The Climbing Majority

26 | Climbing in the Death Zone w/ Climbing Legend Alan Burgess Part II

November 07, 2022 Kyle Broxterman & Max Carrier Episode 26
The Climbing Majority
26 | Climbing in the Death Zone w/ Climbing Legend Alan Burgess Part II
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In our last episode, we sat down with legendary high-altitude climber Alan Burgess and discussed his upbringing and his most notable alpine & super alpine ascents. In this episode, we continue our conversation and dive into his most notable high-altitude climbs including the west ridge of Everest in winter, Dhaulagiri in winter, Annapurna IV in winter, and K2. We talk about the complicated logistics of large-scale expeditions, the dangers of climbing above 8000m, and what Al Burgess is doing now.

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Resources

Documentary on the Attempt on the West Ridge of Everest in Winter - 1980

Purchase Alan's Book (The Burgess Book of Lies)

00:00:00:14 - 00:00:01:20
Speaker 1
Hey, everyone. Kyle here.

00:00:02:05 - 00:00:08:13
Speaker 2
Welcome back to the Climbing Majority podcast where Max and I sit down with living legends, professional athletes.

00:00:08:20 - 00:00:11:23
Speaker 1
Certified guides and recreational climbers alike.

00:00:12:10 - 00:00:23:22
Speaker 2
To discuss the topics, lessons, stories and experiences found in the life of a climber. If you haven't already, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.

00:00:27:06 - 00:00:53:03
Speaker 2
All right, everybody. And welcome back to our conversation with Alan Burgess. Our previous episode, we talked about super high alpine objectives. And in this conversation, we're going to be talking about his most notable high altitude objectives. This is a three and a half hour conversation, so I'm going to keep this introduction very brief in our conversation today. We talk about high altitude climbing, climbing above 8000 meters.

00:00:53:16 - 00:01:12:16
Speaker 2
We talk about its effect on the body. And we talk about the logistics of large scale expeditions. Most notably in this conversation, we will talk about his attempt on the West Ridge of Everest in winter, a route that still to this day has yet to be climbed. His successful winter ascent of.

00:01:12:16 - 00:01:13:08
Speaker 1
Dallas, Geary.

00:01:14:06 - 00:01:27:04
Speaker 2
The North Face of Annapurna for in winter. And finally, we talk about his attempt on K2 in the spring, during a season where a massive storm killed five of seven climbers.

00:01:27:04 - 00:01:27:22
Speaker 1
Still left.

00:01:27:22 - 00:01:36:08
Speaker 3
On the mountain.

00:01:40:01 - 00:01:45:22
Speaker 1
All right, we're back. Welcome back to the show, Al Burgess for part two. How are you doing today?

00:01:46:08 - 00:01:48:07
Speaker 4
Good afternoon. From the boot camp.

00:01:48:08 - 00:01:49:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, there you go.

00:01:49:23 - 00:01:50:07
Speaker 4
Of course, you.

00:01:50:22 - 00:01:59:08
Speaker 1
Can't do a show without Francis. You know, I haven't actually tried this before until I met Al. It's pretty good. It's pretty good.

00:01:59:20 - 00:02:04:14
Speaker 4
I have had a hard time holding smaller.

00:02:08:02 - 00:02:10:20
Speaker 1
It's an Australian year. Yeah.

00:02:11:05 - 00:02:13:13
Speaker 4
It's made in the U.S. and Canada.

00:02:13:22 - 00:02:38:18
Speaker 1
I've never tried to fosters in my my own mission here, but it's original, which is probably my favorite beer. So the banquets look nice. There's not a lot of craft beers up in Canada, man. There's so many craft beers. Funny enough, my stomach used to be able to tolerate almost anything. But there's something about the microbrewery craft process that actually gives me some type of an allergic reaction.

00:02:38:19 - 00:02:52:02
Speaker 1
Like, my throat gets worse, I produce a whole bunch of mucus. So just the classic simple beers, you know, they work great for me. I don't I'm not that adventurous with try craft beers anymore because it doesn't yield the very fun.

00:02:53:03 - 00:02:55:18
Speaker 4
That must be the hops, probably a little bit.

00:02:55:19 - 00:03:12:17
Speaker 1
Of the yeast, possibly hops quantities or something they're doing in the brewing process. I know, but I know that I really like Coors and it's not worth being upset for an entire evening to just try something else and like it works. I try Fosters. Yeah. Pretty safe.

00:03:14:00 - 00:03:20:06
Speaker 4
Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's good. And, you know, it's better than adults, cause beer.

00:03:21:00 - 00:03:22:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, that is named.

00:03:23:09 - 00:03:23:19
Speaker 4
Stout.

00:03:23:20 - 00:03:28:03
Speaker 1
Of course. Yeah. Not a very popular name nowadays.

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Speaker 4
No, we don't.

00:03:31:03 - 00:03:37:10
Speaker 1
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although I do resonate with the larger cans, Al. You know.

00:03:38:21 - 00:03:43:03
Speaker 4
My get off the declining and be just, you know, kind of keeps those tendencies.

00:03:43:03 - 00:04:01:09
Speaker 1
Yeah it's a morale booster when I fly with my friend Nathan. Any time we go to the States, they sell really large king cans of the Cooper's beer. They don't they pretty much don't sell them here in Canada. And so we always, you know, load up the bag with some king cans for Basecamp and needed. So it was good.

00:04:02:21 - 00:04:03:17
Speaker 4
Yeah.

00:04:03:17 - 00:04:32:13
Speaker 1
So yeah. So today's too. Yeah. Altitude, altitude. So before our last episode, we talked about it's called it's Super Alpine. Yes. And the objectives that we, you know, we covered back then, if you missed the episode, check it out. But today we're talking about high altitude objectives. Yeah, I guess I'll just kind of start off by just in case someone didn't listen to our previous episode.

00:04:32:13 - 00:04:39:23
Speaker 1
Just give us a quick difference between super Alpine and Alpine versus high altitude objective. Well.

00:04:40:08 - 00:05:21:11
Speaker 4
Yes, well, so let's sort of alpine. So when you're thinking alpine, generally, let's take Shahnameh in France and Italy as well. France as an idea. So the highest mountain around Chamonix, Mumbai is the highest in Europe at 15,000 feet. All right. So you can you can feel 15,000 feet. So if you were to start on a 4000 foot mid-size phase, which finishes on Mont Blanc, like the bring the face or even harder, you're going to feel altitude unless you listen to climate.

00:05:21:12 - 00:05:57:03
Speaker 4
It's already and that would be a challenging route to start outwards going straight off the top of my block there's one of the most famous cable cars. Goes to the top of the aiguille. Jimmy and that's 13,000 feet and I have died in guide friends who will go up to the eagle to me on their free passes for a few days running and spend all day out there to acclimatize who just sat around in the bar or whatever acclimatizing.

00:05:57:08 - 00:06:35:22
Speaker 4
And it's just the 30,000 feet even might spend the night there. Yeah. Is that really helps you to acclimatize? So alpine altitudes are generally between 11 and 15,000 feet. Okay, that's Alpine. Now, once you get to Super Alpine, there's two things. One is the scale of the peak. So although Fitzroy's only out and just under 12,000 feet in South America because of the length of the routes, and you start in very low down, maybe, I don't know, two, 3000 feet, that would be considered super alpine.

