LITERALLY: THIS IS THE TALK THAT INSPIRED THE 2019 SANDY IRVINE SEARCH EXPEDITION, which led to the film LOST ON EVEREST by National Geographic and Mark Synnott's book THE THIRD POLE: MYSTERY, OBSESSION, AND DEATH ON MOUNT EVEREST.
This presentation is one of only two sold out events EVER at the Leura Hill Eastman Performing Arts Center at Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg, Maine.
The presentation was captured on camera by a student at the back of the auditorium, using a microphone mounted to the top of the camera. It's presented here for informational and educational purposes.
"Pollard’s dynamic presentations are geared to inspire a deeper understanding of self and elicit the motivations which drive us to tackle seemingly insurmountable goals. Motivation, performance, teamwork, goal setting and overcoming obstacles are all interwoven metaphorically into his talk." This event was in support of sports medicine programs and services at Memorial Hospital, North Conway, NH.
PLEASE LEARN MORE ABOUT THOM DHARMA POLLARD HERE:
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Thom Dharma Pollard
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Thom Pollard (00:00):
This is the happiness quotient. Have you
(00:12):
heard of a course in happiness?
In this short colorful guidefilled with beautiful adventure
photography? The easy to readguide suggests that we stop
chasing happiness in our pathtoward unlocking the mysteries
to life's big questions. Itoffers a few guideposts to
contemplate, and to put to usein your daily life. Go to
(00:33):
patreon.com slash the happinessquotient, where you'll find a
free pdf download of a course inhappiness.
The Wood Brothers (00:44):
All of my wisdom came from all the
toughest days I never learned athing bein' happy all of my
sufferin came i didntappreciate it I never learned a
thing bein happy
Thom Pollard (01:05):
Welcome to the happiness quotient. This is Thom
Pollard. Winter appears to havefinally relented and spring is
truly on its way in the WhiteMountains of New Hampshire. Only
a few minutes drive from myhouse I stop at this railroad
(01:28):
trellis and short hike down apath along a river reveals this
lovely sandy beach with stonesalong parts of it. This time of
year always gets me going Aprilto me means Everest season.
(01:55):
This episode is dedicated to theclimbers and trekkers and Sherpa
and the many workers cooksporters who are as we speak
headed toward Everest base campin the Khumbu valley of Nepal.
April is the season where allmove toward the gorgeous and all
(02:18):
powerful mountain, chama llama,Mother Goddess of mountains, as
it's known in Tibet, or saggarMartha in Nepal.
Today, I'm going to share withyou a presentation I did in
Freiburg, Maine, in 2017, calledlessons learned in the pursuit
(02:42):
of Everest. The talk, as itwould turn out, was attended by
a good friend of mine, Mark,Senate. And little did I know
that the talk inspired the birthof the 2019 Sandy Urban Search
expedition. In another week,Mark, Senate, his book, The
(03:03):
third pole, mystery, obsession,and death on Mount Everest will
be released. So I'm sharing withyou that talk that mark Sennett
attended and told me that thisreally was the genesis of all
that took place in the lastthree years of his life and
definitely mine as well in the,in the aftermath of an
(03:25):
incredible expedition to MountEverest.
Here is my talk, lessons learnedin pursuit of Everest. Please
enjoy.
(03:47):
appreciate everybody being here.
It's an honor to have peopleshow up to hear me tell stories,
which is something that I'd loveto do. Because my friends will
attest to my favorite subject.
And that's as instead of me asmyself and I try to throw it to
other people who are far moreinspiring than I am. Without
further ado, I'm not sure how wegot there. I know Liam Smith was
(04:10):
supposed to be here. I don'tknow. She's made it more
extended. Hopefully those guyswere able to get in without
getting bounced at the door. Isee that hearing and hear
another person from sportsmedicine. Glad to have you here.
Thank you. But, but you know,I've, I've had the privilege of
going on many adventures aroundthe world. And it It started
(04:33):
kind of, in a very humble way. Iwas a person who had no dreams
to travel, no trains decline. Ireally just wanted to be a
filmmaker and a reporter. I wasa reporter for channel 22 and
NBC affiliate in Springfield,Massachusetts. And I didn't
think anything of going to themountains. In fact, I went on a
(04:56):
camping trip with my brother andsister one time and I complained
Instead of putting in olive oilto coat the chicken, my sister
put like dishwashing liquid. AndI was so angry, I just
it was awful. It was just it wasan audition. And I'm sure you
remember that I was prettyupset. And so but but it would
(05:20):
turn out that my brother pursuedthis. And he brought me ice
climbing up in North Conway backin probably 86 or 87. And it was
as if the minute my cramponstouched the ice, that there was
this, this complete change inme, something hit me that was so
deep and profound, that Irealized at that time that I had
(05:42):
to completely change my life, inorder to continue going after
those things, finding thatfeeling. And it was like a
spiritual thing. I was soobsessed with it, that I
literally transformed my careerjust to integrate whatever
filmmaking experience I had withmountain climbing. And it
started in small ways doingfilms on computer lift, and
(06:06):
great climbers like thisScottish guy, Jerry Hanford, and
it was like a stud in the 80s,one 500 teams and putting up new
routes and, and, you know, sofor me, it just continued to go,
I looked for other people whowere better than me, who could
teach me things that I didn't.
