Once seen as an indomitable challenge, Mount Everest has become increasingly commercialised.
It’s become a tourist industry, with queues of climbers all waiting to take their photos at the top, paying anywhere between US$65,000 and US$200,000, the VIP experience coming with a higher price tag.
Journalist and author Will Cockrell has been climbing mountains for over 30 years and has explored the commercialisation of Mount Everest in his new book ‘Everest Inc: The Renegades and Rogues Who Built an Industry at the Top of the World’.
He joined Jack Tame to dig into the industry surrounding one of the most iconic mountains in the world.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from Newstalks EDB, Good.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Morning News, Yellowing Year with Jack tame On News Talks EDB. Today,
Mount Everest is probably more commercialized than it has ever
been in its history. It was once a deadly lure
of sorts for adventurous climbers, but now, of course, sending
tourists to the summit is very big business. Indeed, we've
all seen the photos of climbers queued up as they
(00:35):
wait to summit on the world's highest mountain. The first
paying Climate clients stepped onto the summit of Mount Everest
back in nineteen ninety two. Now, roughly eight hundred people
attempt to climb Mount Everest each year, with an average
cost for clients of about sixty five thousand US dollars
a person, although some pay about two hundred thousand dollars
(00:57):
per person for VIP experiences. Journalist Will Cockrel has been
a climber and mountaineer for more than thirty years. In
his new books inc The Renegades and Rogues Who Built
an Industry at the Top of the World is started
with quotes from more than one hundred Western and Sherpa
climbers from clients, from writers and filmmakers, as the book
(01:18):
explores how Mount Everest has been commercialized in recent decades.
Well is with us this morning, Calder, Good morning, and
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Hey, great to be here, Jack, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
This is a subject of particular interest to New Zealanders,
and New Zealanders are a particular interest in your amazing book.
But I I just wondered if we could start with
the big picture. Can you compare Mount Everest of nineteen
fifty three, the Mount Everest of Hillary and Tenzing, to
the Mount Everest of today.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Yeah, of course, you know, back then and even up
until I would say the eighties, the big X factor
with Everest, and it was a big one was the
however many you know, many meters above K two. It
was so the sort of tallest mountain in the world thing,
(02:10):
you know, nearly nine thousand meter peak. Really no one
had any idea what the body would do up at
those heights, so where the climbing maybe didn't feel terribly
technically difficult to a lot of people, even back in
Hillary's day, it really was the unknown above eight thousand
meters a little bit like stepping off a spaceship. I think,
(02:32):
you know, you don't know what the body is going
to do, and you're up in a no margin for
error place, and so if the body shuts down, which
it would essentially without oxygen, then you know, then that's it.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Right.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
So at the time, Hillary was basically stepping into a
place no one had before.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, yeah, whereas today people are yeah, climbing a mountain
that has been substantially commercialized, to say the least. And
you hit on an important point there, will. I mean,
the thing about manna Verist is that from a technical perspective,
from a climbing perspective, it is not a particularly difficult
(03:15):
mountain to climb, right, it is the altitude it's a challenge.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
I mean I always bristle a little bit, and I
think this comes across in my book when people when
people call it easy, you know, especially mountaineers, have gotten
into a sort of a bad you know, real mountaineers
have gotten into a bad habit of saying, oh, Everest
is ridiculous because it's easy, and that's not true. It's
(03:43):
not it's not incredibly technical. You know, if you have
some basic skills and basic athleticism, all the you know,
all the slopes and and hazards are all fairly moderate
to overcome, but there's still some steep sections and some
tricky climbing on it for sure. But you know, I
(04:07):
think when they talk about easy, they mean you're not
you know, you're not vertical, and it's not for elite climbers,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, right, And and from a technical perspective, even compared
to the likes of K two, for example, it's it's
it's not easy, but perhaps easier is the word. Yeah, yeah,
And certainly wouldn't be easy if you if you weren't
using oxygen, which of course most climbers to summ up
Man Everus these days absolutely use. So take us back
(04:35):
a couple of decades. Then you started off with Everston
Tensing in fifty three. You move along a little bit
into the latter part of last century, and it's really
the late eighties, the earlier parts of the nineteen nineties
where commercial guides start guiding clients up man Everest. So
what led to that transition.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Well, we can put it.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
You know a lot of people say it was because
of a man named get Bass. You know, this eccentric
taxan oil man, had a lot of money. He was
the owner of a very well known ski resort here
in the States, and he got it in his head
that he wanted to He was not a climber, loved
the outdoors, loved hiking, loved skiing, but not a climber.
