Climb of a Lifetime

There was an interesting study recently in the British Medical Jounal that did a retrospective analysis of the causes of deaths on Everest over a period of 80-some years. The study can be faulted a bit for the vast time period if covers, but since most of the climbing traffic on Everest (and therefor most of the deaths) have occurred in the last 20 years, it is still valid data. You can read it here:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/dec11_1/a2654

While the study is not remarkable, it certainly underscores what many already know, that most deaths occur on the descent and that a major contributing cause is "summit fever" - either pushing it beyond the edge of the envelope and leaving too little for the descent or not turning around and topping out too late in the day. So - the short answer is to know well your own limits if you don't want to be a statistic in an update of this study.