The question of mountain etiquette hit the headlines again this week. First, there was a reminder to close the windows when you leave a back country hut so the next visitor doesn’t arrive to find their accommodation filled with snow. The second was more serious, with climbers on K2 accusing a group led by Kristin Harila  - who is on a mission to climb all the world’s peaks above 8,000 metres in the shortest time - of stepping over a dying Sherpa and continuing with their climb rather than stopping to help.   

This week Harila and her team rejected the claims. “It is simply not true to say that we did nothing to help him,” she told the Telegraph, “we tried to lift him back up for an hour and a half and my cameraman stayed on for another hour to look after him. At no point was he left alone. Given the conditions, it is hard to see how he could have been saved.” 

The Austrian climbers who shot the drone footage felt there were enough guides and Sherpas on the mountain that day to attempt a rescue mission, and that the injured Sherpa wasn’t given the same treatment a westerner would receive.  

The video clip is short and what really strikes you is the precariousness of the situation. As the camera pans around you get a sense of how terrifyingly high the climbers are, how narrow the path is, and how challenging the snow conditions are. I’m no mountaineer, but it’s hard to imagine how you could carry or assist an injured climber down this part of the mountain.  

Questions about the Sherpa’s mountaineering experience and whether he had the support and gear he should have been supplied with are valid, but whenever an incident raises this issue the argument is always the same.  

As much as an individual might want to help, the situation is often helpless and nothing can be done.  

Climber Cathy O’Dowd spoke about this in 2000 when she released a book about climbing called Just for The Love of It. In it she recounts being about 4 hours from the summit of Mt Everest when she came across a severely incapacitated climber who had spent the night on the mountain.  

Cathy knew the climber, another female mountaineer, and knew her situation was hopeless – but despite her logical assessment of the situation she knew she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try to save her. 

After nearly an hour together in -30 degree temperatures the climber drifted into unconsciousness and died. Cathy abandoned her attempt on Everest, but later became the first woman to reach the summit from both north and south sides.  

Sir Edmund Hillary spoke up in 2006 when a group of climbers, including a New Zealander, were criticised for leaving a British mountaineer on Everest to die. The climber had neither oxygen nor proper gloves and those who passed him spoke about the challenge of keeping themselves alive at 8500m, let alone attempting a rescue.  

Reported in the New Zealand Herald at the time, Sir Edmund Hillary felt people had completely lost sight of what was important. “"There have been a number of occasions when people have been neglected and left to die and I don't regard this as a correct philosophy.”, he said, going on to add, “I am absolutely certain that if any member of our expedition all those years ago had been in that situation we would have made every effort.” 

A lot has changed and climbing the world’s largest peaks have been commercialised – with an emphasis on paid guides getting their clients up and down at whatever cost. What has not changed is how dangerous it is. 

Perhaps it’s time to accept that stepping past someone dying near the summit of Everest or K2 simply means you’ll be stepped over too.  

While that might sound harsh, it's not an attitude that exists for most outdoor activities – only the very extreme cases. In most situations, trampers, climbers, sailors, competitors in the outdoors abandon their missions with little thought to save a life. Priorities are clear, and this is where our humanity shines.  

But if there’s no solution and no hope let’s stop beating ourselves up about it – for those who decide to take the extreme risk, what will be, will be.