The Official Random Video Thread!

This is nucking futz! I've seen shorter lines at Disney World.


The Hillary Step is notorious for traffic jams lately. I keep massively big tabs on 8,000 meter peaks. Everyone wants to summit on the best of weather windows, so congestion is inevitable. If you have a two day window, responsible parties will wait until the second day to make a summit push. It can take a full hour to get everyone up over one of the steepest of portions of the Hillary Step and everyone has to pass one another on these very thin ridgelines (the ones shown in this video are actually pretty wide compared to other sections), affixed to nothing but ice screws and polypropylene triple braided lines...which are hardly an ideal fall protection combination.

On top of all of that, everyone making a summit push only has a certain amount of oxygen. Everyone agrees prior to the push that, if you aren't at the summit by "X" time, then you must turn back. But many people see glory a few hundred yards away and continue the push to the summit, and that's when shit gets messy. So many irresponsible alpinists will put their Sherpa and fellow climbers at risk just so they can make it to the top, followed by experiencing hypoxia or altitude sickness of both. They then require assistance from other people, and move at a painfully slow pace, putting others in their party at risk. It's a pretty common occurrence.

Great video.

EDIT: The congestion isn't actaully as bad as it can be in this video. Looks like a normal summit push to me.
 
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Much as I loath war I still find its history fascinating.

And no period of war defines that better for me than the recorded history of WW1 and 2. When technology changed warfare.

The rapid development of tech to thwart the enemy and the heroism demonstrated during those wars defines the absolute worst and the best of man.

And the beat goes on... God save us from ourselves.


 
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