HikeArizona.COM

Posted: **May 27 2014 8:24 am**

Well this is certainly a new one, Someone is being questioned for allegedly using a helicopter to bag Everest from a new route..Well I guess it is true what they say in the Army, "if you are not cheating your are not trying." Makes me wonder, has any HAZer ever used deception or exaggeration in making a hiking claim, maybe a poll topic...hmmm

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/nepal ... mb-n115241

KATHMANDU - Nepal said on Tuesday it was investigating whether a Chinese woman, this season's sole climber of Mount Everest from the Nepalese side, used a helicopter to reach a high camp after a deadly avalanche last month washed away part of the route.

Using a helicopter would constitute a serious moral violation of tradition in climbing the world's highest peak. But Wang Jing, 40, who completed the climb last Friday, denied she had used the aircraft to advance up the mountain.

The April 18 avalanche killed 16 Nepali guides, who were fixing ropes and ferrying supplies for their foreign clients to scale the 8,850-metre (29,035-foot) peak. Guides then refused to accompany foreign climbers out of respect for their dead colleagues and hundreds had to abandon their expeditions.

Wang completed her climb with five Sherpa guides arranged privately to become the first to go up from the Southeast Ridge route after the deadliest accident in the mountain's history.

Authorities said they were looking into reports that Wang took the helicopter and flew over the route damaged by the avalanche to the site of Camp II at 6,400 meters (20,997 feet).

"We have asked the helicopter company whether they flew Wang to Camp II as reported," Madhusudan Burlakoti, a senior official at the Tourism Ministry, told Reuters.

Nepal normally allows helicopters above Everest base camp located at about 5,400 meters (17,716 feet) to rescue climbers in distress or to drop climbing equipment and supplies.

Climbers must walk on ropes and aluminum ladders fixed on snow, including over the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, known for crevasses and avalanches.

Burlakoti said Wang, who returned from the summit at the weekend, had denied using any helicopter for climbing, but acknowledged having one drop her cook and a porter at Camp II with supplies. He declined to say what action Wang faced if she was found to have flown to Camp II.

Wang could not be reached for comment.

Posted: **May 27 2014 8:34 am**

Sort of reminds me of the 3000 foot rule, or whatever it is in Colorado where some people get all huffy about counting a summit, typically just of a 14er, but maybe other peaks, if they didn't gain a full 3000 feet. You know, like hiking Blanca peak and Mount Lindsey together, instead of separately each time. If you walked to the top, even if by taking a chopper to a base camp thousands of feet down, you still walked to the top. The above seems like a much ado about nothing. Besides, no one else was up there, so who should care? Maybe it disturbed all the trash left by the decades of foreign climbers who, "did it the right way"?

I was accused of cheating once, but my pictures showed I had no reason to lie. I believe I have always been honest with regard to my most important statistic: AEG. I would hate to think my reports were not accurate, because then I would be lying to myself.

Posted: **May 27 2014 8:49 am**

@Jim_H
But it is kind of a big deal if she used a helicopter, because she was attempting to be the first one to summit from a specific route...

Posted: **May 27 2014 8:52 am**

But that route was above the point where she may or may not have flown in?

Posted: **May 27 2014 9:09 am**

friendofThundergod wrote: she was attempting to be the first one to summit from a specific route...

She was attempting to be the first to summit from the Nepalese side since the accident. It wasn't a new route....if that's what you had thought.

Posted: **May 27 2014 9:10 am**

@BobP

oops...I reread..

Posted: **May 27 2014 1:47 pm**

So can I say that I bagged Mt Lemmon and Mt Graham even though I didn't hike them? Rode my bike up from the base to the top of each one back in college.

Posted: **May 27 2014 2:08 pm**

@SpiderLegs

I am certainly not the authority, but I say yes..I mean you didnt take a helicopter did you?

Posted: **May 27 2014 2:19 pm**

But biking is not counted in self-momentum stats...

Posted: **May 27 2014 2:23 pm**

@chumley

You sound bitter, Mr. I bike to work everyday ;)

Throw on a pack and start walking, then they will count...

Posted: **May 27 2014 2:40 pm**

Well I guess that I technically did not get to the top of each peak, had my cycling shoes on so I couldn't walk that far away from the pavement. Guess I'll just have to drive up in my car to snag those peaks again.

