Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Galligall people of
Speaker 1: the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present.
Speaker 2: Hi team, and here I've just got back from climbing
Speaker 2: Everest to taking a quick break from the podcast. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, I thought this would be a great opportunity
Speaker 2: to take a look back at some of my favorite
Speaker 2: interviews with my fellow climbers. In this episode, you'll hear
Speaker 2: from Kenton Call, Jim Davison, and Nimsday Perda. First up,
Speaker 2: Kenton Call. Summating Everest is an impressive feat in itself,
Speaker 2: but doing it eighteen times that takes a seriously hardcore individual.
Speaker 2: Here's what Kenton had to say about it.
Speaker 3: I found myself in that pit of kind of negative despair.
Speaker 3: One of the consultants came in and said, right, I'm
Speaker 3: going to operate on you tomorrow, and my immediate thought
Speaker 3: was when can I climb?
Speaker 4: And he just laughed and said, you're never climbing again.
Speaker 3: You're never going to walk without stick, you know, And
Speaker 3: that spiled me into that pit. But then about ten
Speaker 3: days later, another consultant, John Handley. He said, I'm going
Speaker 3: to rebuild your foot to the best of my ability,
Speaker 3: and what you do after that is down to you
Speaker 3: and no one else.
Speaker 4: If you put the time and effort in you will walk.
Speaker 3: You will And he said, I'm not going to say
Speaker 3: you're going to climb, but it's down to you and
Speaker 3: how much energy and bocus you put into your rehab. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and those two different approaches from those from those two
Speaker 3: different consultants, that was the tipping point from being in
Speaker 3: the pit of despair and self woe is me to
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, actually I can do this, and
Speaker 3: I will do this and I want to do this.
Speaker 4: And that was really powerful. That was for me. And
Speaker 4: I only realized this years later.
Speaker 5: Yeah, of course, not at the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not not at the time.
Speaker 2: Penny finally drops. Doesn't it when you do something you
Speaker 2: look back and you go wow, if I hadn't That's
Speaker 2: why I ask you in those moments, you know where
Speaker 2: your head was at and your mindset. But it's so
Speaker 2: important for people to realize that we have a choice.
Speaker 4: I mean, for a while it was awful. Yeah, we
Speaker 4: have the choice.
Speaker 3: And the other really powerful thing is is like negative
Speaker 3: motivation and by this, I mean what do you stand
Speaker 3: to lose? And when that first consultant said to me,
Speaker 3: you're never going to climb again, I saw my community
Speaker 3: as I knew it because I was so involved with
Speaker 3: climbing everything. My girlfriend climbed, all my buddies climb, My
Speaker 3: whole cohort were climbers. And I stood to lose my
Speaker 3: community as I knew it. And that really scared me.
Speaker 3: And that was a huge motivat because I didn't want
Speaker 3: to lose that. I thought, I'm going to lose my community,
Speaker 3: I've got nothing, and that that was one of the
Speaker 3: big driving forces that was I'm going to get on
Speaker 3: those parallel bars as soon as I can.
Speaker 4: I'm going to do those extra hider sessions.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go to the gym in the hospital
Speaker 3: and yes, pump weights, do the pull downs, do the
Speaker 3: There's certain exercises I could do build my core so
Speaker 3: that when I could get back on my feet, recovery
Speaker 3: is going to be that much quicker.
Speaker 2: This is why I really wanted to touch on this
Speaker 2: because it's fascinating because, like you said, we have a choice,
Speaker 2: we have a we have a mindset as well, you know,
Speaker 2: do we do we go down the negative mindset of
Speaker 2: you know, being the victim, or do we do we
Speaker 2: really you know, stand up and fight for what we
Speaker 2: believe in, where we want to be, where we think
Speaker 2: we should be in life. And yours was on the mountains. Now,
Speaker 2: what was your first mountain after your injury that you climbed?
Speaker 2: Do you remember it? And that was that a moment
Speaker 2: where you thought, you know what, I'm back on track now?
Speaker 4: Well, I suppose there's two things.
Speaker 3: One is I got back into rock climbing, so that's
Speaker 3: something I could do reds as soon as I could.
Speaker 3: I was actually still in a wheelchair and I used
Speaker 3: to take myself down to climbing wall in London that
Speaker 3: was really steep and I could climb up just literally
Speaker 3: just toe dapping, so just putting a little bit of
Speaker 3: weight through my feet, you know, and then i'd be
Speaker 3: lowered straight back down into the wheelchair. So you know,
Speaker 3: I got back into that quite quickly.
Speaker 2: That's hardcore, mate, That is hardcore.
