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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from Newstalks EDB, Good.

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Speaker 2: Morning News, Yellowing Year with Jack tame On News Talks EDB. Today,

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Speaker 2: Mount Everest is probably more commercialized than it has ever

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Speaker 2: been in its history. It was once a deadly lure

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Speaker 2: of sorts for adventurous climbers, but now, of course, sending

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Speaker 2: tourists to the summit is very big business. Indeed, we've

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Speaker 2: all seen the photos of climbers queued up as they

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Speaker 2: wait to summit on the world's highest mountain. The first

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Speaker 2: paying Climate clients stepped onto the summit of Mount Everest

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Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety two. Now, roughly eight hundred people

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Speaker 2: attempt to climb Mount Everest each year, with an average

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Speaker 2: cost for clients of about sixty five thousand US dollars

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Speaker 2: a person, although some pay about two hundred thousand dollars

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Speaker 2: per person for VIP experiences. Journalist Will Cockrel has been

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Speaker 2: a climber and mountaineer for more than thirty years. In

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Speaker 2: his new books inc The Renegades and Rogues Who Built

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Speaker 2: an Industry at the Top of the World is started

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Speaker 2: with quotes from more than one hundred Western and Sherpa

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Speaker 2: climbers from clients, from writers and filmmakers, as the book

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Speaker 2: explores how Mount Everest has been commercialized in recent decades.

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Speaker 2: Well is with us this morning, Calder, Good morning, and

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Speaker 2: welcome to the show.

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Speaker 3: Hey, great to be here, Jack, Thank you.

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Speaker 2: This is a subject of particular interest to New Zealanders,

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Speaker 2: and New Zealanders are a particular interest in your amazing book.

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Speaker 2: But I I just wondered if we could start with

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Speaker 2: the big picture. Can you compare Mount Everest of nineteen

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Speaker 2: fifty three, the Mount Everest of Hillary and Tenzing, to

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Speaker 2: the Mount Everest of today.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, you know, back then and even up

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Speaker 4: until I would say the eighties, the big X factor

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Speaker 4: with Everest, and it was a big one was the

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Speaker 4: however many you know, many meters above K two. It

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Speaker 4: was so the sort of tallest mountain in the world thing,

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Speaker 4: you know, nearly nine thousand meter peak. Really no one

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Speaker 4: had any idea what the body would do up at

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Speaker 4: those heights, so where the climbing maybe didn't feel terribly

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Speaker 4: technically difficult to a lot of people, even back in

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Speaker 4: Hillary's day, it really was the unknown above eight thousand

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Speaker 4: meters a little bit like stepping off a spaceship. I think,

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Speaker 4: you know, you don't know what the body is going

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Speaker 4: to do, and you're up in a no margin for

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Speaker 4: error place, and so if the body shuts down, which

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Speaker 4: it would essentially without oxygen, then you know, then that's it.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 4: So at the time, Hillary was basically stepping into a

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Speaker 4: place no one had before.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, whereas today people are yeah, climbing a mountain

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Speaker 2: that has been substantially commercialized, to say the least. And

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Speaker 2: you hit on an important point there, will. I mean,

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Speaker 2: the thing about manna Verist is that from a technical perspective,

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Speaker 2: from a climbing perspective, it is not a particularly difficult

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Speaker 2: mountain to climb, right, it is the altitude it's a challenge.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 4: I mean I always bristle a little bit, and I

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Speaker 4: think this comes across in my book when people when

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Speaker 4: people call it easy, you know, especially mountaineers, have gotten

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Speaker 4: into a sort of a bad you know, real mountaineers

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Speaker 4: have gotten into a bad habit of saying, oh, Everest

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Speaker 4: is ridiculous because it's easy, and that's not true. It's

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Speaker 4: not it's not incredibly technical. You know, if you have

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Speaker 4: some basic skills and basic athleticism, all the you know,

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Speaker 4: all the slopes and and hazards are all fairly moderate

