Is this why it's lonely at the top?

By Richard Glover, May 27, 2006

IT IS not enough to climb Everest any more. You must have a gimmick. Mark Inglis, who climbed it last week, has no legs. Another person is deaf. A third is merely very young. One Australian bloke - faced with a lack of disability of any kind - had the idea of doing it without oxygen, and by starting his walk a really, really long way away.

He was successful. Next time, he'll have to add a blindfold and start his ascent in Hobart.

People are now paying as much as $US70,000 ($93,000) to be virtually "dragged up the mountain by guides", as one mountaineer put it this week. Once they're back home, they have to figure out how to get themselves into the record books.

With Everest, we are now in the land of the hyphenated claim - the first female-over-40; the first gay-plumber-under-25; the first retiree-with-gout-who-forgot-his-medication. ["A Nepalese Sherpa briefly removed all his clothes atop Mt Everest to set a record of sorts on the world's tallest peak, according to local media reports."]

God knows what the world's transsexuals think they are doing. I've just placed the phrase "first transsexual to climb Everest" into Google, and come up with nothing. If I were you, I'd start training now.

It all seems a long way from 1953, when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to climb the mountain - their achievement, curiously enough, reported to the world by the later-to-be-transsexual reporter James Morris. (Yet still today's transsexuals do nothing.)

On radio this week, I asked Hillary about the reality of Everest in 2006. He described how the mountain is now equipped with ladders and ropes - offering permanent help over the difficult bits. He noted that this rather defeated the point.

He is particularly uneasy about the attitude of "get to the top at any cost" - itself a reflection of the big fees being paid to guides. Inglis's achievement - reaching the top with his artificial legs - may be remarkable, but it's been soured by his admission that he walked past a dying mountaineer on his way up.

For Hillary, that shows a value system that's all wrong: people "just want to get to the top [and] don't give a damn for anybody else in distress".

Inglis has defended his own actions - pointing out that his party at least paused to help the dying man. About 40 other mountaineers simply walked past.

Forty! Suddenly Everest seems like the Pitt Street of the Himalayas. Forget climbing it; I want the Starbucks concession. Indeed, Hillary told me there are often 60 people at the summit. You'd be more secluded in the Cross City Tunnel.

I'm not arguing that climbing Everest is easy, even with all the help, ladders and crowds. The fact so many die is a measure of the difficulties and dangers.

What's weird, though, is this desire to manufacture challenges as if humanity hadn't enough real ones - adding difficulties to the climb with one hand, while removing them with the other, all in order to get into the record books.

Death and ethics collide at top of the world

That day, May 15, 40 climbers passed Sharp, and all made the same decision to leave him. No one knows when he died, but he died alone. Three days later, climbers confirmed there were now two bodies to pass on the way to the summit. That is the new reality.

Whatever the situation, however, it is difficult not to wonder about the morality of survival on Everest, with Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the two men to first climb the world's highest mountain in 1953, expressing concern.

"I think the whole attitude to climbing Everest has become quite horrifying," he said. "Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain."

Killip was respectful, but disagreed. "I'm certain Sir Edmund would feel differently if he had been there and seen the situation," he said. "He would have understood."

There were other factors as well. Sharp paid $7500 to make a solo assault without oxygen, the most dangerous and difficult way to climb. The basic cost of a climb with sherpas and guides is about $40,000 and can go as high as $90,000 a climber.

Sharp made unsuccessful solo attempts in 2003 and 2004. He had no one to guide or help him for all three..

Perhaps his most serious miscalculation is that he had reached the summit late the previous day and had to make his descent of the precipitous north-east ridge in darkness in minus 40 degree cold, an almost certain route to death.

Sharp descended about 250 metres before he sought the only refuge available, the overhang at 8600 metres where, in 1998, the Polish climber had also sought protection and died.

At some stage, he removed his headgear and unzipped his down protective suit, symptoms of the fatal stages of hypothermia. His arms and legs turned black with frostbite.

Killip, who made an unsuccessful attempt in 2001, and one of his two guides were the two most experienced mountaineers among his team of five other climbers, who included the New Zealander Mark Inglis, 47, a double leg amputee. With eight sherpas, they set out from their assault camp at 8400 metres at 11pm, passing the overhang two hours later.

Killip reached the summit at 6.30am and although it was a clear day with a light breeze it was "incredibly cold. I stayed only 10 minutes". On his descent, he became aware of the tragedy when he listened on his radio to climbers trying to help Sharp.

Max spent an hour with the distressed climber. He tried to give him oxygen, sacrificing his own attempt on the summit. Killip said: "Max was crying, seeking advice on the radio" from the expedition leader, Russell Bryce, an experienced New Zealander, and a doctor at base camp.

"They told him there was nothing he could do," Killip said.

Sherpas from Bryce's Himalayan Expeditions and Arun Treks got Sharp to his feet but he was unable to stand, even with support. They, too, gave him oxygen, but it failed to revive him. In tears, they left him.

