Climbing Everest: Safer than driving an Italian highway?

Those who attempt to climb Mount Everest come in all stripes. It is hard to generalize. But let me tell you about one guy I met at base camp, an avid climber who might fall into some sort of norm.

He is Mario Andrighettoni, a 38-year-old software programmer who lives near Italy’s border with Austria. He works for a company that makes control systems for telescopes.

A gregarious sort, Mario quickly poured out the story of his passion for mountain climbing, beginning with ascents in the Alps then on to Peru, where he and his wife climbed Huascaran, a beautiful peak (I’ve seen it from the air) that juts 22,205 feet in the Andes.

The couple kept aiming higher. Next came Muztagh Ata, a 24,757-foot peak (7,546 meters) in far west China along the famed Karakorum Highway. Known as the “Father of all Ice Peaks,” it stands alone, not part of a chain of peaks.

That went well, so the couple decided to enter the big leagues of mountain climbing – tackling one of only fourteen 8,000-meter peaks that exist, all in the Central Asia region.

“To climb an 8,000 meter peak is very different compared to a lower peak,” Mario told me. “The approach is different, the period is longer, the preparation is not the same.”

So they joined an expedition to Cho Oyu, which sits immediately to the west of Everest. It is a massive 8,201-meter (27,978 feet) snow-covered mountain. That’s when Mario first suffered the severe debilitating effects of high-altitude oxygen deprivation.

“If you sit down, for example, inside the tent, it’s like here . . . it’s not difficult,” he said. “The problem without oxygen is when you have to walk. The legs don’t work. It’s incredible. You walk very, very slowly.”

Mario and his wife made it to Camp 3, then had to turn back. They were determined not to use bottled oxygen, which many climbers do. “I was very exhausted,” he recalled.

Last year, the couple returned to the Karakorum Range, climbing Gasherbrum II, another of the 14 big peaks. “When we arrived at the summit, it was quite warm for an 8,000-meter peak. We stayed on top for two hours,” he said.

Mario and his wife are part of an eight-person expedition (six Italians, two Germans) but perhaps typical of Everest, it is not a united team. They paid 10,000 euros ($13,600) each for permits, yaks, flights and basic help from porters. But once beyond advanced base camp or Camp 1, the couple peel off on their own. That carries a lot of risk.

They have access to excellent weather forecasting information: “ So when you try the summit, you are 99 percent, 95 percent, sure the weather will be fine.”

But there is no back-up team to come if something goes wrong, only a small radio to alert others of distress. Mario said he is well-aware of risks but that ordinary life also has risks.

“Probably it’s easier to die driving a car on an Italian highway than climbing Mount Everest,” he says. That’s a risk he’s willing to take. “Now we are here. It’s like a dream.”

Base camp headquarters of Mario's expedition.