(09-04-2021, 06:57)Jerome Wrote: Watched 'Sherpa' last night/this morning. Seems like the Sherpas are now starting to become very vocal about the way they are treated. In years of old they did not have much in the way of education but these days it's a different story. The climbing season has not taken place at all for 2 of the last ten years. One due to an accident where more than 13 Sherpas died in the Khumbu Icefall. Once it was due to an earthquake in the Himalayas where 7000 Nepalese people died. Some of the Sherpas on Everest were killed as well. So they are now campaigning for better treatment and a bigger slice of the pie. And some Sherpas, an aggressive politicised few, have now also taken to threatening their fellow comrades, saying they will break their legs if they continue on with expeditions. Seems like the reputation of the Nepalese as being a friendly and helpful people has been tarnished by a couple of radical militants. I understand their demands for reforms but when you start threatening violence you have crossed a line - and there's no going back. Anyway, Everest is getting her own back due to global warming. The Khumbu Icefall is melting and shifting more during the day now, meaning it is safer to travel at night, but ironically more dangerous as well because of limited vision. Maybe it's time to leave the mountain alone? As much as I admire what mountaineers achieve I sometimes wonder if a lot of it has to do with ego. An extremely wealthy woman hired a huge crew to guide her up the mountain. Their job was to get her to the summit of Everest. When the whole entourage arrived at base camp they discovered that she had never climbed a mountain at all in her life, let alone an 8848m peak. But she was pretty pushy and convinced the team to take her up. She summited but lost her life on the way down due to fatigue and altitude sickness. They should have refused to guide her up but at the end of the day money talks!

Also watched 'Unabomber' - fascinating series. What he did was wrong, but his manifesto raises some uncomfortable home truths.