(05:18):
He got it in his head that he wanted to
climb the Seven Summits. And it's not to say that
he invented the notion, but no one had done it,
and no one had verbalized that they were trying to
do it. So he and an equally passionate partner, Frank Wells,
one of the big studio heads in Hollywood, they both
had this dream and they teamed up and they went
(05:39):
for it. And their talent was for surrounding themselves with
very talented, usually pretty well known climbers like Chris Bondington
for example, from the UK, and they would basically, you know,
pay for these enormously expensive, complicated expeditions, and then they
(05:59):
get these, you know, these elite climbers along and then
that would of course be their safe net would be
to climb with these climbers. Frank Wells eventually dropped out
and it left Bass to reckon with Everest, which he
had tried already twice. And it was a gentleman named
(06:20):
David Brishears. I don't know how well known he is
in New Zealand, but he's kind of a legend here,
an incredibly strong climber and filmmaker. He was the one
who made the Imax film. He passed away about two
months ago or a month and a half ago, actually
very unexpectedly. Anyway, it was Dick Bass and David Brisheers
who summited Mount Everest. And you know, Dick Bass could
(06:43):
not really keep to himself how inexperienced he was when
he came down. That's what changed Everest was Dick Bass
shouting from the rooftops that he's not a climber, but
he did climb Everest. He even went on the tonight
show Johnny Carson's, you know, big talk show at.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
The time and said, oh are you there?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Sorry, oh no, yeah, sorry, you broke up? Well And
what did he say on Johnny Hill?
Speaker 4 (07:09):
He went on Johnny Carson's talk show and he said
as much. He announced, you know, to those ten million
people watching. You know, he makes jokes like the only
running he ever does is through airports. But he basically
was sort of letting people know that you can climb
Mount Everest with tenacity, if you know, not the technical skills.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, So we fast forward a little bit and your story.
Your story documents this transition really really well, because when
when a lot of people think about guiding man Everest
and think about, you know that the guides who've kind
of become synonymous with that industry. We think of New Zealanders,
we think of Russell Bryce, we think of Rob Paul,
Gary Ball, Guy Kotta, and by the mid nineties you
(07:53):
have the so called Big Five. That's when you start
to see competition between the guiding companies leading clients to
the summit of Everest. At that point, had it kind
of become you know, gross in the way that people
start to started to criticize the industry because they were
still leading like clean up exhibition expeditions and that kind
(08:16):
of thing, and they were only pitching base camp for
the season, right and they were removing it during the
off season, so their preps weren't scarring the mountain in
the way that some people might criticize the industry as doing.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Now, well, the irony with with not just Everest, but
a lot of plate wild places like this is. It
was actually considered a bit dirtier or felt dirtier to
a lot of climbers. I talked to many who recalled
it this way. And but this is this is when
at a time when no one went there, so no
one thought to clean.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
It up, if you know what I mean, A few
visitors to the place.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Would sort of leave their you know, their tuna fish
tins behind without much thought. But it wasn't a national park,
et cetera. But funny enough, with popularity came stricter rules,
and you know, all I can say I never been.
