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Authors: Conrad Anker, David Roberts
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threat: “I am forced to take action in this matter and have no choice but to ask that you either cease cybercasting, or that you will have to leave the expedition.”
Liesl was really shaken up. When I got down to Base Camp, she confided in me, “What did I do to deserve this?” Later, Simo complained that MountainZone and
NOVA
had an explicit agreement that
NOVA
would observe a twenty-four-hour moratorium on all news, to give MountainZone the first crack at anything spectacular. But Peter Potterfield and Simonson both subsequently clarified that the twenty-four-hour moratorium came out of this blowup: before May 2, there was no such agreement. In sum, Liesl simply did what any good reporter would do with breakthrough news.
I first met Simo on Denali (Mount McKinley) in 1989, when we were on the mountain on separate expeditions. He was guiding clients, while I was collecting granite rocks for a geological profile of the mountain. Simo’s big, tall, forty-four years old, with dark hair and eyes, a strong mountaineer who’s become a full-time guide. He learned his trade on Rainier under Lou Whittaker, whose RMI (Rainier Mountaineering, Incorporated) was for years the only guide service on the mountain. A few years ago, Eric broke away to form IMG (International Mountain Guides), of which he’s now co-owner. IMG is ambitious; they guide Kilimanjaro and Vinson, the highest peak in Antarctica, as well as Cho Oyu, Shisha Pangma, and Everestin the Himalaya. The other guys on our climbing team had worked with Eric either at IMG or RMI.
Simo climbed Everest in 1991 via the north side, on his third expedition to the mountain. He’s paid his dues in the high-stakes game of high-altitude climbing. This year he was not as driven to go high as the other guys. Instead he used his energy to manage the expedition.
Simo’s absolutely brilliant at logistics. I couldn’t believe how well everything ran on this expedition. Eric’s care for the Sherpas is exemplary. He makes sure the Sherpas are treated as equals, puts the highest priority on their safety, and pays the best wages. As a result, his Sherpas are intensely loyal to him. On the mountain he’s extremely thorough, knows the best camp sites, knows the value of having new fixed ropes in place. He’s got expeditionary climbing down to a science.
Eric is pretty autocratic: he operates best when he’s in control. If you make a mistake, he lets you know it in no uncertain terms. He’ll let you know what he expects of you, whether you are a Sherpa or a team member or even a trekker. Like most Everest expeditions, we brought along trekkers who paid good money to join us at Base Camp, then culminate their journey with a climb to ABC. The day after they arrived, two trekkers simply took off without telling anybody where they were going. Tap, Jake, and I marched up a frozen ravine looking for the fellows at dusk. A night in the open would not only have threatened their lives, it could have seriously impeded our own climbing plans. The two trekkers made it back to camp an hour after dark. Simo ordered them off the expedition, sending them home the next day, no money refunded. Perhaps he overreacted, but I think the move was justified, that it gave out a clear message about leadership and responsibility.
Talk in the dining tent invariably drifted to politics. Simo’s well to the right of most of us, and he liked to tweak our liberal sensibilities. When Jake Norton would start talking about Tibetan independence, which he cares passionately about, Simo would say, “No, Jake, it’s not ‘save Tibet,’ it’s ‘
pave
Tibet.’”
The blowup about
NOVA
scooping MountainZone brings up another interesting point. More and more in the future, expeditions to remote places on earth are going to be covered live, in “real time,” over the Internet. And even the proponents ofthis kind of you-are-there reportorial immediacy have only begun to think out the aesthetics and ethics of that
Liesl was really shaken up. When I got down to Base Camp, she confided in me, “What did I do to deserve this?” Later, Simo complained that MountainZone and
NOVA
had an explicit agreement that
NOVA
would observe a twenty-four-hour moratorium on all news, to give MountainZone the first crack at anything spectacular. But Peter Potterfield and Simonson both subsequently clarified that the twenty-four-hour moratorium came out of this blowup: before May 2, there was no such agreement. In sum, Liesl simply did what any good reporter would do with breakthrough news.
I first met Simo on Denali (Mount McKinley) in 1989, when we were on the mountain on separate expeditions. He was guiding clients, while I was collecting granite rocks for a geological profile of the mountain. Simo’s big, tall, forty-four years old, with dark hair and eyes, a strong mountaineer who’s become a full-time guide. He learned his trade on Rainier under Lou Whittaker, whose RMI (Rainier Mountaineering, Incorporated) was for years the only guide service on the mountain. A few years ago, Eric broke away to form IMG (International Mountain Guides), of which he’s now co-owner. IMG is ambitious; they guide Kilimanjaro and Vinson, the highest peak in Antarctica, as well as Cho Oyu, Shisha Pangma, and Everestin the Himalaya. The other guys on our climbing team had worked with Eric either at IMG or RMI.
Simo climbed Everest in 1991 via the north side, on his third expedition to the mountain. He’s paid his dues in the high-stakes game of high-altitude climbing. This year he was not as driven to go high as the other guys. Instead he used his energy to manage the expedition.
Simo’s absolutely brilliant at logistics. I couldn’t believe how well everything ran on this expedition. Eric’s care for the Sherpas is exemplary. He makes sure the Sherpas are treated as equals, puts the highest priority on their safety, and pays the best wages. As a result, his Sherpas are intensely loyal to him. On the mountain he’s extremely thorough, knows the best camp sites, knows the value of having new fixed ropes in place. He’s got expeditionary climbing down to a science.
Eric is pretty autocratic: he operates best when he’s in control. If you make a mistake, he lets you know it in no uncertain terms. He’ll let you know what he expects of you, whether you are a Sherpa or a team member or even a trekker. Like most Everest expeditions, we brought along trekkers who paid good money to join us at Base Camp, then culminate their journey with a climb to ABC. The day after they arrived, two trekkers simply took off without telling anybody where they were going. Tap, Jake, and I marched up a frozen ravine looking for the fellows at dusk. A night in the open would not only have threatened their lives, it could have seriously impeded our own climbing plans. The two trekkers made it back to camp an hour after dark. Simo ordered them off the expedition, sending them home the next day, no money refunded. Perhaps he overreacted, but I think the move was justified, that it gave out a clear message about leadership and responsibility.
Talk in the dining tent invariably drifted to politics. Simo’s well to the right of most of us, and he liked to tweak our liberal sensibilities. When Jake Norton would start talking about Tibetan independence, which he cares passionately about, Simo would say, “No, Jake, it’s not ‘save Tibet,’ it’s ‘
pave
Tibet.’”
The blowup about
NOVA
scooping MountainZone brings up another interesting point. More and more in the future, expeditions to remote places on earth are going to be covered live, in “real time,” over the Internet. And even the proponents ofthis kind of you-are-there reportorial immediacy have only begun to think out the aesthetics and ethics of that
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