Flyboys Keeping Me Safe...

Leading up to my departure for Nepal a couple months ago, I spent many waking AND sleeping hours considering the safety of the mission I was signing up for. I would be flying within the most magnificent and daunting mountain range in the world, conducting the highest and some of the most complex alpine rescue operations in history and doing it all in a helicopter with complete strangers. 

What could go wrong?

Well, I have to admit I lost a little sleep and probably sprouted a few more gray whiskers dwelling on an issue that was out of my hands. Just another affirmation that it is an absolute waste of time and energy to fret over issues that are beyond your control. 

I quickly eased into the helicopter lifestyle over the first couple weeks. The first ten flights or so I would grit down on the bumpier rides as the headwind would throw the bird around and up and down. Two months later it wouldn't even occur to me we were in the middle of bumpy ride as I was chatting and laughing with the pilot... until I took a look over at the passenger who would be fully gripped, clinging to a handle. 

The skills these men possess are extraordinary. To them it's like driving a sports car on the Audubon. Precision and skill... balanced with a centered calm. 

They handle themselves with the utmost professionalism and take courage and bravery to the next level. Their mission is to be of service and I have been honored to work with each one of them.

I flew 84 flights in 5 different helicopters with 6 pilots. Landed on just about every helipad in the Khumbu Valley. Landed at Everest Basecamp maybe 30 times... lost track. Landed at Everest Camp 1, three times and Camp 2, four times. Landed in bluebird weather as well as 30mph winds and sideways snow.

My life was in their hands everyday and they are sending me home intact. 

Thank you and Namaste gentlemen. Let's do it again next year. 

Thanks to Capt Andrew, Capt Chris, Capt Nischal, Capt Deepak, Capt Kiran and Capt Dave. 

‪#‎beofservice‬
‪#‎areyouambulatorybro‬
‪#‎happylanding‬
‪#‎timetogome‬

Everybody Goes Home...

I don't even know where to begin. The last four days have been a blur. Multiple 4:30am wake ups for all day missions. Guess I'll start at the last calm evening. 

The final week of the Everest season typically provides a fair bit of high mountain drama and this year has been no different. 

Hundreds of people all move up into position to summit around the same time. This is due to the weather window being fairly narrow and if you miss it, you're either stuck in screaming winds and cold or you call it and come home with no summit. Many teams feel this pressure and all line up at the same time to hit that precious week of low winds. 

A number of folks get in trouble and many of them don't have the moxie or the assistance of a world class guide to get down alive. Crowding, wind, cold and inexperience all play a big part in creating a total shitshow. This what we encountered the last few days. 

The weather forecast for the night of the 17th showed very high winds so we assumed that all the teams would see the same thing we did and delay arriving on the exposed South Col (Camp 4 @ 26,000ft) till the next day. Turns out, several teams went anyway. 

And this is when the wheels started falling off. 

The next day we began receiving reports of 24+ hr summit attempts, frostbite, exposure and severe altitude illness. We were hearing that clients and a few Sherpa guides were scattered and stranded above high camp and in big trouble. Many of those that did get down to the relative safety of Camp 4 began tearing through other teams' supplemental oxygen cylinders. Obviously this is a shitty thing to do and in my opinion, is not only worthy of an ass whooping, it's grounds for criminal charges. Stealing supplemental oxygen from climbers that are expecting it to be in place for their upcoming ascent or for use in emergencies is about as low as one can go in the world of mountain karma. It has happened before and sadly will happen again. 

We were hearing that Chinese, Indian and UAE teams were reporting several of their members were either broke off completely and requiring assistance or, in a few cases, unaccounted for. Anticipating such a setting, we had arranged for our stud Sherpa team to be in place at Camp 4 the next day to help clean up the mess and help evac climbers in need. Once the rescue request was made, our guys activated quickly. We got confirmation that an Indian woman and her Sherpa guide were "stuck" just below the south summit (28,500ft). At the same time that call came in, Lakpa and Nima Dorje were tending to a sick American climber that was the client of a fairly large operator on the mountain. They worked alongside the guide to nurse this fellow back to health and ultimately helped in lowering him all the way down to Camp 2. 