Speaker 4: But you say that, but I didn't want to lose
Speaker 4: a community.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to be around you know, my friends,
Speaker 3: my cohort that those people that sort of elevated me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and if you can't go to the climbing wall, if
Speaker 3: you can't climb, well, now your friends would come out
Speaker 3: and see you. But at the weekends there or on
Speaker 3: the Wednesday night, they're all down the climbing wall. And
Speaker 3: that's where I wanted to be. I wanted to be
Speaker 3: among those people that uplifted me and supported me as much.
Speaker 4: As I could.
Speaker 3: So my first proper foray back into the big mountains,
Speaker 3: it was a dear friend of mine, Alan Powell, had
Speaker 3: this idea of a new winter line in the Alms
Speaker 3: and you know, we went down and we started to
Speaker 3: climb on Christmas Day and it was a hard rough
Speaker 3: It took us.
Speaker 4: I know that three or four days.
Speaker 3: I forget now, and the story behind it is all
Speaker 3: a bit of an epic. But we managed to do it.
Speaker 3: And that was my first real reintroduction into the mountains
Speaker 3: and it kind of proved to myself that, yeah, I
Speaker 3: had to approach things in a slightly different way. I
Speaker 3: had given myself more time to do the walk ins
Speaker 3: to get to the bottom. I would always have problems
Speaker 3: moving away from a bila. So you strap yourself to
Speaker 3: the mountain and you wait there for what can be
Speaker 3: hours where your mate goes up and places all the
Speaker 3: ropes and things like that, and moving away would be
Speaker 3: hard because my ankles or my would seize up. So
Speaker 3: those first movements were very clunky, but you learned to
Speaker 3: adapt to what you have and that was wow, I
Speaker 3: can do this and I will do this, and that
Speaker 3: was the green light and it just started to snowball
Speaker 3: from there.
Speaker 2: When did Mount Everest first come into your mind? When
Speaker 2: do you think, right, I'm going to I'm going to
Speaker 2: take on there, I'm going to stand on the apex
Speaker 2: of the world.
Speaker 4: Not for a long time.
Speaker 3: I mean it was late two thousand and three, and
Speaker 3: so so after the accident. What I did, when I
Speaker 3: realized I could do again, you know, I just was
Speaker 3: consuming climbing, That's all I did. I was working on
Speaker 3: building sites and I was just doing multiple expeditions, you know,
Speaker 3: to green Learn, to the Himalayas, to Pakistan. I just
Speaker 3: couldn't get enough of it. And it was on the
Speaker 3: back of a quite a groundbreaking expedition to Nepal in
Speaker 3: two thousand and three, and we with.
Speaker 4: The three of us, and we climbed this big new route.
Speaker 3: I think it was the second or third descent of
Speaker 3: Annapurna three, so just under eight thousand meters. We were
Speaker 3: on it for ten days. We ran out food, we
Speaker 3: ran out of fuel, and you know, it took it
Speaker 3: took all of us to a super dark place and
Speaker 3: it actually it was really interesting. It actually affected our
Speaker 3: friendships because we went so deep that when we came
Speaker 3: out of it, we had issues sort of connecting with
Speaker 3: one another again because we all had our own journey
Speaker 3: in the darkness and that was that was quite enlightening
Speaker 3: on how relationships can be affected by personal journeys. Even
Speaker 3: though we were three of us together and in theory
Speaker 3: going through the same journey, it was very very different
Speaker 3: for three of us. Anyway, we got quite a lot
Speaker 3: of the claim for that. And on the back of that,
Speaker 3: one of the British guiding companies who I was already
Speaker 3: working for, wrung me up and he just said, would
Speaker 3: you entertain going to ever It's for us And I
Speaker 3: had to think about it for about a nanosecond and
Speaker 3: I just said yes, And that was the starting starting
Speaker 3: point of it. I mean, Everiest had been beyond my
Speaker 3: financial capability, and to be honest, it was something which
Speaker 3: didn't interest me because it wasn't technical hard climbing.
Speaker 4: It was just never in my in my wheelhouse.
Speaker 3: And then it became so obvious that, you know, show
Speaker 3: me one climber who can, honestly, hand on heart say
Speaker 3: that at some stage in their career or their life
Speaker 3: they haven't thought about going to Everest. And that was
Speaker 3: probably November December two thousand and three. And I found
Speaker 3: myself on the mountain for the first time spring two
Speaker 3: thousand and four, feeling very out of my depth, not
Speaker 3: quite knowing how it all works. Having a great Surdar, Yeah,
Speaker 3: Surdar is like the head Shirpo, kind of tells you
Speaker 3: how it all works.
Speaker 4: And I loved it.
