Mountain Without Mercy

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"If you find a body on Everest," says Viesturs, "it's [accepted] practice to drop it in a crevasse or gather rocks to pile into a grave. With Rob and Scott, we couldn't do either, so we simply had to leave them as they were." The IMAX climbers did just that, finishing their filming and descending the mountain, all the while aware of what they were abandoning. If there was any consolation as they headed for home, it was that within a year the snows of Everest, in a final act of mercy, would provide the lost climbers with a proper and permanent burial.