High on a mountain top

The Kiwi climber who attracted great attention for being the first double amputee to climb Everest has seen the flip side of adulation. It now turns out that they did not do very much to assist a climber who was in physical collapse on his way down from the summit. I see some confusion here. His group did stop to assist and had a conference with their base camp but were advised to go on to the top. The guy left in a cave died. There has been the usual red herring about his being ill-prepared and reckless in climbing alone. In all, it is estimated that over 40 people went past him; most without even stopping.

I know that climbers are a strange breed who see things in very simple black and white terms. There was the climber who cut the rope that was supporting his colleague and left him to what might have been certain death. I would like to think that the dead climber knew what he was risking in the event of any difficulty - abandonment.