The Call of Everest | Nat Geo Live

the truth is the climbing Everest was definitely a bigger richer challenge 50 years ago the unknowns were larger the margin slimmer the personal effort greater Everest has in part become domesticated the majesty of the mountain and the meaning of climb minute have changed but it's still a place to go and have the adventure of your life good evening everybody it's great to see such a big crowd we don't really know where we are unless we look at where we've been so I want to go back through the history a little bit started this program so yeah 50 years ago Jim Whittaker became the first American to reach the summit of Everest he followed the same path that sir edmund hillary and tenzing norgay did 10 years earlier three weeks later Tom Hornbein and Willie unsold and kind of an unprecedented sent clawed their way up the West Ridge that same day buried Bishop and Luke Jerstad were climbing the southeast Ridge so the two teams met up at 28,000 feet and they didn't have enough time to get off the mountain so they bivouacked at 28,000 feet without a tent without food without oxygen now Willie ensel and Barry bishop between them they lost 19 toes so it was a fairly high price to pay that same expedition also lost one climber Jake breytenbach from Jackson Hole but it was kind of the the moonshot of climbing at the time these climbers fulfilled the dream of Mallory who went to the mountain in 1922 and in 1924 and died on the mountain in 1924 he is standing second went to the right there before it was climbed in 1953 two dozen people had died to reach the Sun trying to reach the summit and most of them were Sherpas hundreds of expeditions have come since hundreds maybe even a thousand at this point 1986 to Swiss guides Laura tonight really made the first Alpine ascent of Everest now most of these exponents previously took three months an Alpine ascent us to move very quickly with all your gear they did the climb in 39 hours up and down this is 1986 you might believe at the time and I was on Everest in 1986 and spent three months there that this extraordinary Alpine ascent laid the future out forever this is what was going to happen you'd have more difficult to sense sense by stronger climbers that's not what happened a year earlier in 1985 dick bass became the first person guided to the summit of Everest within a decade early 90s Everest was being heavily guided and it kind of ceased to be a place where cutting-edge alpinist wanted to go today over 4,000 people have summited Everest and 200 people have died trying so last spring Conrad invited me on this expedition here's our route you can see base camp combe boo ice fall camp one camp to up the load see face camp three up to the South Col and then you go up now the majority of residents or climbers at ever space camp on the south side are not climbers most people know that their clients now some of them know how to climb some of them don't and you can easily mock these aspirants you can you can make fun of them but I think you have to think about this these are people who generally been successful in some of the walk of life and now they have enough skill on their own field to know that you they don't have enough to climb Everest on their own so they hire a guide and they could easily be spending the 50 grand that it costs in Vegas or they could be spending it shooting some animal in Africa instead these people are willing to go up the Coombe boo Icefall this is it risking their lives now the summit push they always talk about that it doesn't really start it can't for it starts below that it starts at Camp three on the load see face we spent the night there Camp three get up in the morning we went to sleep on a mountain and we woke up in a traffic jam now we should have known this we saw all these other climbers but we didn't I guess we just did our I personally didn't realize they're all going to go to the summit on the same day right so we get up and we're suddenly in this traffic jam below us or over a hundred climbers on the ropes trudging knows too but just like cattle above us another hundred climbers on the anyway after eight hours we got to the camp for in the mid afternoon we spent the day there so we started our climb at about nine and evening this is typical you started the night before you climb through the night on the way you step over people this was the first dead climber we stepped over he looked as if he was snapping in the snow his head was covered by his parka ten minutes later another body this woman wrapped in Canadian flag and 20 minutes later another corpse he still attached the rope you're going up this rope so you go right over this person frozen solid his face was black his eyes were wide open these climbers had died a week earlier during the first weather window and afterwards I did interviews with their Sherpas and I did I discovered in every case the cause of death was arrogance all three were told by their Sherpas that they were moving too slowly that even if they reached the summit they wouldn't make it back down they wouldn't have the strength to get back down and they would die and all three refused to turn around so when you read about everest and everest is killing people know hubris not Everest has killed these climbers and standing on top I know I should have felt elated but I actually didn't feel that way and and Everest has changed this is what it looked like we couldn't actually stand on the summit or I couldn't there were 40 people on the summit when I got there so I didn't actually get to stand on the very top the truth is that climbing Everest was definitely a bigger richer challenge 50 years ago the unknowns were larger the margin slimmer the personal effort direct greater Everest has in part become domesticated the majesty of the mountain the meaning of climb minute have changed yet there's something to be to know all guided climbers they all go up just two routes either the southeast Ridge or the North Col and from an aesthetic point of view these are not particularly attractive routes but there are probably 15 other routes on the mountain and plenty of new route opportunities so don't imagine a mountain packed with people that's not the case you've got a massive wondrous mountain with two lines on it just two little ant lines and the rest of the mountain is empty so everis is a gorgeous