I Know Where I'm Going... Just Don't Know Exactly How To Get There

“I know where I’m going... I just don’t know exactly how to get there”... said our Argentinian guide, Diego while reviewing maps with me the night before we kicked off our 4 day trek through a ridiculously remote zone in Patagonia.
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Isn’t that just the case?
Poignant as hell.
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At some point most of us figure out what it is we are shooting for in life with regards to work, play & love... the challenging aspect is determining how to arrive there.
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I know one thing for sure... in order to find that place you’re looking for, you are guaranteed to get lost in the thick forest and have to machete your way through the density.
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Then, after the struggle and work pay off and you arrive, you realize that it was in fact that arduous journey that you were seeking all along. The battle is what you were craving. Because it’s the battle that defines us... not the end result.

I Work With Some VERY Bad Dudes...

To date, this was the most high profile rescue of the season and showcased to the world exactly what I've known for months... our Sherpa rescue team is the most bad ass, highly trained, hard charging collection of alpine rescuers the Himalaya has ever seen. 

Yesterday we received a report that 2 Slovakian climbers had been hit by an avalanche around 23,000 ft while climbing the extremely difficult southwest face of Everest. They were stuck, one was injured and they were requesting a rescue. Based on sat phone reports from the climbers, they were perched some 2,000 ft above the valley floor, holing up on a ledge known as Bonningtons Plateau. They could neither ascend nor descend. A long line helicopter rescue was out of the question based on the steepness of the slope and surrounding rock and ice. In order to rescue these guys, a team would have to climb up the technical face, secure the Slovaks and descend with them to standard Everest Camp 2. 

Our 5 man Sherpa team have essentially been training their entire careers for this operation and knew this was the type of mission for which they were in place on Everest for the season. Once they heard about this and what it would require of them to accomplish the task, they were like caged animals at basecamp... they couldn't get their harnesses on fast enough. 

The southwest face of Everest is unquestionably one of the most technical and challenging routes on the highest mountain in the world. Sir Chris Bonnington lead a team of Brits with the first successful summit of the route in 1975 and it has only successfully been repeated by two other teams since then. Several other teams have attempted it... all have failed, several have died.
It's steep, sustained and has an abundance of objective dangers at every turn. 

At the moment, our Sherpa team was positioned at Everest Basecamp (EBC) preparing to ascend to Camp 2 tomorrow and rotate around the mountain for the next 2 weeks as the heart of the summit season is in full swing. So, first things first, we had to get them up to Camp 2. I hopped in the Dynasty helicopter with Andrew again and flew up to EBC to help coordinate and discuss the next 24 hr operation with our EBC team. In order to move 4 of our guys and all of their gear, it would require 4 helo shuttles from EBC up to Camp 2. They would then begin climbing from there up to the Plateau around noon with the hope of reaching the Slovaks by dark. Then it would be up to them based on time, terrain, condition of the climbers and group fatigue whether they would continue to descend or wait till morning. I gave them each a big hug and wished them safety and strength as they boarded the stripped down bird in succession. Close to an hour later, Andrew had them all in position at Camp 2 and I flew with him back down to Lukla where we would monitor comms all afternoon into the evening. 

We settled in to our Lukla headquarters and patiently waited for each of the team's transmissions. They were climbing fast. And I mean really fast. Within 2 hours they were half way up to the Plateau. Another hour later they relayed back to us that they had made visible contact with the Slovaks. Then, 4 hours and close to 2,000 vertical feet of technical terrain from stepping off, they reached the stranded party. 

Unbelievable. 

They found one of the climbers to be able bodied and ambulatory on his own power. The other guy was essentially blind from taking the brunt of the spindrift avalanche in his face which left him with painful corneal abrasions. He could walk but would need guidance with his new found blindness. 

A blind dude descending Everest... I've heard that story before ;)

The team made a quick decision to start the descent in deteriorating conditions at 6pm. Ballsy for sure. We expected to be sitting by the radio till the wee hours, so we were a bit surprised to get a transmission 2 hrs later that the entire team and Slovaks had safely made it back to Camp 2. An absolute Herculean effort. 

The next morning Andrew and I headed back to EBC in a stripped down bird. A quick stop at the EBC landing pad to drop extra fuel and the two of us began the circling flight up to Camp 2 at 21,000 ft. The conditions were perfect as we crested over the icefall and entered the Cwm. The walls of Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse were glistening with fresh snow. We got a visual on the lower landing zone and Andrew deftly landed us on top of the glacier. 

I exited the helo and walked directly to our Sherpa team and bear hugged each of them. They looked remarkably fresh. 

