"It seems to me that anyone who was going to choose to be that stubborn, obstinate, willful about pushing toward the summit would not have been dissuaded by reading about *the chance* of bad weather in a theoretical, informative format."
I agree somewhat. Those guys were keeping track of their mileage and they were probably thinking "it's only one more mile, that's nothing. We can make it."
The problem arises when putting that one mile into the context of 14,000' and a snowstorm. Hell, it's probably even worse when there is good visibility, and weather is moving in. "I can see the summit, it's right there. I'll beat the storm"...but again the context of 14,000'+ makes a big difference.
Watching the series on the guys climbing Mt Everest we saw the same thing there with very experienced climbers. I imagine hypoxia has a role in a lot of the bad decisions that are made at higher altitudes.