So that left Mingma and Nima Ninja to head up from Camp 4 to locate the Indian woman and her guide. For all intents and purposes they were essentially on the moon... and our guys would be their only chance of survival. 

It was 8pm and -20F. 

The next morning we woke to hear that our guys had found the 2 stranded climbers at just above 28,000ft. They were out of oxygen and water. Our guys provided them hot drinks and then, because of the disparity of extra oxygen cylinders, provided them their own personal oxygen masks. 

Talk about selfless. 

The woman was barely able to bear weight and required over five hours of labor intensive "short roping" down to Camp 4. Essentially they lowered her 2,000 ft down a snow slope with the occasional rock feature. 

At the same time these events were unfolding, we were getting word that a young Dutch male had died at Camp 4 after returning from the summit. There are plenty of news outlets reporting extensively on his plight so I'll just add that his sudden deterioration was another source of confusion and tension in the flow of communication between the players at Camp 4, Basecamp and Lukla. 

That morning I hopped in Andrews stripped down Dynasty bird and we headed to EBC knowing that we were about to have a massive day of evacs and full blown rescues. One by one, Andrew landed at Camp 2, loaded up a single patient and dropped them with me at EBC. Twelve round trips later we had evac'd a ruptured Achilles' tendon, 4 deep tissue frostbite cases, 2 altitude illnesses and our 4 bad ass Sherpas. 

At that point it was noon and the weather was starting to deteriorate so we flew back down the valley to Lukla with the most critical of our lot. The remaining evacs were ferried down by other helos and the most in need of acute frostbite care were ultimately flown down to Kathmandu.

That evening as we are eating supper, discussing the day's events as well as what the next day might look like, we begin hearing the storyline of an Australian female climber who was in the middle of a full blown epic above Camp 4 with multiple Sherpas attempting to bring her down. I received a call from Gordo at Basecamp around 8pm requesting medical advice to pass along to the team that was trying to stabilize this woman. It sounded like she was quite ill but had a solid support staff tending to her. We discussed a plan that was to be passed on to Camp 4 and agreed to communicate throughout the night should her condition worsen. 

Around 5am the next morning I got an update that she had made it through the night, was speaking and the rescue team was very shortly going to begin assisting her down the mountain. 

We had several more evacs to clear from EBC that day so Chris and I stripped the seats from Kilo Bravo and headed up towards EBC. As we turned up above Pheriche, we ran into a wall of wind and snow that bounced us around enough to where Chris called it and we headed back to Lukla to wait it out. The weather in this valley is unquestionably the most fickle and unpredictable as anywhere in the world. We hoped to wait out the weather and go rescue this woman either later that day or perhaps the next morning once the Sherpa team delivered her to Camp 2. 

As we sat in the teahouse waiting for the clouds to clear, we got word that the female climber had died during the descent to Camp 3. The effort to get her down that terrain was superhuman. I'm confident that everyone involved did everything they could to save her life.
I had never met this woman, but her survival meant a great deal to me. I wanted so badly to help load her on the chopper and take her down to Kathmandu. I visualized it the night before. But it just wouldn't be the case. Once again, countless media sources have provided commentary about the death of this young woman. I've got nothing more to add. 

The next day we heard that our Sherpa team had just arrived into Camp 2 with the Indian woman they had rescued from just below the south summit. It was time to go pick her up. An hour later, Chris and I had Kilo Bravo stripped down and ready for the trip to Camp 2. As this was Chris' first landing at C2, we decided to drop me at EBC so he could navigate the tricky terrain with the absolute lightest helo possible. I watched as he crested over the icefall out of sight into the western cwm in very shitty conditions. Five minutes later he came over the radio telling me he was on his way down with a fairly critical patient.
I hopped in the bird with Chris and finally laid eyes on the Indian woman. She was not well. Shallow respirations, thready pulse, sluggish pupils and lower extremity cold injuries. Sick.
We lifted off from EBC weighted down and booked it straight to the Lukla hospital. We stabilized her and ultimately shipped her down to KTM to address her frostbite therapy. She'll live to fight another day. 

