 |
| Mt. Everest aka Chomolungma aka Sagarmatha |
My brother first suggested I read INTO THIN AIR two summers
ago. I’d read Krakauer’s other famous book INTO THE WILD, on which the
eponymous movie was based, both of which (the book and the movie) are all-time
favorites of mine as they illuminate and extol the virtues, risks, and
downright stupidity inherent in the quest for adventure and for testing the
human body and spirit. And so I devoured INTO THIN AIR, a travelogue about the deadliest trip to the summit of Everest, which Krakauer was a part of as reporter for OUTSIDE magazine, and revolved around the same
themes as INTO THE WILD but approached them from a different direction – this time it was about man at
his most equipped and prepared fighting nature at its most powerful and
unpredictable (while INTO THE WILD was about a vulnerable, idealistic
youth trying to align himself via solitary struggle with a nature that, as he realizes,
doesn’t care that he means it no harm).
In the end they’re both about testing one’s self. And as
such, there’s no more famous test of one’s strength and convictions than a push
for the summit of Everest. Sure, K2, the second highest mountain in the Himalayas
(and thus the world), is considered more difficult of an ascent than Everest.
But Everest is the tallest, #1, the pinnacle of the world and as we’re suckers
for the biggest and the best there’s ingrained in us all a certain respect and
appreciation for those brave men and women who attempt it, respect given in spite of the
assistance they receive from sherpas and guides and thanks to top gear not readily available to most and certainly not to the ones who came before. It was about Everest that George Mallory,
when asked about why he strives to summit it, responded “Because it’s there”.
It was a combination of reading this book and watching Jeremy
Jones’ DEEPER that first motivated myself to pull together a hike to the summit
of Mt. Whitney. Mt. Whitney, which at 14,505 feet is still less than half the
height of Everest. Though at 14,505 feet it’s at least the tallest on the
continental U.S. In preparation myself,
my wife, and author Steven John ran, lifted weights, and hiked as much as
possible throughout all the trails we’re blessed to be surrounded by here in
Los Angeles. Elsewhere brother Kyle hiked the mountains and trails around
Barcelona, including Tibidabo, and madman Brendan Schenning rambled about Negro Mountain and hiked through Goucher College.
Come time to
climb we all made it (though Brenny, in classic Brenny style, nearly died).
Regardless of how small our mountain was in comparison to the big ones, how un-technical
(though there was a fair share of snowbound navigation and the push to trail
crest involved crampons and ice-axes up a 45-55 degree pitch with 800 feet
or so of rise), from this simple venture was born a new passion. The climb – the simple
act of putting one foot and, when necessary, one arm before the other, of
pushing on in spite of the lack of oxygen in your lungs or your sore legs, far
from the sounds of our encroaching unnatural society – is almost as rewarding
as that feeling of success, of assurance of the indomitable spirit and unflagging strength
brought on by the view from the top, surveying like kings the horizon spread
out below you. 
The other day, while on a quick hike up Mt. Lukens training for a
Mt. Rainier climb in August, Steve and I discussed Everest, both of us agreeing that, unless
something massive changes in both of our lives, neither of us will probably
ever climb Sagarmatha. The combination of cost – averaging about $60k per
person after paying all government fees and for the guide teams and all
– and time (a month at least, necessary to stop and spend enough time
acclimating at each altitude level) – and the simple fact that neither of us
feels that the summit would be worth the very real jeopardy of life inherent in
an Everest summit climb means that most likely we will never view the world from its
tallest point. Not that, even as I write it there isn’t a tinge of desire to
say “fuck it”, put in some major fundraising, fly to Nepal, and go for it. Not
that I’m against people climbing Everest – I just have a lot of other things I'd rather do instead, sure enough.
That being said, now I can at least get a taste of the
journey thanks to the good adventurers at National Geographic. In fact, not
only will I get a taste of going up the main Southeast route, a well-traversed
summit run that’ll probably someday have a fucking gondola to the top it’s so
damn popular, but also of the rarely-climbed West ridge, which wasn’t successfully ascended until 1979 (versus the Southeast route, first summited in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay)
These two hikes, sponsored by North Face, Nat Geo, Montana State and with staff from the Mayo Clinic, will be sending real time
updates back to NationalGeographic.com/everest and, for those of you with iPads and all that technological connectivity hunger, you get special exclusive features and info beamed to you daily (ya bastards). They're even instagramming from the top of the world, for fuck's sake. Everything you wanted to know about Everest, even if you didn't realize you wanted to know it, is on this damn site , including how it feels at that moment to be there. You can feel the disorientation, the electricity in the air, the excitement at showering in outdoor tents and suntanning in zero-degree weather. The sense of purpose and thrill and fear (there's already been a death and this only started a week ago) shared by the teams, both the 3 man team going up the Western Ridge and the larger group of North Face athletes and doctors tackling the Southeast Ridge looking to study the effects of high altitude on the team-members hearts under the idea that the lack of oxygen and necessity of their hearts to pump harder mimics the acts of a clogged or failing heart.
"We are interested in some of the parallels between high altitude
physiology and heart failure physiology," Dr. Bruce Johnson, the team leader, told The Associated Press.
 |
| Everest West Ridge |
The 3-man team up the Western Ridge, on the other hand is more like the rockstar squad. A leader (Conrad Anker, the legendary climber who found George Mallory's remains in 1999, almost 75 years after Mallory first disappeared), photog Cory Richards (the first American to summit a peak over 24,000 feet in Winter), and writer Mark Jenkins (who had an unsuccessful push up the Southeast route in 1986 and about mountains says “I am not one of those who believes mountaineering to be a noble endeavor. It is not. To attempt Everest, for me, is to be at play, with friends, on the most iconic mountain on Earth.”) from Montana, Colorado, and Wyoming, respectively.
So next time you're whining about how tough it is getting this meeting set or how you hate having to push drinks or wanna complain about how sore you are from your long run - or just need to get the fuck out of your desk, out of your house, out of your comfort zone, away from our sedentary lives, take heart. For the first time ever you can experience the climb of the world's tallest mountain second hand but in real time. You can get a taste of the extraordinary as it happens. And maybe, just maybe, it'll awaken that part of you that cried out for adventure but you didn't listen - maybe this site will remind you that this great world is full of adventure and exploration and that we don't have to accept it as a boring routine of home to desk to gym to bar to home again.
At the least it's better than most of the other trash you're wasting your time online reading, like this blog, for example, right?
Motivate yourself to greatness by watching others achieve it step by step. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/everest
- Ryan
No comments:
Post a Comment