The Great Disappearing Act

There are over a billion things in this country, and more over the world, that can end in tragedy. Unexpected land mines when on patrol of a city your country is unjustly occupying, hurricanes flooding national icons, and a certain leader’s continued inability to find a terrorist in a cave.

I could keep going, but I’m trying to keep this column within a certain page limit. Granted it’s a page limit I’m not sure of just yet, but I figure fourteen seems a bit...much. So we’ll go with three...four..no,two...we’ll just see.

Of the hundreds of thousands of highs and lows on this planet. From the Mariana trench in the Pacific ocean, to the hypoxic towering summit of K2 in the Himalaya, people have struggled in the mere fight to overcome that which they don’t know.

Countless ocean floors, and snow blanketed mountain tops, have stood not only as testaments to the dominance and beauty of our planet, but as challenges and hurdles which men and woman all over the world have sought to climb.

Until George Mallory, the Himalaya were vastly unexplored, and were revered by Tibetan and Nepalese citizens as the steps and gateways to the gods. The mountains held not only a physical presence in their lives, but they signified that the gods were looking down upon them and protecting them.

The names commonly attributed to the peaks, mostly from English speaking surveyors and attempted climbers, serve a purpose only to the outside world. To the people who live in the foothills or the plateaus surrounding the great peaks, they are known by their true names.

While K2 has claimed many lives, and is in itself a lethal mountain, it’s neighbor, ever rising…always enticing people to it’s summit…is known to those who live at it’s base by the name Chomolungma. To the outside world, and those who seek to stand atop it, it’s called Everest.

At 29,037 feet (an eight foot increase from the tragedy of 1996 and a two foot increase from the horrors of 2006) it stands not as figure of beauty of our planet, but as an obstacle and a once in a lifetime challenge. There are millions of reasons why climbers fight for it’s summit.

For the experience, for the challenge (there is none greater), and simply because it has haunted their dreams and desires as far back as a climber can remember, are only two of the many reasons. The most selfish, ego centric reason, which has actually been given...because it’s there...is as much a death note as it is a pledge.

I have read many an Everest book, and one constant throughout all is, the desire to reach the top souly on the desire in the spirit and the soul of the climber. While in it’s own way there is a certain nobility to that motive, it is foolish to think that and that alone will get you to the top.

Experience, drive, and brute strength may get you up: Mt. McKinley, Aconcagua, or any of the other 6 Summits, but it will not bring dominance over the world’s roof. At approximately 28,200 ft the average mean temperature on Mt. Everest is –40 degrees Fahrenheit. 40 below on a daily basis!

While it has been proven that the body can submit to those temperatures for at least a night, climbers have had to function with the aid of special sleeping bags designed for up to –20 degree temperatures AND added linings. Not to mention supplemental oxygen. The effects of edema, both pulmonary and cerebral, began several hundred feet below.

A writer once said: while it is tragic and unfortunate to have an accident on any peak, when the tragedies of 1996 and 2006 are taken into consideration, it is better to have an accident on a lesser peak than on Everest.

While the statement may seem insensitive in some ways, it makes a valid point. No one wants an accident anywhere, but if one does happen, it is better for it to happen on a peak, or at a height, where rescue is safe or at least possible.

On Everest, every little mistake, misstep, or miscue is amplified a million degrees. Much of the passage up the Northeast Ridge is edged on either side by sudden almost perfectly vertical 5 mile drops down the North Face. Climbers shimmy along the ridge, a width slightly wider your foot, barely able to place one foot in front of the other.

All this assuming anyone can move calmly and swiftly along virtually uninterrupted. But that is a pipe dream for some mysterious, fantasy, dreamland peak buried in someone’s misguided psyche. This is Everest. The roof of the world, and the stairway to the heavens.

Since 1996, as Jon Krakauer predicted, Everest has gotten OVER commercialized, over hyped, and WAY over populated. I’m not saying it deserves to be shut down, we all know that will never happen, but what needs to happen is a much heavier restriction on permits, the amount of expeditions permitted on the mountain (not on one side or the other, but on both the North AND South sides TOTAL), and the size of each expedition.

Intense background checks must also be mandatory. If ANYONE has in ANY way a criminal background, they must not be permitted anywhere near base camp. I’m not talking about parking tickets, or driving violations, or anything of that nature, (how many idiot climbers are driving vehicles in the foothills of Mt Everest? And if you are, that’s as high as you should go. You’d be lucky if you saw the edge of base camp.) I’m talking about anything requiring jail time longer than two days.