place and they're still adventure to be had there we have to think about what we want to have in the future on Everest but it's still a place to go and have the adventure of your life now I'd like to introduce Emily Harrington come on up thanks mark so I grew up in the climbing world and I had this preconceived notion of what Everest was like people in the core climbing community sort of criticized Everest much like what Mark was saying they say that it's not a mountain for climbers that it's not real climbing even that it's not hard so I've had this idea in my head of what Evers was like up until Conrad asked me last year to go on this expedition and I had no idea what to think about it but I decided to go and I decided to go with an open mind and just see what happened see what I learned out of it and for me the challenges began instantly as soon as I arrived at base camp and one of the biggest things that I faced on Everest the whole time was this sort of fear and anticipation and suspense of the unknown because I didn't know what to expect I'd never really climbed mountains before so I had no idea what I was getting into then a really interesting thing happened to me it was sort of like all that fear washed away even though I was in this incredibly dangerous place it was also this beautiful place in this fascinating place and when you're in a situation like that that's super dangerous there's no control over the bad things that are going to happen to you and so in a way I learned to let that go another thing I learned about everest is that there's a lot of relief and it comes in these magnificent forms this is camp too and it's a truly special place I think that anyone who spends any amount of time there can recognize that you feel closer to the stars it's that it's that kind of place it has that kind of power entering onto the load say face is where the climbing starts to get a little bit more real a little bit more serious it's steeper it's more exposed it was made more intimidating by the really difficult conditions that we faced last year Nepal had a really dry winter which meant that there was very little snow which meant that the load see face was essentially a vertical ice rink so instead of boot packing up snow we were ice climbing up blue ice and then you arrived at camp three it was also my favorite place on the mountain I remember one night that we got to spend there and it was sunset and there was no wind and it was perfectly calm and I'd been through a lot at that point on the mountain and emotionally and physically and we got to watch the sunset we didn't even have to wear down jackets it wasn't even that cold and I just remember thinking to myself this is a rare moment in my life and this is why I'm here and this is why it's worth it and I was super grateful at that time i'm really glad i remember those moments because they were super fleeting a lot of time spent on Everest you're spending in a tent and it can be pretty miserable but as I got higher on the mountain these sort of like highs and lows got more and more intense and I think this attitude right here partially has to do with the fact that I used oxygen after camp 3 and I felt awesome I felt stronger and warmer and my mind felt more clear and not only that but you're getting close to the summit at that point this is camp for and it's like being on another planet it's called the Death Zone because humans can't exist there for very long and that's why we don't stay there for very long we left for the summit the night of May twenty-fourth at nine thirty at night we all kind of left haphazardly at different times and I was supposed to be climbing with this Sherpa 10d and very early on I got separated from him because there were crowds and I was passing people and he didn't follow me and there was a misunderstanding so in the end I ended up in this long line of floating head lamps and I didn't know anyone around me and I felt like if something bad were to happen to me I wasn't sure anyone would be there to help me so that was one of the most trying moments for me while I was actually climbing but I sort of swallowed that fear and just kept going and the Sun came up when I was probably on the South Summit and I instantly felt better it was like this magical relief that I had I felt even though i was on the summit ridge and both sides dropped off 8,000 feet on either side of me I just remember feeling safe for some reason and I was just I just remember thinking I'm okay now this is I'm gonna be okay and I reach the summit at six thirty in the morning and like I said I kind of envisioned being there with the rest of my team so expected to have a professional photographer with me but I didn't I thankfully and from technology generation i had my iphone and i took this panorama shot using my iphone and then i took a selfie that I later instagrammed at camp for I descended from the summit after spending about 20 minutes there and I went all the way down to camp to that night in the next day I went to base camp and that was the end of my Everest climb I've never been to a place before where I felt like I'd been completely stripped down to who I was as a person I think as humans we sort of live for these moments of lightness and we learn from these intense moments of darkness and I experienced it all on Everest in this very true and raw form and that's why I'm so grateful that I got to have the experiences that I did and that place will always be really important to me for those reasons and now i'm going to introduce Conrad well thank you Emily and wow what a treat to be here and have all of you interested in Everest and what's going on there this was a real treat to invite Emily on this exhibition she's half the age I am and mentoring people with what you do and being out there was a big part of why I'm in the mountains and I'm confident that Emily he's going to pass that on when in not today but in a few years so but instead of the story about our expedition I'll be talking about the Sherpas and i'll be sharing with you how their culture has changed primarily since nineteen fifty three onwards and that being the first ascent of mount everest sixty years ago with sir edmund hillary and tenzing norgay from that point on there's been quite a bit of change with being in the mountains and how their culture has adapted to it and it ended up being that