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Speaker 4: to overcome, but there's still some steep sections and some

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Speaker 4: tricky climbing on it for sure. But you know, I

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Speaker 4: think when they talk about easy, they mean you're not

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Speaker 4: you know, you're not vertical, and it's not for elite climbers,

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Speaker 4: that's for sure.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, And and from a technical perspective, even compared

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Speaker 2: to the likes of K two, for example, it's it's

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Speaker 2: it's not easy, but perhaps easier is the word. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: And certainly wouldn't be easy if you if you weren't

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Speaker 2: using oxygen, which of course most climbers to summ up

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Speaker 2: Man Everus these days absolutely use. So take us back

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Speaker 2: a couple of decades. Then you started off with Everston

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Speaker 2: Tensing in fifty three. You move along a little bit

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Speaker 2: into the latter part of last century, and it's really

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Speaker 2: the late eighties, the earlier parts of the nineteen nineties

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Speaker 2: where commercial guides start guiding clients up man Everest. So

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Speaker 2: what led to that transition.

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Speaker 3: Well, we can put it.

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Speaker 4: You know a lot of people say it was because

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Speaker 4: of a man named get Bass. You know, this eccentric

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Speaker 4: taxan oil man, had a lot of money. He was

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Speaker 4: the owner of a very well known ski resort here

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Speaker 4: in the States, and he got it in his head

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Speaker 4: that he wanted to He was not a climber, loved

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Speaker 4: the outdoors, loved hiking, loved skiing, but not a climber.

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Speaker 4: He got it in his head that he wanted to

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Speaker 4: climb the Seven Summits. And it's not to say that

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Speaker 4: he invented the notion, but no one had done it,

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Speaker 4: and no one had verbalized that they were trying to

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Speaker 4: do it. So he and an equally passionate partner, Frank Wells,

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Speaker 4: one of the big studio heads in Hollywood, they both

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Speaker 4: had this dream and they teamed up and they went

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Speaker 4: for it. And their talent was for surrounding themselves with

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Speaker 4: very talented, usually pretty well known climbers like Chris Bondington

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Speaker 4: for example, from the UK, and they would basically, you know,

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Speaker 4: pay for these enormously expensive, complicated expeditions, and then they

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Speaker 4: get these, you know, these elite climbers along and then

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Speaker 4: that would of course be their safe net would be

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Speaker 4: to climb with these climbers. Frank Wells eventually dropped out

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Speaker 4: and it left Bass to reckon with Everest, which he

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Speaker 4: had tried already twice. And it was a gentleman named

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Speaker 4: David Brishears. I don't know how well known he is

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Speaker 4: in New Zealand, but he's kind of a legend here,

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Speaker 4: an incredibly strong climber and filmmaker. He was the one

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Speaker 4: who made the Imax film. He passed away about two

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Speaker 4: months ago or a month and a half ago, actually

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Speaker 4: very unexpectedly. Anyway, it was Dick Bass and David Brisheers

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Speaker 4: who summited Mount Everest. And you know, Dick Bass could

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Speaker 4: not really keep to himself how inexperienced he was when

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Speaker 4: he came down. That's what changed Everest was Dick Bass

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Speaker 4: shouting from the rooftops that he's not a climber, but

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Speaker 4: he did climb Everest. He even went on the tonight

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Speaker 4: show Johnny Carson's, you know, big talk show at.

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Speaker 2: The time and said, oh are you there?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Sorry, oh no, yeah, sorry, you broke up? Well And

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Speaker 2: what did he say on Johnny Hill?

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Speaker 4: He went on Johnny Carson's talk show and he said

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Speaker 4: as much. He announced, you know, to those ten million

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Speaker 4: people watching. You know, he makes jokes like the only

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Speaker 4: running he ever does is through airports. But he basically

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Speaker 4: was sort of letting people know that you can climb

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Speaker 4: Mount Everest with tenacity, if you know, not the technical skills.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we fast forward a little bit and your story.