So I went to France, and Iclimbed extensively with this
(06:27):
Welsh guy, his name is TerryTaylor. And he took me to these
crazy places. In the end, hetold me that I shouldn't be able
to trust my feet, my abilities,and we went to do all sorts of
stupid things together, neverwrote up on clients, like the
friend ghosts are a waste ofmoney and, and did all sorts of
neat things. That working outback it literally gives me
(06:49):
chills, that I did something sofoolish and close to death. But
I was confident I was cocky, Ididn't have enough experience to
know any better. And, you know,so we went up. And we did that
to two seasons in a row, sixweeks each time, I just climbed
up throughout Germany in theFrench Alps, and, and ate
everything out that I possiblycould. And then that was it. I
(07:12):
felt like I kind of had somefoundations, something that I
could bring to the world. And atthat time, I also met Rick
Wilcox, who many of you know,he's the guy, the local Everest
guy. In 1991, he became thefirst New Hampshire least local
guy to climb Mount Everest. Andwhile this is the north side of
(07:33):
Mount Everest reclined in fromthe south, Rick hire me to
produce a documentary forumcalled in which we call thin
air. And it was at that timethat I discovered Mount Everest,
it became like a holy grail forme, like if I get really good,
if I become like Frick, and likethose climbers that I admire so
(07:53):
much, maybe someday, I'll beable to go up there and be one
of them. I just wanted tocontinue pushing it. And so it
became literally like aspiritual quest for me, you
know. And so, at the same time,I was meditating five hours a
day, like to pursue whateverpath toward enlightenment that
(08:14):
might bring me to, and when Ifound the mountains, it was like
this perfect kind of divergentpath, if you will, they bounced
together and then they bouncedapart, but it was all linked.
And, and in Nepal, they call itthe Himalaya, the mountain
shaman is the abode of snow. Andit was believed for many 1000s
(08:35):
of years that at the summit,that the gods lived in the
summit's and that if any manshould be so daring and so brave
as you're trying to climb intothe summit, that he or she would
be killed instantly in a gobbledup by the gods and just thrown
back to Earth. But that, for mewas even a greater reason to go
after it. Like I could climb up,I could become enlightened, I
(08:59):
can go up to the top of thatpeak, and live, maybe I can go
up there and survive and bringit back down. So onward and
upward. I continue to go. And myfirst opportunity to do
something about that newfoundknowledge. My experience on
mountains throughout France, wasto go to Mount McKinley as an
(09:22):
assistant guy for inter mountaininternational mountain climbing
school. I went to wickedly itwas in the early 90s with Mark
show and and as the assistantguide. It's a dubious
distinction on the guide. Ididn't get paid anything but all
my expenses got paid. And reallywhat you're doing is you're
cooking for four or five or sixclients about six or seven hours
(09:43):
a day. So you have the portal ofyour tent, and you have two
stoves going literally seven oreight hours a day. And then you
get to say, Oh my God, that's areally, really amazing stuff.
And then they're constantlybitching about the stuffing
Ladies and gentlemen again.
Yeah, well, yes, I guess we are,I'm not going to head down to
(10:04):
grants and buy.
desire. So. So Mark and I, wewere on our route what's called
the West rib. It's a slightlytechnical route. It's not really
that hard. We fix roads outthere. But there's like a 2000
foot very steep face that youhave to ascend to make it toward
(10:24):
the summit. And all the clientsexcept for this one guy,
firefighter from the Bronx, wasthey just got freaked out by the
steepness of the pavement. Youknow, so we were sending the
iPhone left and right that thisguy just hung in there, and we
went up and we finally got nearto a place where we were in that
(10:49):
desirous area where we knew wewere going to start going for
the summit in a day or two. So Ican't find the about 14 and a
half 1000 feet, we look up andthere's this Mayor scale over
the summit. And if you havedrive by Mount Washington often
enough and you see somethinglike that, you know that the
property storms coming in? Andlike any smart people, what did
we do when we knew a storm wascoming in? We went up so let's
(11:15):
go we can we can handle anystorm. So we did go into the
side of the mountain, we're upthere with our road and we're
ready to go. Or whatever MountMcKinley is gonna throw us and
witching hour just an absolutelyor roshe storm comes in. And
about four or five hours intothe storm Mark looks at videos,
(11:37):
I don't think the tent is gonnamake it literally, like,
possibly be yours. No, I'mserious. But tensely starting to
shred and rip. So, as thefilming guy, I had to do the
hard job. I'll stay in the tentwhile you guys go dig a snow
cave. And so they literallycrawled outside of the tent and
(11:58):
started digging the sun. Okay,that took about four hours. And
they built this tiny littleshelter. This is me sending hot
drinks out today whose moustacheis completely iced up. It was
literally epic, this, the windsare probably 100 120 miles an
hour. And if you if you splitup, they would threaten to blow
you over. And as it turned out,we climb into the belly of the
(12:21):
mountain. And it was cold. And Ihave these old climbing boots
side and my feet were reallycold. But I kept thinking, this
is it. I'm gonna lose my toes.