00:06:37:01 - 00:07:08:15
Speaker 4
Now, as soon as you get to Denali, which you know, we did that route on the the the southern face, south face, which is 9000 feet, you know, the gasoline spur, that's up to 20,000 feet, but it's 20,000 feet at a latitude which is Arctic, which makes it more difficult and higher when when Dubai has to do that, it has to just come off of Everest.

00:07:08:20 - 00:07:44:05
Speaker 4
He said it felt like 23,000. Wow. So I would consider. And then you go the route we did like south east of log and that's 19,000 something that's it's it's it's 20,000 feet and under let's call it to the effective latitude, let's say 21,000 feet and under. So that would be super alpine, which has a quality of a big face, big remote face up to it includes elevation as well.

00:07:44:11 - 00:08:14:20
Speaker 4
Often, you know, in western Canada, the that peak was 21,003, but it was a 6000 foot face and technical big face. So that was considered super alpine. And so most of the things done, say, in South America and, you know, up to 20,000 feet could be kind of considered super alpine. If you go in at that, it's above 15, which is mumblecore.

00:08:15:08 - 00:08:39:10
Speaker 4
So once you get above 15, you can think of it. It's it's long and and big. You could think of it. It's super alpine. Now let's get to the Himalaya. What is there's some sometimes there that are highly technical, that aren't that are super alpine, not high altitude.

00:08:39:17 - 00:08:40:20
Speaker 1
With the triangle tower be.

00:08:41:03 - 00:09:18:09
Speaker 4
The triangle tower would be one. Yeah, highly technical, but I can't even remember how high that is. I actually got an 18, 20, something like that. There's not a huge difference between 17 and 20. There's a difference. There's a difference if you move moving fast and light that there's not a big difference. If you're doing technical climbing because you're going to be acclimatizing on the face, you know, you're going to be sleeping on the face, you know, couple of nights sleeping at 17,000, acclimatize to 20, basically.

00:09:18:09 - 00:09:52:18
Speaker 4
But so let's start now. Himalayan, high altitude. Most of the base camps on big Nepal or Tibetan mountains all around 17,000 feet. It comes every 16 and a half, 17 and. All right. Most of those base camps are there for a good reason. Just, you know, first of all, you can get low and porters and yaks and so on to go to those elevations usually.

00:09:53:09 - 00:10:34:10
Speaker 4
And that's how you have things called advance base camp. You have a base camp and then an advanced base camp. So in the old school of high altitude climbing, you worked on a pyramid, and that pyramid meant you took the bottom of pyramid required a lot of equipment to keep there. That would be base camp, 16 and 17,000 feet as you got higher up the pyramid, less equipment in this kind of large military style expedition, which many of them are and still are.

00:10:35:10 - 00:11:05:07
Speaker 4
So as you got towards the top of the pyramid, that's where a least number of people went under on carrying and ferrying loads. So, for example, if you're on a guided Everest expedition right now, the ship is going to carry probably oxygen bottles up to 26,000 feet, possibly above. So that would be almost the top of the pyramid for a logistical scale.

00:11:06:04 - 00:11:35:18
Speaker 4
But all the way up there, the altitude levels that you're feeling and I would say, well, the ship, the Sherpas villages, for example, are normally Tibetan, are usually at about 12 and a half thousand, say that's comfortable to live in permanently once you start to move above that, I think 16 and a half thousand is some of the highest settlements.

00:11:36:01 - 00:11:59:21
Speaker 4
Now, you know, they used to be seasonal yak pastures, but now with trekking industries and expedition industry, 16 and a half thousand, I think that is where you don't deteriorate. And I think you can actually reproduce at above 60 below, sorry, at 16,000 feet.

00:11:59:21 - 00:12:05:04
Speaker 1
Are you are you saying reproduce like you can build cells or you can actually have a kid?

00:12:05:05 - 00:12:10:21
Speaker 4
You probably have a kid. I should ask my broken.

00:12:10:21 - 00:12:15:22
Speaker 1
So you're saying that you could not procreate above the sea? Yes.

00:12:16:13 - 00:12:20:21
Speaker 4
Your chances are you probably can procreate to both 16 and off hours.

00:12:21:00 - 00:12:37:08
Speaker 1
I think you talk under the hour talking about like a permanent settlement, though it's you could physically have to have we could call it maybe you could probably want you to do that. But but to arguably there a sustained period of time where your body. Yes. Deteriorating, you're not going to feel sick and.

00:12:38:06 - 00:12:59:10
Speaker 4
You if you're if you're having say and quite often there'll be the sheer panic women who are taking care of the yaks high up for many months of the year they probably wouldn't be reproduce it couldn't reproduce at six above six in the house and 18,000.

00:13:00:02 - 00:13:01:01
Speaker 1
Too much stress on the.

00:13:01:19 - 00:13:03:20
Speaker 4
Infertile for that period of time.

00:13:04:04 - 00:13:05:06
Speaker 1
That'll be an interesting study.

00:13:05:16 - 00:13:06:02
Speaker 4
Yes.

00:13:06:17 - 00:13:07:16
Speaker 1
It's due on the menstrual cycle.

00:13:07:16 - 00:13:32:23
Speaker 4
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that is, you know, where things become comfortable. And also six and a half thousand feet is where the glaciers start. Right. You know, some start lower on different peaks. But, you know, Everest base camp, just as an example, you know, starts in about well, now it's probably 17 and a half thousand feet glacial ice.

00:13:33:08 - 00:13:59:05
Speaker 4
It comes a little lower. Although I've been there recently, I don't know how much it's melted back, but used to the last day going up to Everest base camp. You were working with Dry Glacier to one side of it for most of the day, right? So and so that's another reason to have a camp that 6000 because you can you can have yaks go all the way up there to to the base camp.

00:13:59:14 - 00:14:28:11
Speaker 4
So it makes sense for that. Now, how does it feel the climate? Well, let let's take a peak like K2 and Everest because these Everest diseases to describe from 17 and a half thousand up to 19 is camp one going up to 21 and a half thousand to 20 Jewish is camp to advance base camp. This there isn't a great deal of difference.

00:14:28:22 - 00:14:59:16
Speaker 4
Once you to climb at times between those elevations, you don't really feel once you're acclimatized. Now one if you're not acclimatize on a look like a 23,000 foot peak in India and you are going up from 17 and a half up to 21 and a half, yeah, you're going to feel it, especially on technical climbing. But if the top of the peak is at 23, that's only 1500 fold higher than 21 and a half.

00:15:00:00 - 00:15:18:02
Speaker 1
So real quick on this topic of compensation, what is acclimatization what is happening inside the body? Is it the lack of oxygen? Are there other factors at play and why does it take so much time for our bodies to adjust to the higher altitude? Okay.

00:15:18:04 - 00:16:11:00
Speaker 4
So it's a change in pressure. There's still lots of oxygen. We just can't get at it. Okay. Since the change in pressure. And so yeah, I don't know how much I don't know the matter of how much oxygen I can absorb them. Well, it depends on your acclimatization and sometimes individually. So the first thing you're going to start doing when you get to high altitude, you're going to start breathing deeper and slower because you're going to be moving a little slower on regulating the breath if you're rushing and stop, then you're going to be shallow breaths jogging, right, where if you just moderate your behavior, nice, slow, steady, walking up a glacier, you're going to

00:16:11:00 - 00:16:42:23
Speaker 4
be able to probably keep going without stopping. Now over a longer period of time. One of the first things that's going to happen, you're going to start producing more red cells because that's the trans box system of oxygen through the body. And so there's a level it's known as hematocrit. And, you know, it varies, you know, will have a higher hematocrit in 4000 foot in renal, for example, than at sea level.