Speaker 3: I absolutely adored it, and I just wanted more.
Speaker 2: My next guest, faced unimaginable heartbreak, was doing the sport
Speaker 2: he loved. Jim Davison was climbing Mount Rainier in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety two with his best mate Mike, when tragedy struck.
Speaker 2: He shared what happened on this horrific day with myself.
Speaker 6: So we're moving together, and I was probing with my
Speaker 6: ice x as we had been for tens of thousands
Speaker 6: of times over the last three or four days, and
Speaker 6: I I probed a head, and the snow looked solid,
Speaker 6: and it felt solid, and I stuck my axe in it.
Speaker 6: It firmed up in the snow. But when I took
Speaker 6: that next step and put my foot forward, my foot
Speaker 6: sank in up to my shin and then up to
Speaker 6: my knee. And at first I thought it was just
Speaker 6: soft snow and it'll firm up underneath my foot, But
Speaker 6: that's not what happened. Suddenly I started accelerating and I
Speaker 6: realized I was no longer standing on a solid glacier.
Speaker 6: I was standing on a big, weak snowbridge going across
Speaker 6: a huge crevasse, and that snowbridge was starting to collapse
Speaker 6: beneath my feet.
Speaker 2: And that happens within the split second, right split second.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, I didn't even think about it. I just I
Speaker 6: actually heard myself yelling falling. That would give Mike a
Speaker 6: chance to drop to the snow and dig in with
Speaker 6: his ice axe and catch my fall. But I couldn't
Speaker 6: even turn around because this was all happening so fast.
Speaker 6: And immediately I sunk up to my waist and I
Speaker 6: tried to slam my axe onto the surface of the snow,
Speaker 6: and the pick went in all the way to the
Speaker 6: head of the axe, which means a really deep burial
Speaker 6: in the snow. But it's about noontime now on June
Speaker 6: twenty first, the longest day of the year, and the
Speaker 6: top snow was all wet and soft, and my ice
Speaker 6: axe pick just cut right through the snow like a
Speaker 6: like a knife through butter. And I realized I couldn't
Speaker 6: stop myself. And then all of a sudden, my head
Speaker 6: went underneath the snowbridge and everything went dark, and I
Speaker 6: realized I was inside the crevasse and accelerating into the mountain.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: So this happens in a split second. I know it
Speaker 2: all too well. Your goes in, you go down to
Speaker 2: your knee, and you just think, do you know what,
Speaker 2: I've got a bit of tough snow in front of me.
Speaker 2: I'm steady, I'm just going to plow through. Then whack.
Speaker 2: Before you know it, you're completely covered. So you're in
Speaker 2: the crevass and you're completely covered. How do you communicate
Speaker 2: with Mike?
Speaker 6: Well, at this point, we're in two different worlds. I'm
Speaker 6: inside the crevasse and there's just a little man size
Speaker 6: hole about two feet across that had collapsed beneath my feet.
Speaker 6: The rope goes up through that hole and back to Mike.
Speaker 6: So I'm plummeting vertically into the darkness. I'm swinging my
Speaker 6: ice ACKs around trying to hook the side walls, and
Speaker 6: I couldn't reach either sidewall. And I realized, oh, this
Speaker 6: is a big crevasse. And I knew my partner, Mike
Speaker 6: would be digging in because he's so well trained, and
Speaker 6: I know he was digging in. I wasn't going super fast,
Speaker 6: but my brain started guessing how far and I'd gotten.
Speaker 6: I couldn't talk to Mike because he was above the
Speaker 6: snow and I'm below it. And I started picking up speed,
Speaker 6: and my brain guess I'd gone twenty feet in thirty
Speaker 6: feet in, and I thought that's not right. Mike should
Speaker 6: have stopped me by now. Then my brain guesses forty feet.
Speaker 6: I thought forty feet were only separated by about fifty
Speaker 6: feet of rope. I thought, come on, Mike, stop me,
Speaker 6: stop me. I felt the rope jerk once and I
Speaker 6: slowed down and I almost stopped, and then I accelerated
Speaker 6: twice as fast into the darkness. Now I didn't know
Speaker 6: what that meant at the time. I was just overwhelmed
Speaker 6: with the sensations, and I couldn't figure out what was happening.
Speaker 6: But I know now what happened, which was my partner.
Speaker 6: Mike did his job, and he dug in to the
Speaker 6: snow and slowed me down for the first fifty feet
Speaker 6: as I fell into the crevas But as I went deeper,
Speaker 6: the rope pulled Mike closer and closer to the lip
Speaker 6: of the crevasse, and the same wet snow that caused
Speaker 6: me to fall into the carvas first place wouldn't let
Speaker 6: Mike stop, and he got pulled over the lip of
Speaker 6: the crevass, pulled into the crevas and tied together. The
Speaker 6: two of us sailed deeper inside the mountain, into the darkness.
