The Happiness Quotient Thom Pollard

"Do you think great expense and risk should be undertaken to remove bodies from Mount Everest?" The Indian government mounted an expensive and risky expedition to retrieve the remains of mountaineers who had perished on Mount Everest the year before. NY Times journalist John Branch tells us about his fascinating story that delves into the significant cultural and social significance of the Hindu families who grieved the loss of their loved ones. 

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qFQw1Y-2m4c

Deliverance From 27,000 Feet by John Branch:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/18/sports/everest-deaths.html

Our sponsor, Musa Masala:
https://musamasala.com

Everest Mystery poll question:
https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxiXLttvZznaGXehZ1IE_iJMCZZJkiTkZO
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Interview with mountaineer Willi Steindl, who witnessed over 70 people stepping over Muhammed Hassan as he lay dying in the Death Zone on K2.

The death of Mohammad Hassan on K2 has sent shockwaves through the mountaineering community. At 2:15Am on July 27 the Pakistani porter fell near the bottleneck at 8200 meters, found hanging upside down more than 5 meters below the path. 
Hassan was a porter with no climbing experience, having risked his life to earn the higher wages paid to high altitude porters, in order to support a sick mother and a family… He was woefully outfitted, lacking a down suit, or proper climbing equipment.  


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My guest today was the FIRST to reach the DEEPEST point of the ocean, known as Challenger Deep. In 1960 US Navy lieutenant Don Walsh and  Swiss oceanographer and explorer Jacques Piccard piloted the bathyscaphe Trieste 35,797 ft BELOW THE SURFACE OF THE SEA, when it
became the first crewed vessel to reach the bottom  the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in Earth's seabed.

My conversation with Don Walsh could not have predicted that such a disaster as the Titan submersible would have taken place. Eerily, Don and I discussed the logistics of preparing a vessel to dive to such depths, the safeguards, the rigorous testing.

Please stick around the the poll question near the end.


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Angela Benavides is a High-Altitude Mountaineering and Climbing journalist for Explorers Web - https://explorersweb.com/

PLEASE SUPPORT the families of Sherpa and mountain workers who have died while working in the mountains, check out this video: https://youtu.be/Htd_l89ejJY

The two Polish climbers mentioned in the video who flew in from Kathmandu to rescue Carlos Soria on Dhaulagiri are Bartek Ziemski and Oswald Pereira.

As of May 18 there are over 200 summits of Mount Everest with hundreds of others still moving forward to make their attempt to climb to the summit of Mount Everest.

There are eight deaths as of May 18th, including for Sherpa, an Indian woman attempting to become the first to climb Everest with a pace maker, a Moldovan climber named Victor Brinza fell ill at South Col and passed away.

The weather is holding. Families around the world anxiously await news from their loved ones to hear a report from the mountain 

And if any of you watch my shorts, you’ve heard about new records Kami Rita Sherpa has summited Everst for the 27th time, he is 53 and the holder of the record for most summits of Everest

And Kenton Cool has summited Mount Everest for his 17th time, becoming the person with the most summits for a non Nepali.

And a 16 year old climber from China….The Chinese girl Sui Cho Yuan successfully reached atop Everest via the south slope at 5:42am on May 15



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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A SHERPA OR MOUNTAIN WORKER DIES ON A MOUNTAIN CLIMBING EXPEDITION? 

TODAY I HAVE DAVID MORTON HERE TO talk about The Juniper Fund, its beginnings,  and the important work they’re doing in Nepal to help the families of Sherpa who have lost their lives guiding and working in the mountains.

For Sherpa throughout the Khumbu Region of Nepal, the dangers of guiding climbers to the world’s highest peaks like Mount Everest, with the ever-present possibility of accidents, avalanches and the extremes of weather and altitude became no more evident than last month when a serac fall took the lives of three Sherpa in the Khumbu Icefall of Everest. Ab0ut one-third of the more than 300 deaths on Everest over the past hundred years  have been of Sherpa guides, according to the Himalayan Database, a mountaineering record-keeping body. 

In 2014 after the tragic avalanche there that claimed the lives of 16 sherpa and high altitude porters, massive strikes in Base Camp and beyond forced the hand of the government to increase the life insurance on a death there to $15000….however, the strength of the Nepal rupee has significantly diminished and that amount is now worth far less since it is paid in rupees. 

Many times these mostly men who die in the mountains are the sole or primary breadwinners for their families and those survivors have precious few resources to fall back on. In 2014 I visited several families while filming a documentary on Everest  that took a drastic turn after the avalanche. It was a deeply moving experience for me and my friends who were taking part in the expedition. 

A year before that two longtime friends and Himalayan guides, David Morton and Melissa Arnot Reid, started a non profit organization called The Juniper Fund, set up to help a couple families they knew who had their primary breadwinner lose his life during expeditions they were on.

For more information about The Juniper Fund visit their website:
https://www.thejuniperfund.org




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HERE'S MY FULL CONVERSATION with Alan Arnette on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/WIk67aEg0sI

There’s Been Loss of Life and Intense Drama on Annapurna and in the Mount Everest and 8000 meter peaks region of the Nepal Himalaya. 

A veteran climber is dead, another miraculously rescued, and multiple others are lucky to be alive after a tragic few days in the Himalayas.

As the deadliest of the 8000 meter peaks Annapurna has of late become an object of desire for a wider and larger group of the new era of mountaineers, ticking off peaks on their checklist.

In recent years, guides have supplied high levels of support and supplemental oxygen to make the peak more accessible to less experienced climbers. Of the 395 total summits, 129 (33 percent) have occurred in the past three years.

HERE'S AN INTERVIEW with one of the world’s most respected chroniclers of Mount Everest, Alan Arnette WHO is reporting on this spring’s Everest and Himalayan climbing season for OUTSIDE ONLINE 

We’ll talk about the miraculous rescue effort on Annapurna where Indian climber Anurag Maloo was found alive after spending three days inside a crevasse on Annapurna. Angela Benavides of Explorers Web has reported that Maloo was 50 meters in the crevasse, found barely alive by a rescue team led by Adam Bielecki - mind boggling….defying all odds…hope to bring more on that soon.

As well as the loss that sent shockwaves through the himalayan climbing community, the ever popular and 10-time Everest summiter, Noel Hanna of Ireland, 56, died in his tent at Camp 4 after summiting without supplemental oxygen. 

We also discuss the summit of Manaslu by Felix Berg, as well as the sherpas expanding role in the world of 8000 meter peak guiding. And Alan has written a book.


YOU CAN FIND ALAN’S BLOG at alanarnette.com 



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