00:16:42:23 - 00:16:56:06
Speaker 4
In San Francisco, your base level of rheumatic will be slightly higher. Let's and it's also different between males and females. Males have a higher natural levels hematocrit of red cell.

00:16:56:22 - 00:17:01:07
Speaker 1
Does does genetics play a factor on the somatic from person to person?

00:17:01:09 - 00:17:33:05
Speaker 4
Yes, it will do with you how much there is right. So 30% of your blood is probably on a fully hydrated person. I think Red Cell Counties around 30%, which take 30 to 35% as a standard. It's an average, you know, I mean, there will be different there's differences all around, you know, I mean, if you live in a ski area at 9000 feet, it will be higher.

00:17:33:15 - 00:18:09:22
Speaker 4
You know, normally they're more they measure this at sea levels. But, you know, in North America, a lot of mountains people live in above sea level. So it will be slightly different. Okay. When you when you start to dramatize your body thicken and you often work with slightly dehydrated bodies, so you magically will go, well, now some people's hematocrit as be measured, going up to 65%.

00:18:11:08 - 00:18:39:06
Speaker 4
Now you think, oh, wow. So my oxygen carrying capacity at high altitude now with my increased red cell counts. Wow, I'm going to be like a superhuman. Not true, because what happens, you'll get each cold, sludgy, you'll get all the these hollow red cells backing up against one another in small capillaries. And you could end up having a stroke.

00:18:39:18 - 00:18:40:08
Speaker 1
Blood clots.

00:18:40:17 - 00:19:07:03
Speaker 4
Blood clots, particularly if you're in a line, in a tent, dehydrated, with a 65% hematocrit and you're getting dehydrated and not moving your legs around higher levels of blood clots, embolisms, embolism and high altitude, super dangerous. You get an embolism in your leg because you're not moving it. Then you get up and go outside to take off or start moving.

00:19:07:11 - 00:19:35:17
Speaker 4
And that embolism moves through your lungs and starts tearing tissue and could end up in your heart. You can have a heart attack. So so now talk about Sherpas who are living. I was an expedition on to Everest in 86 where that default guide was popular. I had one client and it was probably one of the first commercial expeditions on Everest.

00:19:35:17 - 00:19:57:05
Speaker 4
It was run by a Swiss guy from Zurich and he was selling places off. And I had this one client who is actually not much of a climber, just a wealthy guy, but he was it was enough, you know. But so when we got, we arrived kind of late, this had just come off of it was in 86.

00:19:57:05 - 00:20:23:16
Speaker 4
So I just come off of K2, British K2 Expedition, and I spent two months trekking in Ladakh with a German girlfriend and then I read hiked all the way to Everest base camp. So now this is probably sometime towards the end of September when we arrived, I think that was might have been early September, but I'd been at altitude for a long time.

00:20:23:22 - 00:20:57:11
Speaker 4
I do not high. I've come down low. But I had gone below 12 and a half thousand feet for a long period and then I didn't. So they the Swiss doctors, we tested our hematocrit and so we got there. You know, the top potash. There are 72 tested and Sherpas we tested 50% hematocrit. So they're already acclimatized climbers coming in, you know, just coming from Switzerland.

00:20:57:17 - 00:21:32:10
Speaker 4
We tested it like 40, but I'd been apart for ages, you know, I came in and I tested at 53. Now that's normal. Just I was already pre acclimatize almost, you know, I had enzymes, I could adapt quickly. So I already had Sherpa time integration of 50%. What the big difference was, they tested us a month later, some of the Swiss climbers were up 58, 60%.

00:21:32:23 - 00:21:53:08
Speaker 4
Mine were still at 50. So with all the Sherpas, that was Sherpa acclimatization, because increased hematocrit is only a temporary acclimatization strategy for the body if it keeps on getting thicker and thicker blood is trying to do here.

00:21:53:12 - 00:21:56:09
Speaker 1
So there seems to be a sweet spot essentially of efficiency.

00:21:56:18 - 00:22:10:01
Speaker 4
That's 50%. Yes. And Sherpas have it now. I think if you wait much time at altitude, I think Westerners can get that. Yes, obviously, I had it.

00:22:10:01 - 00:22:12:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. What do you think the time frame is like?

00:22:12:15 - 00:22:27:03
Speaker 4
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But my guess is all those guides on Everest pick guide in Everest in the spring time and then the died in the altitude somewhere else going to K2 or whatever, they must be getting Sherpa traumatization.

00:22:27:07 - 00:22:41:12
Speaker 1
But you're so it sounds like no matter what happens, if you're not acclimatized and you don't have the proper hematocrit, you're going to get into this sense for this environment and your levels are going to spike pass 50 regardless.

00:22:41:19 - 00:22:42:10
Speaker 4
Probably.

00:22:42:11 - 00:22:49:17
Speaker 1
But it's the fact that you're able to stay in that environment for a longer amount of time where your body reaches some sort of equilibrium.

00:22:50:05 - 00:22:52:02
Speaker 4
Now that's what I call Sherpa.

00:22:52:17 - 00:22:55:09
Speaker 1
So it's just the sheer amount of time you're spending. And I.

00:22:55:09 - 00:22:57:02
Speaker 4
Think. I think so, yeah.

00:22:57:08 - 00:23:02:08
Speaker 1
Without trying too hard and going up too fast, spiking that hematocrit too high.

00:23:02:10 - 00:23:05:18
Speaker 4
Well, I think you just went too fast. It wouldn't go any higher.

00:23:06:11 - 00:23:10:08
Speaker 1
Well, because I'm just saying, it's not in the beginning of the beginning stages, though.

00:23:10:14 - 00:23:11:04
Speaker 4
In the beginning.

00:23:11:04 - 00:23:14:00
Speaker 1
Stages. Stretch your body too fast. Yes. Yeah.

00:23:14:07 - 00:23:45:00
Speaker 4
And just otherwise it's things like edema, which is a whole different ballgame of high altitude. What happens? So generally speaking, on a big Himalayan expedition, you need to acclimatize even if you're going to go Alpine style. At the end of it, the Russians reckoned they wouldn't go much above 21,000 feet for ages. You know, they probably had Sherpas put in camps.

00:23:45:11 - 00:24:11:20
Speaker 4
I remember there was a Russian expedition on Everest in the spring of 82, before the Canadian expedition. And I was joined in there working in the Canadian oxygen bucket and so I saw all these Russians coming in, you know, I mean, it was a communist expedition in 1982. I mean, there were guys in the air pool with leather jackets down to their ankles, you stuff commissars and all the rest of it.

00:24:12:02 - 00:24:36:06
Speaker 4
But good athletes, good high altitude athletes, they probably be training in the pattern of years and, you know, doing all that stuff. Well, they what they were doing, they were going up and spending a lot of time at about advanced base camp at 21 and a half thousand feet, say 6500 meters. That's what the record 6500 meters. And they spend a long time.

00:24:36:06 - 00:25:06:15
Speaker 4
They wouldn't bother going higher, the relay wouldn't, and they would come way down low to recover down to 13,000 feet. Because what I reckon once you start spending so much time, 17 and a half, I don't think you get in replacement of muscle tissue at the same level. You might get in super acclimatized, but and you get super fit and strong initially.

00:25:07:10 - 00:25:39:08
Speaker 4
And I've seen that with myself where I find with super strong Sherpas and I had stronger legs early on and good acclimatization but six weeks later they were you know on the even with the protein or whatever food and all that, the choice, whatever food you want to treat, you know, these big you can try to eat state, you know, packages or you can eat peanut butter or you can live on rice and lentils, which I often did better on health.