Speaker 2: So when you're falling and Mike is obviously on the
Speaker 2: other end of the rope, do you then see Mike
Speaker 2: go past you in the crevass or do you stop together?
Speaker 2: How does that pan out when you now know that
Speaker 2: actually Mike is in the crevas with me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: When I thought I'd been falling first in the first
Speaker 6: fifty feet because it felt fast to me, But once
Speaker 6: Mike got pulled in and gravity had a full grip
Speaker 6: on us, I just kept accelerating even faster and faster,
Speaker 6: and that's when I knew that he had to be
Speaker 6: in there with me. We were both free falling, and
Speaker 6: I thought for sure we'd be dead. There's a word
Speaker 6: for this, as you know, and climbing. When you're falling
Speaker 6: a crevasse. Crevasses get skinnier and skinnier, narrow and narrow
Speaker 6: as you go down, and when you fall in with
Speaker 6: great velocity, you can get stuck in there, wedged in
Speaker 6: like a cork in a wine bottle. And I thought, man,
Speaker 6: we're going to get corked at the bottom of this thing.
Speaker 6: And I hit one wall lightly with my shoulder and
Speaker 6: I began to ricochet from one wall to the other,
Speaker 6: getting beat up as I went, hitting my head, hitting
Speaker 6: my back, and that probably took a little speed off me.
Speaker 6: But all of a sudden I slammed to a stop.
Speaker 6: The air burst out of my lungs kind of, and
Speaker 6: you know, I lost my breath, and I looked up
Speaker 6: and I saw a little point of light, and I
Speaker 6: couldn't understand what the light was. In fact, it was
Speaker 6: the surface of the snow far above my head. And
Speaker 6: then all of a sudden, wet snow started falling on
Speaker 6: my legs, and that was the snow bridge that collapse,
Speaker 6: and the snow that might had sort of snow plowed
Speaker 6: into that little hole. So all this huge, massive snow,
Speaker 6: like a truckload of snow started falling down, started burying
Speaker 6: me for my feet upwards. I panicked and tried to
Speaker 6: sit up, but my pack was wedged corked between the
Speaker 6: two ice walls that were about a foot and a
Speaker 6: half apart from one another, so I couldn't sit up,
Speaker 6: and I couldn't stand up. I was stuck facing upward,
Speaker 6: lying down towards the surface as the snow just piled
Speaker 6: up on me and up and up, and I was
Speaker 6: afraid I was gonna get totally buried, so I put
Speaker 6: my hands over my head like I'd learned an avalanche
Speaker 6: survival class. And then a big impact hit with a
Speaker 6: lot of weight. I figured out later that was Mike
Speaker 6: and his pack and more snow. Mike landed on me,
Speaker 6: and more snow fell on and if someone had been
Speaker 6: standing there when it all stopped, it would have just
Speaker 6: probably been a pile of snow with a little rope
Speaker 6: and a little bit of gear sticking out. Because both
Speaker 6: Mike and I were buried.
Speaker 2: Wow, let's give me goose bumps, because I've done you know,
Speaker 2: crevass training, and you know it all you know comes
Speaker 2: together in training because it's all in a controlled and
Speaker 2: safe environment. When everything comes to a holt and you're
Speaker 2: there in complete silence, what's your next thought process? What
Speaker 2: is going through your head in that very moment once
Speaker 2: everything sort of stops and you realize, actually, I'm in
Speaker 2: a real bad situation here.
Speaker 6: Well, it was so overwhelming because it had all happened
Speaker 6: in just a second or two. Falling through the crevass,
Speaker 6: falling through the air, landing in the snow, the snow
Speaker 6: falling on me. I thought to myself, I can't believe this.
Speaker 6: I just survived the fall somehow, and I can still think.
Speaker 6: Yet I'm trapped. I'm buried. I tried to push with
Speaker 6: my arms and legs and I couldn't get out, and
Speaker 6: that's when panics starting setting and I thought, I've got
Speaker 6: to get out. I can't breathe. I had managed to
Speaker 6: keep one hand in front of my face and I
Speaker 6: had a small air pocket about the size of a football.
