Heroes Shmeroes

August 3rd 2008 – 11 alpinists have died climbing to the Himalayan summit of K2, the second tallest peak on the planet. At 8,611 vertical meters high, it is a mere 237 meters shorter than Everest yet just as treacherous and deadly. In fact, it is widely regarded as the most difficult ascent on earth and is prone to flash avalanches. Today, such a catastrophe is widely responsible for instantly suffocating a few, smashing others and stranding the remainder until they died of exposure to the –45 degree (Celsius) temperatures.

Only a handful of climbers have made it to the top of K2 and despite several serious attempts no one has ever successfully reached the peak in winter. This begs the question: why in holy heck are they doing this. There are two generally accepted answers to this: the first and most obvious one is that there are massive amounts of gold hidden within caves near the peak. The second possibility is more doubtful and is described by the climbers as “for the thrill of it”. Gandhi marched for salt, Anne Frank wrote a diary, Rosa Parks sat at the front of the bus and Imre Nagy kicked the Soviets out of Budapest (Wiki him, a very interesting historical character); ‘for the thrill of it”. Funny enough, these types of sacrifices in the face of injustice, prejudice or plain fascism today are barely as noticed as the great thrill seekers of Everest and K2.

This story is currently given the utmost importance on major news sites internationally. Meanwhile, a potential cure for stomach cancer was discovered in England yesterday and earlier today, over 140 people died in a massive accident in India. Unfortunately for the Indians, they are colored and nowhere near as interesting as the rich Scandinavian people that had enough free time to go kill themselves on K2, a few hundred kilometers north of India.

Don’t get me wrong, if these self-proclaimed heroes want to attempt this feat that makes no effort to hide its high probability of amputation and mortality, who I am to say they are as dumb as people who eat glass for other people’s entertainment. I just seriously don’t get why Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing, whom were the first to climb Everest in 1953, are on many lists of “Heroes” or “Pioneers” next to Martin Luther King Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt, Florence Nightingale or Che Guevara. Hillary, at best, won the ultimate bragging rights when he made it back to his castle in New Zealand (Sherpa Tenzing went back to his straw hut and had a modest life as a tourist guide). He did not win the darn Nobel peace prize and to wrap up my point, it wasn’t any easier for Ernst Smied and Jürg Marmet to climb Mount Everest 3 years later; they were second to do so and thus apparently not worthy of the smallest amount of worship.

Ironically, the more clever ones out there may decry my hypocrisy since I have been talking in length about this event rather than the Indian hecatomb or medical breakthroughs. To you I would say that I am definitely doing it “for the thrill” and am definitely not ashamed to say I want the gold at the top of writers’ mountain. The burden remains on the reader, no one is twisting your arm, go to Wikipedia and read about Women’s rights in Iran or how to build a hybrid car out of discarded phone books. Long story short, the people want to worship Edmund Hillary and Neil Armstrong because we are so very lazy and when there finally is a first man that did something, we, by extension, did as well.

(Pictured: Sherpa Tenzing Norgay atop Mount Everest in 1953 - The Colossal K2 seen from Base Camp 1)

End.