I didn't know it at the time, but that would be the final rescue of the season for us. The few remaining climbers descended without issue and we went straight into beer drinking mode. 

It's gonna take me awhile to process this two month experience. I'll have to reflect on it and I'm sure I'll write a bit more. 

For now... I turn my attention to putting a bow on it. It's time to go home. To my family.
‪#‎beofservice‬
Namaste. 

Some Days You Just Don't Climb

There was essentially no movement on the mountain today. A day of remembrance. A day to reflect.

2 years ago today, thousands of tons of ice released from the west shoulder of Everest, cascading down into the icefall. It was still early... just after 6:30am. A couple dozen high altitude workers, most of them Sherpas, were shuttling loads through the broken up, mish-mash of seracs and crevasses.
In one horrifying moment, 16 men were killed and another 9 seriously injured. 

This event once again highlighted the perilous work that our Sherpa friends and colleagues take on each year as hundreds of climbers ask for passage onto the flanks of Everest and Lhotse. Without the undaunted work of these skilled, brave men... barely a western climber would stand on top and celebrate the hard earned summit. It's because of them. And I am grateful to them for their courage, skill, humility and perseverance. 

The weather today reflected the somber mood. Cloudy and cool with rain down low, snow up high as hundreds of extended families across Nepal mourned... from Makalu to Mustang and throughout the Solokhumbu. Prayers were sent to the heavens and memories were shared. 

Tomorrow... it's back to normal. Perhaps though, with even more reverence than before. 

We will continue to stand by... helicopter at the ready. Hoping we aren't called on... but ready nonetheless.
‪#‎beofservice‬

Sometimes a 60ft Barrier Is Stronger Than What’s Inside You

I felt the joy drain out of my body as soon as we rounded the wall and I laid eyes on it. Suddenly, reaching the summit with our 2015 No Barriers Warriors to Summits team seemed painfully out of reach.

Josh, Margaux and I had departed the team’s high camp earlier in the morning to scout the upper section of the route for our summit attempt the next day on Gannett Peak.  The previous day had been spent eyeballin the upper crux of the route, a left slanting couloir that appeared from a thousand feet below to have an anemic amount of shitty ice protecting it’s access. Even from our camp perspective we were skeptical of the upper flank conditions.  If that ramp of ice wasn’t safe to climb, the summit would be unattainable.

Gannett Peak is about as remote of a worthy climbing objective as any in the lower 48 States. Our team of 10 veterans, 5 guides and 2 photojournalists spent the better part of 5 days trekking deep into the Wind River Range of Wyoming, passing through some of the most breathtaking alpine terrain I have ever laid eyes on. Every one of the 26 miles of the approach were well-earned… not the least of which was the final mile leading into our high camp.  The “boulder field” was a linear mile of uninterrupted, VW Bug sized boulders that had the look of middle earth meets the album cover of Houses of the Holy. Our 2 amputees and 1 super-blind dude got their money’s worth climbing up, over and down each of the hundreds of massive rocks.

But in spite of all the fireball terrain and big-ass boulders, we arrived as a complete team into our high camp…. tired but satisfied and excited about what lay ahead.  All the lead up work had been done. Training was complete. The long approach was behind us. Only thing left to do was power through a solid summit day and stand on top of our objective.

That being said, my concern for route conditions grew deeper with each glance I stole of the upper route. As the sun cast down on the upper snowfield, the reflection off the snow mirrored a sheer face of what appeared to be very old, desiccated ice with a potentially broken up snow bridge leading to the climbable ice. The inexperienced eye would see it as shimmering beauty, beckoning for boots and traffic. But those of us with dozens of years climbing in variable alpine conditions knew better. We knew that weeks of higher than average temperatures would have melted the seasonal snow away, leaving only the thousands-of-years-old ice exposed. This is the kind of ice that is hard, crumbly and tough to protect. It’s the kind of ice that a few of the leadership team could handle with some minor effort… but the thought of putting our 10 participants on this terrain made my hands sweat and my spidey senses tingle.

