So it was practical at one point to dogsled around Antarctica, and it was practical to leave there any dogs who perished.
Did this apply to both polar regions? Is the Arctic one enormous, 35,000-year-old frozen pet cemetery?
Edit: come to think of it, this applies to humans too, at both poles.
btilly 17 days ago [-]
For a frozen open air cemetery, I direct your attention to Mount Everest.
Your odds of dying while climbing it are better than while attempting suicide. And most of the bodies just...stay.
tim333 16 days ago [-]
Nitpick from a former partial Everest climber. The ratio of deaths to summit successes used to be about 5% but the majority of climbers, including me, turn around before getting there.
I think the death ratio is down now there are pretty much fixed ropes the whole way to the summit on the south side. The 'Into Thin Air' deaths were because they lost their way in a storm but now you just clip onto the guide rope and walk up/down.
The attempt to death ratio is probably more like 0.5% or 0.2% though there aren't really proper figures on number of attempts.
bunderbunder 16 days ago [-]
According to Wikipedia the rate of deaths to summit attempts is more like 1%. They cite the Himalayan Database as their source for that figure; I'm not sure how accurate that is.
I'm assuming by "summit attempt" they mean something like ascending above the high camp, so that wouldn't include people who abandon the climb lower down the mountain?
(Note: that link contains photos of frozen human corpses, so maybe don't click it if you're squeamish.)
My understanding is that many of these bodies are clearly visible from the trail as you climb the mountain. Imagine seeing the well-preserved corpse of someone who previously attempted the dangerous feat you're now attempting... I don't want to find out what that feels like.
ANewFormation 17 days ago [-]
At least one body known as "Green Boots" [1] is used as a common milestone. His identity is unknown for certain.
The reason one does such things, though, is because they're difficult, so I'd imagine the bodies are motivating - focus or you'll be the next milestone.
*was. The body's now been moved to somewhere less conspicuous, according to that Wikipedia link.
ricardobeat 16 days ago [-]
The irony of a website telling the story of commercialization of climbing the Everest, and the risks involved, while bombarding you with full page ads to buy a climbing package every couple minutes…
I also wonder, with so much money going into these expeditions for many decades, how hard would it be to build some kind of safe house not too far from the summit, with oxygen / heating supplies delivered by drone?
rtkwe 16 days ago [-]
Very very hard. Purpose built high performance helicopters can barely make it to the Everest summit on ideal days. The air gets so thin they struggle with lift while hovering which to need to land.
gregors 16 days ago [-]
"hard" is not a technical issue. They would never allow it to be built in the first place since it has no place being there.
rtkwe 13 days ago [-]
It can and is both imo. It's technically hard to get supplies up that high and culturally people wouldn't want so obviously lessen the accomplishment of getting to the summit.
BurningFrog 16 days ago [-]
I'm guessing personal jet packs aren't a replacement yet?
gambiting 16 days ago [-]
On the other hand DJI has flown their regular consumer Mavic 3 Pro(although I bet it has been modified in some way) all the way to the top, so I have no doubt that with enough of them you could construct almost anything. Not that it would be allowed or even desirable by anyone there.
Woah - that footage is incredible. And it made me dizzy.
BurningFrog 16 days ago [-]
Wow. That must have been a very windless day!
rtkwe 16 days ago [-]
The helicopter flight that landed on the summit briefly was helped by some strong updrafts according to the pilot. It also looks like it was a number of flights.
scythe 16 days ago [-]
I'd be concerned that if you make it too safe, people will find another hill to die on.
The density of the air on Mount Everest is about 3/8 of that at sea level. So getting enough lift would be difficult. To the sibling commenter's point, I think a drone would be a lot easier than a piloted helicopter, since you can make the whole thing out of beryllium if you have to.
ricardobeat 14 days ago [-]
That was my point, DJI already demonstrated a drone going all the way from base camp to the summit.
You also have a stream of hundreds of people climbing it daily. If each one carries a few hundred grams payload to help with construction, or a sherpa takes an extra O2 cylinder every once in a while...
I know nothing about climbing, but thought, given the volume of people and money, it doesn't look like a "greatest feats of engineering"-level project to save a few dozen lives.
IIAOPSW 17 days ago [-]
I met a traveler from a distant land...wait, I am a traveler from a distant land.
selimthegrim 15 days ago [-]
At least you’re not a fugitive from a chain gang.
vunderba 17 days ago [-]
I read somewhere that the fact that it's become kind of a "tourist attraction" with far more first time climbers has actually made it more dangerous:
Really takes the mystery and wonder out of it, but maybe the Nepal government will sell a FastPass.