Are they lucky? If I just losemy toes? I mean, I think we're
going to die here. And but ofcourse I get my camera. It's
like, well, I'm gonna die. Andthey wouldn't want to get some
good pictures of this.
(12:42):
So I can click a picture. And uptonight, Mark's, like what the
hell are you doing?
We got to get this down. This isreally cool. Looking at die,
smile.
So I kept filming and tookselfies selfies existed in the
(13:03):
early 90s. Kids just wanted tolet you know. And so I was, I
was kind of scared, I will behonest, I was kind of freaking
out in a day with the client.
having the time of his life, Ihad to pee so bad. He just said
if you move your elbow, even oneinch, I will either explode or
go in my bag. And so there wasno moving, we literally could
(13:25):
not move. And as it would turnout, as I had said, I've been
meditating like hours and hoursa day, and leading up to this
expedition. So Mark was right infront of me in his head. He
wrestled his head on my knee.
And there was no rudder justcrunched on top of each other.
(13:46):
And so what would happen, youput his head on my knee. And I
was so painful. I just had tokind of move the knee a little
bit because I was like, butevery time I move the knee can
go into these violent shakingconvulsions and it's so cold and
that we just shaved like,violently I was like, Oh my God,
he's gonna, like die here infront of me being so cold. So it
(14:10):
happened a couple of times, Ikept moving my knee and I was
saying to you, it's reallyticking me. So, so but I made
the decision after it happened acouple of times seeing how cold
he was, I was like, no matterwhat, I'm not going to move my
name. He's going to put his headon my knee and I do not care how
much pain I feel I'm not goingto do he is going to fall asleep
(14:33):
and rest and not be too cold.
Just breathe, breathe, breathe.
And it was almost as if, in thisinstance of the absolute pain
that I thought I can no longerbear. It's like my body became
molecules and just when Ifloated world bliss, as if I was
just watching from outside of mybody. This is three guys in the
(14:58):
belly of the mountain womenSince we can't afford for from
shape, and that was it, we werethere for like 24 hours thinking
this could be our favorite goldand finally hit the wind
debated. And that's when wejumped out. And there was these
rescue crews coming up lookingfor all for the other team,
(15:19):
including us on the mountain.
And Mark and I've lost onecrampon we had to do this long
descent down to 14,000 feet,this big flat area. So we had
one cramp on one ice that made apoint like do not accept any
help from the rescue guys.
Nothing. Don't even tuck them ineven a wrapper. Don't accept any
(15:40):
food, water. Don't let themcarry your backpack. No rescues.
We're doing this all on our own100% nobody's gonna report about
this and accidents andmountaineering. Meet up we got
to rescue. And so we did it.
Ever you guys are like rightnext to us. Like you want help?
No. Literally, like, they werejust like, come on. Do it. No,
(16:02):
no, we got all the way down tocamp no rescue. And it was
pretty cool. So we went back upthe next day to gather our
stuff. And there's our tent,destroyed, ripped to shreds.
Still there, that's where I wasinside staying warm while they
dug the snow. Okay. And, youknow, we, we realize that in
(16:23):
that moment, at least I didpersonally, like, I can do this.
Pretty good at this stuff likesuffering. You know, as I wish I
was a surfer or something. Ishould have picked up a guitar
earlier and gone to a wine orsomething but, but no wine or
(16:43):
so. But that was it. It was itwas it was like an epiphany
there was like, I'm good that Ithink I can do this but or
whatever, whatever brush withdeath. And I just thought that I
could I can have someone take meunder their wing. You know, I
can learn from the real masters.
Like maybe, you know, maybe itcan become something not just
(17:06):
something comfortable, you know.
So we went down to the onenatural place where you would
end up after a dresser withevery fact reflected for a
while. And home I went and madea tiny little mini documentary
that I called storm over Denali.
And it was a 25 minute film. AndI sent it all over the United
(17:30):
States producers from NationalGeographic Discovery Channel.
