Dispatch 7: Dave Hahn Ruminates on Another Everest Expedition

Today is a quiet day at Everest basecamp in Nepal. A good chunk of our greater IMG team left this morning bound for other places. Until today, there had been about 27 team members of one stripe or another working and walking together (but that number does not include our illustrious Sherpa staff, with them we were up well over sixty people, albeit not all squeezing into the same tents at once) Eventually we will distill down to 16 climbers hoping to reach the summit of Mount Everest somewhere up the road in May. Then, we'll be working with 26 Sherpas going above basecamp, while another six supportus down here in the lowlands (my altimeter is reading 17,200 ft in the lowlands today) Our teams will be led from basecamp by the famous duo of Mark Tucker and Ang Jangbu Sherpa.

The folks who went down-valley today had several goals. Some had completed their trek into Everest Basecamp, setting all sorts of personal altitude records along the way, and were now headed for hotels and airplanes and eventually home. Others were hot to go climb Island Peak, just over on the other side of Lhotse. Upon tackling that worthy goal in a few days time, some will return to Everest and others, content with an Island summit (it is 6,183 meters about the same height as Denali), will go home from there.

Those of us still up at Everest basecamp didn't have so much urgent stuff to attend to today. We are acclimatizing and waiting for the route through the Khumbu Icefall to be established. And since it decided to snow and be rather cold today without the sun, we are hunkered down within our tents or shivering slightly as we drink cup after cup of tea and coffee. It is not unpleasant up here though, and the extra space in our dining tent makes it easy to stretch out and play games.

I thought I'd take a break from the games for a few minutes to bring you up to speed on the composition of our climbing team. I'm one of the sixteen summit hopefuls. It didn't work out for me to guide anyone this year but I wasn't ready to give up climbing the big mountain just yet (at what may very well be my prime). The hope is that I can still be useful to the IMG team this season in my role as a veteran climber. Justin Merle has a similar role on the team, which I'm quite happy about. Justin hasn't yet been to the top of Mount Everest, but he has done very well on other Himalayan giants. We've worked together guiding back on Mount Rainier for a bunch of years now and just this year, we shared the lead on trips to Mount McKinley and the Vinson Massif. Many of the other 14 climbers have formally teamed up with individual Sherpas who know the ropes. Additionally, there are Western guides working with clients within our ranks and a few guides guiding themselves.

Mark Tucker, who led the IMG team last season, is back to do it again. He'll work with the head of Great Escapes Trekking, Ang Jangbu, to make sure things go smoothly. Tucker and Jangbu have both been to the top of Everest but, understandably, don't have so much interest in going up there again right now. They'll contribute wizardry in the management, strategy and logistics departments and will keep the bigger picture in focus while the rest of us narrow our vision to THE SUMMIT.

At this particular point in my guiding and climbing career, a lot of people are supposing that I'm absolutely hell bent on wracking up the numbers... that I have to ring the bell at the top one more time. The all-important Seven Summits (although mine are a slightly different seven than the norm... games are games) isn't really all-important to me, I promise. I do like trying to get up Mount Everest, and I'm going to try like crazy on this trip. But as I say... I can live without making it to the top again this May. Think about it... as a pick-up line in bars "I climbed Everest seven times" is no better than "I climbed Everest six times" Which I never tested anyway. I'm too old for bars and pick-up lines. I just like trying to climb Mount Everest.

One of the reasons I like trying is that I get to be around some pretty amazing people over here. I spent time in these last few days interviewing our Sherpa team and composing a few stats. Including our two ABC cooks, we have 26 Sherpas climbing above basecamp on this trip. Most would concede that we are bringing a heck of a lot of strength to the mountain with those numbers alone... but I wanted to quantify things a bit more to demonstrate the true strength of our team. Using a little of the mathematics that us climbing guides aren't generally renowned for, it turns out that those 26 Sherpas have been on 333 expeditions to 8000 meter peaks. They have been up to the summits of those peaks 128 times. Of the 210 Everest expeditions that they have been on, they have hit the top no less than 58 times. Try using THOSE numbers as pick-up lines.

Within our team, one guy, Tashi, has been to the top of Everest 10 times. The oldest man on our climbing team, 50 year-old Ang Pinzo went on his first 8000 meter expedition in 1973 and has now been on 49 expeditions to the highest mountains in the world. And he is the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet. All of the trips I've done in these mountains, for fifteen years, have been with at least some of these men. And I am very much aware that I wouldn't have gotten up or down anything over these years without their help and friendship. Most of the 26 superstars that are climbing with us go back to farming when the trip is over. They grow buckwheat and potatoes down in Phortse and Pangboche... they run yaks up or down the valley from time to time. Lakpa Bhote has seventy pigs on his farm in Kathmandu. And in the "off seasons" they train and they trek. Many have made a substantial effort to further their climbing and guiding skills at the Khumbu Climbing School, held each January in Phortse.

The numbers our Sherpa team have amassed in the mountains amaze me, but in speaking with each of them these last days, I found another number to be at least as significant. These 32 men (including the six basecamp staff) have seventy-seven children... in fact, there are only three men on the team that are not raising families (and those three are pretty young) These guys are devoted fathers... the kind of partners you'd always like to climb with. They are careful and in this line of work for the long run.

If some think that with the numbers I've revealed, Everest doesn't stand a chance, they are wrong. If some think that by associating with such good and safe men I've made things too easy on myself over the years... I'd say, "guilty as charged" and after a bit I'd still whine about how tough I find this mountain. And if some assumed that giving a man in a poor and unsettled nation a dangerous job on Mount Everest was, by definition, taking advantage of him, I suppose I'd point to the numbers and say how proud I am to be (in a very small way)contributing to the feeding and education of seventy-seven kids. There are worse "industries" to be associated with.

The snow has stopped and the wind has calmed. I'm going to crawl into my sleeping bag and forget numbers for a bit.

Best Regards, Dave