Legitimacy Of World’s Oldest Person To Ever Climb The Everest Questioned This doesn’t seem all that fair. The validation of Yuchiro Miura, the 80-year-old man who climbed Mount Everest, is being questioned after details of his voyage surfaced. He is the oldest person ever to do so and has become an inspirational poster child for the country’s boomers. The Japanese government even developed a new public award after alpinist Miura for “adventurers who challenge themselves to the limit of human potential,” after he climbed Mount Everest last month. The recepients for this prize were originally seniors, chosen by Miura himself, but it was changed to be available for all ages. On June 13th, a magazine, Bunshun, published an article that tried to explain how Miura accomplished the climb. The reporter never denied that it was impressive, but he also noted that not every 80-year-old can do the same. If one would like to climb Mount Everest, some serious cash amounts are needed and Miura’s family is in the mountain-climbing business. The event is seen as a man vs. nature odyssey, but it’s actually a huge financial undertaking. Dozens of sponsor gave money to have their names printed on the flag that Miura waved when he reached the summit, given that it was filmed. According to Miura’s daughter, the climb cost ¥150 million, from which ¥100 million came from sponsors, ¥18 million from individual “supporters,” and the remaining from fees the alpinist received for speaking engagements and media appearances. Furthermore, the ascent itself cost ¥30 million plus the permission to scale the mountain which runs at ¥7 million. But you also need gear. Oxygen tanks are ¥5-6 million. The rest of the money was split among 18 Sherpa guides, including five cooks; two professional Japanese climbers, each of whom have climbed Everest at least a dozen times before and who “accompanied” Miura and his son to the top; and seven other Japanese “attack” crew members, including a full-time physician. In addition, several hundred porters kept the base camp supplied during the climb. The reporter contrasted Miura’s climb with a much less successful one that took place during the same week. It was less successful because Chizuko Kono and two other climbers frose to death while attempting to reach the top of the Himalayas’ Mount Dhaulagiri. In a press statement, Kono’s husband said that his 66-year-old wifewas a lifelong alpinist and had no sponsors and did not even solicit funding. She used her own savings to fund her multiple climbs around the world. According to the former representative of a mountain-climbing association that Kono used to belong to, members pay their own way and do not resort to sponsors like Miura. Kono’s death was widely reported throughout the media, but few made the importat comparison. The cautionary aspects of her failure may be more to the point and real than the promotional aspects of Miura’s success, although most journalists avoided the issue. Another aspect of the climb the media casted a shadow upon is th issue of whether Miura deserves to hold the record. It wa reported that upon descent, he was airlifted down because of dodgy ice and exhaustion. Bunshun quoted a few annonymous alpinists and even Ken Noguchi, a famous one, who said that you can’t label a climb as complete unless you walk the way down the mountain, even though he didn’t mention Miura by name. Upon Miura’s return, no interviewer asked him about the helicopter, which cost ¥2 million. SOURCE: Japan Times READ MORE AT 24-7 KPOP: 24-7kpop/2013/06/17/worlds-oldest-person-to-ever-climb-the-everest-legitimacy-questioned/
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:08:21 +0000
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