Then I got a good look at my blind Slovakian. He had a patch over his right eye, sunglasses on and was sitting on his pack in the snow. I had him hold onto my shoulder as I led him into the spooled up helicopter. Andrew lifted us off, swung the bird down the valley and over the icefall. We landed at EBC a couple minutes later and got out so Andrew could return for the second Slovak.
The mid 40s, temporarily blind Slovakian climber was all smiles upon landing. I applied some ocular drops in each eye which quickly relieved his pain and I watched him fully relax now that his pain was gone.
He knew how close they had come to the edge and what an effort our Sherpa team had gone to in order to safely get them down. He was effusively grateful. Yesterday afternoon they were precariously perched high up on a technical face unable to escape... today, they were headed down to Kathmandu for more pain meds, a hot shower and a hotel bed. 

There is no doubt that what our Sherpa team did yesterday was of epic proportion. Their job this season was to conduct rescue operations on the biggest mountain in the world. They transcended that yesterday and took it to legendary status. 

They are my heroes. 

One self-appointed spokesman of the Khumbu newsfeed claimed from his home in the U.S. that we "aggressively inserted" ourselves into the scene to perform the rescue. It should be clear that without an aggressive approach these Slovakian men would have met a much different fate. 

The summit window is wide open for the next 10 days. I'm guessing our guys will have more work up high.
And we will be aggressive.
‪#‎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.

High Loss… And the Sherpa Voice

It’s been 5 days since thousands of tons of ice ripped off the west shoulder of Mt Everest, cascading down on to the Khumbu Icefall. The impact of that glacial collapse will be felt for generations…emotionally, financially and politically.

As has been duly reported, at the very moment of collapse there happened to be about 50 Sherpa making their way up through the icefall, just a short stroll from Camp 1. They were doing everything they could to limit the exposure to the massive hanging glacier that looms over the left side of the Icefall… early morning departure to avoid the heat of the day and moving quickly through the “shooting gallery” where the objective danger is unavoidable.  Everyone who has stepped foot on Everest knows that this “hanger” rips regularly… so much so that Russell Brice pulled his Himex team off the mountain last year based on the word from some of his most senior Sherpa that this particular hanging glacier was too unstable to travel under.  A year later, Russell seems like a gallowly forecaster.

Clearly a glacier can calve at any moment but typically the chances of a massive collapse are much higher in the heat of the day after the sun has beat down on the surface and had a chance to heat up and change the adhesive qualities of the ice to the rock and itself.  In the game of mountaineering, it’s impossible to eliminate all risk and that is one of the allures of the sport. Living in our insulated and safe cocoon of modern society, it’s refreshing and exciting to enter into a realm that you can’t alter but so much. The mountains make the rules. We simply do what we can to decrease the objective dangers as much as possible. In this tragic incident, the mountain decided to shed its skin atypically, at the worst possible moment. Of the 25 that were hit by the ice, 16 were killed. Three bodies are still buried and will most likely remain that way. This event was twice as deadly as the night that eight climbers died in 1996 (recounted in Jon Krakauer’s, Into Thin Air).

It’s difficult to imagine the degree of impact this event has had on the Khumbu community, primarily from an emotional perspective but also with regards to the economic and sustainability issues of the dangerous work these men perform every spring.

Thirteen of the sixteen killed were from the down-valleys within a couple days walk of Everest. The other three, although carrying the title of high altitude climbing guide, were not from the Sherpa clan and therefore lived further away from the mountain. And although news travels fast in the valleys of Nepal, I’m guessing that we heard of the incident here in the US through news outlets and social media prior to some of the deceased’s families. As the news spread throughout the tight nit communities of the Khumbu and beyond, the anger, tension and frustration peaked from years of watching the lion’s share of the millions of dollars of expedition money end up in the pockets of fat cats from the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism (MOT) and not the men who actually perform the dangerous work. As the dollar has saturated the Khumbu Valley over recent years, so has the disparity of where it goes. With the typical guided client fee coming in around $60,000, lots of people are getting rich… and many of those are not the hardy men that are taking the most risks on the mountain. The “muscle of the mountain” Sherpa typically pulls in between $2,000 and $6,000 for a season on Everest, which stacks up quite well when one considers that the GDP in Nepal is just over $500 annually. That being said, the job they perform is incredibly tough and ridiculously dangerous. Twenty-seven Sherpa have been killed on Everest in the previous 5 years. It has been stated recently that in the past 10 years, Everest-working Sherpa have a death rate 12 times higher than that of US military personal serving in Iraq in the heat of battle there.