Each of our hard charging participants have proven themselves competent and experienced in the theater of war… but their alpine climbing training consisted exclusively of our 3 training trips we had facilitated over the previous 4 months.

Not a lot.

Remember, our goal all along with No Barriers Warriors is not to make these men and women mountain climbers. Our mission is to provide them with a transformational experience that uses the mountains and rivers as a backdrop. Even from a half mile away I knew it would be tough to get everyone up and down that section of mountain safely and efficiently.

It was clear that we had to go up and lay eyes and feet on the route. As the expedition leader I knew that the ultimate “go or no-go” decision rested firmly on my shoulders, so I would need to go.  So on the morning of our “rest day” Josh, Margaux and myself departed high camp to go explore the upper reaches of the mountain.

Fun… just straight up fun. The climbing was complete with low 5^th class scrambling, glacial traverses, low angle snow climbing and splitter blue-sky conditions. We had a blast over the course of a few hours gaining an upper position. We rounded the corner of the “gooseneck” headwall and finally got close and personal with the upper couloir.

Shit.

The first obvious eye catcher was the 20ft deep, sunken bergschrund that separated the upper ice from the lower glacier. Bergschrunds are the features that form as the ice that is pasted to the steeper flanks of the mountain separate from the lower angle glaciers. Often times there is a snow bridge that exists that provides easy access on to the upper slopes. The same little snow bridge that existed when Charlie and Josh reconned the route 2 months prior still was in place. But now it was a sad little 1ft thick, droopy, unsafe marshmallow.

Well OK, we can get over that. Will take some work to get everyone over and back across that thing… but we can do it.

Then we looked up.

Above the gap we could now clearly see the condition of the ice that protected the summit ridge. Just as I had guessed...stretching from side to side of the couloir was 60ft of glistening, boilerplate hard, 10,000-year-old ice. Dripping water cascaded down its face. Once again I thought of a handful of ways we could get our crew up that section of ice but I continued to stalemate on how we would safely get everyone down this terrain.

But damnit…we knew that if we could just get by that 60ft of terrain we would have a fairly cruiser ridgeline all the way up to the summit.

Might as well have been made of 2ft thick glass.

I sat deflated as I contemplated alternatives. Each one ended in the same comment, “We might be able to get em up that way but there is no way to get them down that same section safely.”

In typical Josh fashion, the 27 year old ex SEAL continued to suggest multiple alternatives…. the best of which was climbing around the ice… “maybe we can circumvent the entire headwall. Let’s go check it out.” An hour later and some fun rock-block scrambling lead us to the edge of the headwall… and a 1,000ft sheer cliff.

No go.

Down we went… occasionally blasting out a “Fuck!!!!!” with disappointment. We had worked so hard to get here as a team and we would be going home without a summit.

Back through the sweet terrain and into camp to join up with the rest of the team. Ultimately to tell them that their much desired summit… the same summit that they had worked for and dreamed of… would remain out of reach.

I wasn’t bummed for my own summit aspirations. Over my 20+ year climbing career I have been turned around countless times due to unsafe conditions. I was accustomed to dealing with the “no summit blues”. All of the common axioms were a part of my long developed alpine mentation…

“The summit is optional but coming home is not.”

“The mountains make the music, we simply listen.”

“It’s about the journey…not the summit.”

And yes, all of this is true… but when I broke the news that we wouldn’t be able to summit, there was no cute little quote that would quell the disappointment the group clearly felt. As much as we had tried to frame up the possibility of not touching the summit, this was still a massive body blow to the group. Tears, frustration, disappointment. We all felt it. For many, it was just another one of the many obstacles that was keeping them from completing the ever-elusive “summit.”

Then the magic happened…

The team requested a participant only meeting… all the leaders were asked to step away.

Thirty minutes later we rejoined the team and listened to them request an opportunity to venture up, as a complete team to this high point… to go as high as they could… to lay eyes on this piece of unsafe terrain… to feel the power of the mountain and let it judge them for who they are… to conclude that they had done nothing wrong in this journey and to confirm that they had done everything right. It was just the mountain dishing up a shitty sixty feet of ice protected by a big ass moat.

