The first person to do it without oxygen
was an Italian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Messner), but you're right - the vast majority of the tourist climbers rather than serious climbers are totally reliant on the Sherpas.
On the thing about leaving the dead, I can kind of understand it. It would be a huge operation to drag a corpse down from high up on the mountain, and would be risky for the people doing it (far more likely to have an accident). The bodies further down the mountain are routinely recovered when possible.
The sad truth, as well, is that if anyone was going to recover the bodies from higher up, it'd be the Sherpas again being asked to take the risks...
(, Mon 27 Apr 2015, 18:29, Share, Reply)