You name it any televisionproducer that had any interest
in seeing adventure filmmaking,I sent VHS cassettes all over
weeks and weeks to implicate andwrite letters to Chicago
typewriter. And, you know, thatwas it, I said about it. But in
(17:51):
that time, I also sent one ofthose tapes to this guy, Radford
Washburn, who's known as themodern day, founder of Boston
Museum of Science. So he becamemy mentor almost accidentally,
he called me up in the middle ofthe storm over Denali, to visit
Brad Washburn is the greatestvillain ever seen, come to my
(18:14):
house. God, Brad Washington's Iget in my car like the next day
drive to see him. And justbecause of this free thing of
timing and everything, he'slooking for a guy to take under
his wing, and I'm looking forthat guy to do it. And he became
a trusted friend and mentor formany, many years. But the
opposite of me, a pragmatist,the science is a guide and never
(18:38):
had anybody ever get to getremotely heard on 13. First, a
sense throughout Alaska, in mapsMcKinley mapped out for his map,
the Grand Canyon, Swan Lake, amap even I mean, this guy
doesn't know. And this is anactual relief map of Mount
Everest that's in the BostonMuseum of Science. And he took
(18:59):
me down he said, let me show youthis and why he took his shoes
off and walked all over thatthing. He talked about the South
Pole. And when you gopestalozzi, you take a turn by
load, say and you go up theSouth Pole. And coincidentally,
I never knew it at that time.
But I realized how much I lovenow numbers. But this is the I
want you to remember that shaperight there. And Brad is
(19:19):
pointing to something that'scalled the south coast of Mount
Everest, 26,000 feet inelevation as an exact replica of
the mountain. He told me allabout how to climate where
people left cancer, where thegarbage was and where bodies
where it was like, reallycompelling stuff. So Brad
continued to share this stuffwith me. We traveled to Alaska,
(19:42):
and two weeks that are filmingall around, McKinley doing
aerial surveys, and what agrouchy but great guy. He's just
like the biggest grump who everlived. And when I go to his
house, he gave me a big hug andhis wife would say you will be
proud Your kids like? Well, Idon't know, maybe, maybe because
(20:03):
he knows I can go away. But inthat after going under the wing
of Brad, I was ready to take myexperience now. And some of that
knowledge instilled into meunder the big scale. So 1996, I
traveled to Pakistan with asmall group of New Hampshire
(20:24):
guys with low cost one. This isa group of just a small part 178
quarters of artist on borders,walking under the shadow of
broadpeak. crowd, incrediblemountain through the K to
glacier up toward a mountaincalled gasherbrum to 12 highest
mountain in the world, one ofthe 8000 meter peaks. And our
(20:46):
goal was as a small team to goup and fix all our own roads and
ascend up this route here allthe way out, set up a high camp
here and then tag to summit. Andwe went and it was one of the
hardest things that you couldever imagine, we thought we need
(21:07):
to find a route to just abovethe ice wall here took us weeks
to navigate through the bossesand you know, upward and upward
we went. And you can just seehow steep and there's no other
tents or no other teams there.
And we didn't I still didn'tknow any better. I didn't know
(21:27):
what to be afraid. I didn't evenknow what it was like to truly
be afraid. It was almost like Iwas able to compartmentalize any
fears that I had had on mycampaign. And so right about the
time we got into our high camp,I was with Maureen McKinney and
Brad white and Lori and I hashedthe plan that we would go summit
(21:48):
the day before everybody else.
And then we get the summit.
Everybody have the wait foreverybody else make tea when you
guys came down. And that night aradio call from a lower cap rate
book God's day does not. Pleasedo not go for the summit. Like
we got it. We're right there.
Just don't keep the teamtogether, keep the team
together. Dang does. It took anhour radio.
(22:10):
Battery's dying. Please do noteven after radio call Maury and
I fall asleep at night. And weopted not to do it didn't go as
it would turn out that next daywhen the other team came up. A
massive storm came in and madethe one on McKinley look like a
(22:33):
little you know, likefirecracker. And then we were
stuck up at 24 25,000 feet onthe side of gasherbrum to
witness ominous to set ahead ofus about a foot or two of snow
falling every six hours or everyfew hours. So we had to go down
(22:53):
slowly. What would we have doneon state we have made at the
high campus we have dropped ourharnesses and we climbed
primarily without harnesses androse scent became kind of
grueling and any one false stepand it's over. So what I want to
show you real quickly is in thatdescent, we had one guy down in
(23:15):
camp, one guy with guns saidthat you're going to see him
talk in a second. During ourdescent, we were all pretty sure
that this was like we'redefinitely going to die. No
question in my mind. Of course,I've got the camera, hey, we're
gonna die and smile from thecamera. Don't be negative, you
know, you want to keep thingspositive and upbeat. For the
people that are my favorite. Iwas surprised by this one it was
(23:38):
was legit. But anyway, you'llsee how serious it was. And he
wants to run this but it's gotto solve it as well.
Joe Lentini (ON VIDEO) (23:57):
When I didn't hear from the team at 10
I was extremely concerned.
I heard a really large avalanchecome down to this at 1030. I
didn't think too much of thatuntil noon. When again, I didn't
hear anything on the radio lyingdown in camp one. At that point,
(24:20):
I started scanning glacierlooking for bodies. At that
point I was formulating in mymind.
How am I going to tell everyoneback home that these guys didn't
make it that some of the team.
At least was dead.