Cthulhu_ 17 days ago [-]
Given the sheer amount of people going there, I would've thought they had set up multiple routes with different difficulty levels and amenities like carved out paths / stairs, bridges, and tourist shops.
But I was questioning my own assumption there and as it turns out there's "only" a few hundred people a year that try to make it to the summit, with a total of about 12.000 people that did since the 50's. That said, the surrounding national park gets 100.000 visitors per year, and 500 people a day go up to Everest Base Camp, which is already over five kilometers high up (although people can start from a town with an airport at 2804 meters high).
michaelscott 17 days ago [-]
It's hard to imagine just how much the height of Everest affects the feasibility of any "normal" infrastructure as a tourist spot. The air density is exceptionally thin (so thin that even helicopters cannot climb past a certain point), and the lack of oxygen is literally killing you at a cellular level the longer you're there. I can't even fathom getting building equipment up there to set anything up, and no one could man any of the infrastructure on a long term basis.
tim333 16 days ago [-]
The 'normal infrastructure' stops at about 5200m. On the Nepal side there's a guest house there where you can stay without climbing permits and the stuff get there via human porters or yaks. On the Chinese side there's a road and you can drive a car to base camp and there are some local shop/bar type stuff.
Above that in Nepal it's just tents carried by human porters. In China/Tibet there's an advanced base camp which is like a village supplied by yak but without shops/public facilities, just expedition tents.
The trek to the 5200m stuff on the Nepal side is a nice trip and cheap once you get to Kathmandu.
BurningFrog 16 days ago [-]
The native Tibetan populations have adapted biologically to the low oxygen, which is why the Sherpas are so much better than the rest of us up there.
Andean and Ethiopan populations also have separate such mutations of their own.
Traditionally Sherpas only make up a small percentage of "native" workers and they they tend to work in more mountaineering adjacent roles (fixing ropes, etc.) which come with more prestige, money and better equipment donations from privileged clients.
Grunt work (porters, cooks, etc) is done by migrants from lowlands, on poor wages, with poor equipment and often effectively at higher risk despite not being involved in, for example, summit pushes. They do not benefit from the biological adaptations, nor noble savage mystique payday.
ostacke 16 days ago [-]
Helicopters can actually fly all the way to the top. (Or rather, one did, once.)
Not as far as I know used for supplies. Yaks/Sherpas are cheaper. They do get used for rescues though.
17 days ago [-]
rtxgucci 17 days ago [-]
Yeah, I remember reading about this and the reality is, Everest is still a very extreme environment even by today’s standards. It’s very expensive and risky to fly helicopters in the thin atmosphere and weather conditions so it’s very hard to get material up and down.
nytesky 16 days ago [-]
What about a helicoptered with rocket assist?
tim333 16 days ago [-]
I'm don't think it's more dangerous. The number of people make it a bit more like a footpath with a guide rail rather than the open mountain of old.
karamanolev 17 days ago [-]
Are the odds really better though? A quick search reveals an Everest death rate of between 1% - 1.6% depending on the period. Suicide success rate seems at least an order of magnitude higher (maybe more).
btilly 16 days ago [-]
No, suicide success is around 1%. That success rate varies widely with method. But if, for example, you just down a bunch of pills and then tell someone, you're extremely likely to live.
madaxe_again 17 days ago [-]
The old antarctic stations and huts are littered with corpses, from dogs to ponies to seals to penguins to bits of whale. The first thing you see upon entering Scott’s hut on Ross Island is a giant stinking heap of blubber, and the stables are still full of corpses. The dead dogs outside are still chained and collared, for all eternity.
The Antarctic conditions preserve bodies for a long time - in the dry valleys, there are freeze-dried seals who have been there for tens of millennia - the only thing that wears them down is the relentless wind.
boomboomsubban 17 days ago [-]
> is a giant stinking heap of blubber,
Is it actually stinking? I'd assume no, both as most smells are associated with decay and our ability to smell is somewhat hampered in the cold, but I have no idea how much blubber normally stinks.
madaxe_again 17 days ago [-]
I promise you it stinks of rancid fat to high hell, despite the interior of the cabin having been below freezing for over a century, as the freezing point of the oils in blubber is well below zero - the strips of blubber sit in a puddle of foul oil. Sour, rotten smell. Thankfully the boot room/stables are separated from the rest of the cabin by a door, so the rest of the cabin just smells of camphor and old paper.