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Speaker 2: Your story documents this transition really really well, because when

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Speaker 2: when a lot of people think about guiding man Everest

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Speaker 2: and think about, you know that the guides who've kind

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Speaker 2: of become synonymous with that industry. We think of New Zealanders,

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Speaker 2: we think of Russell Bryce, we think of Rob Paul,

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Speaker 2: Gary Ball, Guy Kotta, and by the mid nineties you

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Speaker 2: have the so called Big Five. That's when you start

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Speaker 2: to see competition between the guiding companies leading clients to

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Speaker 2: the summit of Everest. At that point, had it kind

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Speaker 2: of become you know, gross in the way that people

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Speaker 2: start to started to criticize the industry because they were

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Speaker 2: still leading like clean up exhibition expeditions and that kind

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Speaker 2: of thing, and they were only pitching base camp for

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Speaker 2: the season, right and they were removing it during the

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Speaker 2: off season, so their preps weren't scarring the mountain in

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Speaker 2: the way that some people might criticize the industry as doing.

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Speaker 4: Now, well, the irony with with not just Everest, but

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Speaker 4: a lot of plate wild places like this is. It

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Speaker 4: was actually considered a bit dirtier or felt dirtier to

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Speaker 4: a lot of climbers. I talked to many who recalled

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Speaker 4: it this way. And but this is this is when

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Speaker 4: at a time when no one went there, so no

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Speaker 4: one thought to clean.

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Speaker 3: It up, if you know what I mean, A few

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Speaker 3: visitors to the place.

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Speaker 4: Would sort of leave their you know, their tuna fish

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Speaker 4: tins behind without much thought. But it wasn't a national park,

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Speaker 4: et cetera. But funny enough, with popularity came stricter rules,

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Speaker 4: and you know, all I can say I never been.

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Speaker 4: I've been to Nepall once, but I'd never been to

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Speaker 4: Everspace Camp. And when I went, I was kind of

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Speaker 4: blown away at how well taken care of that National

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Speaker 4: park is. It's a real treasure to them, and it

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Speaker 4: is funny to you know, is it's ironic after reading

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Speaker 4: all the stories about how gross base Camp is and

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Speaker 4: how you know, sort of dirty this these hordes of

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Speaker 4: trekkers make this place, and I was astounded.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So if we once again to fast forward a

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Speaker 2: little bit in our story to what extent have the

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Speaker 2: Nepalese and sherpas been able to claim part of this

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Speaker 2: industry because in the last few years there has been

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Speaker 2: a bit of a transition of sorts.

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Speaker 3: That's right, a major transition.

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Speaker 4: And really it came with with the Westerners who had

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Speaker 4: built this industry. It became obvious fairly early to them

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Speaker 4: that the sherpas were indispensable.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So they were much stronger on the mountain, much more

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Speaker 4: able up high, and could be counted on to do

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Speaker 4: multiple rotations up and down the mountain. So they became

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Speaker 4: the backbone of the industry. What they didn't have was

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Speaker 4: mountain guide training, and I don't think I think part

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Speaker 4: of writing this book was to let people know how

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Speaker 4: important that was and what a big deal it was

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Speaker 4: that they didn't have it. Right, mountain guides are there

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Speaker 4: for when things go wrong, and so many sherpas told

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Speaker 4: me so many stories of the nineties and the two

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Speaker 4: thousands when they were the strongest climbers on the mountain,

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Speaker 4: and yet if someone broke their leg up high, or

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Speaker 4: someone fell into a crevass, they just did not know

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Speaker 4: the you know, the protocol and the complicated knots to

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Speaker 4: get out of a crevass. And so that kept them

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Speaker 4: in this pay grade that you know to us in

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Speaker 4: the West, you know, you look over and it feels

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Speaker 4: like exploitation.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, right, kept.