00:25:39:23 - 00:26:11:19
Speaker 4
And there's a curve where my after six weeks, my muscle tissue was not as strong as the beginning of the expedition. And the Sherpas seemed to be consistent with that, immune to my yeah, my legs were stronger than Sherpas at the beginning because I know I had to carry some load for some Sherpas couldn't do it right. You know, but they seem to just keep this level of muscular development versus acclimatization.

00:26:12:01 - 00:26:31:04
Speaker 4
So for a Westerner, what you want to do is you want to acclimatize but not destroy your legs. So because there's a point where there's two graphs coming from each side, this is the strength graph and this is the acclimatization graph you want them to peak where they cross.

00:26:31:16 - 00:26:32:17
Speaker 1
Right? When you're trying to ascend.

00:26:32:23 - 00:26:39:14
Speaker 4
Well, that's when you go into the summit. That's where you want to be because you've got the maximum leg strength and the maximum acclimatization.

00:26:39:14 - 00:26:50:20
Speaker 1
Wow. So now I'm familiar with two styles of acclimatization one you've mentioned briefly here, which is the Russian style, which is climb high, sleep low, essentially. And that's part of.

00:26:50:20 - 00:26:52:03
Speaker 4
What you're talking. Well, that everybody.

00:26:52:03 - 00:26:56:21
Speaker 1
Does for sure. But I think it originated with the Russians. I think they actually kind of started that.

00:26:57:16 - 00:26:58:17
Speaker 4
I did that.

00:26:59:03 - 00:27:00:07
Speaker 1
I think, you know.

00:27:00:20 - 00:27:01:20
Speaker 4
Possibly it was.

00:27:01:20 - 00:27:16:14
Speaker 1
A I think that's what I've heard from Peter Hackett in some of the books I've read. But I don't want to contradict the the other style I'm familiar with is to just consistently climb, but not exceed an elevation gain of a thousand feet a day. And so it's kind of.

00:27:16:21 - 00:27:18:01
Speaker 4
That Robert Draper.

00:27:18:01 - 00:27:18:18
Speaker 1
Trekking yeah.

00:27:18:21 - 00:27:19:22
Speaker 4
That works in the.

00:27:20:08 - 00:27:21:09
Speaker 1
Lower right up.

00:27:21:11 - 00:27:22:03
Speaker 4
To about.

00:27:22:03 - 00:27:23:04
Speaker 1
19,000.

00:27:23:14 - 00:27:45:15
Speaker 4
Right. But once you get above that, if you start going up a thousand foot a day, you know the curve, the disc you feel to go from like 20000 to 23 feels about the same as from 23 to 24 and a half.

00:27:46:13 - 00:27:47:10
Speaker 1
It's not right.

00:27:47:20 - 00:27:54:18
Speaker 4
I'm from 24 and a half to 26. Feels like going from 20 to 24 and a half.

00:27:54:23 - 00:27:55:12
Speaker 1
Way bigger.

00:27:55:12 - 00:27:57:07
Speaker 4
Jumps get exponentially.

00:27:57:07 - 00:28:18:06
Speaker 1
Exponential. Yeah. And with the acclimatization, it seems like it has everything to do with your oxygen absorption in the body. Yes. And so if someone had oxygen tanks for the entire trip, they were just breathing out of tanks. Could they skip the acclimatization process altogether and just go straight for the summit or is there something else going on?

00:28:18:06 - 00:28:19:05
Speaker 4
Well, they probably.

00:28:19:05 - 00:28:29:03
Speaker 1
You would be at extreme risk because if an oxygen tank failed or anything happened, you would and you weren't acclimated. You would pretty much just need to be get hape or haze.

00:28:30:01 - 00:29:07:07
Speaker 4
What they're doing on Everest expedition right now, the Khumbu Icefall camp, you know, between 17 and a half base camp and 19 camp one is super dangerous. You don't want punters basically taking like this one Dutch guy. When I was on this trip, took 14 hours to go through the Khumbu Icefall, holy water, 14 hours. I was going through it in two and all my adult sherpas now we were carrying a load, I don't know, gives you confidence.

00:29:08:00 - 00:29:13:05
Speaker 4
I mean, four would be standard like, you know, four would be a normal time, right?

00:29:13:13 - 00:29:16:17
Speaker 1
14 I mean, everybody behind them was going at the same pace.

00:29:16:17 - 00:29:18:17
Speaker 4
Well, they passing around them and.

00:29:18:17 - 00:29:26:21
Speaker 1
Stuff like the issues of the crewmembers falling apart. So yeah, we'll talk about we'll talk about the Khumbu a little later. Yeah.

00:29:26:22 - 00:29:50:16
Speaker 4
But so what they do, so what they do for climbing position on these guided trips, they take up to 20,000 foot on a trekking page, which is easy access and only the last day on snow. And they have in the camp full bathroom so they probably, you know, the camp at 19 and 20 and then they just like, you know, sleep in them at 17 and a half hiking.

00:29:50:17 - 00:30:15:11
Speaker 4
I mean, slow go up to 19, come back to 17 and a half, go and sleep at 919, go from 19 to 20, come back down to 19, go back up to 20 and sleep. Now they're acclimatized. They can go all the way basically from base camp camp to safely. And that's what they're doing. And then you're putting them on oxygen from there.

00:30:16:08 - 00:30:45:08
Speaker 4
And so that, you know, if they were going all the way from base camp, rushing them, they have to have a lot of oxygen bottles. You know, now, really, a person who's being guided on Everest should be able to get to 24 without. If he can't get to 24, she get to 24,000 without. If that oxygen runs out to 26, the shit out of look, they may not even be able to come down without oxygen.

00:30:45:22 - 00:30:54:15
Speaker 4
They're going to need the hand-holding sliding on their asses, which, you know, semi-conscious, getting the guy to get him down. Right.

00:30:54:18 - 00:31:08:20
Speaker 1
Yeah. So this actually is a great caveat to talk about death zone, basically over 8000 meters. Yeah. So just quickly kind of talk about what that area and its effect on the body like what do you start to recycle.

00:31:08:21 - 00:31:11:10
Speaker 4
The three deteriorating fast.

00:31:11:10 - 00:31:12:11
Speaker 1
Your body's dying.

00:31:12:22 - 00:31:21:21
Speaker 4
Well, it's dying deteriorate but you know your body if you stage it's just a matter of time frame. If you stay above 19, 20,000, your.

00:31:21:21 - 00:31:22:04
Speaker 1
Diet.

00:31:22:05 - 00:31:47:18
Speaker 4
Your diet, these have these research camps, you know, back in the late fifties and stuff that was measuring people's abilities. You know, you're keeping about three months, 19,000 feet and three tests on them. And they were starting to lose it slowly. Right now, you know, once you get to 26, you're going to start losing it quickly. You don't want to be spending nights there.

00:31:47:20 - 00:31:50:20
Speaker 1
It becomes trying to acclimatize becomes a matter of hours.

00:31:51:03 - 00:32:18:14
Speaker 4
Hours, yeah, I would say depends without oxygen showers. Yeah, with oxygen. It's a you can be to be a while just the oxygen can bring it back down to about 20,000 feet. So if you've got a whole bunch of oxygen up there, you just suck it. And it depends on at least as many sucking, right. You know, most people operate like, you know, somebody like myself.