Speaker 6: But I knew that wouldn't last very long. So I'm
Speaker 6: trying to push and push, and I'd heard in the
Speaker 6: avalanche survival class and avalanche training classes that if you
Speaker 6: get buried by avalanche de breath, it's like being held
Speaker 6: down by a thousand cold, wet hands, and that's what
Speaker 6: it felt like to me. I could feel the cold
Speaker 6: and the wetness and the moisture, but I was panicking
Speaker 6: so bad on my chest because I knew that I
Speaker 6: needed air any second now. And I pushed and pushed,
Speaker 6: and eventually my good right arm burst out of the
Speaker 6: snow and I swept away a little snow. I only
Speaker 6: had about maybe ten inches of snow pile up on
Speaker 6: my face, so I swept the snow a little bit
Speaker 6: and spit out a snowball that had jammed in my
Speaker 6: mouth and caught a few rushed breaths, and I realized
Speaker 6: I was okay and I could breathe. But I was
Speaker 6: buried right up to my chin, and I could see
Speaker 6: a little bit of Mike's yere nearby, but in the darkness,
Speaker 6: I couldn't see where he was. I knew he had
Speaker 6: to be nearby because I knew he fell in with me,
Speaker 6: and I yelled, Mike, Mike, where are you pull me
Speaker 6: out before it freezes, because I'm thinking we're trapped in
Speaker 6: this wet snow and this ice on both sides of us,
Speaker 6: the glacial ancient ice. It's going to freeze the whole
Speaker 6: thing in on a massive ice pretty soon. And I'd
Speaker 6: hope that he'd go, oh, there you are, jam and
Speaker 6: pull me out. But that's not what happened. When he
Speaker 6: answered back, he didn't answer back with words. He answered
Speaker 6: with a groan. I knew my friend and partner was
Speaker 6: hurt really bad.
Speaker 2: So you're literally eighty feet in this crevass. Just describe
Speaker 2: the environment. So you've managed to dig yourself out of.
Speaker 2: I can only describe it as an ic coffin. You're
Speaker 2: now free up to your waist. Mike is obviously at
Speaker 2: arm's length away from you. Is that correct? And is there?
Speaker 2: Can you see any light when you look up or
Speaker 2: you completely in the darkness.
Speaker 6: There was a little bit of light. I could see
Speaker 6: shapes pretty well, and I could see a little bit
Speaker 6: of colors. But the thing is, when sunlight goes through
Speaker 6: the ice, the ice filters out the reds and yellow
Speaker 6: and green wavelengths, so the only light that gets through
Speaker 6: is blue and the deeper you go into crevass, the
Speaker 6: bluer it gets. And this is the bluest crevasse I'd
Speaker 6: ever seen. It was a deep, dark blue, deep dark
Speaker 6: shadows everywhere, and I could feel the fear above me.
Speaker 6: I could feel something looming above me, but frankly, I
Speaker 6: was so focused on Mike. I didn't have time. And
Speaker 6: I also think then I didn't have the courage to
Speaker 6: look up. I knew that there was something really bad
Speaker 6: up above our heads, but I had to keep doing
Speaker 6: CEPR and Mike. So I was doing compressions on him,
Speaker 6: and I was trapped behind him. I was basically reaching
Speaker 6: with my arm around him from his back and touching
Speaker 6: his chest with the palm in my hand. And I
Speaker 6: knew it wasn't the right way to give compressions. I
Speaker 6: was supposed to be above him to get both palms
Speaker 6: and my body weight into it, but it's all I
Speaker 6: could do. So I was behind him. I kept pressing
Speaker 6: his chest back against my own and sort of squeezing
Speaker 6: him between my one hand and my own breastbone, and
Speaker 6: I kept it up for a long time, and then
Speaker 6: I'd give him some breaths, and I cleared his airway
Speaker 6: and I gave more breaths, and I kept it up
Speaker 6: for a while, and I was starting to panic because
Speaker 6: I was hoping that I would just give him two
Speaker 6: or three breads and that he would suddenly wake up
Speaker 6: and go, oh, I'm fine, Thanks for doing that, Jim.
Speaker 6: But that's not what happened. And after maybe another twenty
Speaker 6: minutes of CPR, I realized it wasn't coming around, and
Speaker 6: I knew I was supposed to keep up going to
Speaker 6: keep him alive, but also I knew I couldn't keep
Speaker 6: it up forever because I'm still trapped in the snow
Speaker 6: and it's going to freeze solid, and one person can't
Speaker 6: do CPR for hours or days. It just doesn't work.
Speaker 6: But I kept going for a while longer, and I
Speaker 6: checked vitals the second time, and I still didn't feel anything,
Speaker 6: and I finally had to stop, and I knew my
Speaker 6: good friend and partner Mike was deceased, and my head
Speaker 6: just dropped onto his chest. My chin started quivering, and
Speaker 6: fear and water started filling my eyes up, and I
Speaker 6: was just ready to give up. I thought, Mike's the
Speaker 6: better climbery ear. If he's dead, I'm going to be
Speaker 6: dead soon too. And I felt like just given up
Speaker 6: before I could even get the courage to look up
Speaker 6: and see where we.