Everest is a mountain that while it is an inanimate object, it is actually it’s own entity. It can sense anticipation, anxiety, and passion. It breathes the drive, joy, and compassion of those who seek it’s summit for respect, nobility, and to see something within themselves.

It can taste the fear, selfishness, and the push to be there just because someone feels they can…just because it needs to be done. The people who should stand atop are those who understand the risks, fight within themselves for every inch, and search and find something inside their being. Something that brings them closer to who they are, and closer to their planet.

I will not pass judgment on the actions of climbers who have died on their surge to the top. Maybe they made it, maybe they didn’t. While that is, in their hearts, their true desire…it is not the issue at hand. Climbing Everest without the use of supplemental oxygen is, admittingly, an admirable goal. It shows climbers for who the really are. Incredibly strong, centered, controlled, and determined people.

It also shows, whether they are aware of it or not, a certain degree of cockiness. You are in a world not designed for survival of ANYTHING. Every single element of that mountain and everything around you is pushing you quickly to the door step of death. To think you are better than that, better than the planet that gives you life, and the mountain that allows you to stand where you are, is a little selfish.

I see this in the people who strive for an oxygen-less accent, but some (not all) survive because they balance the hidden selfishness (some people are totally unaware) with a noble desire. The right desire. They, as I’ve mentioned above, have the desire to find and learn something about humanity and the planet.

One of these men is Ed Viesturs, and I salute his efforts and his accent. He, along with IMAX Expedition leader David Brashears (in 1996), where part of the rescue team charging into the fatal storm to rescue several members of the trapped expeditions. One of these teams was Jon Krakauer’s. Although Krakauer was safely down the mountain, the majority of his teammates were trapped.

Rescues on Everest are villains of another kind. A kind unseen anywhere else in the world. While no one, aside from those actually involved in the rescue, can be certain of the truth of the events, one thing can be set in stone: because of the affects of edema and hypoxic hypothermia on the body it is VERY difficult to tell if a climber at rest (sitting) is dead, dying, or at rest.

Hundreds of people will say that all you need to do to check if a climber is indeed at rest or dead. These people do not understand what climbers go through. The cold constantly ripping at their body, is a cold unlike any on Earth. It’s a chill they will never understand, and one that can blitz you with edemic dementia and frostbite in mere minutes.

They don’t understand that these people are surrounded, millimeters from their feet, by sharp drop offs plunging at 85 + degree angles all around them. It is not just the terrain immediately around them, but the ridge in front. If the climber is savable, the rescuers now have their own weight, oxygen, and accessories to carry, plus the added weight of the climber they're attempting to save.

While we don’t exactly know what went down during the rescue, we can be sure that because someone tried to help, in any way, that they had some level of kindness within them. When people are up that high, they have next to no time to make decisions and attempt rescues. Any stoppage of their traverse to the top is an immediate threat to their lives.

As you make a rescue, or pass someone you feel is in need of help, the question that will invariably cross you mind is, is there enough I could do to help? Can I do anything that won’t risk my life? Is this person actually alive. Sure you want the summit, everyone in front and behind you does, but is the life beside you savable?

It is almost criminal to look at these people who make rescues or attempt them, and doubt their motives. They are operating and functioning in a world not fit for survival. In a world you can not fathom, and have no right to judge them and their actions. Unless you have witnessed, felt, froze, and literally fought death as they have, you have no right to criticize them.

Sure they are men and women just like any of us, but they have attempted to save a life, in an environment where everything is against them the minute they stop. I will not make judgments of anyone who died, for it is an atrocity to laugh in the face of disaster, but I will say that if you ascend without support and without oxygen, you are in a sense, begging death.

On a final note: Lincoln Hall. I can not safely judge his teammates for leaving him behind on the mountain. I do not know, or can even fathom what they witnessed as they left. They believed him dead or dying and beyond rescue. The decision, based soully on that, was not a selfish one. They acted on the greater behalf. Knowing that at that hour, stopping to save someone they believed beyond help, would endanger their lives, was not shameful.

The hero in that situation was Lincoln himself. What ever he found within himself to keep fighting on is true heroics. He must be honored and commended. Lincoln was not only lucky, he is a blessed man, and should be honored. He has my full respect and I tip a hat to him. As I do to Dan Mazur, for abandoning his bid for the top to assist Lincoln.

The abuse Lincoln sustained at the hands of the sherpas guiding him down to safety is an atrocity and offends me, not only as lover of Mt. Everest and all things Everest, but as a human being. These men decided to forego common sanity and simple decency for someone who was climbing back from death’s door, and beat him and assault him. There is no place on Everest for criminals, and these men are a disgrace to humanity.