Sharp was unable to walk or help himself. "If you can't walk, you're finished," said Zac Zaharias, 49, who has led two assaults on Everest, climbing past the dead Pole in 2001. "No one has been carried off that ridge at that altitude - ever. It is not humanly possible."

Below the overhang, there is a 500-metre drop on a 50 degree slope over broken rock. At that altitude, even with breathing equipment, it is deemed impossible to carry an 80-kilogram person, even working in relays.

Killip said: "I feel distressed. But the truth is, I was in difficulties myself. I couldn't have carried my best friend off that mountain. I had frostbite; I had barely enough strength to get myself down. When I got to David [on the descent], the issue had been settled."

Since 1953, more than 2250 people, including 28 Australians, have climbed Everest. It is estimated that 80 per cent of climbers with professional guides reach the summit. The death toll is 187, including five Australians.

Hillary criticises abandoning climber to death

EDMUND HILLARY, who became one of two men to first conquer Mount Everest 53 years ago, said yesterday that he disagreed with the actions of the amputee mountaineer Mark Inglis, who left a fellow climber to die on the slopes of the world's highest mountain this month.

Sir Edmund said he would have abandoned his own record-setting attempt had another climber been in danger.

And there has been further drama on Everest, with breathing problems forcing a Sydney teenager to abandon his attempt. Christopher Harris, 15, of Emu Plains, turned back at 7500 metres. He is believed to be the youngest climber to reach that height.

Inglis, who this month became the first double amputee to reach the summit, was with one of many climbing parties that made the excruciating decision not to help the oxygen-deprived British climber David Sharp, who died about 300 metres below the peak. Sharp, 34, had climbed alone, after two previous unsuccessful attempts in 2003 and 2004.

"It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say 'Good morning' and pass on by," said Sir Edmund, 87.

"My expedition would never for a moment have left one of the members or a group of members just lie there and die while they plugged on towards the summit."

Inglis and his party could have stopped and given Sharp oxygen, he said. Inglis's aim was to reach the summit, "and I can understand that", but there was no question in Sir Edmund's mind what he would have done.

Inglis said "there was nothing we could do" to prevent Sharp's death. "For goodness' sake, let David and his parents rest."

Some other climbers have agreed with the decision to leave Sharp. Said the alpine programs manager of the New Zealand Mountain Safety Council, Paul Chaplow: "On New Zealand mountains we would teach people to administer first aid and help, but it is a completely different world there [on Everest]. Unfortunately you hear plenty of stories of people dying and people, especially guides, who stay with clients in trouble and then do not make it out themselves."

Sir Edmund said the episode showed climbing Everest was becoming too commercial and some restrictions were needed.

Inglis lost both his legs, mid-shin, to frostbite in a climbing accident in New Zealand in 1982, and now climbs with custom-made prosthetic legs.

Back-from-the-dead Australian climber still on Everest

Left-for-dead Australian climber Lincoln Hall was fighting for his life Saturday after surviving a night in the open, 8,600 metres up Mount Everest in Nepal.

Hall, 50, collapsed 250 metres below the summit of the world's highest mountain and was left for dead by his climbing colleagues.

Russian expedition leader Alexander Abramov, who had pronounced Hall dead, sent a rescue party back up the mountain after another climber found him still alive but gravely ill.

Simon Balderstone, a fellow Australian who is monitoring progress from Sydney, said that Hall had been brought down to 7,000 metres and was in a heated tent after being examined by a doctor at the North Col camp.

American climber Dan Mazur, who was leading another party up Everest, discovered Hall, found he was still alive and gave him oxygen and hot tea.

Hall reached the summit Thursday in a team including Thomas Weber from Germany and guide Harry Kikstra from Holland. Weber, a visually impaired climber, perished descending the mountain, and Hall was also reported by Abramov to have died. Weber failed to reach the summit.

Climber Hall reaches Everest base camp

Australian climber Lincoln Hall has just walked into the advanced base camp on Mount Everest in reasonably good health, a fellow climber says.

Hall, 50, was left for dead on the mountain, then found and revived.

He spent the night at North Col camp, 7,000 metres above sea level and on Saturday morning (Nepal time) he arrived at the advanced base camp, which is at 6,400m.

South Australian climber Duncan Chessell, who runs DCXP Mountain Journeys, told AAP shortly before 3pm (AEST) on Saturday that he had received a call from one of his guides on the mountain, Jamie McGuinness, telling him the news.

"He's in reasonably good condition but he doesn't have much memory of things at this stage," Mr Chessell said.

"Basically he's been able to come down under his own steam, without assistance, is what Jamie reported.

"I imagine he got up in the morning after being treated with oxygen and hydration and left (North Col)."

Mr Chessell had expressed concern about the stretch between North Col and the advanced base camp.

He described the 70 degree slopes between the two points and said much of the area needed to be abseiled.

There have also been concerns for Hall's health, with reports from the mountain that he was suffering swelling of the brain and hypoxia.