Ninth Update from Xtreme Everest

In this dispatch, the second of two parts, the second wave of climbers from Caudwell Xtreme Everest reach the summit, but mountain photographer Michael Brown lets us know it wasn't easy. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release.

The Second Summit Story

A two-team summit offensive is not uncommon in climbing — Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the second summit team of the 1953 British expedition, sent up after the first failed to reach the top — even though it was not the original strategy of the expedition. But the life-saving rescue of Usha Bisha (see previous post) proved only to delay the summit success of the entire group, not prevent it. After time to recover from the exertions of rescue, the second team left their Camp Four tents in the darkness of night and reached the summit on May 24 as the sun rose over the Himalaya, bathing the world’s highest landscape in light. Among the earliest to arrive was mountain photographer Michael Brown, of MacGillivray Freeman Films.

Celebration in Base Camp
“Everyone goes wild when someone summits,” recalled Kay Mitchell a couple days later. “You tell your cook boys and your Sherpas and they go outside and bang gongs and dance around. It’s very noisy. And the reaction for the second group was even greater than for the first, because you worry so much about them being up there. Knowing that there are going to be no more sleepless nights is such a relief.”

The twin team summit successes were each marked by their own personal successes, such as that of BBC cameraman Dave Rasmussen, who reached the top with the first wave. “Dave’s been on Everest a couple times before but never made it to the summit,” Kay tells us. “So he was absolutely thrilled to bits that he made it this time.”

Pema Tharki Sherpa, the expedition sirdar or head Sherpa, made it to the top for the first time. “It was special because he did it with three of his brothers, all of whom have summitted before, and a nephew,” pointed out Kay. When he returned to Base Camp, he confessed to Kay that it was a lot harder than he thought it would be. “I said now you’ll have to show more respect for your brothers!”

For Michael Brown it was his fourth time to the top of Everest, but by his own admission the most difficult because of the long time in the Death Zone – altitudes above 8000 meters, or 26,250 feet, where there simply is not enough oxygen available to sustain human life for an extended period of time. Michael was part of the first team who set out for the summit, but turned back at the Balcony after waiting an hour for his Sherpa who was having trouble and fell behind. On his descent back to Camp Four, he helped another Sherpa from a separate expedition who had become disoriented. “The second night was much colder and windier than the previous,” he wrote. “We couldn't stop moving or we would freeze. I was overtired and kept falling asleep between steps. I couldn't help it. I was also getting very cold and hallucinating. I kept thinking I was somewhere else.”

Despite his subjective confusion, Mike and his teammates made it to the South Summit in a quick six hours, and a short time later he stood on the summit as the sun rose above Makalu to the east. With his professionalism intact, he did the job. “I got the camera out while on the top. The tripod didn't work so I just did some shots with the camera balanced precariously on top of it. At first the camera didn't work so once I got it working I just let it roll.”

Michael’s own account of his suffering was borne out by the data from his heart monitor, which showed that his heart rate was abnormally low, rarely rising above 50 beats per minute, and at one point dropping to 29. “To me it is just scary in what it implies – I was just barely alive while on and near the summit.”

He continues, “I remember little of the descent. I kept falling asleep at every rest. The battery on the heart rate monitor quit shortly after the summit so I don't know what happened there. Once I woke from a deep sleep and a dream of being at home. It was quite a surprise to open my eyes and see the South Col positioned 2,000 feet below between my feet.”

He adds, “Without the heart rate data I might just be remembering a tough morning. Either way I feel like I have shared what the Native Americans or Aboriginals call a 'vision quest.' I feel changed by this experience even more than any previous trips to the top – they were all much easier. I feel like I have been through a profound experience.”


Back in the USA
News of the success of the expedition was greeted with special appreciation back at the Laguna Beach headquarters of MacGillivray Freeman Films. Return to Everest producer/director Greg MacGillivray, and his wife Barbara and son Shaun had just returned from filming in Nepal, where they trekked to base camp and met many of the climbers and Sherpas who had such success.

“We are overjoyed that Mike Grocott, Michael Brown and the others made it safely to the summit and back for the benefit of medical science,” said Greg. “We are in awe of their accomplishments and extremely proud of their heroism in assisting those in trouble on the mountain.”

But this extraordinarily successful expedition, in which 25 members made it to the summit, is not over yet. The research stations at Camps Three and Two must be disassembled and their equipment returned to Base Camp, then everything packed up and trekked back down to Kathmandu. Then there’s the research, at least a year and possibly much longer, to catalog, analyze and evaluate the large amount of data the three month-long expedition accumulated – a mountain of data, as huge a challenge as the peak they have just climbed.

