. Not because of the fishermen who do it willingly, but because of the poor they exploit in the process and who die for their enjoyment or enrichment. And even if the fishermen were doing it for their own job, that would also be tragic and maybe people shouldn't fish in such a location if it were dangerous, but at least they didn't die for an entirely and totally pointless job.

    Getting fish for others to eat is a valuable and meaningful job, shepherding vainglorious Europeans and Americans with a deathwish for no real reason is not a job worth dying for, in my opinion. But it just shows how these expeditions exploit the global poor to death for just the simple pleasures of the relatively wealthy.

You've viewed 33 comments.