00:32:18:14 - 00:32:32:08
Speaker 4
I don't £60 person. You're probably operate very nicely on four liters a minute now you know, I probably wouldn't I actually never managed to make it work.

00:32:32:10 - 00:32:33:05
Speaker 1
That seemed like it.

00:32:33:05 - 00:32:55:04
Speaker 4
Just did work very, very well. I mean, my brother climbed Everest. He climbed it probably on three liters a minute. You're probably two liters a minute to start with. And then above 28,000 soundly probably turned it up to three liters a minute. Sherpas operate. They got hundred and £40 body weight. They're running nicely to reach the summit.

00:32:55:04 - 00:33:01:06
Speaker 1
How many leaders can you carry at once in a ship?

00:33:01:06 - 00:33:11:05
Speaker 4
I think they lost about, if you will, if you were using two liters a minute, I think you could probably get £8 out of.

00:33:11:07 - 00:33:12:05
Speaker 1
Oh, 8 hours.

00:33:12:06 - 00:33:26:03
Speaker 4
Yeah. I mean, it depends how I think the pressurized to about £4,000 now the Russians on their expedition, they were the first to use titanium oxygen bottles and they were pressurizing them to £6,000.

00:33:26:08 - 00:33:29:15
Speaker 1
Little bombs, right.

00:33:29:15 - 00:33:59:19
Speaker 4
So they hit the thing sideways and watch the top. But and it depends. Just the original oxygen bottles were quite heavy, you know, aluminum, fiberglass round American bottles, Japanese and French were weighing in at about £18 a bottle full. And the liquid inside is not that heavy. Right. So, you know, you've got now that titanium bottles, they're half the weight.

00:34:00:12 - 00:34:35:02
Speaker 4
So they carry two bottles, one guy and people just carry one, you know. But it means that it can be setting up the mountain at the top of the pyramid, you know, a lot easier. But that suit time utilization thing now how would the people how the top levels climbers. Well I want to go down you know say to the polish Voytek Koji car climbing with a lot of tall Jean why those guys how did they do it.

00:34:36:09 - 00:34:55:17
Speaker 4
They were very similar to the Russians. They would spend a lot of time around 21,000. Sometimes it even going to climb of the peak smaller peaks. That was Duke Scott's and he's like, why are we going to just look up and down the same down peak? We got to climb this big person, have some fun and this big thirst and acclimatize.

00:34:56:02 - 00:35:26:20
Speaker 4
Spent quite a bit of time like around 20 days, top ten at 21,000 feet, then go back down, eat a whole bunch of protein and get those legs all fired up again. Walk back slowly slowly, slowly, not using any energy back up to 21,000. And then what they would do is time continuously. This was a void, taken a lot of time and just try.

00:35:27:02 - 00:35:55:06
Speaker 4
They would go really slowly above 21,000 and they would aim the time throughout the night carrying very little, just enough to make a brew with and start off with. Water took it in the watered jackets and foods, you know, well-hydrated because you don't want to get dehydrated. You are panting, you're not using oxygen, so you're blowing out moisture all the time.

00:35:55:16 - 00:36:23:11
Speaker 4
So they would then time it to get to 8000 meters, 26,000 feet, just as it was starting to get daylight and warm, because that was when they were going to get colder. And then they would just keep going at the same speed all the way to 26,000. Sorry to well, to do it. It's a little the top five the total higher.

00:36:23:19 - 00:36:53:14
Speaker 4
But just to get to say 26 and a half, they would they would send on Annapurna or some of those type of peaks, you know, where it's just under 27,000. They would aim to come out to 25 and a half, 26, just as it was, start to get really warm. It was nice and warm and they'd have a brew there and a rest and then just plod on to the summit and then coming down, men coming down.

00:36:53:14 - 00:37:13:18
Speaker 4
When you're not carrying anything without oxygen, you are just it's like you're running into this thick atmosphere of oxygen getting stronger and stronger and stronger and you coming downhill. It's just incredible as you come down from altitude, how much better how much better you do? Yeah, I mean.

00:37:14:15 - 00:37:16:07
Speaker 1
Just fast. That's cool.

00:37:16:11 - 00:37:21:23
Speaker 4
Yeah. Wow. These are the top guys, remember, doing this kind of stuff.

00:37:21:23 - 00:37:24:21
Speaker 1
And this is like the newest version of what you've been doing.

00:37:25:01 - 00:37:37:03
Speaker 4
Kind of weird. Well, we would. We would go what we were doing. We, we tended to put our high temps lower than most people. And then during a really long day to the summit back.

00:37:37:17 - 00:37:40:08
Speaker 1
So you were like covered at 7000 feet a day at some point.

00:37:41:06 - 00:38:09:18
Speaker 4
Sometimes 6:00 Annapurna for a winter. I mean, we'd only be we could document out later that, you know, Atlanta's ish once we'd been to 21,000 foot once before digging and I scans came back all the way to base camp six and a half went back up all not in a couple of days to 21 and a half and then went to 25, seven or whatever in a day back in winter.

00:38:10:08 - 00:38:41:07
Speaker 4
And winter's different. Yeah, it's a bit slower because of the winds and cold and stuff. So the, so that's kind of a rundown of the yeah yeah. You know so so for example the Russians Poles checked a really hot technique two times up to 23,000 feet. Once you get above that, it's hard to do technically. I mean, not because the fitness level, but because the snow never falls.

00:38:41:20 - 00:38:51:21
Speaker 4
So you never get never. It's always powder or a lot of it. You could get wind pack powder, but you're not getting super great ice climbing conditions.

00:38:51:21 - 00:38:54:05
Speaker 1
Aren't there like rock faces up that high.

00:38:54:05 - 00:39:21:20
Speaker 4
Though. The the mixed I mean normally there's ice around. Okay. I mean yeah. I mean yeah. You could say when winter above 24,000 feet. Yeah. The jet stream just flames that you shred of anything above the upper mountain right that you're not there's not a lot there's there's probably some stuff where you're not getting really rock climbing you technical rock climbing.

00:39:22:11 - 00:39:45:13
Speaker 4
I mean I'm just thinking of Makalu and the West, but it's a matter of a matter losing the top five. I think it's the fifth highest. So you still need so you probably need a high jump to get to 27 and a half thousand. You might have to have a high camp 26 you're not going to go from 24 probably to 27 and a half.

00:39:45:23 - 00:40:23:21
Speaker 4
Well, you could if it wasn't technical, but if it started to be technical. But you see, you might have fixed ropes on, say, the first 2000 feet of technical, and then you may have a ridge in a fish, some snow that you could do, I could see doing that, you know, but it varies from peak to peak. The strategy the our strategy was basically to, you know, get pretty acclimatized just we always at small groups normally not always on the big trips that and so you you were going with suit you could carry a lot of food and gear.

00:40:23:21 - 00:40:54:05
Speaker 4
Yeah so you would you're doing or you're going up you're coming down. You're not going to camp out 26 hours and wait for the weather to get good a week later. I don't think that's a good strategy. Even if you got supplies, you just getting weaker. And and people who do that and I've had people argue that the real reason that they want to not go down anything is they're not strong enough to get back up fast.

00:40:54:12 - 00:41:17:11
Speaker 4
And they don't want to give up one foot or ten feet of territory. They want to slug it to the top. That's actually less that's less effective. Actually. You got to die to go do it. Keep doing it that way. You know, you want you need to be up and off. Yeah. Yes. Edema, three kinds. Peripheral comes up in your fingers and your cheeks.