Then I knew we had done our work. We had set the table appropriately. We had invited our guests and they had joined us for a lengthy feast. The appetizer was good… it whet our appetite and made us hungry for bigger things. The main course was delicious… we took in all of the miles and smiles and felt full. But alas there would be no desert…. the cake would not be served. We wanted to end on a sweet note but would instead have to reflect on the fact that our bellies and souls were full.

We had feasted.

The next day I began what would be a 2-day evacuation of one our participants that was sick as a dog and spiraling towards full kidney failure. He warriored through all 26 miles back to the trailhead on 1 foot, 1 prosthetic, a horse and a shit ton of grit and will.

That same day, September 11^th, the rest of the team climbed up to my same high point, took a look at the bergschrund and 60ft of ice and said, “Yep, I get it. Don’t want any part of that.”  Although there was still disappointment within, the team had now faced that barrier, looked it square in the eye and said, “F You!!!”

I heard stories of how each of the team yelled out names of their friends, fellow warriors and family that had been lost or deeply effected by the events of that anniversary 14 years prior. Powerful to say the least.

My best bro and long time adventure partner, Erik was the founding father of No Barriers. From the beginning the tagline has always been “What’s Within You Is Stronger Than What’s In Your Way.” I know that’s true most of the time.

But sometimes 60ft of shitty, unsafe ice IS in your way. And it IS stronger than you. And it IS blocking you from reaching your desired summit. And it IS NOT moving.

This is a fact of life.

When we encounter these immovable objects, it’s critical to be resourceful, look for work-arounds and think outside the box. Then, once we have exhausted all alternatives we have to come to grips with it. It’s not that I’m OK with it. I just have to acknowledge it’s existence. It’s not going anywhere. But we are. Moving on. Setting our sights on the next summit… the next objective.

And so we climb on.

Summit Night… The Microcosm of Life

It’s 1:30 in the morning and you’re wide-awake. And it’s not because you’ve been partying balls and have the munchies. In fact, you’re lying in your sleeping bag, in a tent at 16,000 ft with a slight headache that just won’t seem to go away no matter how many grams of Tylenol you ingest. The guy in the tent next to you is crushing logs so deeply you are convinced he is wrestling a wookie…. which makes your lingering insomnia even more frustrating.

On top of the tossing and turning in your stinky sleeping bag, you are racked with a cocktail of feelings and emotions.

Excitement, Fear, Uncertainty, Nervousness, Self doubt.

All percolating in your sleepy head.

This is a typical scenario for most folks as they prepare for a summit attempt on a mountain with any substance to it. I have seen it play out for over 20 years…including last weeks Kilimanjaro expedition.

This was another good one…

As I typically do, I had planned out the staggered times of departure our team based on observed pace over the previous week. Alpha team would depart at 3am and I would depart with Bravo team at 4am. I downloaded expectations for the clients, established contingency plans for potential evacs, arranged my African guide team in the order that seemed most effective… and so on. Dot all the “I”s; cross all the “T”s.

Then we step off…and it all changes. As usual.

Within 10 minutes from camp I noticed that one of my strongest returning vets from last year’s Whitney expedition was dropping off the “peloton”. I spent 30 minutes with him, trying to get him fired up and coax him into lock stepping with me as I watched the rest of the 24 clients slowly pull away up the hill by the light of their headlamps. His legs just felt heavy and his motor wasn’t firing. We’ve all been there. It just wasn’t his day. We both knew it.

But this wasn’t the guy I expected to drop off early.

Alas… strange things happen up high.

As I left my guy in the competent hands of my assistant African guide, I charged up the hill to join the rest of the team. And all was back to normal. The cacophony of folks pressure breathing. The shuffle of the dirt and rocks. The chant of Swahili song. All sounds that are so familiar to my ears on Kili summit nights.

And then…

“Shit!!! Shit!!! It’s out again!!!”

From 10 meters up above, I knew immediately whose voice it was and exactly what he was referring to.

