She achieved the incredible feat along with her husband Sergei. On their night descent towards Camp 6 Sergei had lost sight of Francys. A team from Uzbekistan were attempting a summit and found Francys — still alive but suffering frostbite — only a few hundred meters from the summit.
They attempted to help her down, giving her a new tank of oxygen. They attached a rope to her and tried pulling her down the slope but had to abandon her to save themselves and go down — abandoning their attempt. On their back they saw Sergei going up to find her. They had previously shared tea and talked with her and Sergei at base camp and were shocked. Sometimes freezing climbers experience the sensation of extreme heat and try to remove clothing.
They too abandoned their attempt and went back down. Her body remained high on the mountain and well preserved. It looked like Sergei had taken a fall while going up and died on the mountain.
His body remains there. A section of Everest from 8, meters and up is known as the Everest Graveyard for the amount of bodies littered around the area. There any many different causes of death, though a large amount are unknown as the climber disappeared. Altitude sickness that causes the person to not be able to continue is often a leading cause.
Becoming too ill or exhausted to continue means staying in one place and using up all of the available oxygen. Eventually the person will succumb to the elements and their body will shut down. A cardiac event — or heart attack — caused by the incredible strain can happen even with very healthy, younger climbers. An avalanche or a fall can lead to being buried under compacted snow.
This leads to death by asphyxiation. A crevasse is a hidden crack in the underlying layer of ice. The foundation ice along the journey is buried in snow and if a climber falls in without a guide rope or rescue option they sometimes cannot be retrieved.
The crevasses on Everest are generally very large and out in the open. At certain points ladders are strapped to the ice with ice screws and climbers must walk over while balances. A fall without a rope of where a rope fails can lead to broken bones or head injuries and crevasse rescue is very hard.
Going slightly off path or slipping in certain sections like the Hillary step at the top can lead to long falls or fast slides. The Khumbu Icefall is one of the most dangerous parts of attempting Everest and has claimed many lives.
Though it is only a short trek from basecamp, the ever changing icefall is very different to much of the rest of the journey. The Icefall is a large section of hard, frozen ice blocks that are topped in snow. A fall or slip can leave people trapped between or under the heavy ice. Any avalanche or snow movement from further up the mountain leads to more broken ice and snow cascading down this section. In recent years queues have been pointed to as a major reason for deaths.
After passing the Khumbu Icefall many of the standard routes are done with the aid of fixed lines. On steeper sections two hand ascenders are used at the same time. The problem is that climbers and guiding companies tend to climb on the same days. Weather windows might last two or three days at maximum over an entire year so the first good day is jumped on. This leads to literal queues as everyone goes as slow as the slowest front-runner.
This leads to people standing still, losing body heat, using up oxygen, and becoming exhausted from lack of oxygen to the brain. In many climbers perished partly as a result of using up their oxygen and waiting in queues. This was the busiest year on record, seeing over people on the mountain with more than making the final attempt from Camp 4 to the summit.
With over deaths Mount Everest has claimed the most lives of any known eight-thousander. However, many experienced mountaineers consider K2 or Annapurna the deadliest mountain. K2 is the only eight-thousander to not be climbed in winter though there is a team considering it right now.
A lot of the big mountaineering peaks are just a hellish slog upwards like a nightmarish hill walk. K2 includes ridges with sheer falls either side. The inconsistent weather on K2 causes big problems when deciding when to make an attempt. As of January only roughly summits have been made of K2. Conversely there have been 85 deaths. Annapurna I is the tallest peak of the Annapurna mountain formation. As of January there have been successful summits of Annapurna I.
In total there have been 72 deaths on attempts to summit Annapurna I. Nearly one in four people attempting Annapurna I have died. In there were 28 deaths as avalanches struck the main hiking routes. Surprisingly the season was the most successful on record with 32 summits.
This may be a complete anomaly for such a hazardous mountain or could be due to changing weather patterns. All of these mountains lie in the Himalayas range. The range covers around 1, miles and large areas are in Tibet, with India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Bhutan all containing some part.
That works out at roughly one death for every five successful ascents to the summit. K2, which is part of the neighbouring Karakoram mountain range, is even more dangerous - there have been successful ascents to the summit and 82 deaths. Most Himalayan ascents are not attempted from Pakistan but from mountains with their peaks in Nepal.
And statistics are more detailed in this part of the Himalayas, thanks primarily to the work of journalist Elizabeth Hawley. Her Himalayan Database is seen as the most authoritative records of climbs, successful or unsuccessful, of more than peaks in the region, including Everest.
Unlike records from Pakistan, the Himalayan Database collects information not just on successful ascents to the summit but also on all those who venture beyond base camps, giving a more accurate view of the danger of the mountains.
For Sherpas, the Nepalese professional climbers hired to support mountaineering teams, it has declined from 1. Since , there have been recorded deaths above base camp in the region, according to the Himalayan Database, and over 21, climbs above base camp.
The statistics also shine a light on which mountain peak poses the greatest threat to climbers. Since , out of the four mountaineers to have climbed Yalung Kang, three have died. The overall number climbing these peaks is small, which does skew the figures, but ultimately reiterates the point that the mountains less well trod are potentially the most lethal. Read more from Reality Check. At least people have died on its slopes. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here.
Two climbers die on Mount Everest in the first fatalities of the climbing season. Please try again later. The Sydney Morning Herald.
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