I've been to Nepall once, but I'd never been to
Everspace Camp. And when I went, I was kind of
(09:12):
blown away at how well taken care of that National
park is. It's a real treasure to them, and it
is funny to you know, is it's ironic after reading
all the stories about how gross base Camp is and
how you know, sort of dirty this these hordes of
trekkers make this place, and I was astounded.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, So if we once again to fast forward a
little bit in our story to what extent have the
Nepalese and sherpas been able to claim part of this
industry because in the last few years there has been
a bit of a transition of sorts.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
That's right, a major transition.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
And really it came with with the Westerners who had
built this industry. It became obvious fairly early to them
that the sherpas were indispensable.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
So they were much stronger on the mountain, much more
able up high, and could be counted on to do
multiple rotations up and down the mountain. So they became
the backbone of the industry. What they didn't have was
mountain guide training, and I don't think I think part
of writing this book was to let people know how
(10:27):
important that was and what a big deal it was
that they didn't have it. Right, mountain guides are there
for when things go wrong, and so many sherpas told
me so many stories of the nineties and the two
thousands when they were the strongest climbers on the mountain,
and yet if someone broke their leg up high, or
someone fell into a crevass, they just did not know
(10:50):
the you know, the protocol and the complicated knots to
get out of a crevass. And so that kept them
in this pay grade that you know to us in
the West, you know, you look over and it feels
like exploitation.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, right, kept.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Them in this, uh, this pay grade that's good for Nepal,
but certainly not near what the Westerners were making. But
I I did kind of find enough evidence and go
down a road in my storytelling that that explains how
it was actually the Westerners who kick started that training.
It took a long time, right, You don't just become
(11:28):
a mountain guide overnight.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, and so you.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Know, you're talking a decade of training, but it was
really the Western guides that that shepherded the the Nepalis
and Sherpas through that training. And now we're in this
place where the Sherpas have are owning their own trekking
guiding companies and also being paid the same as the
Westerners to guide it.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah. So when we think about the pictures of the
last couple of years of the of the climbers lined
up to try and summit Mount Everest, do you do
you think that that is a fear, you know, an
accurate representation of what climbing Everest has become.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Sort of, it's not totally. It's not totally inaccurate. And
what I mean by that is it is a crowded mountain.
I do not attempt to sort of, you know that
back against this you know rumor and debate.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
About it being crowded. It is crowded.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
What people don't understand is that most people who go
climb Everest these days are not going, you know, to
get lost in the wilderness. They're not going to commune
with nature, so they're not going for the reasons people
are just assuming, which is to not be around people,
and they think it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Why would you go.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
The reason for that shot was that the summit days
all revolve around weather windows and in fact, probably a
lot of key Wes might know this better than others
because of the into thin air story. The weather reports
are so good these days that a lot of times
people have Summitt fever, and when they spot that first
(13:05):
four day window, the guided groups decide they're going to
go up that day. That's what ends up giving you
that picture is when everybody says, let's do it. Who
knows there might not be another window. I will say
the thing behind the picture that people don't know is
that all the guiding companies that do do that tend
to make some pretty meticulous plans around that happening. Right,
(13:29):
So they are aware that their clients are going to
be sitting in a queue for an extra couple hours.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Right, and so they take sufficient oxygen and that kind
of thing in order to in order to prepare for it. Yeah,
how do how do you how do you think New
Zealanders should think about our country's kind of cultural relationship
with Everest, Because it seems to me that there are
two parts. You have the incredible story of stream and Hillary.
(13:55):
I mean he adorns uh you know, our currency. He
is like, you know, I think kind of lionized as
the ultimate image of what New Zealand And does hope
they represent in many respects. But then you think about
how Everest has become commercialized over the last three or
four decades, and New Zealand has certainly played a role
(14:18):
in that. New Zealanders have played a role in that.
And some people would say that that preps is a
little uglier. You know, I.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Don't want to get you any hate mail, but I
of course came away from this with the idea that
the most important kiwis on the mountain and really punched
above their weight. Was in this dawn of the guiding era.
And as you said, you know, two of the five
legacy companies were owned by Kiwis, Russell Brice's Himex and
(14:50):
Hall and Ball's Adventure Consultants. And in my book, I
chronicle that deciding to guide on Mount.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Everest was not an easy thing.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
I think that's the biggest misconception is it's that if
you're a mountain guide, you decide why not guide on
the tallest one in the world. It was an audacious
idea that took a lot of groundwork to figure out
how to do it and if it was possible. And
the New Zealanders just play such a big important role
(15:21):
in that and in the dawn of the guiding era. Yeah,
and if you're someone if you're like me and you
don't feel like the guiding business or the yeah, the
guiding business on Everest sort of deserves the ire it gets,
and especially now that it is basically run and owned
by the sherp of people in this very prosperous part
(15:43):
of Nepal. I feel like the legacy, the Kiwi legacy
for me, is in people like Russell, Bryce and Hall
and Ball, yeah yeah, and Guy Catter and endless other
you know, I think Lydia Brady and there's a but
you know, there's a ton of amazing Kiwi guides throughout
the decades.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah. So do you feel optimistic when about the future
of Everest and the future of guiding on Everest?
