Beyond the Summit Page #2

I knew Scott Fischer a little...

He was one of the toughest

mountaineers I ever knew...

When you think he and Rob Hall

could die on Everest,

it means that anybody

could die on Everest...

It reminds us of our mortality

and reminds us that we have to know

when it's time to turn back,

and try and always make

the right judgment calls...

Not go beyond our capabilities...

Everest is worth climbing, but not

worth dying for, that's for sure...

There is a young Sherpa boy...

He was on another team...

There was only three teams

in 95 on the mountain...

And we were going on up to Camp 3 and

we were at the bottom of the Lhotse Face

and he was getting nearer to the camp

and he didn't clip into the fixed line...

And he fell, and we watched him fall,

all the way down the mountain...

Leaving a trail of blood...

By the time he hit the bottom of

the mountain he was already dead...

And it was the first time we had seen

anyone die on the mountain...

And it always reminds us just

how dangerous that Lhotse Face is...

I always just come up here

and just spend a minute...

There's too many up here... too many...

While certainly no 5 star hotel

and after 10 days on the trail,

Base Camp is a virtual Shangri- La.

Home sweet Home...

Located on the Northwestern edge

of the Khumbu Glacier

and situated against the West

shoulder of Everest,

this piece of communal real estate

is free of avalanches,

rock- slides and falling ice seracs...

Apa. I'm save arrived...

Sun's out it's a gorgeous day...

Be a hell of a lot better

if you didn't show up.

I was having a good time...

I hope my bags unpacked you

son of a b*tch...

We told them to take it back down

the Khumbu...

Too much weight

it killed about 3 yaks

trying to get all your stuff in...

I was expecting to have my tent up

by now...

I don't see my tent...

Uh, Bob, where's my tent?

Each climbing season,

Base Camp must be built from scratch.

The only materials used are

the rocks and boulders

that are churned out by

the ever-shifting glacial moraine...

While comparatively safe,

life on the lateral moraine of

a glacier does have its challenges,

It's hard, it's cold and it moves.

A 5 foot per day glacial flow slowly

agitates years of biological waste

deposited at the upper camps.

A continual contamination of ground

water is a constant health hazard

for the people living at Base Camp

during the climbing seasons.

The human waste problem at Base Camp

is hard to distinguish from the

animal waste problem at Base Camp.

What we've found so far is that

the water supplies in some places

are showing moderate contamination

with fecal coliform.

And fecal coliform is an indication

of contamination by biological waste.

Whether it's by humans or yaks,

we don't know, we can't tell that here.

But what we are finding is that

some areas that people use for water

sources are actually contaminated,

and that makes us, obviously,

change our water sources,

be more careful with the water

that we're drinking.

And, uh, trying to make sure that

any human waste that's generated here

is definitely contained and treated

so that we're not contributing to

that problem...

At this elevation

the amount of oxygen in the air

is half of what it is at sea level,

which makes the actual act of

cleaning-up more difficult.

The Sherpas live at elevation

some as high as 14,000 feet,

which naturally allows them

to physically accomplish

what many people from sea level cannot.

We've hired an additional

to concentrate on the clean-up effort.

Our plan for camp 2,

once we get it established

is to have the Sherpas clean up

as much of the exposed garbage

as possible.

So far reports from the teams

who have gotten in there

have indicated that we have a very

high snow and ice level up there.

It's going make finding this garbage

and removing it a very difficult task.

The Sherpas will then continue up

to camp 4

to remove some of the hundreds of

oxygen bottles

that are still up there as well as

tent poles and general trash.

Before proceeding beyond Base Camp,

each expedition conducts

a puja ceremony.

The puja asks the spirits

for understanding

and tolerance of Human activities...

Asks for luck, health, fair weather,

and permission to climb the mountain...

The puja is conducted by

a monk or Lama.

The alter is built of stone

and is part of the Base Camp set-up.

This is the heart of the worship site

or Lhap- so...

The climbing gear

is laid near the fire.

This is so the smoke

from the burning juniper branches

may purify the crampons,

ice axes and ropes so vital

for the days ahead...

On the morning of the puja,

Sherpas and the westerners alike

bring the sacramental offerings

to the lap-so...

Rice, incense, & beer,

are traditional gifts to the spirits.

Near the end of the day-long ceremony,

and with prayer flags in place,

the center pole is raised to embrace

the camp with good luck.

Finally everyone chants together

while holding handfuls of flour...

"Go up, may good fortune arise."

hang which is a rice beer, is shared by all members

of the expedition

as a way of closing the ceremony.

Tomorrow the team will venture into

the Khumbu Icefall and begin a week-

long acclimatization

at the higher camps.

Avalanches, falling ice seracs

the size of houses,

and aluminum ladders precariously

balanced over crevasses-

are all hazards in

this lumbering river of ice.

More climbers have perished

in the Khumbu icefall

than on any other part

of the mountain...

Even the summit.

Human beings do not perform well

at this elevation

due to the lack of oxygen.

An acclimatization-process

is necessary

to adapt the body to the thin air

of this new environment.

Time spent at the higher camps

enable red blood cells

to multiply which in turn will carry

more oxygen.

The climbing team continue

their acclimatization

while the Sherpas push up to Camp 4

to begin the cleanup operation.

Although the Khumbu icefall is regarded

as the most dangerous leg of the climb,

the Lhotse face is no casual walk

in the park.

It is a 4000 foot near-vertical

wall of ice.

Like the icefall,

multiple trips up and down

only increase the danger

for anyone traveling...

Because the wind-blown South Col is accessible,

we wanted to go up there and clean off

the hundreds of oxygen bottles

that have been left... and mainly,

these are the large, heavy ones

that no one wanted to bring down

in the past.

Some of them weigh up to

In Nepal, the average annual income

is five hundred U.S. dollars per year.

At twenty-five dollars

per oxygen bottle,

this man will make his income

in 4 trips to the South Col.

Down the hill he will walk

with 5 empty Bottles in his pack...

worth $125 U.S. dollars.

Ask any Sherpa why he climbs,

and the answer is nearly always the same:

"I climb today so my children

do not have climb tomorrow."

But how did the garbage come

to be here in the first place?

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