Not of This World – Death and Loss in Himalayan Mountaineering

Abstract

This paper examines the narratives of three deceased high-altitude mountaineers who lost their lives while climbing in the Greater Himalaya. These individuals were participants in part of a larger ethnographic study on ‘Tourism in the Death Zone’ conducted over the space of 150 days fieldwork in Pakistan and Nepal in 2019. The paper seeks to explore how these participants depth of immersion in the ‘social world’ of high-altitude mountaineering eventually lead to their deaths. To do so, the phenomenological concept of the lifeworld [lebenswelt] is utilized to show how the participants lived realities and aspirations became entwined with high-altitude mountaineering – a serious leisure community. Previously, the connection between the lifeworld and serious leisure viewed within the context of extreme risk taking and possible death, has not been explored.