Speaker 4 (16:11):
I do, Actually, I think that Unfortunately, like a lot
of stories that come off Everest, it's going to be
hard to convince the average punter or you know, the
people that when you hear about more deaths or tragedy
or mistakes, it's going to be hard to say, oh,
this is this is okay. But I think what's happening
right now is that the Nepali companies, most of them
(16:35):
run by incredibly passionate, amazing climbing guides with full i
f mg A certification.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
They're running a tight ship.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
However, now that they are in charge of the industry,
they're going through a lot of the similar growing pains
that the Westerners did early on, and they're you know,
trying to make some decisions within their cultural reference of Nepal,
and there's some mistakes being made, there's some bad judgment
in there, and I think last year, you know, you
(17:04):
may remember, was the actually the dead lest season of
all seasons on Mount Everest, at a time when I
would have said to anybody before it that you know,
we're in the safest era of climbing Everest that we've
ever been in, and I would say that was proven
by this year where we had you know, I think
it was three or four deaths within the guiding infrastructure,
(17:28):
and so yeah, I would say that this is really
this is amazing for Nepal.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I mean, one thing that I also.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
I'm not sure many people realize is how much pride
the Napalies take in Mount Everest.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, you know, the fact.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
That, you know, perhaps more so than they're in New Zealand,
the fact that it sits in their country and it
happened to be an Apolli that was on that first
ascent team. Mountaineering is a big deal there. You know,
they don't have cricket. I mean they do, but they
don't have like a national team. You know, they don't
have a lot of these different sports, and this is it,
(18:03):
this is their this is their greatness.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, that's a very good point. And look, well, thank
you so much for being with us. It is a
fascinating story and one that I think many New Zealanders
will connect with, not only because of all of the
New Zealanders who feature Without it, Will's book is Everestinc.
The renegades and rogues who built an industry at the
top of the world.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from Newstalks EDB, Good.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Morning News, Yellowing Year with Jack tame On News Talks EDB. Today,
Mount Everest is probably more commercialized than it has ever
been in its history. It was once a deadly lure
of sorts for adventurous climbers, but now, of course, sending
tourists to the summit is very big business. Indeed, we've
all seen the photos of climbers queued up as they
(00:35):
wait to summit on the world's highest mountain. The first
paying Climate clients stepped onto the summit of Mount Everest
back in nineteen ninety two. Now, roughly eight hundred people
attempt to climb Mount Everest each year, with an average
cost for clients of about sixty five thousand US dollars
a person, although some pay about two hundred thousand dollars
(00:57):
per person for VIP experiences. Journalist Will Cockrel has been
a climber and mountaineer for more than thirty years. In
his new books inc The Renegades and Rogues Who Built
an Industry at the Top of the World is started
with quotes from more than one hundred Western and Sherpa
climbers from clients, from writers and filmmakers, as the book
(01:18):
explores how Mount Everest has been commercialized in recent decades.
Well is with us this morning, Calder, Good morning, and
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Hey, great to be here, Jack, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
This is a subject of particular interest to New Zealanders,
and New Zealanders are a particular interest in your amazing book.
