A great fallacy regarding progress is that it is defined by constant forward motion in the same direction. We assume that any steps in the opposite direction take us further from our goal. Not true, especially at high altitudes or in other extreme environments, where the problems and inherent challenges are especially complex. Getting to the top of Mount Everest, for example, generally requires a great deal of time climbing backward—away from the summit.
If you were to plug the route to the summit in to MapQuest, you’d see that there are more than a dozen routes you can take. (Seriously, did you really just ask MapQuest for directions to the summit of Mount Everest?) And while the routes may all begin at different points on the mountain, they of course all end up at the same place—29,029 feet/8,848 meters. (Note: The actual height of Mount Everest is in dispute. Some countries recognize it as 29,029 feet while others believe it is 29,035 feet. Either way, it’s a big mountain.) But regardless of which route you decide to take up Mount Everest, the climb is never straightforward.
Just getting to base camp has its challenges. Both times I climbed Everest I did so from the south side of the mountain—the Nepal side. The adventure begins in Kathmandu. From there you take a plane to a village called Lukla. Lukla Airport has been called the “most dangerous airport in the world.” The runway is a mere 1,600 feet long and 65 feet wide, and is suitable only for helicopters and small fixed-wing planes. There’s a 2,000-foot drop at the end of the runway, which further adds to the danger. Worse, the elevation is more than 9,000 feet, which makes the short runway even more sketchy, given that an aircraft’s lift and engine power are reduced at higher altitudes because of the lower atmospheric pressure. And then there is the constant inclement weather and heavy fog, which often delay flights in and out of Lukla for days. If you manage to get on a flight to Lukla within forty-eight hours of your scheduled departure, consider yourself lucky. If you land safely in Lukla, consider yourself even luckier.
Once you get there, the real fun begins as you start the trek to Everest base camp. The thirty-eight-mile trek is popular among global travelers, because it is both scenically breathtaking and culturally fascinating. (The Khumbu Valley is home to the Sherpa.) It’s a challenging trek and requires some legs and some lung capacity—as well as a lot of hand sanitizer, because some of the teahouses are filthy and the conditions in the latrines can be pretty horrendous. It’s not unusual for trekkers or climbers to pick up a gastrointestinal bug that leads to vomiting and what can only be described as explosive diarrhea (sorry, I realize that isn’t a great visual). Some people get such a severe case that they have to end the trek early. Often too weak to walk down, they go out on the backs of mules with oxygen masks strapped across their faces (the people, not the mules). Plenty of Everest dreams have been dashed by GI infections. Nonetheless, the Everest base camp trek remains the most popular trek in the region, and thousands of people flock to walk the trails every year.
There are two types of people you run into during the journey to Everest base camp: trekkers and climbers. The trekkers are there to enjoy the Khumbu region, and many go all the way to base camp. Once they get there they spend a few hours tooling around camp, have some tea, and then they head out and start the walk back to Lukla, which generally takes a few days. These folks get wonderful exposure to the Khumbu region, the Sherpas, and the local culture. And they learn what it feels like to struggle to breathe the thin air above 17,000 feet. The other types that you find on the trail are those who are there to climb Everest, Lhotse, Pumori, or one of the other Himalayan giants situated nearby. For these climbers, the hard work really starts once they reach base camp. This group considers the thirty-eight-mile trek in at high altitude just a walk in the park (well, technically it actually is a walk in the park—Sagarmatha National Park).
For me, the trek was an opportunity to clear my head and to mentally prepare for the coming task of getting up that big hill. In 2002 I had almost no idea what to expect, since it was my first experience in the region, but eight years later I had a much better sense of what lay ahead. I was watching reruns in my head from my 2002 expedition—analyzing what went right and what went wrong and thinking about what I would do differently this time around.
While I tried to go into the trek with a clear head each time, it was impossible to not think about the challenge ahead and how one small mishap could end the trip before the real climb even began. All the effort put into physical training, finding sponsors and raising the funds to pay for the trip, organizing the logistics, and getting all of the required gear and supplies together (some people spend years preparing for an Everest expedition) could be squelched by an illness or injury before I even arrived at base camp. There is a constant, overriding fear of contracting a GI infection, spraining an ankle, or suffering some other minor injury that would be just enough to keep a climber from being at the top of his or her game. And not being at the top of your game may be just enough to keep you from getting to the top of the mountain. And if you make it to base camp in good health and then can manage to stay “relatively” healthy during the next six to seven weeks on the mountain (in spite of the altitude, the physical grind, the dicey food, and the sleep deprivation), then you just have to contend with the possibility that the weather, an equipment malfunction, an avalanche, or an accident along the route might thwart your efforts—or worse, kill you.