One of the people I was with had to run outside and vomit - and then carefully scoop up all of their vomit into a plastic bag, because you only leave footprints in the Antarctic, and take nothing but what you brought with you - including your stomach contents.
boomboomsubban 17 days ago [-]
I wasn't sure if your use of "stinking" was literal or not, I didn't think you were lying. Thanks for clarifying!
yawpitch 17 days ago [-]
So, realistically, every continent is an old pet cemetery, Antarctica is just the newest, bleakest, coldest, and driest.
It’s also been the least accessible, making it historically impossible to resupply, in turn making it non-colonizable until diesel generators and the airplanes and (sometimes nuclear) icebreakers required to feed them.
The Arctic on the other hand isn’t a continent, but pretty much every winter becomes physically connected to multiple inhabited countries that already have populations, and these days road and rail, within their Arctic and sub-Arctic regions.
So while the Arctic is definitely a frozen pet cemetery, it’s been a LONG time since it was devoid of dogs (or at least wolves, who colonised it without our help).
rezmason 17 days ago [-]
Good points!
I think I'm just coming to terms (in a public forum) with the bleak fates of animals that humans transport, ie. to the ends of the Earth.
fifilura 17 days ago [-]
The ice layer is constantly moving and covering things up, so it will be close to impossible to find for example Scott's body and tent 100 years later.
At some point some artifacts or bodies will reach the glacier edge and drop into the sea.
And for the north, most of it is just ice shelfs anyway.
Then again, not that many people died in arctic expeditions. As someone mentioned, mountaineering is a slaughterhouse in comparison. Particularly compared to the size of the Antarctic continent.
I would have thought, also, that penguins tend to live and die near the coastline (where the ice meets the water, I mean, not where the land under the ice disappears) — and tend to correlate with things that like to eat dead penguins.
But (1) the preserved Scott dog in the article is on Cape Evans maybe not too far from the coast? and (2) now I wonder if I'm wrong about penguin habits. I'd like to hear more.
ajb 16 days ago [-]
According to the film "march of the penguins", Emperor penguins walk up to 70km onto the ice, so that their chicks can grow without risk of falling through the melting ice. But by the time they are independent, the ice has melted nearly to the nesting ground, so I guess it is still "near the coast" in a sense.
fifilura 16 days ago [-]
Hm, that is interesting. Penguins tend to live on solid ground though AFAIK.
ajb 16 days ago [-]
I guess the solid ground still has some ice cover that moves?
JoeAltmaier 16 days ago [-]
America is built on top of one enormous Indian graveyard. They were living here for more than ten thousand years. That's a lot of dying.
nkrisc 16 days ago [-]
Everything everywhere is built on someone’s grave.
Also, humans have been in the Americas for far more than ten thousand years, which is itself a small amount of time compared to how long humans have been present elsewhere in the world.
JoeAltmaier 16 days ago [-]
Not much longer! 14,000 by some estimates. Just gave a ballpark number but sure, more than that.
nkrisc 16 days ago [-]
Depends on where in the Americas you’re talking about. I’ve seen estimates up to 50k years ago for human presence in Beringia, presumably the first humans to make the trek from Asia.
Much of the evidence is probably underwater now though.
JoeAltmaier 15 days ago [-]
I like that!
dmd 16 days ago [-]
The entire world, other than Antarctica, is a human graveyard, and the American continents have been inhabited for less time than most of the rest.
riedel 17 days ago [-]
>In view of their genetic similarity to seals there was a fear that dog distemper might mutate and cross over into the seal population.
Sounds crazy. Does someone know, how realistic this was. Is there more evolutionary pressure in Antarctica to make that happen? Are those seals closer genetically? Could this happen elsewhere?
andrewflnr 16 days ago [-]
Birds aren't that similar to humans, and viruses jump between us all the time.
brudgers 17 days ago [-]
I live by the Pacific
shore. My dog gets vaccinated against leptospirosis because seals and sea lions also get it (and so can humans).
rob74 17 days ago [-]
Ok, but leptospirosis is a bacterial infection, while (I think) OP's point was about dog distemper, which is caused by a virus. But according to Wikipedia this is not a remote possibility (as the blog post puts it), but something that has actually already happened in several places, with disastrous consequences:
> The domestic dog has largely been responsible for introducing canine distemper to previously unexposed wildlife and now causes a serious conservation threat to many species of carnivores and some species of marsupials. The virus contributed to the near-extinction of the black-footed ferret. It also may have played a considerable role in the extinction of the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) and recurrently causes mortality among African wild dogs. In 1993-1994, the lion population in the Serengeti, Tanzania, experienced a 20% decline as a result of the disease. The disease has also mutated into the phocine distemper virus, which affects seals.