00:41:17:13 - 00:41:36:12
Speaker 4
You look after that. The guinea I look, I think maybe even after the Canadian Everest thing, I look my cheek will look like a chipmunk, you know, that's that's good. Just that's where the water went. It went to the lungs, all between the brain cavity, they soup.

00:41:36:14 - 00:41:39:10
Speaker 1
So what's exactly what's happening during edema?

00:41:39:21 - 00:42:09:06
Speaker 4
The dilemma is that water is building up not you're not extremely excreting it sufficiently so pulmonary edema is when you're working probably too hard you if your body's feeling it's not handling your oxygen that very well and so you build of water in the lungs, you know, so you're basically drowning in your own lunch. But if you come down quickly, that will change and go back.

00:42:09:06 - 00:42:25:23
Speaker 4
It will still heal itself. Yeah, but if you get three bladder when it gets between the skull and the brain cavity and that empty space there, that doesn't go away as fast. That's super dangerous.

00:42:26:11 - 00:42:30:13
Speaker 1
I remember you in the book, you said one of your friends started going blind. What? Yeah, yeah.

00:42:30:23 - 00:42:54:07
Speaker 4
That's nuts. That's when you've got that cerebral edema, because it's it's pressure on the optic nerve, which is screwing with your eyes. So you start that, you at that stage, even going down is dangerous. It may not help. I mean, you may need to get down way and be putting like a dam of pressure, which.

00:42:54:10 - 00:43:01:17
Speaker 1
I was going to say, have you ever been in the camp or had anyone you know, have you ever had anyone on an expedition one?

00:43:01:17 - 00:43:26:04
Speaker 4
I've seen them on expeditions. Use them. I never carry them, even when I was guided on trips. Because the thing is, you can only put one person in the time. And if this person's starting to get edema, pulmonary edema, everyone else is like a few hours behind, probably. You can't put them all in at once on you. What you want to do is stop shoving and now is the time.

00:43:26:04 - 00:43:53:10
Speaker 4
Yeah, it's just. And people will lie to you how they feel. And if they think you've got an out you don't want to, that you, you want a medic out maybe on a really high altitude trip. Maybe the weather says conditions as they get down off the mountain. Yes, it's avalanche or that it's a blizzard. And then they managed to get down and they suffer in the being dragged down.

00:43:53:10 - 00:44:02:22
Speaker 4
They got pulled on edema. You throw them in the night and you can save the life. That would be that would be me say that's a good use of it.

00:44:04:03 - 00:44:05:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. Did you ever.

00:44:05:10 - 00:44:05:22
Speaker 4
Not just.

00:44:06:03 - 00:44:08:20
Speaker 1
Dexamethasone or Dymocks with yourself.

00:44:10:11 - 00:44:18:18
Speaker 4
To have never take them never had to give it gets that was the whole thing on that K2 what was called that the.

00:44:20:14 - 00:44:23:11
Speaker 1
I watch that actually I watched it as a kid it's.

00:44:23:11 - 00:44:23:21
Speaker 4
Like.

00:44:25:07 - 00:44:27:07
Speaker 1
Vertical limit okay to vertical.

00:44:28:14 - 00:44:28:23
Speaker 4
Most of.

00:44:29:00 - 00:44:29:11
Speaker 1
You know.

00:44:30:00 - 00:44:46:06
Speaker 4
So you don't the two Australian brothers on vertical limits were actually originally supposed to be British and they were basically built around age or to myself. What, really? Yeah.

00:44:46:16 - 00:44:47:04
Speaker 1
Really.

00:44:47:10 - 00:44:53:20
Speaker 4
And the lawyers told them it's a bit too close. Just they couldn't have twins just to find out.

00:44:54:13 - 00:44:55:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, right.

00:44:55:09 - 00:45:05:04
Speaker 4
So they tried to get brothers that look kind of pretty similar and then they made them Australian to kind of shift it one step away. But that's what I've been told by people who worked on the film.

00:45:05:05 - 00:45:21:02
Speaker 1
Wow, you didn't get any? No, that might be a good time. It's very, very inaccurate. No, I think you I think, Al, you should definitely rewatch vertical limit as it's it's quite an entertaining movie to go through.

00:45:21:20 - 00:45:30:12
Speaker 4
All I remember I'm saying give him the decks, give him the the deck, getting some methods on, you know, keep going up. Give him the deck.

00:45:30:12 - 00:45:33:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. Act like it's a get out of jail free card.

00:45:33:17 - 00:45:46:18
Speaker 4
Yeah, exactly. Which isn't it's a good one to take. If you caught in a tent where you can't get down the same night or the next, but you should be down. Coming down, not going up. Yeah. You know.

00:45:47:03 - 00:45:49:10
Speaker 1
To keep you alive for a little bit longer. Yeah.

00:45:50:03 - 00:45:51:03
Speaker 4
So Juna do.

00:45:51:15 - 00:46:14:22
Speaker 1
So real quick. Yeah, we're, we're getting really close here. I want to talk just briefly about just because the thing we talk about and we hear about a lot in media these days is lightning fast. Lightning fast. And and it seems like it's because of this acclimatization period you have to go through for a high altitude. Yeah. Lightning fast is just not an option.

00:46:15:23 - 00:46:32:23
Speaker 1
Is that is that true? And the expedition style that we've talked about, about going up and down, up, down, sleeping like this process has been developed to solve the problem of high altitude is like. That's correct, right. Yeah. Okay do lightning fast because.

00:46:32:23 - 00:47:09:15
Speaker 4
Of a lightning fast means on the final objective. So for example and again I'm going to out lot of dawn and John Dwyer they did the north cool of of Everest without oxygen one of the best ascents and altitude ascents hold off ever they did it something like I don't need to visit they did it from the bottom of the couloir to the top and then 3 hours slide back down the couloir basically bumps deep snow.

00:47:09:23 - 00:47:38:20
Speaker 4
I don't think that they built it anywhere on it. I think they went continuously. Wow. But that was lightning fast. But they spent probably a month prior to that acclimatizing on all the stuff. Okay, so the light and fast means go fast and technically and climb up and down. Don't use stick dropped or use a little bit of fixed ropes and technical ground, but on the final attempt, try to do it as light.

00:47:38:23 - 00:47:58:01
Speaker 4
What you have to do it? If you're going to do it fast, you have to do it light, right? So basically it's about doing it fast as a sign of fitness and competence. But prior months was training and acclimatizing to come into this final project.

00:47:58:01 - 00:47:58:19
Speaker 1
For 30 days.

00:47:58:19 - 00:48:13:18
Speaker 4
So, you know, so it still says the somethings, you know, the big old expedition model. But right now with super lightweight equipment and training, light and fast should be where we going.

00:48:14:05 - 00:48:35:08
Speaker 1
But I see, I guess to go on to do a little bit of pros and cons versus both methods, it seems like the cons to a light and fast method is that if something goes wrong, you are so far away from your camp or your established point of starting that you can get pretty screwed pretty quick because you don't have any room for error.

00:48:35:13 - 00:48:40:00
Speaker 4
It's high risk, it's dark alpine style commitment. Don't come back down the street.

00:48:40:00 - 00:49:04:18
Speaker 1
The big points to it are a you can't cheat acclimation. You have to acclimatize to a certain point or yes. And then the secondary thing with this lightning fast style at higher altitude, that's pretty much the biggest playing field, the largest stage you can play. And it's it's like Carl saying here, there's it's a much more committing and severe consequence.