It was Rick and he was reacting to the fact that his wife, Tina, had her shoulder dislocate. Again. This time at 17,500 ft.

A week before, in the midst of the pre departure excitement of arriving at the gate and preparing to step off on this grand adventure, Tina had lowered herself down from the Landcruiser using her left arm in a stressed angle and suddenly…

Pop!

It was out. First time ever.

Now I've put a lot of shoulders and hips back in place over my 20-year medical career but never on Day 1 of an expedition at the entry gate, literally minutes before we were to step off on a 7 day expedition.

With about 2 to 3 minutes of manipulation, I was able to reduce the shoulder back in place. She showed her grit and strength during the procedure and once she was slinged up and and her pack was handed off…she acted as if nothing had even happened.

The women are stronger. No doubt.

Back at 17,500 ft the sun had just crested over the horizon, Venus was glowing red in the low sky and the coldest hours were behind us. The backdrop couldn’t have been more magnificent… but the levity of the dislocated shoulder was significant.

We all breathed together. Calmed down as best we could. Situated our bodies to get good position on the shoulder and arm. And I got to work. There are several approaches and techniques for reducing shoulders and sometimes they are all needed to finally get it back in. This was one of those cases. I attempted the approach I was successful with 7 days prior. Nope. No matter how hard I yarded on Tina’s shoulder and how much pain I subjected her to… still out.

She went to a deep place. A deep meditative place that takes skill and experience to reach. A place that most of us won’t know. I watched my wife go there during her 18 hours of natural childbirth.  I’ve seen a handful of climbers go there during rescue operations off of Alaskan peaks back in the day when I was working SAR in the Range.

But a weaker person would have crumbled into a sloppy pile of blubbering shit. Tina did not. She stuck with me as I changed my approach. Again and again.

Thirty minutes went by and it was still out. I had run through my bag of tricks.

Forty-five minutes now and I was getting scared. Every minute that went by meant that the musculature and tissue around the shoulder joint were clamping down and making it progressively harder to reduce. If we would have been in the safe confines of an emergency department, we would have sedated Tina and administered some muscle relaxants to drop the head of humerus back into it’s joint space.

But instead, we were leaned up against a rock in the dirt at sunrise close to the summit of one of the “7 Summits”.

In somewhat of a last ditch effort, I positioned Tina head to head with me, standing, facing me. I held her forearm with one of my hands and with the other I slowly continued to manipulate her shoulder. I closed my eyes. I prayed. And the Great Spirit, she listened.

Clunk.

It was back in.

Slowly I applied a sling and swath and started into the conversation with Rick and Tina about the next steps.

Clearly Tina was headed down. But what about Rick?

Rick is a tough dude. He is like me in the sense that his character is to summit. When he attempts something, it will get done. This is who he is. He was born to summit.

I offered to take Tina down and let him go up with the team on stand on top.

After a quick consult with Tina, he told me there was no question… he would accompany his wife down.

I was more than impressed with this decision. He chose commitment to his wife over his own aspirations. He chose to be a servant leader.

Bad ass.

OK…get them packaged up and set up with an African guide for the descent and get back to work with the team… who were now an hour above me on the mountain.

As the adrenaline of the shoulder incident ebbed from my body, I kicked it into a high gear and caught the team within 20 minutes.

And it was then that I realized I was smoked. My heart pounding out of my chest. My energy levels clearly effected. Not something I wanted my clients to take note of.

I shelved it as best I could and methodically walked the remaining steps to the summit of Africa.

The joy and satisfaction was palpable. Within our coalition we had a blind vet, a vet with 1 foot, several other injured vets, a 66 year old woman that had never camped before and over another dozen folks that represent straight up Americana.

I was proud.

But then came the descent. Often times the hardest part. Physically and metaphorically. We must return home and share the story of the journey with those who weren’t with us. This is not easy. How do you capture the feelings and emotions that are only gleaned from battle with yourself and the elements?

Summit night captures the spectrum of the human condition.

That’s why we keep searching for it. We need to feel alive. And when the landscape changes in spite of our best efforts, we feel the most alive.

Upward

Jeff