Don't know about distemper crossing over from dogs, but avian flu (also viral) is a serious problem among seals and other marine mammals -- it's possible for viruses to have wide cross-species infectivity.
My son is a dog fanatic and recently found this movie. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but it's pretty emotional and bittersweet, especially for a young child with a huge heart and love of dogs.
I will say that watching the bonus footage on the DVD/BluRay is highly worth the time. Most of the scenes were filmed in the extreme Canadian cold, which was a logistical nightmare for the filming crew and actors. Today, the same movie would be basically all green screen and CGI.
I still don't grok how they trained the dogs to "act" as well as they did. Absolutely phenomenal work from the trainers and dogs themselves.
ETlol 16 days ago [-]
Movie has Paul Walker saying dog FAMILY too many times for my little broken heart since his death. He was like FAMILY you could say, god rest his soul. Vin Deisle must tell you to go to
Thankfully found its way to a US outpost and currently being cared for.
genghisjahn 16 days ago [-]
Scientists at the US outpost could not be reached for comment.
bearincar 16 days ago [-]
[dead]
madhacker 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
rustcleaner 17 days ago [-]
Ah, of course the one canine-critical post has the semitransparent sheen of mass reflexive downvotes. What is the medical term for a psychological obsession with canines?
vunderba 17 days ago [-]
It's a bit gauche to discuss the reason for downvotes - but I don't think it's likely being downvoted by "Big Dog", but rather the fact that it's just a random complaint about a random city with no particular insight and completely irrelevant to the topic.
jamil7 17 days ago [-]
I didn’t downvote but I think it’s because the post feels like it’s using the article headline as an awkward segue to complain about dog shit in Austin. Which doesn’t seem relevant to anything in the article.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 17 days ago [-]
It was probably the off-topicness of bringing up the decisions of dog owners in a city in Texas on an article about the population of dogs in Antarctica which attracted the downvotes.
Nasrudith 17 days ago [-]
Cynomania perhaps?
johnea 16 days ago [-]
F_ck! Can we start clearing them out of San Diego now? Please!
Rendered at 23:18:43 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Did this apply to both polar regions? Is the Arctic one enormous, 35,000-year-old frozen pet cemetery?
Edit: come to think of it, this applies to humans too, at both poles.
Your odds of dying while climbing it are better than while attempting suicide. And most of the bodies just...stay.
I think the death ratio is down now there are pretty much fixed ropes the whole way to the summit on the south side. The 'Into Thin Air' deaths were because they lost their way in a storm but now you just clip onto the guide rope and walk up/down.
The attempt to death ratio is probably more like 0.5% or 0.2% though there aren't really proper figures on number of attempts.
I'm assuming by "summit attempt" they mean something like ascending above the high camp, so that wouldn't include people who abandon the climb lower down the mountain?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_on_eight-thousa...
From 1924 (Mallory's death) and 1952 (Hillary's summit) it was infinite deaths per summit as summits were zero.
It does make sense that this figure would evolve over time.
(Note: that link contains photos of frozen human corpses, so maybe don't click it if you're squeamish.)
My understanding is that many of these bodies are clearly visible from the trail as you climb the mountain. Imagine seeing the well-preserved corpse of someone who previously attempted the dangerous feat you're now attempting... I don't want to find out what that feels like.
The reason one does such things, though, is because they're difficult, so I'd imagine the bodies are motivating - focus or you'll be the next milestone.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Boots
I also wonder, with so much money going into these expeditions for many decades, how hard would it be to build some kind of safe house not too far from the summit, with oxygen / heating supplies delivered by drone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pIyIMqwu0E
The density of the air on Mount Everest is about 3/8 of that at sea level. So getting enough lift would be difficult. To the sibling commenter's point, I think a drone would be a lot easier than a piloted helicopter, since you can make the whole thing out of beryllium if you have to.
You also have a stream of hundreds of people climbing it daily. If each one carries a few hundred grams payload to help with construction, or a sherpa takes an extra O2 cylinder every once in a while...