they'd started out in a Gurkha tral pastoral economy and then all of a sudden climbing came in there and with it the twentieth century and now the 21st century and all the trappings and downfalls but also the benefits and all the things that really make life special for that and probably one of the most important things with that is education and this was brought to the Khumbu region by ed Hillary after the 53 expedition so this is the original come junk school that the Himalayan trust built under the auspices of thread Hillary but what this reflects is that English is the lingua franca of the guiding and trekking business yet the Sherpas have been very adept at keeping their own religion and their own cultural practices without having to worry about it being overtaken by these Western influences yet as we know time moves on every day is a new day and everyone wants a better living in a better existence for theirselves in the future generations and that's human nature and we can't fault them for that and here we have a porter with his mobile phone so he's probably texting his buddy or maybe he's playing angry birds or maybe he's listening to music on his phone but it's been a great things that allows them to to be better employed they can then figure out what the market rate for their work is where work is available and throughout the world whether you're in Africa or anywhere else mobile cell mobile technology has really benefited the people that don't have is is great an opportunity but the Sherpas we see here they carry loads they unpack your bags they pitch your tents to cook your meals to entertain you they laugh they create blessings for your expeditions all these integral parts to it that create the experience is with these people the indigenous people that live in the mountains that who are shaped by these mountains and live there and are part of them we're really the meaningful part of it to me and subsequently because my existence is defined by being in the mountains and I am a mountain climber in 2002 my wife Jenny and I set out to create in honor of our Ginny's Widow late husband alex lowe and my climbing partner who died on an expedition in 1999 on sheesha pong mom to something to benefit the indigenous populations and our project going on 10 years now is the Khumbu climbing centre and our goal is to teach climbing in a navigational standpoint and to improve the safety margin because unfortunately the Sherpas just by dint of their work expose themselves so far more risk than the Western climbers that are going up there so as much as I been given something by being in the Himalayas it was my turn to give something back and collectively we've now taught over 700 of 700 people to become better and safer climbers and to hopefully create a communication in a dialogue between the Western climbers that are visiting the class murs that work on the mountain and then also the government that regulates the climbing in nepal and to get all three parties together and to see what our goals and what our aspirations are but nepal and the Sherpa people for them Mount Everest is a very significant mountain and there's a lot of pride in the mountain for 60 years now the mountain has been climbed on the backs of the strip of people and without their work they would not be able to do it it's something that as a Western climber we need to understand and behave accordingly and didn't understand that this is a their mountain and that we are at the end of the time guests in there this is dr. LuAnn freer at everest base camp clinic which all the Western visitors chip in a hundred dollars to staff it and then for the Sherpas and a Nepali people that are there they get free medical care and medical service for us so it's another way that trying to work on what's going on there and it's been a wonderful experience to share my life with the the people of Nepal and particularly the Sherpa people in there and on this note I'd like to introduce Alton who will take the stage and give us our concluding information about what's going on there and some of the challenges we see in the future thank you mmm well thank you very much for the next few minutes I'd like to talk about some of the environmental issues facing the Mount Everest area and specifically the the southern part of the mountain the Nepal part which is Conrad mentioned is the home of the Sherpa people who came from Tibet about 500 years ago and to me the Sherpa are among the most innovative and adaptable people I've ever seen in my life and life must have been hard in the 1600s and 1700s and 1800s but then along about 1850 somebody brings the potato from Darjeeling and suddenly everybody has enough to eat and the population starts to grow so that was a really pivotal point in their history then next within a few years somebody figured out how to cross a yak with a cow and get an animal called the zopi oh which looks you know kind of like a yak and kind of like Cal but it can carry much more weight it has a much better disposition and most importantly they can work below altitudes of 9,000 feet so now the Sherpa become animal breeders expert animal breeders well then in nineteen hundred they start a trade system between tibet and nepal the trading tibetan salt for Napoli's rice and other goods and because they're right in the middle of the trade route many of them have a monopoly and they become quite wealthy so this one on to the 40s and the 50s and then China invades Tibet no more trade that would have been catastrophic for almost any other ethnic group but not the Sherpas meanwhile Everest rather Nepal had been opened in the 1950s to the outside world Everest had been climbed in 1953 and that opened the door for a new form of cash cow called the adventure tourists uh-huh also known as people of the white lips by some Sherpas and the cultural landscape was transformed from the traditional trading agro pastoralism to himalayan lodge owners and trekking guides and mountaineering guides that have endeared themselves to generations of climbers in the area so many Sherpa families have gotten quite wealthy especially those that live along the have property along the main trekking route but it has come at a cost here's one of the costs you know every village that you pass on the way to the everest base camp these days has landfills every year a new landfill the garbage goes in