Make no mistakes:
The world’s tallest mountains, including
Mount Everest and K2 (Mount Godwin-Austen),
are associated with great mountaineering
feats, a love of nature, andln
tales of adventure. These 8000-meter
peaks also hold a dark side for climbers,
however, and there are just as many stories
of hardship, defeat, and death on the
summits. Among these tales are a surprising
number of accounts of the strange, ghostly,
and supernatural.
To begin with, the atmosphere on the tallest
peaks can be somewhat grim. Death is a
constant possibility to be reckoned with for
climbers on the highest peaks of the
Himalayas and the Karakoram range, which
spans Pakistan, India, and China. Over 220
people have died climbing Everest, and due
to the impossibility of retrieving the fallen,
the majority of bodies are left frozen on the
slopes indefinitely, turning the mountains
into a high-altitude cemetery.
Some of the bodies remain visible, lying close
enough to the main routes that climbers are
obliged to step over them. The colorful gear
worn by the dead has earned Everest’s
Northeast Ridge route the nickname
“Rainbow Valley.” Everest, however, is not
the deadliest 8000-er in terms of percentages.
Since the first successful ascent of K2 in 1954,
over 25 percent of those who have attempted
the summit have died, while Annapurna I’s
death toll is closer to 33 percent. It’s no
wonder that the area between around 8000
meters and the tops of these mountains is
ominously referred to as the “Death Zone.”
Given this macabre climate, it’s inevitable
that some weird stories have emerged. Some
of these spooky tales are informed by the
mountains’ cultural and spiritual
significance, and some can be explained by
science, while others remain inexplicable.
The Sherpas, without whose help so many
ascents of Himalayan mountains would be
impossible, view the Himalayas as both the
embodiment and the realm of gods. Some feel
that disrespect for their sacred mountain has
led to both bad karma and to restless spirits.
In May 2004, Pemba Dorji Sherpa was
climbing Everest, a trip during which he
earned a disputed claim to the world’s fastest
ascent, when he encountered what he
described as black shapes near the summit.
Pemba says that the shapes were the ghosts of
climbers who died on the mountain, and that
as the shapes approached him they held out
their hands, begging for something to eat.
Pemba and other Sherpas believe the ghosts
will continue to haunt the mountain until a
proper funeral rite can be performed for
their souls.
The scientifically minded feel that ghostly
sightings above 8000 meters have a much
more logical explanation. The detrimental
effects of time spent in the Death Zone are
well-known. At high altitude, temperatures
far below freezing inflict frostbite, sleep
becomes difficult, and reflected light causes
snow-blindness. Perhaps worst of all, though,
the lack of atmospheric pressure and
attendant low oxygen concentration (about
30 percent of that at sea level) can cause
altitude sickness and High Altitude Cerebral
Edema, or HACE. In the latter condition, the
brain swells, leading to hampered speech and
mental function, poor decision-making,
impaired coordination, hallucinations, and
loss of touch with reality.
Altitude’s effects on the brain can explain a
particularly haunting moment described in
Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air , a first-person
retelling of a 1996 Everest expedition during
which a severe storm killed eight climbers on
the mountain and stranded several others.
The incident is considered one of the worst-
ever mountaineering disasters. Krakauer,
descending in the midst of the mounting
storm, at one point thought he encountered
his teammate Andy Harris, only to discover
later that he had seen an entirely different
person, and that Harris had died up on the
mountain.
Low oxygen and other physical stresses can
also account for a common phenomenon in
which mountaineers report the sense of an
additional, phantom person. Dougal Haston
and Doug Scott, members of a
1975 British expedition up Everest, describe a
horrific night spent just below the summit
with no food and problems with their oxygen
supply. The men are said to have sensed a
third climber with them in their snow hole, a
comforting presence that talked them through
their ordeal. Climber Hermann Buhl
experienced something similar on his first-
ever ascent of Nanga Parbat in 1953, as did
Joe Simpson, whose ordeal escaping death in
the Andes is described in Touching the Void .
British climber Frank Smythe, who attempted
Everest several times in the 1930s, may have
the most colorful story, however. He
describes encountering two presences, the
first being a benign one that seemed so real
he offered it some of his mint cake. Later, he
encountered strange hovering objects, one of
which had "what looked like squat,
underdeveloped wings, whilst the other had a
beak-like protuberance like the spout of a
teakettle. They distinctly pulsated … as though
they possessed some horrible quality of life."
