Survival is number one At over twenty-nine thousand feet above sea level, Mount Everest is the highest peak in the world . Since the first summit of the world's highest peak in 1953, many mountaineers have attempted to climb Everest. Usually a peak is reached by a group of climbers guided by a highly trained guide and with the help of Sherpas. Although the group is made up of many people, the world's highest peak remains extremely difficult to reach and has caused many casualties. Indeed, climbers not only have to climb as high as the altitude at which a commercial airline flies; they also have to overcome the difficult conditions of the mountain at the same time. They must climb in subzero temperatures and with extremely strong winds. Added to this is the difficulty of breathing in an atmosphere with a very low oxygen content, of breathing “rarefied air”. As a result, many people have lost their lives attempting to reach the highest peak in the world. This leads to the ethical dilemma of leaving a sick climber behind to continue to the summit, or stopping and helping the sick climber. The risk of helping injured climbers is too high; they risk wasting the huge amount of money they paid and their risk of dying on the mountain will increase significantly. Therefore, expeditions should not be interrupted in order to save mountaineers who suffer from altitude sickness, such as HAPE, AMS and HACE. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay HAPE or high altitude pulmonary edema is a medical condition that causes fluid to build up in the lungs. This results in less oxygen supply to the rest of the body. As a result, death is very likely. Another altitude illness, HACE or high altitude cerebral edema, is the final stage of AMS, Acute Mountain Sickness. HACE is a condition in which the brain swells due to high altitude and AMS is a condition caused by climbers ascending too quickly. These conditions are very serious and often result in death. The study also shows that altitude sickness is one of the leading causes of death on Mount Everest (Basnyat and Murdoch). Stopping the expedition and spending too much time on Everest will increase the risk of suffering from this type of severe and fatal altitude sickness. Helping another sick climber could potentially put them all in the same situation, suffering from altitude sickness. Therefore, expeditions should not be interrupted to save endangered climbers to minimize the risk of suffering from high altitude sickness. Another reason why weather is crucial in Everest is the unpredictability of the weather in Everest. No one can predict the outcome of nature. On Everest, the weather is unpredictable and no one knows what might happen to it. An example of Everest's unpredictability is when Krakauer was caught in a hurricane and said: "But during this brief period, the storm abruptly metastasized into a full-blown hurricane, and visibility dropped to less than twenty feet” (215). Krakauer experienced the unpredictability of nature when the weather changed in moments, putting him in a terrible situation. Nature is unpredictable and anything can change at any time without anyone expecting it. One minute the weather was clear, the next minute they could be caught in a “real hurricane.” Climbers' exposure to unpredictable weather conditionswould be the least if they reached the top and descended as soon as possible. Therefore, climbers should not waste their time trying to save other endangered climbers in order to reduce their exposure to the risk of death. The next reason why expeditions should not be interrupted is to increase the rest of the team's chances of success during the descent. The number of deaths during the descent from the summit is much higher than during the ascent. From 1921 to 2006, 56% of people who died on Everest died during their descent from the summit and only 10% died during the ascent (Firth, Paul G., et al). From this data, it appears that a climber's risk of death is significantly higher when descending the peak than when ascending it. This is true in Krakauer's account of the 1996 Everest disaster, as all of his teammates, including Japanese climber Yasuko Namba and group leader Rob Hall, died during the descent. Even for some very experienced climbers like Yasuko Namba and Rob Hall who had climbed some of the highest peaks in the world, the descent was still very difficult for them and even cost them their lives. Another person who died during her descent was a Canadian climber, Shriya Shah-Klorfine (Death on Everest). Climbers are more vulnerable during the descent, as the climb has already consumed a huge amount of the climbers' energy and exhausted them. They have much more energy to get to the top than to get down. These climbers must overcome the same difficult conditions with much less energy. They must therefore be as prepared as possible to descend the summit. Rob Hall knew that the most important part was getting off the top, he said, "Any damn idiot can climb that hill, the trick is to come down alive" (Krakauer 153). This means that the most difficult part of the trip is descending the living summit. There is no point in reaching the summit of Everest if you cannot tell people about your conquest. You have to reach the top and come down alive to tell the whole world what you have accomplished. It is therefore crucial that climbers reserve their most precious resource, their energy, to reach the foot of Everest safely. Leaving incapable climbers behind would greatly benefit the team, as it can contribute to the success of the rest of the team's descent by helping the rest of the team reserve their energy for the most important part of the trip. The final reason why expeditions should not be halted is that the rest of the climbers have already paid a huge sum to reach the summit. In 1996, the price to reach the summit was sixty-five thousand dollars (Krakauer 27). This may not seem like such a huge amount of money, but that year, sixty-five thousand dollars was the price of a Ferrari. Today, the price to pay to reach the top would be even higher. Considering that the climbers have already paid a huge amount, so they should get what they paid for, that is, reach the top. For some climbers, this may have been their second or third expedition, as the last attempt was unsuccessful. Perhaps this is because the expedition was interrupted in order to rescue an endangered climber suffering from altitude sickness. So, not having to reach the top would greatly disappoint them and make them feel cheated after paying that amount of money. One person who had an unsuccessful first attempt was Krakauer's teammate Doug Hansen, who later died during his descent. Doug Hansen was a postal worker in Washington and it takes a lot of..