But I I just wondered if we could start with
the big picture. Can you compare Mount Everest of nineteen
fifty three, the Mount Everest of Hillary and Tenzing, to
the Mount Everest of today.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Yeah, of course, you know, back then and even up
until I would say the eighties, the big X factor
with Everest, and it was a big one was the
however many you know, many meters above K two. It
was so the sort of tallest mountain in the world thing,
(02:10):
you know, nearly nine thousand meter peak. Really no one
had any idea what the body would do up at
those heights, so where the climbing maybe didn't feel terribly
technically difficult to a lot of people, even back in
Hillary's day, it really was the unknown above eight thousand
meters a little bit like stepping off a spaceship. I think,
(02:32):
you know, you don't know what the body is going
to do, and you're up in a no margin for
error place, and so if the body shuts down, which
it would essentially without oxygen, then you know, then that's it.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Right.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
So at the time, Hillary was basically stepping into a
place no one had before.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, yeah, whereas today people are yeah, climbing a mountain
that has been substantially commercialized, to say the least. And
you hit on an important point there, will. I mean,
the thing about manna Verist is that from a technical perspective,
from a climbing perspective, it is not a particularly difficult
(03:15):
mountain to climb, right, it is the altitude it's a challenge.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
I mean I always bristle a little bit, and I
think this comes across in my book when people when
people call it easy, you know, especially mountaineers, have gotten
into a sort of a bad you know, real mountaineers
have gotten into a bad habit of saying, oh, Everest
is ridiculous because it's easy, and that's not true. It's
(03:43):
not it's not incredibly technical. You know, if you have
some basic skills and basic athleticism, all the you know,
all the slopes and and hazards are all fairly moderate
to overcome, but there's still some steep sections and some
tricky climbing on it for sure. But you know, I
(04:07):
think when they talk about easy, they mean you're not
you know, you're not vertical, and it's not for elite climbers,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, right, And and from a technical perspective, even compared
to the likes of K two, for example, it's it's
it's not easy, but perhaps easier is the word. Yeah, yeah,
And certainly wouldn't be easy if you if you weren't
using oxygen, which of course most climbers to summ up
Man Everus these days absolutely use. So take us back
(04:35):
a couple of decades. Then you started off with Everston
Tensing in fifty three. You move along a little bit
into the latter part of last century, and it's really
the late eighties, the earlier parts of the nineteen nineties
where commercial guides start guiding clients up man Everest. So
what led to that transition.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Well, we can put it.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
You know a lot of people say it was because
of a man named get Bass. You know, this eccentric
taxan oil man, had a lot of money. He was
the owner of a very well known ski resort here
in the States, and he got it in his head
that he wanted to He was not a climber, loved
the outdoors, loved hiking, loved skiing, but not a climber.
(05:18):
He got it in his head that he wanted to
climb the Seven Summits. And it's not to say that
he invented the notion, but no one had done it,
and no one had verbalized that they were trying to
do it. So he and an equally passionate partner, Frank Wells,
one of the big studio heads in Hollywood, they both
had this dream and they teamed up and they went
(05:39):
for it. And their talent was for surrounding themselves with
very talented, usually pretty well known climbers like Chris Bondington
for example, from the UK, and they would basically, you know,
pay for these enormously expensive, complicated expeditions, and then they
(05:59):
get these, you know, these elite climbers along and then
that would of course be their safe net would be
to climb with these climbers. Frank Wells eventually dropped out
and it left Bass to reckon with Everest, which he
had tried already twice. And it was a gentleman named
(06:20):
David Brishears. I don't know how well known he is
in New Zealand, but he's kind of a legend here,
an incredibly strong climber and filmmaker. He was the one
who made the Imax film. He passed away about two
months ago or a month and a half ago, actually
very unexpectedly. Anyway, it was Dick Bass and David Brisheers
who summited Mount Everest. And you know, Dick Bass could
(06:43):
not really keep to himself how inexperienced he was when
he came down. That's what changed Everest was Dick Bass
shouting from the rooftops that he's not a climber, but
he did climb Everest. He even went on the tonight
show Johnny Carson's, you know, big talk show at.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
The time and said, oh are you there?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Sorry, oh no, yeah, sorry, you broke up? Well And
what did he say on Johnny Hill?
Speaker 4 (07:09):
He went on Johnny Carson's talk show and he said
as much. He announced, you know, to those ten million
people watching. You know, he makes jokes like the only
running he ever does is through airports. But he basically
was sort of letting people know that you can climb
Mount Everest with tenacity, if you know, not the technical skills.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, So we fast forward a little bit and your story.
