Mt. Everest Survival Scenarios

You are at base camp of Mt. Everest and you begin to climb to Camp 1. You begin to feel nauseated, dizzy and exhausted. What should you do?

• Drink water and keep climbing. You are obviously dehydrated.
• Take an aspirin and keep climbing. You are feeling a climate-induced migraine.
• Descend back down and wait for the symptoms to clear before climbing again. You are clearly overly tired.
• Descend back down and call off your climb. You are clearly suffering from altitude sickness.

You are climbing up a snowy slope and you accidentally trigger an avalanche. Your best chance for survival is

• diving deep into the avalanche to create a snow tunnel.
• trying to stay near the surface and making an air pocket around your face with your hands.
• kicking your feet quickly back and forth to keep the snow from burying you.
• rolling into a small ball to protect your body from the rushing snow.

You are going to climb the Khumbu Icefall. In order to help guard your safety you should

• attach your harness to the harness of other climbers for safety.
• attach your harness to the ladder for safety.
• attach your harness to the fixed rope for safety.
• attach your harness to your ice axe for safety.

You are climbing Everest and a blizzard hits. All of the following can raise your chances of survival EXCEPT

• Climbing to higher altitude to escape the clouds
• Seeking shelter behind large rocks to avoid wind and snow
• Making a snow cave to avoid the rough winds
• Banding together with other climbers to keep warmer

While climbing Everest you realize you have developed frostbite on the fingers of your right hand. In order to minimize the damage you should

• Tie string around the affected fingers to keep the frostbite from spreading through the blood to other areas
• Submerse the fingers in cool water was soon as possible
• Submerse the fingers in very warm water as soon as possible
• Rub the affected fingers vigorously to warm them up

As you are climbing you are monitoring your friends for hypothermia. You check for all of the following symptoms except:

• rapid muscular shaking
• a slow weak pulse
• sharp mental acuity and awareness
• a feeling of overwhelming heat that makes one want to remove his/her clothes

You arrive at base camp as a solo climber. Your best plan to summit safely is to

• climb over the space of several days; the sooner you are up and back down the safer you are.
• climb up to camp one and stay for several days, then climb up to camp two and stay for several days and so on until you reach the top.
• climb up to camp one and then back down to rest, climb up to camp two and then back to rest, and so on until you reach the top.
• climb up to the summit and charter a helicopter to bring you back down.

You are climbing with a group and you reach the summit of Everest. Once at the summit you realize that a teammate is hypoxic and cannot begin the descent. You should

• leave him/her; he/she will most likely die anyway.
• tie your teammate to you and drag him/her down to camp four.
• send one person down to camp four for help while the rest of you remain.
• all stick together until your teammate feels better; there is safety in numbers. 

You are planning a trip to climb Mt. Everest. The best time of year to go to ensure summitting and surviving is

• April-May
• June-August
• September-October
• October-December

After reaching the summit of Everest you begin to descend and one of your teammates has a heart attack and dies. You should

• tie his clothes together as a stretcher and drag him down.
• push his body ahead of you to get it down the mountain.
• stay with his body until a helicopter can rescue him.
• leave his body discretely off the trail and head down without him.