Mountaineering essay

This type of tourism is defined by the type of engagement with a region’s culture, the people’s lifestyle in specific geographical regions, their history, religion, architecture, and their daily way of life. As a personal topic of interest, mountaineering has always been an area of concern to me. To several lovers of the sport, they all harbor different definitions regarding it. My definition of mountaineering is a sport that include climbing to mountain peaks in quest of personal satisfaction and gain points of highest climb. Traditionally it was referred to as a sport that constituted climbing of untouched mountains. When the 1950, rolled up, Mount Everest became the next conquest. This clearly shows that mountain climbing has been around for over a century (Zafren, 2005).

Well into the 20th century, the sport is still globally renowned and has lovers who have still experience a thrill when climbing the dangerous heights. Today, mountaineering is categorized into two mains styles; the expedition and alpine style. Mountaineers that use the Alpine style are accustomed to travelling in light and are often very fast. But way into the 21st century, people have started to question if mountaineering is worth it. They question why the quest of the sport always has a tragedy incoming, an example is the 1996 tragedy that occurred on Mount Everest, loss of lives on K2 in 2008 and the 2011 disaster that occurred on Denali. Being a distance lover of mountaineering, I have always wondered of adventure culture critics considered that sports were also selfish.

Playing basketball, for example, these critics’ rules out such games as selfish this is mainly because of how lovers of the game take in the game and they view the athletes as celebrities and entertainers. With the stereotypes no one is able to question the authenticity of such games the way climbing is criticized. Tragically and incredulously, despite the teams being well equipped with modern equipment, oxygen and medicine, no rescue attempts were made. Ambitious mountaineers walked around David and left him to die, choosing instead to direct their energy to the climb. They gave more value to the summit than to the life of a fellow mountaineer. While going downhill after reaching the summit, the climbers still offered no help to David.

As a consolation, they justified their actions by stating the David was beyond assistance and rescues while on such high altitudes are impossible and might cost the life of another climber, however a week later, another stranded and sick climber, an Australian Lincoln Hall, he was rescued from a position way up the mountain. An obstacle that many climbers face is the unpredictable weather chances while en-route to the summit or while descending while above the 8,000 m which is considered the ‘death zone’. This obstacle to their success and some have found ways to deal with it. These selfish climbers have resorted to using performance enhancing drugs, sabotage enemy’s equipment’s and even steal some. They resort o inhuman behaviors in order to get to the top.

In the year 2006, an avid high-altitude climber Michael Kodas was on a quest to climb Mount Everest as an assignment for the Hartford Courant. Despite the 3000 people reaching the top of the mountain, nearly half the number have lost their lives in their quest. Mountain are being prostituted instead of protected from human predators that have very little regard for their lives, their families and the natural mountain environment. While mountain climbing, climbers even in the best conditions might get sick, to counter this problem, a drug came out a decade ago that would assist mountaineers in case of such emergencies. The initial drug is called [dexamethasone] or Dex (Weber, 2011). Teams carry the drugs during their summit and is proven to reduce symptoms of mountain sickness.

A total of these climbers and their guides translate to massive human waste, urine and garbage. According to Ang Tshering, the chairperson of Nepal’s mountaineering association, he is calling out to the government to address the issue before it gets out of control (Shaw & Nibanupudi, 2014). While on a summit climbers will often dig holes in the snow and dump their wastes, hence over the years and with an increase of climbers, the wastes have piled up. This is despite the season being cancelled last year after the death of 16 local guides. Between the base and the summit of Mount Everest, there are four camps and each are flocked for weeks during the season. Waste management on mountains and around them need to be highly regulated to avoid affecting the natural ecosystem.

Mountains should not be treated as dumping grounds. Last year alone, an approximated 50 tons of garbage had accumulated at the base of Mount Everest. The garbage was largely constituted of food cans, ropes, tents, used up oxygen cylinders, dead bodies and even human waste. It was a clear indication that high up the mountain the human population have degraded the natural environment and was not about to end anytime soon, as every season the number of climbers is growing. Conclusion Mountaineering is a sport that include climbing to mountain peaks in quest of personal satisfaction and gain points of highest climb. Traditionally it was referred to as a sport that constituted climbing of untouched mountains. To others mountaineering, involves climbing any mountain, rock climbing and even hiking, but to me there is a difference in meaning.