Your story documents this transition really really well, because when
when a lot of people think about guiding man Everest
and think about, you know that the guides who've kind
of become synonymous with that industry. We think of New Zealanders,
we think of Russell Bryce, we think of Rob Paul,
Gary Ball, Guy Kotta, and by the mid nineties you
(07:53):
have the so called Big Five. That's when you start
to see competition between the guiding companies leading clients to
the summit of Everest. At that point, had it kind
of become you know, gross in the way that people
start to started to criticize the industry because they were
still leading like clean up exhibition expeditions and that kind
(08:16):
of thing, and they were only pitching base camp for
the season, right and they were removing it during the
off season, so their preps weren't scarring the mountain in
the way that some people might criticize the industry as doing.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Now, well, the irony with with not just Everest, but
a lot of plate wild places like this is. It
was actually considered a bit dirtier or felt dirtier to
a lot of climbers. I talked to many who recalled
it this way. And but this is this is when
at a time when no one went there, so no
one thought to clean.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
It up, if you know what I mean, A few
visitors to the place.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Would sort of leave their you know, their tuna fish
tins behind without much thought. But it wasn't a national park,
et cetera. But funny enough, with popularity came stricter rules,
and you know, all I can say I never been.
I've been to Nepall once, but I'd never been to
Everspace Camp. And when I went, I was kind of
(09:12):
blown away at how well taken care of that National
park is. It's a real treasure to them, and it
is funny to you know, is it's ironic after reading
all the stories about how gross base Camp is and
how you know, sort of dirty this these hordes of
trekkers make this place, and I was astounded.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, So if we once again to fast forward a
little bit in our story to what extent have the
Nepalese and sherpas been able to claim part of this
industry because in the last few years there has been
a bit of a transition of sorts.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
That's right, a major transition.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
And really it came with with the Westerners who had
built this industry. It became obvious fairly early to them
that the sherpas were indispensable.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
So they were much stronger on the mountain, much more
able up high, and could be counted on to do
multiple rotations up and down the mountain. So they became
the backbone of the industry. What they didn't have was
mountain guide training, and I don't think I think part
of writing this book was to let people know how
(10:27):
important that was and what a big deal it was
that they didn't have it. Right, mountain guides are there
for when things go wrong, and so many sherpas told
me so many stories of the nineties and the two
thousands when they were the strongest climbers on the mountain,
and yet if someone broke their leg up high, or
someone fell into a crevass, they just did not know
(10:50):
the you know, the protocol and the complicated knots to
get out of a crevass. And so that kept them
in this pay grade that you know to us in
the West, you know, you look over and it feels
like exploitation.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, right, kept.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Them in this, uh, this pay grade that's good for Nepal,
but certainly not near what the Westerners were making. But
I I did kind of find enough evidence and go
down a road in my storytelling that that explains how
it was actually the Westerners who kick started that training.
It took a long time, right, You don't just become
(11:28):
a mountain guide overnight.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, and so you.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Know, you're talking a decade of training, but it was
really the Western guides that that shepherded the the Nepalis
and Sherpas through that training. And now we're in this
place where the Sherpas have are owning their own trekking
guiding companies and also being paid the same as the
Westerners to guide it.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah. So when we think about the pictures of the
last couple of years of the of the climbers lined
up to try and summit Mount Everest, do you do
you think that that is a fear, you know, an
accurate representation of what climbing Everest has become.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Sort of, it's not totally. It's not totally inaccurate. And
what I mean by that is it is a crowded mountain.
I do not attempt to sort of, you know that
back against this you know rumor and debate.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
About it being crowded. It is crowded.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
What people don't understand is that most people who go
climb Everest these days are not going, you know, to
get lost in the wilderness. They're not going to commune
with nature, so they're not going for the reasons people
are just assuming, which is to not be around people,
and they think it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Why would you go.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
The reason for that shot was that the summit days
all revolve around weather windows and in fact, probably a
lot of key Wes might know this better than others
because of the into thin air story. The weather reports
are so good these days that a lot of times
people have Summitt fever, and when they spot that first
(13:05):
four day window, the guided groups decide they're going to
go up that day. That's what ends up giving you
that picture is when everybody says, let's do it. Who
knows there might not be another window. I will say
the thing behind the picture that people don't know is
that all the guiding companies that do do that tend
to make some pretty meticulous plans around that happening. Right,
(13:29):
So they are aware that their clients are going to
be sitting in a queue for an extra couple hours.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Right, and so they take sufficient oxygen and that kind
of thing in order to in order to prepare for it. Yeah,
how do how do you how do you think New
Zealanders should think about our country's kind of cultural relationship
with Everest, Because it seems to me that there are
two parts. You have the incredible story of stream and Hillary.