To view these last two postings, the Eighth and Ninth Updates, download the PDF.

Eighth Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In this dispatch, the first of two parts, the climbers of Caudwell Xtreme Everest reach the summit of Everest, but it's a success in spite of obstacles. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release.

Summit Success
Teamwork and a dramatic high-altitude rescue

“We’re on top.” The words came down to Base Camp at half-past six in the morning of May 23 to the waiting researchers at the Caudwell Xtreme Everest communications tent, who had gathered around the radio all night long. Expedition leader Dr. Mike Grocott, and his fellow physicians Sundeep Dhillon, Chris Imray, Dan Martin, and Nigel Hart, had reached the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest, along with Dave Rasmussen of the BBC and ten Sherpas. The next day, four more team members would also reach the top--Roger McMorrow, Jeremy Windsor, Mick O’Dwyer, and Return to Everest co-director and director of mountain photography Michael Brown--as well as five more Sherpas, bringing the total to 25 members of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition to attain the summit.

Photos show that the climbers reached the South Summit of Everest (28,704 feet) just as the sun broke over the horizon, casting a giant shadow far to the west toward Pakistan. Said Mike Grocott, “It was a wonderful moment cresting the South Summit and seeing for the first time the iconic view of the Hillary Step and the Summit Ridge – and feeling for the first time that success was almost ensured.”

Three hundred feet higher, past the technical challenge of the Hillary Step, the team reached the mountaintop. “At last it was possible to climb no higher,” wrote Chris Imray. Colorful prayer flags from the season’s earlier climbers bedecked the icy summit, but the bitterly cold wind kept time on the top to a minimum.

Though the plan had been for high-altitude medical testing to take place on the summit itself, including the taking of arterial blood for analysis, high winds and low temperatures made conditions for this testing too difficult. The first team had to retreat to the shelter of the stone ridge known as the Balcony some 1,300 feet lower to complete their tests.

“It’s the highest altitude that arterial blood has ever been taken, and I believe it’s the only arterial blood ever taken on Everest,” said communications director Kay Mitchell. “One of our Sherpas, Pasang, got the samples down from the Balcony to Camp II in two hours, which is absolutely phenomenal.”

In a statement from the mountain, Mike Grocott said, “Reaching the summit was the culmination of four years of extensive planning and determination to improve the medical world’s understanding of hypoxia.”

Drama on High
The successful ascent was not without its extraordinary circumstances. While the original strategy was for the team to spend a couple of days conducting medical tests at the South Col, then strike out together for the summit, a high-altitude rescue changed their plans. Two days before the summit attempt, a Nepali woman climbing with another team was found unconscious on the ropes just below the Balcony by members of an American commercial climbing company on their way down from the summit.

Usha Bista, the debilitated climber, was not far from the spot where the British climber Dave Sharp died in 2006, after some 40 climbers passed him by on their way to the summit, and again on their way down. The incident caused an uproar in the mountaineering community, who cited it as further evidence of the ethical decay of climbing in the commercialization of Everest.

This time would be different. When American climber Dave Hahn radioed for help, Michael Brown at Camp Four sent a Sherpa with oxygen up to the Balcony, then went up himself to lend a hand, temporarily giving up his summit hopes. There he helped Hahn take the climber down to Camp Four at the Western Cwm, where the medical professionals could attend to her injuries.

That same night Usha was carried still further down the mountain to Camp Three, and the next day she was carried all the way down to Camp Two, where support staff of the Caudwell Xtreme expedition administered further treatment. (Later, she was taken down to Base Camp where a helicopter evacuated her to Kathmandu.)

The possibility of upset in climbing plans had been anticipated by the Caudwell Xtreme expedition from the outset, as they recognized they were uniquely qualified to give medical assistance high on the mountain should it be called for. And, by the code of medical ethics known as the Hippocratic Oath, they were obligated to assist the woman in spite of their own goals and plans.

“The doctors were a huge help in stabilising her,” Hahn was quoted in the London Times. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think she’d survive.”

The satisfaction of the rescue was tempered almost at once by the death of another Nepali woman climber, Pema Doma, who fell to her death on the Lhotse Face just as Usha was reaching the safety of Camp Three. The death underscored the danger of climbing the world’s highest peak, even as Usha’s rescue exemplified the heroism of some members of the mountaineering community.

(Check back soon for the conclusion of the summit story from Caudwell Xtreme Everest.)