1996 Everest disaster: Was it preventable?

The last book I read that mentioned climbing disasters on Mt. Everest was entitled The Boys of Everest by Clint Willis. 516 pages. I couldn’t put it down.


[Photo of book cover by GH]

It reminded me of a three-part series I wrote about the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster, as featured in Jon Krakauer's gripping novel Into Thin Air. I repeat the series here.

1996 Everest disaster: Was it preventable?

Part 1

My oldest son bought me three used books by Jon Krakauer for Christmas gifts and I was unable to put the first one down once I’d read the first page.

Into Thin Air, a personal account of a 1996 Mt. Everest disaster, sounded familiar, perhaps because I’d seen TV shows in the last few years about the same event, and I was immediately hooked even though I remembered many details related to the outcome.

I wasn’t hooked because I’m a mountain climber.


[Mt. Everest from space: Photo credit NASA]

Far from it. My low tolerance for risk wouldn’t allow me to climb higher than Base Camp (17,600 ft.) on Everest (29,028 ft.).

Of course, if I became light-headed and left unwatched, I might try for Camp One (19,500 ft.) or Camp Two (21,300 ft.).

However, as a former marathoner - 13 marathons in all - I’m not confident I could develop suitable strength and endurance to even reach the Base Camp.

I wasn’t hooked because I wanted to revisit the disaster and read about gory details.

My main reason was to see if there were answers to questions I had about the climb:

What drives people beyond a point of, what I consider, reasonable risk?

Could the disaster, in which several lives were lost, have been prevented?

Would I even try to reach Base Camp?

My curiosity was partially satisfied with the following from Ch. 17, Summit, 3:40 P.M., May 10, 29,028 Feet:


[Everest route photo link]

“Shortly after Fischer (USA, leader, head guide) left the top, Gau (Taiwan, leader) and his Sherpas departed as well, and finally Lopsang (Fischer’s Sherpa climbing leader) headed down - leaving Hall (New Zealand, leader, head guide) alone on the summit awaiting Hansen (USA, Hall’s client).”

“A moment after Lopsang started down, about 4:00, Hansen at last appeared, toughing it out, moving painfully slowly over the last bump on the ridge. As soon as he saw Hansen, Hall hurried down to meet him.”

“Hall’s obligatory turn-around time had come and gone a full two hours earlier.”

When Krakauer wrote that last line I was reminded that earlier in the book Rob Hall, the leader of a large group of guides, staff and paying clients, had told everyone, no matter where they were in the last leg of the ascent, to turn around at 2 P.M. and return to Camp Four, their closest refuge.

Turning around any later would severely hurt their chances of a safe return to their highest camp.

Why had Hall waited until 4 P.M. for Hansen, the last climber on his team, knowing the risks to himself and his client were so high?

“Given the guide’s conservative, exceedingly methodical nature, many of his colleagues have expressed puzzlement at his uncharacteristic lapse of judgment. Why, they wondered, didn’t he turn Hansen around much lower on the mountain, as soon as it became obvious that the American climber was running late?”

Hall’s lapse of judgment brought about the worst of consequences.

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1996 Everest disaster: Was it preventable?

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Part 2

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: Photo credit NASA]

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?

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1996 Everest disaster: Was it preventable?

Part 3

Lives were lost in 1996 near Everest’s summit, for reasons not all found in Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air.

Two men, perhaps more, are dead because they would not turn around and try another day.

I feel that lesson should not be lost on us - even though most will never set foot near Mount Everest.

Our daily lives are affected by social, political, physical, religious, economic, environmental (and other) frameworks, and within each we at times drive or push too far beyond our limits.

As well, we ignore our conscience or other guides, fail to make a safe retreat when the possibility exists, miss the opportunity to replenish essential resources, and subsequently find ourselves without strength or much hope for survival.

For example, here are a few sentences from A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright that reveal we may have pushed past the Earth’s economic limits:

“During the twentieth century, the world’s population multiplied by four and the economy by more than forty. If civilization is to survive, it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature (but) markers suggest that in 1999 we were at 125 per cent (of nature’s yearly output).”

And is it not logical to suggest that if we push past our economic limits we slowly bleed the environment dry?

An oft-used quote from Barry Commoner tells me the environment will surely suffer as we push past the planet’s economic limits:

“Sooner or later, wittingly or unwittingly, we must pay for every intrusion on the natural environment.”


[Illustration by G. Harrison]

So, in the political, corporate and personal sphere, firm policies must be put in place and/or limits set to ensure resources are used in a sustainable manner, for the benefit of all now and in the future.

On a personal note:

While training for and running 13 marathons, I often strayed beyond my physical limits or ran at someone else’s chosen pace, then barely survived several of the 26.2 mile events. I hit the wall and became - on a few occasions - an ugly companion for running mates.


["Staying within my physical limits": BOSTON MARATHON, GAH]

Whether we address social relationships (marriages, friendships), economic, environmental policies, et al, we tend to push limits to the extreme and suffer the consequences.

By reading Into Thin Air, I was forced to think a bit more about where we are now, where we’re going, and how we’re getting there.

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The book, and life itself, are gripping adventures, are they not?

Please click here to read another Series of Significance.

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