it does not go out now this is burned it's an environmental hazard it's a hazard for human and animal health because they are often located in seasonal watercourses and that contaminates the groundwater likewise what happens when you put hundreds and hundreds of outhouses directly over flowing streams or seasonal watercourses you get water contamination and the incidence of diarrhea and dysentery just grows and grows with each passing year and no you've wondered what happens to all that wastes the human waste produced by those 900 people up at the everest base camp over many months each spring and each fall well in fact they have an under pretty good control in the Everest base camp it's collected in plastic linebarrels such as these underneath the outhouses such as that to the left and I asked a porter well what do you do with it now and he said oh we take it down the road about 0 to 2 hours or so and then head west and go through a ravine and over some hills and we dump it in a pit there and and I knew that I must find this place so so I I did I I went and found it and believe me the last half mile I needed no landmarks and and there it was it was a swimming pool size six foot deep pit filled with leaking bags of human waste right in the middle of a seasonal water course so when the monsoon rains come down that contamination go and it's not doing anybody any favors downstream another driver of change in the area is rising temperatures and in the last 30 years we've seen dozens hundreds of small glaciers at the lower altitudes 18,000 feet lower disappear other glaciers such as this the MSHA glacier in 1950 have now turned into lakes as the glacier receives it leaves behind a large lake and these can often be quite dangerous in the event of a glacial lake outburst flood now the trigger can be an earthquake or nine times out of ten it's going to be a huge mass of ice as you can see here on the north face of chum lung that dislodges and cascades into the lake and it creates a surge wave that breaches the fragile terminal moraine then you've got millions and millions of cubic meters of water cascading down valley if the mg lake does break out and we have a glacial lake outburst flood it could kill hundreds of people it could destroy several different villages it would certainly destroy the economy of the Mount Everest area that's so dependent on tourism and would have a severe effect on tourism in Nepal these days I co manage a project called a high mountain glacier watershed program is funded by the US Agency for International Development and one of the things we're doing and what I was doing all last month is helping local people develop climate change adaptation plans we're also combining the best of indigenous knowledge and believe local people really know what's going on up in the high mountains with modern technologies such as this sonar based bathymetric survey that told us exactly how much water is in that lake so we can figure out how to lower it we think by at least 20 meters to reduce the risk I'm going to end with a couple of good news stories it is not all doom and gloom there are many many good news stories in the mount everest area one is that trees are coming back this is the tank bush a hill in 1950 and here it is a couple of years ago and you can see the trees are coming back in full force and I think that that's directly related to the excellent work of Sir Edmund Hillary to the National Park the second Martha National Park changing land use patterns they're decreasing numbers of cattle these days and warming trends another good news story is that the Alpine the land above the trees ever since for the last 50 60 years since Hillary and Tenzing climbed Everest had been pummeled by climbing expeditions and lodges and trekking expeditions who would rip out the shrub juniper and it takes forever to grow a little little stem this big takes about 150 200 years to reach that size so but that too thanks to a grant from the National Geographic of the American Alpine Club about ten years ago we were able to help local people form an alpine conservation committee that is now effectively reversing these trends of environmental degradation and that's just two stories there many more so I'm going to end here with this photograph of Fritz Muller a Swiss Canadian glaciologist back in the 1950s to illustrate a point I think you've heard through all of our presentations tonight and that is you just never know what's going to happen when Fritz was staring through this theodolite in 1956 his greatest fear was that the little ice age would return that temperatures would get colder that the glaciers would once again grow and plummet down the valleys destroying everything in their path and the exact opposite happened an unthinkable trend of warming and in glacial recession and glacial lake formation likewise the climber cartographer Kerwin Schneider he wrote rather lightheartedly that well perhaps the day will come when travel agencies will bring tourists to see the world's highest mountain he didn't believe it he was making a joke I mean why would anybody come to the Mount Everest area when you could go to Hawaii or Ohio or someplace like fall but the exact opposite happened now we have 36,000 adventure tourists per year if you add the support staff that's a hundred thousand non-local people who go up the trail to the Everest base camp and which is very small and very fragile so you never know what's going to happen and many is the evening that I've set outside my tent looking up at Mount Everest in the Alpen glow and wondering what in the world would Schneider and Muller say if they could see this area to today thank you very much you Oh

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 1,347,992

Keywords: Nat Geo Live, Nat Geo Live!, lecture, National Geographic Live, National Geographic Live!, NGLive, NG Live, Nat Geo Events, Mount Everest, Nepal, mountain, history, summit, climb, climber, mountaineer, Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, Willi Unsoeld, Barry Bishop, Lute Jerstad, Tom Hornbein, George Mallory, sherpa, Mark Jenkins, Conrad Anker, Lhotse, death, bodies, Emily Harrington, danger, selfie, education, Himalayas, Alton Byers, environment, trash, conservation, National Geographic

Id: megSEXmV0nQ

Length: 31min 38sec (1898 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 24 2013