Beyond the Summit Page #3

The climb up Everest itself is

so arduous... so dangerous...

so cold and windy... that past climbers

felt lucky to get out alive.

They thought little about

the trash they left behind.

The accumulation of garbage is simply

the past 40 years of climbers

reaching for the roof of the world...

and often hastily retreating.

This is Pemba speaking from Camp 2...

over...

Base Camp, can you hear me?

Our Sherpas are going up to South Col

and starting to bring

the oxygen bottles.

And I'm going to scale here,

hoping to weigh some oxygen bottles...

I'm going to send down

from Camp 2 to Base Camp,

Because there are 9 Sherpas coming

up tomorrow from Base Camp to Camp 2

and on the way back

I'll send down there

some garbage and

empty oxygen bottles... over.

OK. I understand.

It's possible for us to weight

the bottles here instead of...

Today's our rest day.

We're out looking for garbage and

trash left by previous expeditions.

That's not going to well,

because the snow- and ice-cap here at

Camp 2 is way higher than normal.

Usually this is bare rock

and you can see a lot of the trash,

but now it's covered with

snow and ice

so we're combing the area

without too much success.

A storm moves rapidly up

the Western Cwm,

temporarily halting the

clean-up effort.

The climbers accompanied by

several Sherpas retreat back to Base Camp

with the first full packs of

trash and oxygen bottles.

The remaining Sherpas will wait out

the storm at Camp 2.

Once the weather clears, they will

promptly resume the clean-up operation.

All the trash and bottles that

come into Base Camp

must be weighed and logged,

to accurately compensate

the Clean-up Sherpas.

As well as present

a final report to

The Sagarmatha Pollution

control committee...

...and on the oxygen bottles,

here's how much per kilo...

so if it's one 15-kilo bottle,

or 6 for a TOTAL of 15,

you get the same money by the weight.

So now can you say that one again?

I just wanna make sure that

I got it right.

Okay, so it's 15 kilograms...

Okay now but how many rupees

for the full trip?

Camp IV to Base Camp is 3800 rupees.

I think most of

the Khumbu Sherpas,

they're all belong for

the trekkings and climbing.

Because we don't have education.

We have a good school in Kathmandu,

but we can't do anything.

If we want to learn about,

like a doctor, at the doctor schools,

engineering schools -

everything is Kathmandu.

But, to the Sherpas

who live in the mountain areas,

they are good for the mountain areas.

Because they are used to

the altitude...

They'd like to study about

the doctor and the engineer,

but they don't have enough economic

...the problem of the economic.

So they are running for the Everest,

and other mountains,

because they get the good money.

Because, you know, this is my income...

without this I don't have a job.

After this, I have like 5 or 6 months

in Kathmandu without job.

Because my son, I have 2 boys...

they are in school...

I have to look after all of them...

and I have to pay for the house rent...

like every man.

And because of the expeditions and trekking,

we get a good job, to earn money,

and our children,

they are very lucky,

they can go to school in Kathmandu.

Otherwise they stay in our village...

we don't have a good school

in our village.

Sherpas are extremely

good business people.

The families work in these units,

so as a family unit,

they will make a fairly substantial

chunk of change.

Probably, in the end, more money that

a U.S. guide would make on the trip.

Weather forecasting in the Himalaya

is extremely challenging.

Expeditions rely on daily satellite

images streaming in on the internet...

Uh, we've got a weather report

from Breckenridge next 5 days.

And that weather report is not good,

repeat, the weather report is NOT good.

While the clean-up team of Sherpas

tend against the inclimate weather at the high cam

the subject at base camp is the

rapidly closing summit window.

We are looking at a good day and

I don't see the point of going

other people

until we have a month of good days.

I think everyone realizes

or feels like at least I feel like

we got only one summit in this group,

we are not going to go up twice

and if we put this much

effort and time

we should wait for

a better window deal.

What's the downside of waiting at

Camp 2 rather than waiting here?

What you gain in acclimatization

you lose in strength,

and the balance is not equal,

and while you acclimatize

a little more,

you may have a little less

of a headache

when you get up to 4, you've grown

that much weaker.

At Base Camp your maintaining.

But I am looking at the weather

and the weather has not been good,

It has not been the weather I've seen

on this mountain 3 previous times.

Know that the disasters that have

occurred have been three things;

you've got bad weather,

high winds, deep snows,

you're not going to get to the summit,

a couple of people do...

If you have long lines of people

going on up,

and you get caught up in a cue more

or less to speak, you don't make it.

And you go up too high and your

sitting there waiting for your summit,

you're so beat up, you don't make it.

Weeks of living and working at

this altitude

continue to take its toll

the climbers.

Team member Rob Chang has fallen ill

and has little choice but

to leave the expedition.

I've been climbing for 11 years.

Going down, I know what it means.

But like I said, I don't want to

become a liability here.

I'm not getting better...

I'm kinda feeling worse, so...

It's always a matter of judgment

in terms of the time it takes

for your body to acclimatize.

Which is a finite process

that you have to spend time

getting used to this altitude,

so you're comfortable breathing.

Your body needs time to

acclimatize to that.

On the other hand, the other thing

that's happening to your body

is there is a continuous,

slow deterioration process going on.

And so it's a balance of the time

it takes to acclimatize,

and get that done properly,

and not wait too long,

and let the deterioration process get

ahead of the acclimatization process,

and then you have a net loss.

Living at extreme altitude

is not physiologic.

It's man wasn't made to live here

for a long period of time, and in fact,

there are no indigenous populations

that live this high.

Part of the problems are that

you don't sleep as well...

you mal-absorb fats, particularly

you tend to lose weight...

with that you lose vigor.

...and then the thing that

you don't wanna have happen is

the body begins to metabolize

the muscle mass...

and that results in weakness,

and weakness does not work

when you're climbing Everest...

you gotta be strong.

We do everything we can to

prevent weight loss:

we have huge high calorie meals...

many of us take supplements of

different kinds to keep the calories on.

In fact, I've always thought I could

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