Speaker 2: Were and WCE, all, this is happening. You're still attached
Speaker 2: to him on a rope. Aren't you us still attached
Speaker 2: together like an umbilical cord was you're giving the CPR
Speaker 2: while you're doing everything.
Speaker 5: Is that correct?
Speaker 6: Absolutely, we're still a team. We're still tied together. And
Speaker 6: that rope was all weaving in and out of the
Speaker 6: snow pile that Mike and I were still buried in,
Speaker 6: and he was sort of on top of me. But
Speaker 6: the rope goes in and out of the snow, and
Speaker 6: it's all starting to get wet from water dripping from above,
Speaker 6: and I can feel the cold emanating out of the
Speaker 6: ice walls. They were only about two feet apart where
Speaker 6: we were. We were in a little pile of snow
Speaker 6: about six or seven feet long and about two feet wide,
Speaker 6: and I assumed we were on the bottom of the crevass,
Speaker 6: because that made sense. We fell to the bottom, And
Speaker 6: even though I was ready to give up and start crying,
Speaker 6: I had a little voice in the back of my
Speaker 6: head that was like, you've got to get out, get
Speaker 6: out of the snow before you freeze in, and I
Speaker 6: got this rush of panic again. So I started thrashing
Speaker 6: at the snow and I dug my way out. It
Speaker 6: took me twenty minutes. I tried to rush at my
Speaker 6: knee torqued. I was buried underneath a piece of ice
Speaker 6: and the pack. And as soon as I got out,
Speaker 6: I got above Mic and I could do impressions the
Speaker 6: right way. So I started in again, but it had
Speaker 6: been I don't know, forty minutes by now since i'd
Speaker 6: heard her breathe, and it didn't bring him back. Then
Speaker 6: again my head dropped on his chest. And then I
Speaker 6: began to think about the question that you asked, Where
Speaker 6: are we? What's above us? And I was very fearful,
Speaker 6: but I kind of sat up on my knees and
Speaker 6: started looking up, and the ice walls were about two
Speaker 6: feet apart were where we were. Then they spread out
Speaker 6: to about three and four feet apart from one another,
Speaker 6: and the angle was about seventy degrees and then eighty degrees,
Speaker 6: and then I looked up up and up the walls
Speaker 6: were dead vertical, and they got out to about six
Speaker 6: feet apart from one another. And then I looked up
Speaker 6: up up and way up top the walls started overhanging
Speaker 6: to come back together. And that's where the snowbridge was
Speaker 6: at the top of the crevasse, and that hole in
Speaker 6: the snowbridge, that way back to the world was about
Speaker 6: eighty feet above our heads. And I said, in a
Speaker 6: quivering voice, So, man, Mike, we are in trouble. We
Speaker 6: are in big, big trouble. I had no idea how
Speaker 6: we could ever get out of that.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you a really difficult question. You
Speaker 2: attached to your buddy, you realize that he's you know,
Speaker 2: he's no longer with you. You look up and you think, right,
Speaker 2: I've got to get out of it. One, you know,
Speaker 2: I've got to get out of here, to tell our
Speaker 2: story to to you know, get to safety so we
Speaker 2: can potentially get Mike's body back. Three you know, you know,
Speaker 2: hopefully one of us will live to to live on
Speaker 2: the legacy of one another. But that moment when you
Speaker 2: realize he's gone and you have to unclip from your partner,
Speaker 2: almost leaving him there, that must have been one of
Speaker 2: the toughest decisions in your life.
Speaker 6: It was. It was the symbolism of unclipping from him
Speaker 6: was too great partners are supposed to take care of
Speaker 6: each other in the mountains, in life, in the military,
Speaker 6: we don't leave people behind. I couldn't bring Mike back
Speaker 6: from the dad. I knew that, but he was still
Speaker 6: my partner and still my responsibility. So as I started
Speaker 6: slowly trying to figure out how I might be able
Speaker 6: to climb this wall, I didn't really believe I could
Speaker 6: because I was a good ice climber, but not world class,
Speaker 6: and back then in nineteen ninety two, nobody was climbing
Speaker 6: overhanging ice like that, certainly not me. We had straight
Speaker 6: shafted and straight pick tools. Back then it was just
Speaker 6: beyond even the best pros in the world. So I
Speaker 6: had to untie him at one point, but I never
Speaker 6: wanted to leave him unanchored, so I worked the system
Speaker 6: out of using a second anchor. I put an ice
Speaker 6: crew into the wall and I anchored his body to that,
Speaker 6: and then I had to take the rope off him
Speaker 6: because I was going to need the full rope to
Speaker 6: climb out. But before I started that climbing, I again
Speaker 6: tied Mike back into the end of the rope. So
Speaker 6: before I even started climbing, I figured I had one
Speaker 6: hundred and fifty feet rope between my body and his,
Speaker 6: and we were still a team, and I was going
Speaker 6: to have to make it out of there on that
Speaker 6: rope because that's all the rope I had. I refused
Speaker 6: to start climbing untied to my partner, so that I
Speaker 6: worked out a complicated system to make sure he was
Speaker 6: always secured and that we were still connected. And as
Speaker 6: you can tell, it's an emotional memory, but I think
Speaker 6: it was part of what the strength that I needed
Speaker 6: to start climbing, because I wasn't climbing out just for me.