So yeah, when you’re walking to base camp it’s hard not to think about all the things that could go wrong during a high-altitude expedition, especially when you reach an area called Dugla Pass, where climbers and trekkers stop to pay respect to the fallen climbers whose lives were claimed by Everest and her neighboring peaks. No one remains unmoved upon reaching Dugla Pass. Dozens of cairns and chortens serve as memorials to those killed on Himalayan giants, a visual reminder that the mountain is always boss.
Many of the names engraved on the plaques or into the stones are familiar to those who know a bit about Everest’s tragic history—for example, Scott Fischer’s name is there.
Scott Fischer was one of the world’s most experienced high-altitude climbers and was the owner of the adventure company Mountain Madness. He was one of eight people who died during a summit attempt on May 10–11, 1996. (The events surrounding his death were chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and in Anatoli Boukreev’s The Climb.) In total, fifteen people died that year on Everest, making it the deadliest season in Everest’s history.
Other names, like that of British climber Peter Legate, are less well-known to most people but are painfully familiar to me. Peter was killed on April 30, 2002, when he slipped and fell more than six hundred feet down one of the steepest parts of the route, the Lhotse Face. My team was back at Camp 2 getting ready to make our way up the Lhotse Face to Camp 3 when the accident occurred. We heard Pete’s climbing partners screaming for help, but nothing could be done. He died from the injuries he sustained during the fall.
These memorials serve as sobering reminders to all who pass through that area that sometimes no matter how skillful or strong or experienced you are, things can still go wrong. Lots of things.
After ten days of trekking through the Khumbu region, you finally reach base camp, which becomes home to several hundred climbers for a few months each year. And now it is game on. This is when it hits you: I am about to climb Mount Everest. Base camp sits at an elevation of nearly 17,600 feet and is peppered with tents during the climbing season. This camp is luxurious compared to the other camps higher up on the mountain. Most climbers get their own tent, which provides some much-needed solitude throughout the climbing season. Teams typically also have a toilet tent, a shower tent, and a mess tent where everyone gets together. (Getting together happens only in the mess tent. You’re on your own in the toilet tent and shower tent.) Almost every expedition employs a team of Sherpas at base camp that does the cooking and will even help with chores like washing clothes every now and then, if you so desire. There’s a ton of support at base camp, so it feels relatively comfortable as compared to the other camps higher up on the mountain. I mean, it’s not like the Sherpas leave mints on your pillow at night, but it’s easy living compared to what you contend with as you begin your foray up the big white monster.
Once climbers reach base camp, they spend several days organizing gear and equipment and preparing for whatever the mountain might throw at them during the expedition. Last chance to sharpen the crampons and make sure everything is in working order while there is still access to supplies and tools, because once you get higher up on the mountain, Home Depot stores are hard to come by. And, perhaps most important, climbers participate in a puja ceremony before they begin their climb. A puja is a traditional Buddhist ceremony conducted at base camp by a lama who blesses all members of the climbing team and asks the gods to keep the team out of harm’s way. A stone altar is built, and climbing equipment is laid at the base of the altar to be blessed during the ceremony. Prayer flags are affixed to a pole rising high above the altar, and these flags fly over base camp for the duration of the expedition to protect those on the mountain.
After spending several days at base camp getting used to the altitude, you’re ready for action. It’s now time to begin the actual climb, and this is where things really get serious because you have to cross through the most dangerous part of the route to get to Camp 1—the dreaded Khumbu Icefall. I’ll go into more detail on the Icefall later in the book, but for now, suffice it to say that this Icefall is scary as hell because it’s riddled with crevasses (huge chasms in the glacier that are sometimes hidden by snow) as well as massive ice blocks the size of small buildings that can come crashing down on you at any moment. Even diehard atheists have been known to mumble prayers under their breath while moving through the Icefall.
Assuming you make it to Camp 1, you generally spend the night there at an altitude of about 19,500 feet. This is where you really begin to feel like you are on an overwhelmingly enormous mountain, as Camp 1’s elevation is just about eight hundred feet shy of the elevation of the summit of Alaska’s Mount McKinley (20,320 feet)—the highest peak in North America. But you still have more than 9,000 feet of altitude gain ahead. It takes climbers an average of four to seven hours to get to Camp 1, so you’re not in the mood for horseshoes and volleyball when you get there. Most climbers fall into their tents to rest and pretty much stay there until the next day. After a well-earned night of sleep, it’s rise and shine—time to take on the mountain again. Onward, right? Well, not exactly.
