Chilling Mt. Everest disaster was preventable Part 2

[Please read Mt. Everest disaster Part 1 for some context.]

If you haven’t read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, a personal account of a 1996 Mt. Everest disaster, you should.

Because if you were ever to climb a mountain, or apply its lessons to other areas of life, you would be the wiser for it.

I read it recently and learned a bit about why Rob Hall, a very responsible, skilled leader from New Zealand, made a tragic mistake on Everest’s summit.


[Mt. Everest from space]

Many of his colleagues have wondered: “Why didn’t he turn Hansen (a client) around much lower on the mountain, as soon as it became obvious that the American climber was running late?”

Here’s what Krakauer reveals:

Exactly one year earlier, Hall had turned Hansen around on the South Summit at 2:30 P.M., and to be denied so close to the top was a crushing disappointment to Hansen. He told me several times that he’d returned to Everest in 1996 largely as a result of Hall’s advocacy - he said Rob had called him from New Zealand “a dozen times” urging him to give it another try - and this time Doug was absolutely determined to bag the top.

“I want to get this thing done and out of my life,” he’d told me three days earlier at Camp Two. “I don’t want to have to come back here. I’m getting too old for this shit.”

It doesn’t seem far-fetched to speculate that because Hall had talked Hansen into coming back to Everest, it would have been especially hard for him to deny Hansen the summit a second time. (pg. 293)

Guy Cotter, a NZ guide, said this:

“It’s very difficult to turn someone around high on the mountain. If a client sees that the summit is close and they’re dead-set on getting there, they’re going to laugh in your face and keep going up.”

Peter Lev, veteran US guide, said this:

“We think that people pay us to make good decisions, but what people really pay for is to get to the top.”

Those who say that death is too high a price to pay to get to the top of the world’s highest peak are, in my opinion, absolutely right.

When Rob Hall (an accomplished climbing guide) did not turn himself or a client around near Everest’s summit to make a safe retreat toward their nearest refuge (as previously arranged), I felt that was an instance that reveals human beings and their systems fail - on mountaintops, high seas, farms, cities, Wall St. and Main St. - for some of the same reasons.

Krakauer writes:

“In any case, Hall did not turn Hansen around at 2:00 P.M. - or, for that matter, at 4:00, when he met his client just below the top. Instead, according to Lopsang (Sherpa climber), Hall placed Hansen’s arm around his neck and assisted the weary client up the final forty feet to the summit.”

“They stayed only a minute or two, then turned to begin the long descent.”

Later events conspired to make their descent extremely difficult, then impossible.

Hansen was never heard from or seen again.


[Hansen’s grave: photo link]

A lone ice ax, found near the end of fixed ropes above a 7,000 foot sheer drop, bore testimony to his fate.

Hall was heard from later that day and into the night but never seen alive again [except possibly by Harold Harris, a young NZ climber and guide, who attempted to rescue Hall and Hansen - and paid the price with his own life].

Rob Hall’s frozen body, however, remained visible to future climbers for some time near the summit.

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Personal and system failures can be tragic.

What causes tragic failures?

Please click here to read Part 3 - the conclusion.

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