In reply to Garbh Coire:
> Whilst amusing at times (and often correct), I feel the line between fact and downright defamation is often a blurred one on ExWeb.
Occasionally, yes. But I think overall as a percentage such articles are rare, at least in past years. The site has changed a little in the last 9-12 months or so.
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> I get the impression that some leading climbers only submit reports to ensure they remain on the right side of them. Those that don't invariably appear the ones most likely to be singled out for 'the ExWeb treatment'.
Absolutely not. Yes there are some who don't appear because they don't like ExWeb and vice versa (Russell Brice etc), but there's quite a few who don't appear there, who ExWeb never publish a bad word about. Actually go to an 8000er (not Everest) and see how many of the people on the mountain are on ExWeb - very few. How many of those are attacked by ExWeb? Probably zero.
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> What really irritates me about ExWeb though is the clear hypocrisy of those that run it. They believe themselves to be the 'prophets of purism' and decy all forms of commercial activity and 'unadventurous behaviour'. This is despite ExWeb relying on such climbers for business and ExWeb being ran by the very climbers they like to decy...
I don't know about 'prophets', maybe 'messengers', or 'conduits' with the actual message originating from others (Babanov, Gjeldnes etc). Yes, there has certainly been some hypocrisy over the years as you say. But notice they no longer cover the non-Everest Seven Summits unless it's for a particular reason (bad storm on Vinson etc). They're no fan of the 7S. I agree there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in promoting one level but regularly covering another ("lower") level of activity, but this is reality and they want regular content. So they try to cover the mass of stuff in a general way, highlight the best stuff as examples, and attack someone if they feel that person is being deceptive (Strang, NPole swimmer) or inhumane (climbers ignoring Nangpa La murder).
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> They like to question all statistics and climbers claims (usually with a serious hint of bias one must add). Someone should ask them to list theirs. Top climbers?, the 'prophets of purism'?, I suspect not... Everest 'yak-trail'/ fixed rope monkeys, I suspect more likely...
Actually I don't think they question enough. They make far too many mistakes on a regular basis, which is threatening any semblance of accuracy.
What bias exactly? I can list a minor one or two. But what are your examples?
They've NEVER claimed to be top climbers. In fact when I knew them they didn't even claim to really be climbers at all. They called themselves 'travellers'.
The site is run by Tom and Tina Sjogren, Swedes who now live in NYC. They first attempted Everest in 1996 on Henry Todd's permit, had a bad experience with faulty O2 and did not summit, but they experienced first-hand the 'Into Thin Air' debacle. They attempted it again in 97 & 98, failing both times, though on one occasion one could have summited but retreated to be with the other. In 99 they both summited, having organised their whole expedition themselves and hired the Sherpas to fix the icefall, having become disillusioned at the mess of different expeditions badly organised. On none of these trips were they guided by western 'guides' like so many are now. They used Sherpas and O2 on all occasions. They deliberately supported Babu Chhiri in his stunt of sleeping on the summit, which he used to his own, and his village's benefit. All this info is in the public domain, on the web and in at least one book.
In 2000-01 they attempted to ski to the South Pole unsupported from Hercules Inlet. No guides, no airdrops. They fell short, in part weighed down by the tech gear that would become Contact3 that so many teams now use (in a much improved form). They are genuine pioneers in this area.
They returned in 01-02 and skiied unsupported to the Pole. They flew from Antarctica via Chile and Sweden and on to a North Pole attempt. During April/May 2002 they skiied unsupported from Ward Hunt to the North Pole, pushing on in hard conditions, paddling across huge open leads. No guides, no airdrops. Tina became the first woman to do the two Poles back to back. Going unsupported to the North Pole, from either side, is seriously hard and most people fail (Fiennes, Messner).
There's a lot they don't know about traditional hardcore alpinism. They make a lot of mistakes. They have some wacky ideas I don't agree with. I've had raging arguments with them and they don't talk to me anymore. Which is fine with me.
But for those of you out there hunched over your keyboards and talking tough about people you don't know, go summit Everest unguided then ski both Poles back to back unsupported and then tell them they have no experience, tell them they're monkeys.
D