Speaker 6: I was climbing out for Mike. Because my friend is
Speaker 6: just killed his life to save mine. I couldn't not
Speaker 6: have the courage to even try and finish the job.
Speaker 6: So I think staying connected Mike was critical to me
Speaker 6: starting and later on when I ran out of strength
Speaker 6: and confidence on the wall, several times I would pull
Speaker 6: on the rope and feel Mike's body down below, stretching
Speaker 6: with the dynamic climbing cord, and that would remind me
Speaker 6: that I was climbing not just for me, but for
Speaker 6: him too, and for his family, so I could look
Speaker 6: them in the eye and tell them what happened. So
Speaker 6: staying connected with your partners in this case physically through
Speaker 6: a rope or emotionally is critical to doing your best
Speaker 6: even after those partners are gone.
Speaker 2: My final guest is a man I'm lucky enough to
Speaker 2: cool a really good friend.
Speaker 4: Nin's day.
Speaker 2: Perjea and I go back twins two years, and he
Speaker 2: was the one that actually gave me the nudge to
Speaker 2: climb K two. Here's a story for my interview with
Speaker 2: him earlier this year. Let's quickly touch on K two winter,
Speaker 2: because that was mission impossible and you made it possible.
Speaker 2: And where when are we going to see that come
Speaker 2: into light? And when are we going to see that
Speaker 2: hit our screens?
Speaker 5: You know, hopefully hopefully soon.
Speaker 7: What we managed to do as a team together but
Speaker 7: also as a leadership. You know, of course I had
Speaker 7: all my SAP has really paid well, and arguably I
Speaker 7: could be the first person to be there, and perhaps,
Speaker 7: you know, if I plan it for my own glory,
Speaker 7: on my success, on my name and all that, and
Speaker 7: that's how the whole expedition has been in the past,
Speaker 7: you know.
Speaker 5: But I'm a man of fairness and I always believe that,
Speaker 5: you know, since we all are working together. That why
Speaker 5: we don't take and sere equal success, equal name, equal glory.
Speaker 4: And it was the.
Speaker 5: Only mountain in the world that was never climbing the winter.
Speaker 7: You you named whatever, the best mountaineer in the world,
Speaker 7: you guys, you name it.
Speaker 5: They all have tried it. Nobody made it. You know,
Speaker 5: it's not accessible.
Speaker 2: K two isn't accessible at the best of times, let
Speaker 2: alone in winter.
Speaker 5: You know, even yeah you can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not accessible. Sometimes you can't even access the
Speaker 2: mountain in summer. What I loved is that viral moment
Speaker 2: of you on K two winter with your Nippolice team
Speaker 2: walking to the summit hand in hand, cuddling together, singing
Speaker 2: the national l anthem.
Speaker 3: Is that right.
Speaker 2: To the very summit. What a moment, What a life defining,
Speaker 2: changing moment in the community that Nepole absolutely deservely cherished
Speaker 2: from that.
Speaker 7: Oh bro, you know that was like, you know, I
Speaker 7: still remember, like, and as we gather around and then
Speaker 7: our last climber wasn't that far as well, you know,
Speaker 7: so so we all gather around and.
Speaker 5: As we walked to the summit, I think because every
Speaker 5: soul feel really respected and there was equal zue. I
Speaker 5: didn't even care about the view.
Speaker 8: And it was just that energy, you know, because most
Speaker 8: of the guys were in tears, you know, when we're
Speaker 8: like you know, you know, and when we see it,
Speaker 8: and it was a so much power of spirit, power
Speaker 8: of happiness, power of fairest, power of serving the zooe.
Speaker 7: And that's when we again put Nepal into global map,
Speaker 7: you know.
Speaker 5: So yeah, it was, it was. It was the best thing.