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Speaker 4: Them in this, uh, this pay grade that's good for Nepal,

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Speaker 4: but certainly not near what the Westerners were making. But

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Speaker 4: I I did kind of find enough evidence and go

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Speaker 4: down a road in my storytelling that that explains how

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Speaker 4: it was actually the Westerners who kick started that training.

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Speaker 4: It took a long time, right, You don't just become

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Speaker 4: a mountain guide overnight.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and so you.

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Speaker 4: Know, you're talking a decade of training, but it was

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Speaker 4: really the Western guides that that shepherded the the Nepalis

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Speaker 4: and Sherpas through that training. And now we're in this

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Speaker 4: place where the Sherpas have are owning their own trekking

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Speaker 4: guiding companies and also being paid the same as the

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Speaker 4: Westerners to guide it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So when we think about the pictures of the

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Speaker 2: last couple of years of the of the climbers lined

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Speaker 2: up to try and summit Mount Everest, do you do

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Speaker 2: you think that that is a fear, you know, an

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Speaker 2: accurate representation of what climbing Everest has become.

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Speaker 4: Sort of, it's not totally. It's not totally inaccurate. And

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Speaker 4: what I mean by that is it is a crowded mountain.

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Speaker 4: I do not attempt to sort of, you know that

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Speaker 4: back against this you know rumor and debate.

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Speaker 3: About it being crowded. It is crowded.

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Speaker 4: What people don't understand is that most people who go

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Speaker 4: climb Everest these days are not going, you know, to

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Speaker 4: get lost in the wilderness. They're not going to commune

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Speaker 4: with nature, so they're not going for the reasons people

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Speaker 4: are just assuming, which is to not be around people,

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Speaker 4: and they think it's ridiculous.

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Speaker 3: Why would you go.

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Speaker 4: The reason for that shot was that the summit days

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Speaker 4: all revolve around weather windows and in fact, probably a

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Speaker 4: lot of key Wes might know this better than others

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Speaker 4: because of the into thin air story. The weather reports

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Speaker 4: are so good these days that a lot of times

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Speaker 4: people have Summitt fever, and when they spot that first

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Speaker 4: four day window, the guided groups decide they're going to

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Speaker 4: go up that day. That's what ends up giving you

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Speaker 4: that picture is when everybody says, let's do it. Who

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Speaker 4: knows there might not be another window. I will say

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Speaker 4: the thing behind the picture that people don't know is

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Speaker 4: that all the guiding companies that do do that tend

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Speaker 4: to make some pretty meticulous plans around that happening. Right,

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Speaker 4: So they are aware that their clients are going to

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Speaker 4: be sitting in a queue for an extra couple hours.

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Speaker 2: Right, and so they take sufficient oxygen and that kind

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Speaker 2: of thing in order to in order to prepare for it. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: how do how do you how do you think New

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Speaker 2: Zealanders should think about our country's kind of cultural relationship

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Speaker 2: with Everest, Because it seems to me that there are

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Speaker 2: two parts. You have the incredible story of stream and Hillary.

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Speaker 2: I mean he adorns uh you know, our currency. He

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Speaker 2: is like, you know, I think kind of lionized as

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Speaker 2: the ultimate image of what New Zealand And does hope

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Speaker 2: they represent in many respects. But then you think about

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Speaker 2: how Everest has become commercialized over the last three or

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Speaker 2: four decades, and New Zealand has certainly played a role

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Speaker 2: in that. New Zealanders have played a role in that.

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Speaker 2: And some people would say that that preps is a

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Speaker 2: little uglier. You know, I.

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Speaker 4: Don't want to get you any hate mail, but I

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Speaker 4: of course came away from this with the idea that

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Speaker 4: the most important kiwis on the mountain and really punched

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Speaker 4: above their weight. Was in this dawn of the guiding era.

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Speaker 4: And as you said, you know, two of the five

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Speaker 4: legacy companies were owned by Kiwis, Russell Brice's Himex and

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Speaker 4: Hall and Ball's Adventure Consultants. And in my book, I

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Speaker 4: chronicle that deciding to guide on Mount.