When a Sherpa is killed while working on Everest, the family of the deceased is compensated an anemic $10,000 USD from the insurance kitty that is coffered by each of the international guide services. In addition, the MOT provides each family a $400 funeral compensation. This most recent tragedy has brought this issue to a head and created a leverage point for the Sherpa “union.” Their demands are well thought out and worthy.  Some of the thirteen points of demand from the Sherpa coalition…

·      Increase the MOT funeral payout to the families of the deceased climbers from $400 to $1,000.

·      Provide same $10k payout to permanently disabled Sherpa from the most recent incident.

·      Increase death insurance payout from $10k to $20k.

·      Establish a monument in Kathmandu to honor Sherpa that have been killed on the mountain.

My guess is, with as much money that’s at stake here…the Everest outfitters and MOT will gladly buy into these demands. Everyone knows that the mountain would essentially “shut down” without the work of the Sherpa. And if it weren’t for the fact that so many families in the Khumbu Valley depended on the Western dollar, I would say that allowing the mountain to return to its natural state would be a good thing. But alas, far too many stomachs rely on the men setting the way for Western folk to climb the mountain.

On our NFB Everest expedition in 2001, the mountain was a far different scene than it is today.  Fewer teams, less chaos and only couple of “guided” groups. It seemed to be a happier time on the mountain… just prior to the influx of commercial outfitters and novelty climbs. The clown-show that exists now has evolved into a tension filled, oxygen guzzling, conga line of rich folks that feel the draw of climbing the highest mountain in the world.  Westerners now typically consume twice the amount of oxygen as was used 13 years ago which means that the Sherpa have to carry and stock the high camps with large amounts of heavy bottles… both up and down. This translates to twice the number of trips through the dangerous Icefall for the Sherpa than that of the guided clients. Twice as many opportunities to run into a lethal wall of ice.

Last years “brawl on Everest” was another indication that the balance, at least in the eyes of the Sherpa, is out of whack. One gets the sense that after years of performing the backbreaking and sketchy work every year to help the western “climber” (for many, this is a undeserved title) to the summit of the world’s highest mountain, the Sherpa community is finally demanding respect and deserved compensation.

So now there is talk of cancelling the entire Everest season. This is a terrible but yet understandable outcome from a very confusing and tense time in the Valley. Many westerners will forfeit their “one shot” at glory and dozens of Sherpa will go home with only a small percentage of their typical seasonal wage. The Sherpa are waiting for their demands to be met but are also quite hesitant to step foot back on an angry Chomolungma… stepping over the buried bodies of their brothers, cousins and friends. And in an act of trying to save face and show the world that they care, the MOT has dispatched a liaison team to provide diplomacy at Basecamp in hopes of talking the Sherpa guides into finishing the season.

Undoubtedly, there will be many Westerners that will offer to pay willing Sherpa to continue the season in spite of the wholesale opt-out. And undoubtedly, many will take the bait to feed their families with money they had previously counted on. My sense is, the season will go on, albeit in smaller numbers.

It’s a chaotic time within the Nepalese mountaineering community. I can only hope that through this tragedy the Sherpa voice will be louder and the compensation for such badass work will be duly received.

Mingma Nuru Sherpa

Derji Sherpa

Dorjee Khatri

Then Dorjee Sherpa

Phur Temba Sherpa

Ang Tshiri Sherpa

Nima Sherpa

Tenzng Chottar

Phurba Ongyal Sherpa

Lakpa Tenjing Sherpa

Chhring Ongchu Sherpa

Pasang Karma Sherpa

Asman Tamang

Ankaji Sherpa

Pem Tenji Sherpa

AAsh Bahadur Gurung

Respectfully,

Jeff

S2S Mission: Mt Whitney

As I reflect back on the previous four years since Erik and I committed to initiating and developing what would later go on to become the Soldiers to Summits program, I am profoundly moved to consider the dozens of amazing warriors I have been honored to share a rope with on each of our expeditions. One of the great gifts of starting this program has been the personal degree of learning I have been exposed to.  I had very little understanding back then how transformational the S2S program would be for me on a very profound level.

Watching these wounded warriors come together as a unit, congeal as a team, prepare for a mission and deal with adversity has taught me more than I can easily convey. I have seen strength and I have seen raw pain. I have learned what it means to stand up in the face of adversity…and in some cases, in spite of it.

Now four years later, as I accept the role as expedition leader again for an S2S project, I am honored to be inextricably connected to a new group of veterans that have dedicated themselves to roping up as a team, committed to the healing process and are fired up to embrace the bounty that the alpine environment provides us.

I am grateful to all the men and women that rope up with us in the mountains. I am grateful to them for their sacrifice. And I am grateful to them for teaching all of us what it means to be a warrior.

Jeff Evans PA-C

Expedition Leader - Mission: Mt Whitney