Michael Shermer’s book The Believing Brain
reports that the so-called sensed-presence
effect (referred to elsewhere as “Feelings of
Presence,” or FOPs) is common to people
under physical and mental duress, including
mountain climbers, polar explorers,
endurance athletes, and isolated sailors. An
experiment conducted by a Swiss team in
2014 and reported in Current Biology seems
to confirm this. Researchers managed to
induce in volunteers the experience of nearby
ghostly presences by creating a disconnect in
motor-sensory signals received by the brain,
causing the brain’s sense of the body in space
to malfunction. Researchers suggest that
FOPs, or ghosts, may be an illusion created
by the mind when it temporarily loses track
of the body’s location due to mental illness,
stress, or extreme physical exertion or
duress.
Not all mountaineering ghost stories can be
explained away so easily, however. Jennifer
Jordan’s book Savage Summit, which details
the lives and feats of the first five women to
climb K2, also presents a few accounts that
would not be out of place in a book of ghost
stories. Wanda Rutkiewicz, an accomplished
Polish mountaineer who in 1986 became the
first woman ever to climb K2, survived the
descent and went on to climb several other
8000-foot mountains before dying in her bid
to climb Kanchenjunga in 1992. After
Rutkiewicz’s death, Jordan writes, her friend
Ewa Matuszewska was awoken in the middle
of the night by a telephone call, and upon
answering heard Rutkiewicz’s voice on the
other end of the line. Delighted to hear her
friend’s voice, Matuszewska pleaded, “We are
all in despair. Where are you?”
The voice responded,“I am cold, I am very
cold, but don’t cry. Everything will be fine.”
“But why aren’t you coming back?”
Matuszewska persisted.
“I cannot now,” Wanda’s voice said, before
the phone went dead.
Equally chilling is a story from Jordan’s book
involving Julie Tullis, a British climber and
the third woman to summit K2. Tullis’s
accomplishment took place in July of 1986.
The months surrounding her climb saw 13
deaths on K2, which came to be known as the
Black Summer. During her descent with her
partner Kurt Diemberger, Tullis suffered a
bad fall, severe frostbite to one hand, and
blurred vision likely stemming from HACE.
She died while trapped at Camp IV with
several other climbers, and her body was left
on the mountain.
Years later, in 1992, Thor Kieser and Scott
Fisher, members of an American-Russian
team, were jolted out of an unusual quiet at
base camp by the sound of a voice coming
over the communications radio. “Camp IV to
Base Camp, do you read, over?” the voice
said. Both Kieser and Fisher knew that no
one was on the mountain at that time. And
the voice was that of a British woman.
Things happen on such great heights.
Whenever you attempt such grounds, be sure to take
utmost care...and pray for a good day.
Believe what you want to believe soul brother.
The world’s tallest mountains, including
Mount Everest and K2 (Mount Godwin-Austen),
are associated with great mountaineering
feats, a love of nature, andln
tales of adventure. These 8000-meter
peaks also hold a dark side for climbers,
however, and there are just as many stories
of hardship, defeat, and death on the
summits. Among these tales are a surprising
number of accounts of the strange, ghostly,
and supernatural.
To begin with, the atmosphere on the tallest
peaks can be somewhat grim. Death is a
constant possibility to be reckoned with for
climbers on the highest peaks of the
Himalayas and the Karakoram range, which
spans Pakistan, India, and China. Over 220
people have died climbing Everest, and due
to the impossibility of retrieving the fallen,
the majority of bodies are left frozen on the
slopes indefinitely, turning the mountains
into a high-altitude cemetery.
Some of the bodies remain visible, lying close
enough to the main routes that climbers are
obliged to step over them. The colorful gear
worn by the dead has earned Everest’s
Northeast Ridge route the nickname
“Rainbow Valley.” Everest, however, is not
the deadliest 8000-er in terms of percentages.
Since the first successful ascent of K2 in 1954,
over 25 percent of those who have attempted
the summit have died, while Annapurna I’s
death toll is closer to 33 percent. It’s no
wonder that the area between around 8000
meters and the tops of these mountains is
ominously referred to as the “Death Zone.”
Given this macabre climate, it’s inevitable
that some weird stories have emerged. Some
of these spooky tales are informed by the
mountains’ cultural and spiritual
significance, and some can be explained by
science, while others remain inexplicable.
The Sherpas, without whose help so many
ascents of Himalayan mountains would be
impossible, view the Himalayas as both the
embodiment and the realm of gods. Some feel
that disrespect for their sacred mountain has
led to both bad karma and to restless spirits.
In May 2004, Pemba Dorji Sherpa was
climbing Everest, a trip during which he
earned a disputed claim to the world’s fastest
ascent, when he encountered what he
described as black shapes near the summit.
Pemba says that the shapes were the ghosts of
climbers who died on the mountain, and that
as the shapes approached him they held out
their hands, begging for something to eat.
Pemba and other Sherpas believe the ghosts
will continue to haunt the mountain until a
proper funeral rite can be performed for
their souls.
