UKH

Just thought I'd share this

https://youtu.be/0pIyIMqwu0E?si=H9mJ-x2q7WS8H6za

Scooting up Everest while sipping my morning cuppa 🙂

The icefall looks just horrendous ! The rest seems just a plod, fighting altitude and cold.

And that drone is quite something !

Thanks for the link 🙂

I don't know. Escape to the mountains for solitude and wilderness, then someone buzzes you with a drone

As Leo Houlding once memorably said "It's just a technical walk". What a load of tedious, plodding nonsense. Give me Beinn Eighe any day of the week.

Absolutely  ghastly,how could that be a pleasure,apart from the huge fees,would hate that

I'd be happy with Ben A'an.

I will admit the drone is spendy, but that’s a bit harsh.

You can get cheaper drones.

£2-3k for a drone that can fly over Everest seems cheap to me. Knowing that helicopters' limits just about allow them into the Western Cwm I'd have imagined it would need the forefront of our technology to get a drone significantly higher.

That this is available off the shelf is IMO pretty remarkable.

Edit: does this mean that any serious Himalayan expedition should take a drone to recce the route.

What a film. Absolutely confirms my complete lack of ambition ever to attempt anything at that altitude; that never-ending icefall is my idea of a nightmare, and the thought of all those who’ve got stuck and died on those incredibly remote upper reaches chills my guts.

Air on the summit is about 50 times thicker than on Mars, and a helicopter drone has flown on Mars.

It’s a lot easier if you don’t have to haul squishy meat bags and their life support around.  

I think SATTY was commenting on people spending a shed load of money going to the summit, rather than me trying to be funny mentioning the price of a drone.

Not counting how much it cost in development of a rocket to get to Mars and then a Rover to land on solid ground, it cost about $80m to design the drone and about $5m to operate the little autonomous aircraft at an atmosphere 50 times less than the summit of Everest.

I'd say £3k for an off the shelf drone is quite reasonable, provided you have £3k to spend after paying the Park fees, porters, equipment and other stuff like bog roll.

Yeah, I knew. Was just amazed that it was basically available on t'net for (fairly expensive) hobby money.

They probably had to do a bit of testing to check battery life in cold altitude and stuff like that and it obviously had battery changes at some of the camps but it is an amazing record.

The icefall, omg that looks both amazing and horrendous.

 >  Knowing that helicopters' limits just about allow them into the Western Cwm I'd have imagined it would need the forefront of our technology to get a drone significantly higher.

I'll await correction from someone who knows better, but I was under the impression that the reason helicopters struggle at altitude has more/as much to do with the engines struggling for air intake as there not being enough air to actually chop through - not so much an issue for battery-powered drones, therefore.

That is a stunning film, as someone who could never get up there it was beautiful to watch. 

Would have thought that it would make a lot of sense for recceing a route (but how ethical would that be?) and for locating stranded climbers. Obviously would need reasonble weather, which might limit it's use in quite a few emergency situations.