Brad White (ON VIDEO) (24:47):
everybody has a little crispness in their
voice, a little edge ofeverybody's voice and nobody
wants to admit, God I'm scard.
like nobody wants to admiteverybody Do you think yourself,
do you think of yourself, butyou think about how close you
are to everybody else sittingthere who says it could happen
(25:07):
like that? Yeah, just you justhave to do that. It was very
hard to deal with because youremotions run, just why your
emotions run from one end of thespectrum to the other, on the
down cloud and the visions in myhead popping into my head.
(25:31):
I have to fightto get to this I have to fight
to survive, I will stop thisdrive exactly, I will survive. I
will do this, I will crawl downon my hands and knees if I have
to. Because I will see mychildren. I will live my life. I
will do this. And I was soemotionally driven by that.
Thom Pollard (25:59):
So it took us two days to get down. And that's
what the turnout. About twoweeks later, a group of guys
from Spain went up and had thesame conditions happened and
they chose to stay up on themountain and like wait out the
storm. And they never heard fromthose guys again. They just
disappeared. So apparently wemade the right decision to
(26:21):
descend. That was really, reallygrueling and we lost. I mean,
I've been just that normal wayof I came home they skated like
absolutely no bloody way they'vestarved. I've literally
restocked ourselves on thattrip. And but what apparently
came out of that trip is I havelearned to an extent, I guess
(26:43):
maybe one of the lessons was,maybe it was more of a team
player than I thought I was. Youknow, I wanted to runagate my
way to the top tag system and belike, john roskilly, or
something the great Americanalpinist, who just kind of did
his own, you know, got me in forhimself doing that. But there I
was like planning team leadingthe team down, taking the lead
(27:05):
and navigating our way tolosses. And as we determine our
about that time, it seems thatproducers from Nova from a PBS
documentary program called Novarecognize my work, and I got a
call. About that time, theybought some of the footage that
I had produced with red on his1991 Everest expedition to play
(27:30):
right after the disaster thathad taken place in Nepal on
Mount Everest in 1996,popularized by Jon Krakauer, his
book into thin air. And thenmore recently, the film that
came out a major motion picturecalled Everest. And so it was a
few years later, in January1999, I got my first shot at
(27:52):
Mount Everest. And we're lookingat Everest right now from the
north, from Tibet. So we'reactually looking south from
what's called the wrong book,glacier. And you can see that
the fast north face with verylittle snow on it. And the good
thing about there being verylittle snow is that we were
going there to try to solve oneof the world's greatest
(28:15):
mysteries that of explorationone of the great, certainly not
nearing mysteries, but allexploring. It was to find out if
George Mallory and partner Sandyorphan had in fact in the purse
to summit mount efforts back in1924. And back in 24, here they
(28:36):
are as the last known photographof Mallory in earthen at 23,000
feet on the North Pole. And youcan see Mallory on the left with
his travels on an earthen withvery primitive type of oxygen.
Because this was a new thingback in the 20s. Mallory
depended upon return two timespreviously, this is his third
(28:58):
expedition in four years. Andaboard they went and on June 8
of 1924, one of the climberswould unsuccessfully drive for a
summit a couple of days before,you looked up and saw two bodies
walking toward above 20,000 feeton the ridge, heading toward the
(29:21):
summit. And a few minutes later,after observing mountains and
clouds came in their bodiesvanished in the clouds. And
virtually that was the last timeanybody ever saw our interview.
They disappeared and then for 75years, this is a mystery route.
Mallory became not only a greatknowledge of Mount Everest,
(29:46):
great Shakespearean scholar,this but he became mystical
fated almost like a god like hedied out there but because
nobody ever found him. Maybe heresided there. There were all
sorts of incredible storiesabout him. And it was our job
our goal to go and try todiscover where he had fallen
(30:08):
based on several clues. So thisteam of climbers, four of whom
had previously already summitedMount Everest.
Pretty powerful team. It waslike I applied to some strong
guys before, but it was like Ijust hit the Olympics. This was
world class stuff. And Iactually had no idea. I mean, I
(30:29):
was praying as all hell. Andthese guys were top notch studs
of the enth degree. And I justpretend that I knew what I was
doing. Green didn't bear that Ijust didn't ever let on that. I
kind of thought maybe I was overmy head. So one of the other
guys in the team is this guyhere named grandpa ointment, and
(30:51):
his great uncle was on theMallory expedition in 2014. It
was Howard Somerville. And whenMallory and Irvine were heading
up to their high camp, theypassed out Somerville and
Mallory said, I forgot mycamera. And so Somerville gave
Mallory his camera. So take thisto the sun and take some
pictures and you know, bring thecamera back copies. And so,
(31:15):
previously summited MountEverest, said he was back to try
to go get his family's cameraback, which is pretty cool. And
what unfortunately happened withGraham about the day before this
is he had a minor stroke. So hehad to go home. So he had, he
was very, very sick in thispicture. And he was unable to
(31:37):
climb with us. But what we'regoing to do is we climb up this
mountain, and our goal was tolaunch a search at about 26 and
a half 1000 feet up to about27,000 feet on this north face.