(13:55):
I mean he adorns uh you know, our currency. He
is like, you know, I think kind of lionized as
the ultimate image of what New Zealand And does hope
they represent in many respects. But then you think about
how Everest has become commercialized over the last three or
four decades, and New Zealand has certainly played a role
(14:18):
in that. New Zealanders have played a role in that.
And some people would say that that preps is a
little uglier. You know, I.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Don't want to get you any hate mail, but I
of course came away from this with the idea that
the most important kiwis on the mountain and really punched
above their weight. Was in this dawn of the guiding era.
And as you said, you know, two of the five
legacy companies were owned by Kiwis, Russell Brice's Himex and
(14:50):
Hall and Ball's Adventure Consultants. And in my book, I
chronicle that deciding to guide on Mount.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Everest was not an easy thing.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
I think that's the biggest misconception is it's that if
you're a mountain guide, you decide why not guide on
the tallest one in the world. It was an audacious
idea that took a lot of groundwork to figure out
how to do it and if it was possible. And
the New Zealanders just play such a big important role
(15:21):
in that and in the dawn of the guiding era. Yeah,
and if you're someone if you're like me and you
don't feel like the guiding business or the yeah, the
guiding business on Everest sort of deserves the ire it gets,
and especially now that it is basically run and owned
by the sherp of people in this very prosperous part
(15:43):
of Nepal. I feel like the legacy, the Kiwi legacy
for me, is in people like Russell, Bryce and Hall
and Ball, yeah yeah, and Guy Catter and endless other
you know, I think Lydia Brady and there's a but
you know, there's a ton of amazing Kiwi guides throughout
the decades.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah. So do you feel optimistic when about the future
of Everest and the future of guiding on Everest?
Speaker 4 (16:11):
I do, Actually, I think that Unfortunately, like a lot
of stories that come off Everest, it's going to be
hard to convince the average punter or you know, the
people that when you hear about more deaths or tragedy
or mistakes, it's going to be hard to say, oh,
this is this is okay. But I think what's happening
right now is that the Nepali companies, most of them
(16:35):
run by incredibly passionate, amazing climbing guides with full i
f mg A certification.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
They're running a tight ship.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
However, now that they are in charge of the industry,
they're going through a lot of the similar growing pains
that the Westerners did early on, and they're you know,
trying to make some decisions within their cultural reference of Nepal,
and there's some mistakes being made, there's some bad judgment
in there, and I think last year, you know, you
(17:04):
may remember, was the actually the dead lest season of
all seasons on Mount Everest, at a time when I
would have said to anybody before it that you know,
we're in the safest era of climbing Everest that we've
ever been in, and I would say that was proven
by this year where we had you know, I think
it was three or four deaths within the guiding infrastructure,
(17:28):
and so yeah, I would say that this is really
this is amazing for Nepal.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I mean, one thing that I also.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
I'm not sure many people realize is how much pride
the Napalies take in Mount Everest.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, you know, the fact.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
That, you know, perhaps more so than they're in New Zealand,
the fact that it sits in their country and it
happened to be an Apolli that was on that first
ascent team. Mountaineering is a big deal there. You know,
they don't have cricket. I mean they do, but they
don't have like a national team. You know, they don't
have a lot of these different sports, and this is it,
(18:03):
this is their this is their greatness.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, that's a very good point. And look, well, thank
you so much for being with us. It is a
fascinating story and one that I think many New Zealanders
will connect with, not only because of all of the
New Zealanders who feature Without it, Will's book is Everestinc.
The renegades and rogues who built an industry at the
top of the world.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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