00:49:04:18 - 00:49:20:22
Speaker 1
Right. You're much faster speeds. Yeah. And once you've acclimated, you can go lightning fast and do that. But in the event that something happens, you're very much at the mercy of the mountain. You don't have a team around you. You turn up out of the data. No, no, no, no.

00:49:21:17 - 00:49:39:12
Speaker 4
The thing was, in the eighties, Reinhold Messner started the style of climbing without oxygen, light and fast. Now, you know when you when is is biggest like in fast is when you went to the north side of Everest and climb that kind.

00:49:39:12 - 00:49:39:16
Speaker 1
Of.

00:49:40:11 - 00:50:23:06
Speaker 4
Is route there which is a combo route to the north collided stuff you went there with these girlfriend for some what some gear up I think went to 23,000 and dumped some gear acclimatized and then came and went round Tibet kind of 15,000 16,000. You probably went running up to dry hills 20,000 to acclimatize, came back by himself, went from the advanced base camp around I think it's 19, went from 19 up to 23.

00:50:23:06 - 00:50:53:10
Speaker 4
I think he probably spent the night 23. But then he climbed super light and fast to the top of Everest. Back breaking trail, no sherpas, styrofoam snow or concrete trail to just kind of idly well, you know, he was breaking trail that was light and fast break and all the barriers. And after that, my generation of high altitude climbers, that's what we wanted.

00:50:54:03 - 00:51:19:08
Speaker 4
He was our model and we were trying to chase his heels and do stuff, you know, harder than that. Well, not harder. But in that style and that was cold climbing six £8 me to Pete without bottled oxygen light and fast two he can't spend a lot of time on the above 26,000 feet. It has to be fairly speeded up.

00:51:19:14 - 00:51:47:08
Speaker 4
And if you can't and if you're not super strong and fit and good at altitude, which is a little bit of a gift as well, if you can't do that, don't go on that climb like I shouldn't be climbing, you know, 514 cracks, right? I mean, I could probably aid in the dumb things, right? Is that that's what they're doing on these big expeditions that aid in the way of the 540 craft.

00:51:48:19 - 00:51:55:03
Speaker 4
But you know, you just read that 514 so this folk you guys stop aging, you wail.

00:51:55:04 - 00:52:30:20
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Style style does matter, obviously, and it's quite a contrast subject sometimes. Are you familiar with Steve and Vince Anderson? Ascent of the Off? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for me, that's one of the most stylistic and I'm also just totally biased. I'm a huge Steve House fan and so just to give some perspective of what I would think one of the most stylistically well accomplished climbs at altitude, it was Nanga Parbat and it was 4100 meters of climbing and the grades are M five, five, nine, Y four.

00:52:31:04 - 00:52:41:01
Speaker 1
And I think as far as technical climbing goes, that's some of the hardest technical climbing ever achieved at those grades, too. To be climbing those. Yeah, I don't know.

00:52:41:01 - 00:53:08:16
Speaker 4
I don't know. I don't have all the details at my fingertips. I don't know where the technical climb was. I would say doing technical climbing on the 23,000 is not all that. Is it possible? But the conditions on the mountain favor that to get good conditions you need it to suddenly sometimes come above freezing, even in the full sun.

00:53:09:00 - 00:53:38:19
Speaker 4
Right. Because then these turns from powder into never quite nice, which then you can climb steep technical terrain you can't climb vertical. Yeah. Right, you know, I mean maybe you can hook to the rock behind it and sometimes you get compacted wind, compacted powder, which is super bloody dangerous, but doesn't usually stay at 90 degrees. Yeah, I mean, it's so that's why it changes.

00:53:39:17 - 00:54:12:16
Speaker 4
So I don't know whether the technical climbing, my guesses were somewhere up to 23 and a half thousand feet because that's where the freestyle level starts to change. You know, it's a little bit. Yeah, well, I mean, no, hey, I mean, I'm not dead brilliant climbers. They were the leaders in there, at least in the American generation. There were probably polls, Czechs and Russians doing similar stuff.

00:54:13:12 - 00:54:37:18
Speaker 4
Um, I don't think there are any British Brits. No, I don't think so. I don't see that there might have been. Well, the Canadians, you know, I mean, but a bunch of them team. But you know, to be honest, you know, they they were lucky to survive the way they did it. And I'm sure that Barry now would recognize that and say, what were we thinking?

00:54:37:19 - 00:54:53:21
Speaker 4
How naive were we, you know, to keep pushing on? You're just not because oh, it's almost Monty Python line, right? I'm sure going to get better should be better to never do certain stuff.

00:54:54:03 - 00:55:19:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. He has an amazing auto, you know, and they talk about I can't remember with Nanga Parbat or another climb they were doing, they actually accidentally, in a miscommunication, dropped their ropes and they're pretty much on the side of the base and they're going to die. And they found him and they found a bag of an old Japanese accent filled with like frozen filled with frozen rope that they had to chip out the rope.

00:55:19:00 - 00:55:23:20
Speaker 1
It was almost it's almost like God came down and put a yes.

00:55:24:07 - 00:55:25:03
Speaker 4
They dropped the real.

00:55:25:21 - 00:55:27:13
Speaker 1
It's an unbelievable story. Yeah.

00:55:28:12 - 00:56:01:12
Speaker 4
I mean, it's definitely a saga of real resilience and strength, but there's also a certain level of ignorance and naivete why they even got themselves into that position in the first place. Right. That if they didn't way better soon as the weather started getting bad. Right. Which the user where they were as acclimatization maybe sachem deer, you know, so it wasn't as heavy coming back next time or whatever.

00:56:01:12 - 00:56:22:23
Speaker 4
Or they could stay longer, drop down to base camp, wait for the storm to almost finish. Pressure starts to go up and they start to make their way back up and then, you know, maybe all the duration and lowest section during the little shitty weather next day the weather's perfect and then they might have a window of three days.

00:56:22:23 - 00:56:46:20
Speaker 4
That's the way I would have done it, you know? But you know, that wouldn't have been the way I would have done it initially when I first went there. That probably took a while to experience, to know that, you know, and it's more like you could do that nowadays because you get weather forecast the weather. But but you do know in Pakistan that, you know, you get a storm never last.

00:56:47:02 - 00:57:11:21
Speaker 4
It's not like Nepal where you get a storm of one day like an afternoon snowstorm. And then next day it's beautiful blue skies. That often happens a lot in Nepal. It doesn't happen in Pakistan like that a lot normally it's 3 to 5 days weather, so you know, you're going to climb up in the shit where the risk of avalanches run out of food one day below the top and end up trying to fight your way out.

00:57:11:21 - 00:57:35:13
Speaker 4
And it just that's basically what they did, right? Do would it be it's a pity just if they'd actually done that, they're all strong enough. And even what Robinson, who was getting sick and stuff, would've recovered. And then all four of them would have just gone back up and done it. They may have climbed it then. So, you know, experience a body.

00:57:36:04 - 00:57:38:03
Speaker 4
Body would acknowledge that now.

00:57:38:03 - 00:58:00:19
Speaker 1
I'm sure part of the learning process, I think. Right. And I mean, I'm sure he was incredibly experience at the time. It's it's just one of those things I don't know from experience, but I can imagine I've made my fair share of mistakes and things and it's always hindsight's 2020, right? Yeah. It definitely seems like these kind of these kind of objectives up in these high alpine areas.