And if you look here, this isthese three months. These are
called the first step, thesecond step, the third step. So
(32:00):
the second step is the maintechnical obstacle on Mount
Everest. And then a lot ofpeople surmise that if anything
stopped mowing in urban, it wasthe second step that's about 30
to 40 feet, or maybe even 60feet of relatively technical
climbing, including dihedralcrack at about five nine in
difficulty. And based on those1924 standards, it's just no way
(32:24):
that anybody could ever conceiveof getting out that at 20,200
feet. So a few years later, anice axe was found in this
vicinity. So we staged oursearch generally in that area,
and headed up toward themountain from Base Camp 17,000
feet up through the great wallthat leads to the north cold,
(32:48):
where the last photograph knownphotograph of Mallory and this
is right at the top here. Thisis just the furniture running
behind it. You can see theselittle guys right there
climbing. Absolutely fantasticplace to be really, really cool.
It's the best climbing on theexpedition. And then on the
morning of May 1 1999. Aboutfive o'clock in the morning, the
(33:11):
sun is rising the full moonsetting in the distance, Jake
Norton fixes his oxygen mask andit was ready for the search. So
he's 30 below zero 30 mile anhour gusts and affordably headed
for where we thought maybe wecould find an operator and or
one or the other, maybe both,but we're really after the
(33:32):
camera. Right? So which is true,so we fanned out across the
face. And with us we carried ametal detector, we're looking
for any metal objects that mighthave fallen near them. Lo and
behold, Conrad Anker comesacross something out of the
ordinary. And if you lookclosely at this, this is this is
(33:52):
the floor arm of George Malloryexactly where he has been for 75
years, undiscovered, untouched.
And suddenly the icon The GreatGod of mountaineering has been
found. So we set about lookingthrough his body area and where
(34:16):
he was looking, hoping to findthe camera. And it was great
moral dilemma for me. And I satthere near Mallory and saying
what right do I have to eventouch this site, sacred site?
What do I What do I how do I gethere and just suddenly get to
search his pockets for a cameraor something. And then we
(34:40):
remembered that Mallory hadtraveled around the world doing
talks sharing his knowledge ofMount Everest, like his desire
to learn about altitude and howto handle altitude. And the cold
was it was the most importantthing in his life. And so I
realized that I was helpingAgain, to bring that story home.
(35:02):
So we excavated as carefully aswe could. And you can see the
summit not far away, there's thesecond step that I told you
about. And we looked, and lookedin here, Sandy. And then after
we couldn't find anything wecovered and what happened was he
was fully clothed. And becauseof 75 years of, of all the, you
(35:27):
know, the sunlight, if you will,kind of just deteriorating his
clothes, the clothes literallyjust, like, just just became
particulate, they just flewaway. And so as you can see, you
know, there's nothing on righthere, but we couldn't find
anything. So we took that timeto cover him as best as we
(35:48):
could. And we took someartifacts home. And it was in
that moment that I realized,after looking into the face of
this guy, that, that maybe, youknow, maybe there wasn't
enlightenment, up on the top ofthis mountain, maybe maybe it
was just a place that fools todie, was really depressing to
(36:12):
see him and literally look intohis face, knowing that he had
three children at home, or nowin their 70s and 80s, with no
memories of their dad. And nowhere I am with a 15 month old
son. And when I got home, my sonhad forgotten who I was because
I was gone for so long. And so,in, in that thought alone, we
(36:37):
come home with these incrediblephotographs that everybody in
the world wanted was on thecover of The New York Times,
Newsweek, and Time magazine hada bidding war, for the
photograph taken by Dave Hahn,first photograph, did not show
him but in that bidding war,desire for people to possess
(36:57):
what we have these images, therewas this incredible backlash, if
you will, and the dissension inthe team was so shocking and
upsetting to me to see andachieving in the lies that took
place, and it would probablymake a great book, but I made
(37:18):
many enemies. And at the sametime, my photographs, we sent
all our photographs back to theUnited States, we're still
shooting on film back then. Anda week after we sent all the
film that there was a reportfrom one of the producers at
NOVA Hey, Tom, your film is notwith all the other film at the
(37:39):
center of the photo agency inNew York City called gamma he is
on my phone somehow mysteriouslydisappeared at 36 rolls of film.
And so as we found out,there was there was something
afoot underneath behind thescenes that there was a plan to
have my film taken away andhidden, so all the other
(38:01):
people's film would be used, butmy film would not go into the
pool, if you will, of financialbenefit from the sale of these
images. So no further executiveproducer, no call the United
States Marshal and they went tothe house and one of the
expedition organizers knocked onthe door. And so it had to do
with the film that Thom Pollardhad no idea what you're talking
(38:23):
about. We're going to come toyou and stuff to you right now.
