This is The Outside Podcast with Paddyo.

Howdy pals? It's Saturday, which means it's time for another long-read podcast from the Outside Archive.

Tragic endings are all too common in the Himalaya,

but the 2024 deaths of Anagutu and Gina Residlo

on the relatively obscure Tibetan mountain Shishapangma

resonated beyond the cloistered world of 8,000-meter climbing.

The two women died in separate avalanches on the same day,

raising troubling questions about how accessible these peaks have become and how the business of guiding has evolved.

Outside always covers these incidents with empathy, authority, and exacting attention to detail, and journalist Gloria Liu's comprehensive reconstruction of both women's journey to Shishapangma,

as well as her breathless hour-by-hour account of the final day, is no different.

She tells the story of two women who were accomplished and driven, but not elite-level climbers,

who both set out to become the first American woman to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000

meter peaks. Coincidence found them trying to claim that prize on the same mountain on the same

day. Competition had them each making decisions that everyone on the mountain that day would come

to regret. This is death on Shishapangma.

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Death on Shisha Pangma.

Two American women and two Sherpa guides perished while racing for a record.

The tragedy illuminates how the recent rush to climb the world's highest peaks

...