I know nothing about climbing, but thought, given the volume of people and money, it doesn't look like a "greatest feats of engineering"-level project to save a few dozen lives.
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/eve...
Really takes the mystery and wonder out of it, but maybe the Nepal government will sell a FastPass.
But I was questioning my own assumption there and as it turns out there's "only" a few hundred people a year that try to make it to the summit, with a total of about 12.000 people that did since the 50's. That said, the surrounding national park gets 100.000 visitors per year, and 500 people a day go up to Everest Base Camp, which is already over five kilometers high up (although people can start from a town with an airport at 2804 meters high).
Above that in Nepal it's just tents carried by human porters. In China/Tibet there's an advanced base camp which is like a village supplied by yak but without shops/public facilities, just expedition tents.
The trek to the 5200m stuff on the Nepal side is a nice trip and cheap once you get to Kathmandu.
Andean and Ethiopan populations also have separate such mutations of their own.
Academic article: https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/46/1/18/661204
Grunt work (porters, cooks, etc) is done by migrants from lowlands, on poor wages, with poor equipment and often effectively at higher risk despite not being involved in, for example, summit pushes. They do not benefit from the biological adaptations, nor noble savage mystique payday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Delsalle?wprov=sfti1#Mo...
The Antarctic conditions preserve bodies for a long time - in the dry valleys, there are freeze-dried seals who have been there for tens of millennia - the only thing that wears them down is the relentless wind.
Is it actually stinking? I'd assume no, both as most smells are associated with decay and our ability to smell is somewhat hampered in the cold, but I have no idea how much blubber normally stinks.
One of the people I was with had to run outside and vomit - and then carefully scoop up all of their vomit into a plastic bag, because you only leave footprints in the Antarctic, and take nothing but what you brought with you - including your stomach contents.
It’s also been the least accessible, making it historically impossible to resupply, in turn making it non-colonizable until diesel generators and the airplanes and (sometimes nuclear) icebreakers required to feed them.
The Arctic on the other hand isn’t a continent, but pretty much every winter becomes physically connected to multiple inhabited countries that already have populations, and these days road and rail, within their Arctic and sub-Arctic regions.
So while the Arctic is definitely a frozen pet cemetery, it’s been a LONG time since it was devoid of dogs (or at least wolves, who colonised it without our help).
I think I'm just coming to terms (in a public forum) with the bleak fates of animals that humans transport, ie. to the ends of the Earth.
At some point some artifacts or bodies will reach the glacier edge and drop into the sea.
And for the north, most of it is just ice shelfs anyway.
Then again, not that many people died in arctic expeditions. As someone mentioned, mountaineering is a slaughterhouse in comparison. Particularly compared to the size of the Antarctic continent.
One example of the case you mentioned though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9e%27s_Arctic_balloon...
https://www.livescience.com/63525-penguin-mummies-antarctica...
But (1) the preserved Scott dog in the article is on Cape Evans maybe not too far from the coast? and (2) now I wonder if I'm wrong about penguin habits. I'd like to hear more.
Also, humans have been in the Americas for far more than ten thousand years, which is itself a small amount of time compared to how long humans have been present elsewhere in the world.
Much of the evidence is probably underwater now though.
Sounds crazy. Does someone know, how realistic this was. Is there more evolutionary pressure in Antarctica to make that happen? Are those seals closer genetically? Could this happen elsewhere?
> The domestic dog has largely been responsible for introducing canine distemper to previously unexposed wildlife and now causes a serious conservation threat to many species of carnivores and some species of marsupials. The virus contributed to the near-extinction of the black-footed ferret. It also may have played a considerable role in the extinction of the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) and recurrently causes mortality among African wild dogs. In 1993-1994, the lion population in the Serengeti, Tanzania, experienced a 20% decline as a result of the disease. The disease has also mutated into the phocine distemper virus, which affects seals.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_distemper)
https://e360.yale.edu/features/avian-flu-mammals-birds-seals
I will say that watching the bonus footage on the DVD/BluRay is highly worth the time. Most of the scenes were filmed in the extreme Canadian cold, which was a logistical nightmare for the filming crew and actors. Today, the same movie would be basically all green screen and CGI.
I still don't grok how they trained the dogs to "act" as well as they did. Absolutely phenomenal work from the trainers and dogs themselves.
That movie messed me up as a kid. Fantastic OST, though!
> In view of their genetic similarity to seals there was a fear that dog distemper might mutate and cross over into the seal population.
/j