If you don't give us the film,and lo and behold, the film
magically appeared. And so myshow was brought home. And
interestingly, that created thisopportunity for me to work
directly with NationalGeographic. Well, what happened
was in that it's okay in manyrespects, but I was so naive. So
(38:46):
just willing to put all my trustand belief in this team. People
came home devastated,disappointed, absolutely blown
away. Like so against everythingthat this stood for that not
only did I reject the idea ofthat team, but Everest at that
(39:09):
time became the opposite of whatthat enlightenment you know,
holy grail was, I turned my backfrom emphasize I've never gone
back again, I've literally criedmyself to sleep over this amazed
that people could be so unkindand, and she and why while
looking right at your face. So Iliterally did turn my back and
(39:31):
went to the natural opposite.
And I joined today read shipexpedition in 2003. sponsored in
part I filmed by NationalGeographic, and what we did was
we built with the help of IMO daIndians in Bolivia, who have
(39:51):
carried through many generationshundreds, if not 1000s of years,
how to build relationships thatcan sail vast distances. across
the ocean. So our goal was tobuild a 65 foot long Totoro
reach is total our rates werecut two and a half million rains
from the shores of Lake Titicacain Bolivia and Peru, and they
(40:14):
were made into a 15 metre longchoice. So some sausages that
made the whole of this boat. Wewent into the woods and we
chopped down eucalyptus treesand made our match. We sold
sales. We met we had naturalhemp groves, no nails, nothing.
We made a ship literally, thatmight have been built 500 or
(40:34):
1000 years ago. And our goal wasto find out was it possible pre
inking or pre Columbian marinersto set sail from the South
American continent and region,Eastern Polynesia, primarily
Easter Island. So that's thecaptain Phil back there on the
right, the absolute craziest guyI've ever known. He's on his
(40:56):
third drive right now, by theway. So the goal was to reach
ease drive 3000 miles away. PartOne, he wanted to sail all the
way to Australia 1000 nauticalmiles a six month voyage. And
instead of this being a simple14 day voyage to Easter Island,
(41:17):
we had a nearly disastrouslaunch, the boat was launched,
you can see the railroad tracksthat we built literally right
down in the water. She thinksthis is really funny. Meanwhile,
the boat that took us a year tobuild weighs 12 tons. And as a
seven crew member ready to setsail is being destroyed in the
(41:39):
ways of the Union.
And it was bashed mercilesslyagainst the beach. And finally a
small little vessel came in anda guy was Ron McCurdy ran out
with swim out with a broken theytowed the boat away. And off we
went toward Easter Island. Andwhat happened on that expedition
(42:00):
in those 40 days, as theystretched to 72. In the
doldrums, we ran out of food ranout of just about every every
provision you can want,including candy, which was
really at a premium. And on thatexpedition, I realized that I
(42:20):
was truly lost, no doubt, reallyhave lost lost soul. And I can
remember sitting on the ceilingdeck. At about three o'clock in
the morning, I was in charge ofsecuring the ship from a two to
4am ship looked overhead and Isaw the International Space
Station go overhead. It wasright after the Space Shuttle
(42:43):
Challenger exploded. And sothere was astronauts who were
stuck up in that InternationalSpace Station. And I just looked
up and I just thought, I knowhow those guys feel right now.
We're 2000 miles out in themiddle of the ocean, I'm getting
satellite phone calls from themom of my kids telling me, I've
done just about everything infive easy steps to destroy a
(43:07):
fairly decent marriage. Andthere's no way to get on one
level it would probably be forme four weeks or whenever the
wind starts blowing, we weregoing the opposite direction,
which was not a good thing. Butin that I realized in my
(43:27):
solitude and my desire toachieve something I was even
more lost. I couldn't find myway. And finally, as it would
turn out after still not wantingto be any part of Mount Everest,
as it would turn out in 2014. Igot a call from a private and
(43:47):
independent producer from LosAngeles who asked if I would be
interested in filming adocumentary about a 68 year old
guy who wanted to be the firstgreat grandfather to summit
Mount Everest or something. Butit was very, very well funded.
And it was hard to turn down,you know, 75 full day rain days
(44:08):
in a row guaranteed whether theexpedition happens or not. So I
took the challenge, fairly open,not really caring but thinking
this could be my shot. Maybedon't get that that was after
all. So we traveled in thatwe're on the south side of
Everest, where we did the gnabryexpedition and 99 was from
Tibet. Now we're in the fall seethe Khumbu glacier sweeping in
(44:32):
and this is the Khumbu Icefalland notorious ice on the left
shoulder that resin and here inthe background is at the top of
the highest point in the world.
So our root in order to go withthis, this guy's name is James
Geiger set up our base camp downhere at 17 five, cut up through
the icefall and this is inessence the route taken by Sir
Edmund Hillary, and Tenzing in1953. So, James With practice,
(44:55):
we're learning how to climb onladders with spam and cut losses
in the ice ball. A lot oftraining this guy for 68 was an
absolute mophie shake your handand bring it down to your knees.
