At first glance, it looks like garbage and mud mixed in the white snow, but then, you take another pass and it looks like Monopoly buildings in a wide frozen landscape. And then, it occurs to you what time of year it is and you realize it's actually Mount Everest Basecamp.
The video, by climber Mindaugas ?atkauskas, shows the start of the Mount Everest climbing season. This year, about 1,900 people are expected to make the climb. While their journey technically begins once they arrive in Nepal and acclimate to the elevation, they spend up to five days in basecamp acclimating to extreme elevation.
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At 17,500 feet, the elevation is no joke. If you don't spend the time adjusting or treating your altitude sickness, you could get injured or die. Fortunately, you can live in relative comfort at basecamp, watching movies and eating hot meals.
After base camp, most climbers stop at three to five more camps before they reach the top. At each camp, they have to acclimate to the elevation gain. Plus, the higher you go, there's less oxygen, colder temperatures, and more extreme weather conditions.
However, once you pass 26,247 feet, your body literally starts dying as there isn't enough oxygen available to support it. Even with supplementary oxygen, most climbers will only spend about a day in the "Death Zone."
