Everest: My final word (maybe)

As suspected, information coming off the mountain is drying up, although an independent Malaysian climber (incidentally using the same "mountain guide" company as David Sharp) has over the past few days been reported in his local press here and here. A full picture will probably never emerge, and one of the sorry aspects to this tragedy is climbers who have previously been reluctant to discuss details of tragedies that occur on Everest will be even more reluctant to do so now after the kerfuffle caused over Sharp's death.

Plenty of "experts" have weighed in with their opinion that Everest is no longer a mountain to climb, but a circus and theme park complete with mobile brothel at Base Camp (and here I was thinking you need all your energy to get up - the mountain that is). If one good thing is to come out of this, you hope that another David Sharp out there, a reasonably experienced climber with dreams, will think twice before packing his bags and telling his mother "you are never alone on Everest, there are climbers everywhere".

Unfortunately, lessons do not seem to be well learned in this rarified air. Part of my reading included Jon Krakauer's original "Into Thin Air" article (re 1996 fatalities on Everest) for Outside magazine which can still be found online here. In that article, he describes the delays that occur at bottlenecks where climbers with limited (or no) ability slowly clamber up one of the trickier sections on summit day while others wait impatiently sucking on precious oxygen. If you get up Everest too late and a storm comes in (a la 1996), you're in dangerous territory and waiting for wealthy Mr Joe Public doing this (slowly) for a good story on the cocktail circuit certainly increases that possibility. And then I read from a 2006 expedition account how a climber left an oxygen bottle at a point to be picked up on descent, then waited too long at a bottleneck that caused him to eventually run out of oxygen on the descent before reaching his stashed bottle. Yep, Groundhog Day.

You would like to think that one of the other lessons from the 2006 climbing season on Everest that could be learned is that something needs to be done about the traffic congestion on the mountain, and that the commercial expedition companies who entice people who perhaps shouldn't be there need to take some responsibility for their own actions and build an infrastructure that can support hundreds of summiters each year. Or realise that Everest does not want to be ridden Annabel Chong style by hundreds of people. Methinks I'm hoping for a bit much there.

And perhaps some lessons might be learned by the 2006 version of Krakauer, Mark Inglis. Over the last few weeks, his continuing utterances in the media have left me far from impressed and one of the amusing things my sick sense of humour finds is while he has received undeserved criticism for his actions on the mountain, he has not been taken to task for his continuing statements to, and his criticism of, the media.

Let's go back to the beginning. Legless Kiwi climbs Everest. Big news. Tells world of passing dying climber. Even bigger news. Some bright journo rings Sir Ed Hillary, NZ icon and still No.1 most trusted NZer according to surveys (but see yesterday's blog), and asks his opinion. Sir Ed says "that sucks". Now we have global news.

Let's also remember Mark Inglis is not only an individual, but a brand. He is a person who is well versed in media relationships and relies to a reasonable extent on sponsorship income and courting the publicity such sponsorship requires. He is not a dairy farmer from Eketahuna who doesn't know a sound bite from a bum bite. I suspect he also realises attack is the best form of defense and the best way to deflect attention from yourself is by putting attention onto someone or something else.

If you are in love with Inglis and think he is a hero, don't read on. His LegsOnEverest website contains this following classic:

"It has been terribly disappointing seeing so many so called media professionals making statements and accusations with no fact, no research" (June 5 Diary entry)

Similar statements have been made in the media. Now, some of us know there is a large difference between print media and TV/radio. With the latter, you actually get to hear something direct from the horse's mouth without having to rely on a journo's shorthand and typing skills. And in this case, the horse said:

"On that morning, over 40 people went past that young Briton. I was one of the first, radioed and Russ said look Mark, you can’t do anything. He’s been there X number of hours, been there without oxygen, y’know he’s effectively dead. So we carried on. Of those 40 people who went past this young Briton, no-one helped him except for people from our expedition.”

So tell me again who has been making statements with no facts and research? The media??? Who sensationalised this story by telling the world 40 people walked past? You weren't the first (the Turkish expedition was before you), did you really radio Russ (Russell Brice) who now denies any communication about Sharp on the ascent?, did you actually have a radio?, was he really effectively dead given that apparently he's captured on video talking?, and of course it has been established a Sherpa from the Turkish expedition did render assistance, so the "no-one helped him except for people from our expedition" is a load of cobblers as well.

The breathtaking arrogance of someone criticising the media for inaccuracy when their own story has more holes than Swiss cheese. But wait, there's more.

The main defense of (some of) the climbers, including Inglis, has been along the lines of:

a) I/We did everything that we possibly could, and
b) He was so far gone that nothing we did would have mattered anyway

Inglis has made statements to that effect in radio interviews.

Both are bullshit. I'm quite happy to accept by accident rather than design (although that may not be the case, but we won't go there), assistance was not rendered on the ascent. But the mere fact that mistaken assumptions were made with respect to whether Sharp needed help by some climbers on the way up renders excuse No.1 invalid. Which moves us to Excuse No.2 - and that is the question that can never be answered as we will never know the outcome had climbers stopped on the way up and a rescue attempt made. Inglis has made the comment that it is impossible to rescue someone from that height. I bet Lincoln Hall is glad Dan Mazur didn't share that opinion.

It infuriates me to hear climbers such as Inglis offer their opinion that Sharp was unrescuable and then imply that us armchair observers don't know what we are talking about if we think otherwise because we haven't been there. As an aside, it also infuriates me when people say Sharp could have been saved - the main point being we will never know. However, Lincoln Hall, Buck Weathers (1996) and no doubt others provide examples that miracles sometimes do occur and for Inglis or anyone else to categorically state with 100% certainty that Sharp was "beyond help" is IMO mischievous and misleading.

Another classic line comes from Mark Woodward on the Himex expedition:

"...the guy was beyond help, though he recovered somewhat at one point..." (Stuff, 7 June)

If it wasn't so tragic, it would be laughable. Beyond help, but oh, he did recover somewhat.

The cold hard facts are Sharp was first found alive around midnight May 14/15. Himex went past him around 1 a.m. He was still alive in the late hours of the morning of May 15. If he was "effectively dead" and "beyond help" at 1 a.m., then what the fuck was he doing still alive some 8-10 hours later and apparently able to mutter something captured on a video camera? If someone could answer that, I'd be extremely grateful.

There are even more holes in Inglis' statements but I can't be bothered pointing them all out. While Inglis doesn't deserve any criticism for his inaction on the mountain (he was a commercial client on an expedition and in case anybody doesn't know, he has no legs), he deserves plenty for his comments afterwards. Especially as he himself has continued to use publicity for his own needs after saying out of respect for Sharp's family the matter should be left to rest. New Idea, North and South, and at some point in the future, David Letterman. I for one won't be watching.

How different would this had been if instead of uttering the famous "40 people went past and no-one helped him apart from us" line, something was said along the lines of "we didn't realise he needed help on the way up, and by the time we came down it was too late"? Or, "we thought he was beyond help on the way up, and when finding him still alive on the way down, realised that we might have been wrong and tried to help him"? Like the question as to whether Sharp could have been successfully rescued, we will never know.