This is where my point comes in with regard to having to go backward in order to make progress. After spending a night up at Camp 1, you get up and eat breakfast and pack up your gear and head back down to base camp—back through the Icefall, across the shaky ladders, over the crevasses. Once you are back at base camp you spend a few nights there again. More big meals in the dining tent, courtesy of your Sherpa staff. Maybe a little laundry gets done if you’re really motivated. Why come back down to base camp again? you ask. Isn’t that in the opposite direction of where you are trying to get to? Well, yes. But there’s good reason for heading back down, and I could tell you now, but I’d rather keep you in suspense for a few more pages. Here’s a hint: it’s all related to physiology and the effects of altitude. Stay with me… I promise this is going somewhere.
After a few days of “comfort” at base camp it’s back to work—back through the Icefall again as you head up the mountain. That’s right—you climb to Camp 1 again. Déjà vu. Good to be back. After spending another night at Camp 1, the next day you climb up to Camp 2 (approximately 21,000 feet), which is situated on the Khumbu glacier at the base of the Western Cwm (pronounced “coom”—it’s a Welsh word, in case you were wondering). While there isn’t much elevation gain between Camps 1 and 2, the route is heavily crevassed, and climbers should be careful to clip into the safety lines along the glacier. Camp 2 is also known as Advanced Base Camp (or ABC) and has many more comforts than Camp 1. Usually teams have a communal mess tent for meals and some kind of crude toilet tent (at Camp 1 there is little cover, so modesty is something you leave at base camp).
Bear in mind that the weather can interrupt the scheduled flow of events at any time. The same goes for illness, fatigue, or accidents. But assuming everything is going smoothly (plenty of sunshine, no wind, no torn ligaments, and no explosive you-know-what), most teams will spend a night or two at Camp 2 and then the next day, sure enough, they head back to base camp again. Yeah, back down. So there you are. Again. Back down at 17,600 feet. More big meals in the dining tent, more relaxing in the thicker air at lower elevation, more time to repair gear or sew up the holes in your clothes that you’ve managed to tear. After a few more nights spent down at base camp, the teams then head back up the mountain for yet another rotation. Back through the Icefall yet again, up to Camp 1 (again), then Camp 2 (again), and then all the way up to Camp 3, which is about two-thirds of the way up the Lhotse Face.
Lhotse is another 8,000-meter peak that borders Tibet and Nepal and is adjacent to Mount Everest. It is the fourth-highest mountain in the world, with an elevation of 27,940 feet (8,516 meters). The southeast ridge route on Mount Everest requires ascending a good portion of Lhotse before you hang a hard left and cross over to the mountain you’re actually trying to climb. The Lhotse Face is a steep, icy, 3,700-foot wall that requires fixed lines of rope to be anchored into the ice at various spots for safety. This section of the route can take climbers more than nine hours, because their bodies are not yet used to the altitude.
This will be the toughest day that climbers will endure up until summit day. Some people think it’s even rougher than summit day, because you climb to Camp 3 at 24,000 feet without supplemental oxygen, whereas on summit day approximately 96 to 98 percent of all climbers use oxygen tanks during their push to the top. There is about 3,000 feet of altitude gain between Camp 2 and Camp 3, and the pitch is steep (40–50 degrees). The steepness is constant and the glacial ice is treacherous. The ice is so solid on this part of the route that even the most experienced climbers can’t self-arrest, which is the process of stopping a fall by plunging your ice axe into the terrain below you (you can also self-arrest by using your hands, feet, knees, or whatever you can thrust into the terrain below you if the snow is soft enough—which is not the case on the Lhotse Face).
Camp 3 is the most uncomfortable camp. There are no flat areas to set up tents, so you have to dig out small platforms that are just large enough for the tent footprint. There is no room to walk around, and as a result there is not much socializing at Camp 3 other than speaking loudly enough from your tent so that whoever is in the tent a few feet away can hear you. Just stepping outside of your tent when nature calls can be a harrowing experience. There, you spend a very long, cold, restless night (and if you are me, you do not spend it in your sleeping bag but in the tent vestibule throwing up your last meal, thanks to the altitude). Then after a brutal night at Camp 3, guess where you go? Yep. All the way back down to base camp, again.
Okay, time to end the suspense and stop torturing you. So why do you have to keep coming back down to base camp again after climbing up to the higher camps on the mountain? Because of a process known as acclimatization, which is a fancy word for the process of adapting to high altitude. If someone were to magically drop you off at the summit of Mount Everest (pretend you could be dropped there by plane or helicopter or something like that), you would be dead in a matter of minutes from the sudden altitude gain, so you have to move up the mountain very slowly to let your body get used to the altitude.