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Speaker 3: Everest was not an easy thing.

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Speaker 4: I think that's the biggest misconception is it's that if

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Speaker 4: you're a mountain guide, you decide why not guide on

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Speaker 4: the tallest one in the world. It was an audacious

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Speaker 4: idea that took a lot of groundwork to figure out

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Speaker 4: how to do it and if it was possible. And

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Speaker 4: the New Zealanders just play such a big important role

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Speaker 4: in that and in the dawn of the guiding era. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: and if you're someone if you're like me and you

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Speaker 4: don't feel like the guiding business or the yeah, the

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Speaker 4: guiding business on Everest sort of deserves the ire it gets,

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Speaker 4: and especially now that it is basically run and owned

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Speaker 4: by the sherp of people in this very prosperous part

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Speaker 4: of Nepal. I feel like the legacy, the Kiwi legacy

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Speaker 4: for me, is in people like Russell, Bryce and Hall

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Speaker 4: and Ball, yeah yeah, and Guy Catter and endless other

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Speaker 4: you know, I think Lydia Brady and there's a but

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Speaker 4: you know, there's a ton of amazing Kiwi guides throughout

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Speaker 4: the decades.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So do you feel optimistic when about the future

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Speaker 2: of Everest and the future of guiding on Everest?

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Speaker 4: I do, Actually, I think that Unfortunately, like a lot

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Speaker 4: of stories that come off Everest, it's going to be

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Speaker 4: hard to convince the average punter or you know, the

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Speaker 4: people that when you hear about more deaths or tragedy

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Speaker 4: or mistakes, it's going to be hard to say, oh,

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Speaker 4: this is this is okay. But I think what's happening

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Speaker 4: right now is that the Nepali companies, most of them

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Speaker 4: run by incredibly passionate, amazing climbing guides with full i

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Speaker 4: f mg A certification.

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Speaker 3: They're running a tight ship.

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Speaker 4: However, now that they are in charge of the industry,

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Speaker 4: they're going through a lot of the similar growing pains

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Speaker 4: that the Westerners did early on, and they're you know,

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Speaker 4: trying to make some decisions within their cultural reference of Nepal,

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Speaker 4: and there's some mistakes being made, there's some bad judgment

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Speaker 4: in there, and I think last year, you know, you

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Speaker 4: may remember, was the actually the dead lest season of

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Speaker 4: all seasons on Mount Everest, at a time when I

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Speaker 4: would have said to anybody before it that you know,

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Speaker 4: we're in the safest era of climbing Everest that we've

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Speaker 4: ever been in, and I would say that was proven

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Speaker 4: by this year where we had you know, I think

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Speaker 4: it was three or four deaths within the guiding infrastructure,

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Speaker 4: and so yeah, I would say that this is really

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Speaker 4: this is amazing for Nepal.

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Speaker 3: I mean, one thing that I also.

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Speaker 4: I'm not sure many people realize is how much pride

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Speaker 4: the Napalies take in Mount Everest.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, the fact.

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Speaker 4: That, you know, perhaps more so than they're in New Zealand,

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Speaker 4: the fact that it sits in their country and it

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Speaker 4: happened to be an Apolli that was on that first

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Speaker 4: ascent team. Mountaineering is a big deal there. You know,

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Speaker 4: they don't have cricket. I mean they do, but they

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Speaker 4: don't have like a national team. You know, they don't

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Speaker 4: have a lot of these different sports, and this is it,

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Speaker 4: this is their this is their greatness.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a very good point. And look, well, thank

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Speaker 2: you so much for being with us. It is a

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Speaker 2: fascinating story and one that I think many New Zealanders

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Speaker 2: will connect with, not only because of all of the

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Speaker 2: New Zealanders who feature Without it, Will's book is Everestinc.

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Speaker 2: The renegades and rogues who built an industry at the

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Speaker 2: top of the world.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or

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