00:58:00:19 - 00:58:19:00
Speaker 1
It's it's not how good you can climb. It's not how skilled you are, how fit you are. It's more of this like understanding of the process and and the terrain and the environment that you're in that really pays off in the end. I mean, you have to have it all. Yeah I.

00:58:19:00 - 00:58:24:13
Speaker 4
Mean, it gives you a better chance and gives you a harder it gives you a chance of a harder object.

00:58:24:13 - 00:58:51:15
Speaker 1
I think if you want to survive in those environments, having the fitness and all those things in the experience is just a given. Yeah, yeah. So we're about to go into these bigger topics and stories of your actual attempts and successful attempts on some big objectives. Before, I just want to dove a little bit into the sheer logistics of an expedition in Pakistan and Nepal.

00:58:51:21 - 00:59:13:11
Speaker 1
And I think reading your books, the Burgess book Allies, I think one of the biggest things that that shook me was just how involved the process of getting all this gear to the base camp of where you're trying to set up really was. And we'll talk about specifics on each of these objectives. But one that struck me the most was K2.

00:59:13:18 - 00:59:28:07
Speaker 1
It took you two weeks to get from the roadside to the base of the mountain to frickin weeks like that. That is the longest approach I've ever heard of in my life. And you're dealing with hundreds of porters and food and so talk to us a little bit.

00:59:28:10 - 00:59:30:11
Speaker 4
To two weeks is actually not bad.

00:59:30:16 - 00:59:31:04
Speaker 1
Oh, no.

00:59:31:14 - 00:59:33:13
Speaker 4
Actually, winter took us three or four weeks.

00:59:34:06 - 00:59:44:12
Speaker 1
Okay. So yeah, let's just talk a little bit about the sheer logistics of an expedition like because Kathmandu seems to be like the place that you keep flying into these places.

00:59:44:12 - 00:59:45:12
Speaker 4
Which is for Nepal.

00:59:45:15 - 01:00:07:17
Speaker 1
And so you're I'm just going to give you a brief summary of some of the stuff I'd like you to dove into, like you're having to find all the food for the trip for not only you and the climbers, but for the porters. It's the amount of time you're spending doing this, the politics of dealing with customs and people and bringing everything in and like who's organizing this entire attack plan?

01:00:07:17 - 01:00:11:20
Speaker 1
So just briefly talk to us about just sticks of setting up.

01:00:12:03 - 01:00:35:13
Speaker 4
First of all, it starts out with how much money you've raised. Is that because you can always pay people to do part of the work? Like you can find an office in which is the outfitter where you have to have somebody there to deal with the Ministry of Tourism. So you have to pay a fee to some outfit.

01:00:35:15 - 01:01:08:10
Speaker 4
The outfit will probably find your Sherpa staff like it used to be. Mountain travel, Nepal. He called it much and Jimmy Roberts and it's Gurkha officer. And he started when he started trekking in Nepal and he ran this office. So then we would be using telex as not faxes, even write letters to communicate briefly with him. And then he would communicate with the ministry of Tourism to get the permits.

01:01:09:06 - 01:01:38:00
Speaker 4
Then you would have to bank wire transfer money across, which was not difficult to the Ministry of Tourism to buy the permit. Now, back in the day, the permits weren't that expensive. The permit for that journey, which is 6 hours I think was like 20 $500, you know, so split six ways, whatever. And we raised some money. I mean, you know, that was not bad.

01:01:38:05 - 01:02:13:10
Speaker 4
Now you've got a jet. So there's two ways of doing this. And big expeditions like the Canadian Everest expedition, they had a major sponsor called Air Canada that flew over straight out to Kathmandu for three. Right. That's a major sponsor, the K2 trip, British K2 886 trip. One of the main sponsors, actually. I mean, the main sponsor was a brewery in London.

01:02:13:10 - 01:02:47:08
Speaker 4
A London brewery. Right. Just they wanted to make this K2 lager or whatever. But yeah, they gave us the money. But one of the largest sponsors, unrecognized or known, was actually I think it was British Airways, and it was the Pan Am of British Airways. It was an airline. One of our climbing friends worked in London Heathrow, and he shoved all this all our gear off the three scam.

01:02:47:10 - 01:03:13:00
Speaker 4
It went on for three, you know, and we did, you know, we only took what we needed for the mountain. Now, when you got three air freight, you can consider sending a package, food, you know, miles, bowels and whatever you want, you know, from the US, right? That the three freight of an expedition the biggest single cost more than the term threes.

01:03:13:04 - 01:03:39:10
Speaker 4
Well now it is average ten grand ahead. I don't know but. But no ship in food or shipping equipment is the biggest single cost effort right now. So lightweight expeditions like we were on both sides of them. You know, if Canadian ever said to produce and said, how do you want to come on this expedition? Sure, it's going to be my you know, I'm homeless, basically.

01:03:39:21 - 01:04:06:15
Speaker 4
It's going to be feed me for the next three months, you know, is dominated by benefits of hard stuff. So yeah, sure. But if it's like putting together a small group like that today, it's going to be well, is there another way around this? Yes. You buy your food over there, you don't you? We had a with our team, we would say, this is where it goes, guys.

01:04:07:02 - 01:04:12:05
Speaker 4
We're allowed to £65 bands. That used to be what was allowed to free an alliance.

01:04:12:06 - 01:04:13:18
Speaker 1
But it's not that anymore.

01:04:13:23 - 01:04:51:22
Speaker 4
Now than it used to be right now with economy class. Wow, you got that right. But then you had your hand baggage. Yeah. So the gear and equipment and tents and stuff that, you know, generally speaking, you would send out in your personal baggage. But yeah, hand baggage. I used to carry any the food I was going to eat high up on the mountain, any specialty foods that I felt I could like, you know, would titillate my palate to eat when you do not feel like eating.

01:04:52:16 - 01:04:54:23
Speaker 4
And that would be all kinds of what were.

01:04:54:23 - 01:04:55:18
Speaker 1
Your favorites.

01:04:55:18 - 01:05:03:22
Speaker 4
And often and everything else. But it would be, you know, that's what you would have. You would have whatever your particularly food fetish was.

01:05:03:22 - 01:05:04:17
Speaker 1
Which was what?

01:05:04:22 - 01:05:16:21
Speaker 4
Well, mind early on it was probably like transit, two good cans of tuna fish. You know, it would be.

01:05:18:10 - 01:05:24:05
Speaker 1
This I'm going to those, not what I'm going to get.

01:05:24:05 - 01:05:29:06
Speaker 4
To smell powdered potato. My instant I can.

01:05:29:06 - 01:05:29:16
Speaker 1
See that.

01:05:30:02 - 01:05:46:01
Speaker 4
Packets of soups, good packets of soups. I was never big candy bar thing, you know, but just chocolate melts anyway over that stuff. I mean, I'm sure I took some kind of equivalent of PowerBar.

01:05:46:06 - 01:05:47:11
Speaker 1
You sound like a cheap.

01:05:49:10 - 01:06:11:20
Speaker 4
Well, you know, the big brother. That must have used to say when you were making food for this, you only got two of everything because the first it was novel and the second time you jerked it down, and the third time you would throw it away.

01:06:11:20 - 01:06:14:12
Speaker 1
So you had that cyclic attrition rate. Yeah.

01:06:14:12 - 03:23:39:05
Speaker 4
Yeah. So that right now, later on, later on, I, I is a.


Introduction
Alpine vs. Super Alpine vs. High Altitude
Expedition Logistics
West Ridge of Everest in Winter
Dhaulagiri
Annapurna IV
The Present