Posted: **May 27 2014 3:10 pm**

Guess it's all a matter of who you're trying to impress. If you've been to the top, then you've been there. If you hiked up, that is different than biking, which is different from driving, which is different from a helicopter. BTW, biking up 6500' is still very impressive for most people.

Most who do Whitney in the Sierra hike the main trail, not the Mountaineer's Route, or one of the technical routes, but hardly anyone ever takes the trail that starts very low, well below the portal nearly down in the desert from the campground just south of the portal road. I suppose, the real mountaineers will start in Lone Pine, and hike all the way to the top, or do the Badwater 100, or hike from LA to Whitney.

Maybe that is how they arrived at the 3,000' rule in CO? Just enough to challenge most, even though over 11,000' for a TH for almost all 14ers if the minimum of 3,000' is your goal, but not so much as to seem absurd. I recall one HAZer posting they thought the Grand Canyon Rim village should be in Tusyan, and the hiking begin from there, in an elitist way that would exclude 99.9999% of all visitors and make it some sort of an outdoor fundamentalists paradise. What is the point? Just to be a mule's relative?

Other than potentially breaking some local no fly rules, or local laws, it seems like who cares? Lots of rich people with something to prove pay a lot of money, train hard, and then summit Everest in some form or another. Hardly anyone knows who does it, and fewer care about the hows and whos, or if hows heard a who on the summit. If she is happy, baring local laws or closures, what should it matter?

Posted: **May 27 2014 4:11 pm**

Ah, a long-standing discussion in the peak-bagging community, indeed.

Coloradoans have debated this for years (the 3,000' rule has already been mentioned), but they also have rules on what even constitutes an official (term = "ranked") peak, which states that there must be at least a 300' rise from highest connecting saddle to summit. It's tricky - the summit is a (mostly) unambiguous point, but it's much harder to define a mountain's true base. Many people will default to the easiest/highest access point and go from there. Even on Denali, you're flown onto a glacier, where you start your trudge/climb at 7,200'. You technically could start from the base and start walking from Talkeetna (elev. 300'), but that would add maybe 20 days to your expedition!

I for one am glad that Arizona seems to lack these stringent rules (the 3,000' rule, the 300' rule) with respect to its peaks. Going to the mountains is a good way to get away from rules and competition. Keeping track of personal stats is interesting and fun, but that's where it ends for me.

Posted: **May 27 2014 4:14 pm**

I'm going to say it's because we don't feel we need to prove anything more than the amount of AEG we accumulate in a calendar year, for self momentum. ;)

Posted: **May 27 2014 5:05 pm**

@Jim_H
One of your best ramblings in a while all very good points...

Posted: **May 27 2014 5:07 pm**

sbkelley wrote:Going to the mountains is a good way to get away from rules and competition. Keeping track of personal stats is interesting and fun, but that's where it ends for me.

amen to that philosophy

Posted: **May 27 2014 5:09 pm**

@sbkelley
John and chumley were trying to explain the system to me when we went to Mohan...a tad confusing and certainly subjective all open to interpretation I guess...I was more pleased to finally find out what the term vertical relief means..courtesy of chumley lol

Posted: **May 27 2014 6:11 pm**

sbkelley wrote: but they also have rules on what even constitutes an official (term = "ranked") peak, which states that there must be at least a 300' rise from highest connecting saddle to summit. It's tricky - the summit is a (mostly) unambiguous point, but it's much harder to define a mountain's true base.

This is the rule for peaks to be on the world wide Summits on the Air list. This activity was started by some British Ham Radio guys a few years back and it has since been spreading world wide.

Posted: **May 27 2014 6:25 pm**

@BEEBEE
Some British guy established a guideline measured in feet?

I might've guessed that 100m would be the "international" standard!
(100m = 328ft)

Posted: **May 27 2014 7:04 pm**

@BEEBEE

I haven't seen/heard the official origin of that 300' rule, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the source of it. This is a topic I've only personally encountered in the contiguous US, and even then, the rule isn't strictly enforced in the mountaineering community. There are a handful of 14ers in Colorado that wouldn't qualify as "official" peaks based on the 300' but are considered part of the set. The peak-bagging websites (listofjohn (pay $ite), peakbagger) go into a little more detail on the topic, but especially in the case of the former, employ the Rockies standards. Interesting stuff!

Also, interesting point raised by chumley there regarding feet vs. meters!

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