UKH

Yay for clickbait headlines!

https://towardsdatascience.com/frostbite-stories-part-1-mount-middle-life-c...

Interesting analysis of the stats:

"...You can also see that there has been no dramatic increase in the number of summitters between 2018 and 2019 — it has been in a steady growth since long ago, with numbers exceeding 600 people in a year as early as 2007.."

"...most of the members successfully make it to the top and the casualty rate is very small compared to other Himalayan peaks."

"...it also looks like the Everest, despite being the highest and perceived by the media as really dangerous, is now a relatively easy technically— and safe, as for a 8000er— mountain to climb."

"...This analysis shows that the crowd on Mount Everest seems to be composed in big part of middle-aged wealthy men and their high-altitude babysitters."

Absolutely brilliant! As a data nerd myself, I’m in awe. 

Wow. 356 people on one day. That must be more than most hills in the UK, maybe with the exception of snowdon?

I think if you condensed a year's worth of ascents of Snowdon* into a 3 week window, there'd be something like 20,000 - 30,000 ascents per day!

*Source "More than 600,000 people are expected to make the trek to the summit this year", Daily Post article from 2017: https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/snowdon-overwhelmed-visit...

That made interesting reading but in my opinion she missed some key points. A 40 to 50 year old is a lot Fitter and healthier in 2019 then they were in 1980. Also it seems that numbers started to go up in 2003, this is around the time of broadband Internet finding its feet and becoming the norm in households, this leads to people having easy access to up to date information that would have previously required many trios to the library for out of date information. 

Is it true that a 40-50 year old is a lot fitter now than in 1980? On average a 40-50 year old is likely to be fatter and less active now. If you compare an active subset of that age group, runners, they were running much faster on average in 1980. That data would need more analysis, but there is enough to suggest that your assumption might not be as obvious as you think.

There are lots more 40-50 year olds who pretend they are more active by posting carefully staged pictures on face book, while obesity, diabetes and other inactivity associate problems climb in most of Europe. 

The only positive since the 80s is a decline in smoking. 

I suspect that looking at average fitness won't tell you much.  Getting up Everest requires considerably great than average levels of fitness, even if it's not elite athlete level.

Which was why I considered average fitness and that of a subset. More to the point, just questioning Dax’s basic assumption.

I've only skimmed the article, but the main reason more people are getting to the top is everything to do with using more oxygen and an improved delivery system (i.e. the mask - I think Ted Atkin's mask was available commercially for the first time in 2005 or 2006?). Obviously weather forecasting has got a lot better and there tends to be more Sherpa support on the mountain (meaning people carry less stuff).

As of this past season it is now pretty common to use oxygen from Camp 2 (6400m) on the south side, whereas 15 years ago most would have slept on it at Camp 3, then used it at 2L per minute to C4, but it was also fairly normal to go to C4 without it. 

Using 02 from C2 undoubtedly means those who wouldn't previously have been in good enough shape to summit, are able to stay healthy and recover more easily. In other words, the use of more 02 has made climbing Everest easier.

That said, how tough the summit day is depends on a number of factors. David Hamilton, who has summited 10 times, said recently that due to the weather conditions (v windy until it eventually died down at the South Summit), 2016 was his toughest summit day.

My assumption is based on when I was a kid in the late 70's / early 80's people in their 50s were in the most part old people and looked like old people. These days they don't. (in the most part) 

Isn't that just because you're an old person now too?

I'm pretty sure kids of today think anyone aged in their fifties is old.  In fact I'm pretty sure kids think anyone aged >= (n+m) is old, where n is their age and m is a number between 1 and 5 that varies according to the value of n.  Obviously they're wrong

It's the Alan Partridge look vs the Keef look.

I'm sure there is a bit of that but maybe it's just where I grew up. People in their 50 and 60 and up were in the pub, now they are out running and cycling. 

The “member age” figure is lacking for units on the Y-axis...