RichardK wrote:Nothing has changed since Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air in 1996.
Certainly the underlying factors are the same. But if you read this part of Arnette's blog,
http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2019/05/17/too-many-deaths/he talks about a shift from Western to non-Western (i.e., Sherpa owned and managed) guide services, with lower prices and standards.
I've only begun to explore Arnette's blog, but he seems very experienced and knowledgeable, with sensible opinions.
I knew two people who died on Everest, Ray Genet and Marty Hoey. Both were professional guides, and Genet was the king of guides on Denali. I don't believe they were guiding clients at the time, I think their deaths occurred before there were guided climbs on Everest.
I met Krakauer's father once, he and my (ex-) wife were on a guided climb in Pakistan, from which I was sidelined by a shoulder dislocated crossing a stream in the Wallace Creek area north of Whitney. Lew was a medical doctor who had introduced his son to mountaineering. But was becoming concerned that his son, now nineteen or so, seemed to have no interests but dangerous wilderness activities, and had already had a bad skiing accident.
One of my favorite mountaineering books is Krakauer's
Eiger Dreams. If you have not read it, it is a collection of personal experience-based essays, a number of which had been published in magazines. Not pompous or sentimental, and with a touch of the gritty semi-dark semi-cynical humor which I remember and love. But which would probably be regarded as a bit insensitive today.