Speaker 7: But also what I managed to do here and was
Speaker 7: when I did the fourteen Pigs squait away. After the documentary,
Speaker 7: the Western climbers started criticizing me, and I know, quite right,
Speaker 7: but David Goggin says that you know, if you if
Speaker 7: you even walk into the water, they will say he's
Speaker 7: walking in the water because he cannot stream, you know,
Speaker 7: so anyway, so but it had got to me, so
Speaker 7: I was like, okay, you know, so at this point,
Speaker 7: before I did the summit brief, we check the weather.
Speaker 7: I read the weather out. Now here's the weather team.
Speaker 7: We need to go and climb this. But one team
Speaker 7: member among us has to climb at this one. At
Speaker 7: this one has to go without oxygen. And I asked
Speaker 7: individually and the team said no.
Speaker 5: And at this point, the team didn't knew what I
Speaker 5: was going through.
Speaker 7: So I had a first bite on, a first snip
Speaker 7: on my three fingers hair and three fingers heir. But
Speaker 7: I was wearing small gloves and I was hiding it
Speaker 7: because as a leader, you want you don't want to
Speaker 7: show the weakness, you know. But at this point, because
Speaker 7: you know, little things matter on the big mountains, and
Speaker 7: those little mindset is the difference between success and the failure, and.
Speaker 5: I didn't want it to show them any weakness, you know, exactly.
Speaker 7: Exactly, So at this point, for the first time, I
Speaker 7: take my gloves out and I said, guys, look my
Speaker 7: three fingers here, three fingers here, I have a first nip.
Speaker 7: I would one hundred percent go and climb this without oxygen.
Speaker 7: But if I go without oxygen, is you know, you
Speaker 7: know your body feel colder, you know, and I already
Speaker 7: have frost snip. That means you know, I'll go into
Speaker 7: frostbite and I wouldn't be able to use this hand
Speaker 7: and I probably die.
Speaker 5: So can anybody take this responsibility?
Speaker 7: Because I knew that Western community will criticize. Again, we
Speaker 7: just need to do this clean and cut, no criticize,
Speaker 7: because it doesn't matter what you did. The Western media
Speaker 7: is so big that you know you cannot go and
Speaker 7: keep telling everybody.
Speaker 5: So I just wanted one percent. Don't clean so.
Speaker 2: So big and so brutal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and nobody again, nobody step up again?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: For me, I was like, Okay, now I have to
Speaker 5: do it.
Speaker 7: And I was so much worried because how I keep
Speaker 7: up with this guy without oxygen and so that we
Speaker 7: climb together.
Speaker 5: And by this point and I had.
Speaker 7: Faced so much the real brutality, the reality of a
Speaker 7: thousand meters where you know, you don't know who is
Speaker 7: bought by, who's who's who's there, you know, So I
Speaker 7: was thinking, if I'm lit by the by the ten
Speaker 7: meters point, then somebody's just gonna go and take all
Speaker 7: the glory and the equality.
Speaker 5: We're gonna won't be there and you know all that stuff.
Speaker 7: So I was like, okay, you know, but anyway, you know,
Speaker 7: I was right at the front, managed to stop and.
Speaker 5: And the first post we made it.
Speaker 7: And if this is what the Special Forces teach to anticipation,
Speaker 7: you know, we we we talked about the team, and
Speaker 7: the first post was about the team.
Speaker 5: And guess what is spread away?
Speaker 7: The Western community saying that, oh, it's not a great
Speaker 7: because it was with oxygen and all that. I'm just
Speaker 7: waiting there. I was like, okay, and I know even wanted.
Speaker 5: To tell this story, but I saw some of the
Speaker 5: comments me valuing the men, and those people who were
Speaker 5: criticizing were some of my Western friends who had submitted
Speaker 5: mountains on the lines Me and you fixed yeah, and
Speaker 5: it really hurt me.
Speaker 7: And and after two days off, you know, like getting
Speaker 7: criticide to make Mugie, you know, dear brother Kim and Nims.
Speaker 7: You just need to say it because it's too much now,
Speaker 7: we just need to kill the negative day. And that's
Speaker 7: when I said, okay, you I have done with that oxygen.
Speaker 7: But yeah, this story is so powerful. But it was
Speaker 7: again with the purpose, you know, So that's what it
Speaker 7: got us there.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me for this special best Off episode.
Speaker 2: I'll be back with new episodes soon, but in the meantime,
Speaker 2: if you'd like to catch up and hear these three
Speaker 2: powerful conversations in full, you'll find links to them in
Speaker 2: the show notes. I'm at Middleton, See you in the
Speaker 2: next episode.