Why is altitude stressful on the human body? Because it affects respiration, for starters. Altitude also shakes up your cognitive abilities and brain function. Motor skills, memory, reaction time, and mood are affected at very high elevations. But you don’t have to be at 18,000 feet to feel the effects of altitude. If you’ve ever traveled directly from sea level to a ski resort mountain, you probably felt short of breath and maybe even developed a headache or a slight feeling of nausea. You may have chalked it up to the previous night’s beer pong or tequila shots, but most likely it was due to the altitude. A mere 8,000 feet above sea level is considered “high altitude.” Some people will feel the effects at that elevation and some won’t—it varies for everyone.
People feel sick at altitude because the atmospheric pressure is lower. The percentage of oxygen in the air always remains constant at around 21 percent, but because there is less pressure at higher altitudes the oxygen molecules spread out, so you take in fewer molecules with every breath. The opposite is true for lower elevations—the atmospheric pressure is greater, so the weight of the air compresses the molecules, and you take in more oxygen with each breath. At 18,000 feet your body is getting 50 percent less oxygen than it would at sea level. During the acclimatization process more red blood cells are produced so that oxygen can be carried through the body more efficiently. In other words, your body learns to function with a smaller supply of oxygen. So while your mind may be ready to go higher up the mountain, your body needs time to adjust. Pushing this is a bad idea. If your body is not properly acclimatized, there is greater risk of developing altitude sickness, which is something you definitely want to avoid.
Altitude sickness can take many forms—Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) presents in the form of a headache or nausea, which can be annoying at the least and debilitating in more severe cases. The real danger comes when AMS progresses to High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE), which is a buildup of fluid in the lungs, or High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE), a swelling of the brain. These forms of altitude sickness can be deadly. While headaches and nausea often subside, when signs of HAPE or HACE are present the climber must descend immediately, and descending still doesn’t ensure the person will survive. This stuff is nothing to mess with. The best way to avoid altitude sickness is to ascend slowly in order to give your body time to adapt. But here’s the catch: at altitudes above 18,000 feet, climbers experience insomnia, weight loss, and muscular weakening. That means the body is deteriorating at any elevation above base camp.
So while it is important to spend time up high on the mountain in order to facilitate the metabolic cell changes necessary to carry oxygen throughout your body, it’s also important to spend time back down at a lower elevation in order to eat, sleep, hydrate, and regain some strength. It is indeed very physically challenging to be going up the mountain… then back down… then back up higher… then back down again. But psychologically it is incredibly frustrating as well, because you know you need to be going up in order to reach the top, but you spend a heck of a lot of time climbing down. What you have to remember is that even though you are physically moving away from your goal, you are in fact still making progress toward your goal because you’re helping your body acclimatize.
Retreating to base camp’s lower elevation is an important part of staying healthy throughout the climb so that climbers have the best possible shot at making the summit should the weather and other external factors cooperate. The body must go in the opposite direction in order to gain strength and reenergize—and this allows climbers to move faster and ascend higher the next time they head up the mountain. This is, by all means, moving toward the goal.
For whatever reason, we tend to think that progress has to move in one particular direction, but that’s simply not the case. Sometimes you do have to go backward—away from your destination—in order to reach it. The mental trick is to understand that going down does not mean you’re losing ground, but rather strengthening the foundation of your effort.
You shouldn’t look at backtracking or starting over as a bad thing. It’s just part of the normal climbing routine on big peaks, and it’s something we have to do if we want to get better, stronger, and really stretch ourselves to achieve more. Yes, it’s a drag and it can be mind-numbing at times, but rarely does anyone achieve anything worthwhile without dealing with some repetition and monotony. Think about the scientists working on the Human Genome Project. That work started in 1990 and took more than thirteen years before it was considered complete. You think those guys didn’t have to go back to the drawing board a gazillion times before figuring out how to map DNA?
Even professional sports figures who are at the top of their game do the same drills over and over and over again, not because they haven’t mastered the exercise, but because the repetition builds strength and enhances agility. When you see champion athletes on the court, on the field, or in the ring, keep in mind that they got there by focusing on the fundamentals—over and over again.
While retracing steps or going over something that is already familiar can feel like a burden, it’s clearly not a waste of time. And going backward doesn’t mean you are erasing progress. There is real value in going back to your starting point to regroup, to reenergize, and to reposition yourself to be stronger so you can ascend to the next level.