원정 개요

C1 at top of Icefall
C2 in West Cwm
C3 on Lhotse Face
C4 at South Col.

From C4 for summit bid 8:30 am 24 May: Eric Alexander, Benitez, Brown, Bradford Bull and Sherman Bull, Evans, Gipe, Johnck, Johnson, Mace, Morris, O'Donnell, Scaturro and Weihenmayer. Gipe turned after 250m because no motivation; Scaturro turned back at 8400m with bad bronchial infection and could not breathe and fingers and toes started to freeze. All other members and 8 Sherpas continued. Storm whipped up at 11:00 pm to 2:00 am (snowfall, wind, thunder and lightning) but cleared about 2:00 am halfway between Balcony and South Summit (team scattered about half an hour apart at this point). Spent 1-1/2 hours uncovering old rope and putting in new ones, breaking trail this day. On top Sherman Bull at 8:15 am, Bradford Bull 9:30 am; Morris at 9:35, Alexander, Benitez, Evans, Weihenmayer together at 10:05; Brown and Mace at 10:15; O'Donnell and Johnck at 10:30 am. All to C4 to sleep except Scaturro to C2 with last climbers back to C4 by 4:00 pm with 2 Sherpas back at 6:00 pm because had run out of oxygen and waited for new supply.

Summit Sherpas:
Ang Pasang, Thami, 34, Everest X1 before (with Weihenmayer party)
Ang Kami, Gumela, Khumbu, 28, 1st 8000er (with Brown)
Chhuldim/Chuldim Nuru: Phurte, 34, Everest X1 (with Brown)
Pemba Chhoti, Thami, 27, 1st 8000er
Lhakpa Tshering/Tshiri, formally Khumjung (now Kathmandu), 27, 1st 8000er
(with Sherman Bull)
Phurba Bhote, Makalu VDC, 44, 1st 8000er (with Brad Bull)
Lhakpa Tshering, Thami (now Mende), 29, (between Brown and Johnck)
Ang Sona/Sonam, Thami, 25, 1st 8000er (between Brown and Johnck)

Oxygen: all in summit party (members and Sherpas) used it in C4 (except Sherpas, B. Bull, Johnck, Scaturro, Brown, Morris and Mace); all used it up from C4 to top to C4.


Weihenmayer - 3 June 2001

Felt great on top - "just could not believe it." 2 -1/2 months to get there and you work so hard and so long to get there, but just take a day by day, last step was about anti-climax. "Was better with all my teammates there together rather than climbing there alone."

Next Cartenz Pyramid spring '02 and Elbrus in summer '02 and this last Seven summits (McKinley in '95 was 1st). Very technical terrain and took long time. Got used to jumping over crevasses and had fallen into crevasse in Icefall (leg in it).


S. Bull - 3 June 2001

"On top didn't feel rush of emotion and really didn't sink in right away. More emotional when son joined him on top. Psychologically I viewed myself as a regular member of team and pushed age factor on backburner and was aware of supporting role of Erik and getting out his way." Age record not going to last long.

This his 5th time to try for top, a dream come true to make to the summit and especially with my son wants to do.


Erik Weihenmayer - May 26, 2003

A few years after I went blind at the age of 13, I sent away for a Braille book about Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's ascent of Mount Everest. As I read, I imagined with fear and delight the two pioneers standing only 60 meters below the summit at the base of a 12-meter vertical rock face, later named the Hillary Step, desperately hoping it could be scaled. In 1953, so much of modern mountaineering ws still to be discovered. Archaic clothing and tents made Everest's frigid temperatures lethal. Oxygen bottles were three times heavier than today's. Deadly altitude illnesses, little understood, caused brains to swell and lungs to fill with fluid. Because lightweight radios had yet to be invented, it wasn't until Hillary and Tenzing had descended to within a few hundred meters of advanced base camp and Hillary held up two fingers in victory that the world learned Everest had finally been conquered.

Over the next 50 years, top climbers from around the world converged on Everst's slopes to attempt their own groundbreaking firsts. In 1978, Reinhold Messner's ascent without bottles oxygen defied the conventional wisdom that time spent without artificial oxygen above 7900 meters - in the "death zone" would cause irreparable brain damage. In 2000, Babu Chhiri Sherpa - the most famous Sherpa - climbed from base camp to the top of the Everest in just under 16 hours.

In 2001, it was my turn. Although Everest had been mapped from Summit to base camp, I felt like I was stepping into uncharted territory. Most of thought a blind person had no business on the world's tallest peak, especially after eight climbers died in a storm now known as the "1996 disaster." But I had prepared for 16 years, learning to feel my way up mountainous terrain using ice axes and long poles. I finally concluded that when other people's expectation become barriers, the best thing to do is to surmount them.

Still, there were many challenges I couldn't confront until I went to the mountain, such as the Khumbu Icefall: 600 meters of jumbled up ice boulders - some the size of baseballs, others as big as buildings - constantly collapsing and exploding as the ice expanded and contracted. As I weaved through the labyrinth, I could hear huge ice columns graoning and cracking overhead. My first trip took a miserable 13 hours through a frozen maze, a blind person's worst nightmare. No two steps were alike as I zigzagged over thin snow bridges and lept over deep cracks onto shifting ice boulders. Eventually, with the help of my teams, I made it through the icefall 10 times, working the duration of each trip down to five hours.

I also worried about how I would function above 7900m, where the brain grows foggy and just taking a step requires monumental effort. I feared that not being able to think, along with not being able to see, would be an overwhelmingly bad combination. However, extreme altitude slowed down my team, so I actually had more time to plant my axe and kick solid steps in the steep snow. On the Hillary Step, I finally felt in my element. Similar to Hillary's own description, I wedged myself in a crack, my gloved hands scanning for holds, my one cramponed boot biting the rock, and my other jammed in a cornice of ice. It was my 40 minutes later, when my brain was barely in charge of my body and I felt like I was pushing through wet concrete mixed with anesthesia that my teammate Chris Morris lowerd his mask, wrapped his arms around me and whispered hoarsely: "Big E, I think you're about to stand on top of the world."

Many climbers argue that Everest is no longer an epochal achievement and that the conga lines of climbers waiting for a shot at the summit are degrading a once pristine environment. In Hillary's day, teams of top climbers were handpicked by prestigious bodies such as the Royal Geographical Society. Today, an overweight globe-trotter with more money than and a little-known blind guy have equal access. The door to Everest's slopes has been blown wide open, and some critics speak of the death of great adventures.

But Everest's history is the modern world's history, with all its challenges and abuses - and the unparalleled opportunities for human endeavour. To me, its perfectly fitting that an adventure which began with elite climbers is undertaken by a blind guy 50 years later. We cannot step back and close the mountain, for retreat would annihilate the modern age's greatest gift to humanity: the freedom of an individual to choose his path.