The scientifically minded feel that ghostly
sightings above 8000 meters have a much
more logical explanation. The detrimental
effects of time spent in the Death Zone are
well-known. At high altitude, temperatures
far below freezing inflict frostbite, sleep
becomes difficult, and reflected light causes
snow-blindness. Perhaps worst of all, though,
the lack of atmospheric pressure and
attendant low oxygen concentration (about
30 percent of that at sea level) can cause
altitude sickness and High Altitude Cerebral
Edema, or HACE. In the latter condition, the
brain swells, leading to hampered speech and
mental function, poor decision-making,
impaired coordination, hallucinations, and
loss of touch with reality.
Altitude’s effects on the brain can explain a
particularly haunting moment described in
Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air , a first-person
retelling of a 1996 Everest expedition during
which a severe storm killed eight climbers on
the mountain and stranded several others.
The incident is considered one of the worst-
ever mountaineering disasters. Krakauer,
descending in the midst of the mounting
storm, at one point thought he encountered
his teammate Andy Harris, only to discover
later that he had seen an entirely different
person, and that Harris had died up on the
mountain.
Low oxygen and other physical stresses can
also account for a common phenomenon in
which mountaineers report the sense of an
additional, phantom person. Dougal Haston
and Doug Scott, members of a
1975 British expedition up Everest, describe a
horrific night spent just below the summit
with no food and problems with their oxygen
supply. The men are said to have sensed a
third climber with them in their snow hole, a
comforting presence that talked them through
their ordeal. Climber Hermann Buhl
experienced something similar on his first-
ever ascent of Nanga Parbat in 1953, as did
Joe Simpson, whose ordeal escaping death in
the Andes is described in Touching the Void .
British climber Frank Smythe, who attempted
Everest several times in the 1930s, may have
the most colorful story, however. He
describes encountering two presences, the
first being a benign one that seemed so real
he offered it some of his mint cake. Later, he
encountered strange hovering objects, one of
which had "what looked like squat,
underdeveloped wings, whilst the other had a
beak-like protuberance like the spout of a
teakettle. They distinctly pulsated … as though
they possessed some horrible quality of life."
Michael Shermer’s book The Believing Brain
reports that the so-called sensed-presence
effect (referred to elsewhere as “Feelings of
Presence,” or FOPs) is common to people
under physical and mental duress, including
mountain climbers, polar explorers,
endurance athletes, and isolated sailors. An
experiment conducted by a Swiss team in
2014 and reported in Current Biology seems
to confirm this. Researchers managed to
induce in volunteers the experience of nearby
ghostly presences by creating a disconnect in
motor-sensory signals received by the brain,
causing the brain’s sense of the body in space
to malfunction. Researchers suggest that
FOPs, or ghosts, may be an illusion created
by the mind when it temporarily loses track
of the body’s location due to mental illness,
stress, or extreme physical exertion or
duress.
Not all mountaineering ghost stories can be
explained away so easily, however. Jennifer
Jordan’s book Savage Summit, which details
the lives and feats of the first five women to
climb K2, also presents a few accounts that
would not be out of place in a book of ghost
stories. Wanda Rutkiewicz, an accomplished
Polish mountaineer who in 1986 became the
first woman ever to climb K2, survived the
descent and went on to climb several other
8000-foot mountains before dying in her bid
to climb Kanchenjunga in 1992. After
Rutkiewicz’s death, Jordan writes, her friend
Ewa Matuszewska was awoken in the middle
of the night by a telephone call, and upon
answering heard Rutkiewicz’s voice on the
other end of the line. Delighted to hear her
friend’s voice, Matuszewska pleaded, “We are
all in despair. Where are you?”
The voice responded,“I am cold, I am very
cold, but don’t cry. Everything will be fine.”
“But why aren’t you coming back?”
Matuszewska persisted.
“I cannot now,” Wanda’s voice said, before
the phone went dead.
Equally chilling is a story from Jordan’s book
involving Julie Tullis, a British climber and
the third woman to summit K2. Tullis’s
accomplishment took place in July of 1986.
The months surrounding her climb saw 13
deaths on K2, which came to be known as the
Black Summer. During her descent with her
partner Kurt Diemberger, Tullis suffered a
bad fall, severe frostbite to one hand, and
blurred vision likely stemming from HACE.
She died while trapped at Camp IV with
several other climbers, and her body was left
on the mountain.
Years later, in 1992, Thor Kieser and Scott
Fisher, members of an American-Russian
team, were jolted out of an unusual quiet at
base camp by the sound of a voice coming
over the communications radio. “Camp IV to
Base Camp, do you read, over?” the voice
said. Both Kieser and Fisher knew that no
one was on the mountain at that time. And
the voice was that of a British woman.
Things happen on such great heights.
Whenever you attempt such grounds, be sure to take
utmost care...and pray for a good day.
Believe what you want to believe soul brother.
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