When it came time to go climb uphigh, he struggled mightily. And
(45:15):
you know, we work very, veryhard. And, you know, got a lot
of scenes. This is Ken Harvey, abuddy of mine, this is actually
filming the Everest film, themajor motion picture, we share
Basecamp with those guys. He'spart of our team to kind of do a
shot and never made the filmunfortunately. One morning,
(45:35):
morning of April 18. How theconference came was I mean to
Basecamp early It was like seveno'clock in the morning, which
was very early for Basecamp gotout of our tents completely
annoying. What the heck is goingon? like nobody flies minutes
early, you know, must have somedad. Yeah, so scrambling
everywhere. And as we turn outat about 630 that morning, a
(46:00):
gigantic chunk of ice. This areaon my shoulder dislodged when
they surmise that this chunk ofice and probably the size of a
six storey building, and thentumbled down the face. And it
exploded into the icefall andso this is, this is
(46:27):
about wearing this watch. And ithit this funnel here. And when
it exploded into here, therewere literally about 100 mostly
Sherpa, climbing and working inthe ice ball bringing, bringing
blows up through here. And thenan instance 16 were killed on
(46:48):
that morning. And so we watchedthroughout the day, still not
knowing how many of the parish,watch this helicopters were long
line the bodies out and depositthem in this one area near our
tests. And it was it wasoverwhelming to watch. And we
(47:09):
knew that this was the app thatwe wouldn't be going up any
further. They ultimately endedup finding 13 of the bodies. And
three are still out there. AndJames Jim Geiger, the
protagonist of the film, so I'mnot going to I'm not going to
walk over where people aremarried. And so we respected his
(47:33):
wishes, but also the governmentinvolvement that completely
closed. All expeditions had toleave. So we packed up, went
back home. And in that few daysback in Katmandu, the producers,
and I came up with the idea thatwe could go back and visit some
of the families of the men whohad been killed that day. Which
(47:57):
was probably the hardest day.
We went tothree houses in this particular
day. And so you can see a mom,and a two week old baby will
never know her dad is out offocus in the foreground here.
And a wife and mitashi areSherpa friend translated, as the
(48:20):
mother told about not onlylosing her son, but her brother,
her uncles and all the men, inhis Sherpa family with lost
their lives in service, workingto try to help like guys like me
make money doing a film, kind ofjust after this course, who ego
(48:42):
and it was overwhelming. And sowe left there, and I just I said
that's it. There's never evereffort going back. I've seen too
many people die too much. I was100% done. And we went home. And
(49:02):
this film is never seen thelight of day. It's absolutely
captivating and tragic all inone. But I really believed
myself when I said I'm not goingto go back. I really thought I
knew what I was talking about. Iwas lost. And now at least I at
least have the strength to makethe decision not to do it. Well,
(49:25):
wouldn't shut out two years agoby somebody gives me a call.
We've got a budget. We're goingto pay you to go back to my
members again. Okay. So it'samazing. The heart just picks
right back up and I thought,Well, you know what, let's go. I
jumped back in. It took a littlebit of debate for me. I thought
(49:51):
long and hard about it. But whatI do, it's one of my best
attributes. It's what I did. Somuch in my life. And I thought
all right, hold on one moretime.
This one wasintriguing because our goal on
this expedition was to go up toabout 27 and a half 1000 feet to
look for a camp last occupied bySir Edmund, HILLARY IN tensing.
(50:14):
And the reason that camp hadnever been visited since 1953.
It's because they descended leftin the year, nobody will ever go
back here ever. Nobody will everclimb this mountain again. Why
would they? We did it done,close the route.
So they left.
(50:34):
And about seven years later, theAmericans went up there. And
when they did, they changed therules, and went a different
direction. As it turned out, Igot to meet sort of and Hillary.
And talk to him at the ExplorersClub dinner, he explained in
great detail, not about somebodynot about being one of the most
(50:56):
famous explorers in the world,but about giving back about
helping people about buildingschools, he devoted his life to
schools and hospitals. And itleft a strong image on me, I was
like, I thought maybe I had anopportunity to go back to Nepal
and do something positive withthis film. And what this film
(51:18):
was meant is meant to do is tomake a traveling exhibit that
will go around the world wherepeople can pay an admission and
walk into a base camp. Andthere'll be life size gaps. And
there'll be real sure thathelping like like building, you
know, cooking, and greeting youas you enter base camp. That
film is under production rightnow. And But anyway, we get back
(51:43):
to base camp. And a very, verybeautiful place, as I remember
very vividly the avalanche theice and all that came in down
here. They switched the route,they made the route kind of go
to the side, you know, a littlebit of time to the climb up
towards the camp to act inBasecamp. Ready to go. Our puja
(52:08):
ceremony started on early weeksof April where monks came in
from a nearby monastery and theyand they saying they pray for
the auspicious day upon whichwe're allowed to start the
expedition and go up themountain. And people were very
nervous because in the followingyear in 2015, as many of you
(52:31):
may, if you follow mapmyrunNews, there was an earthquake,
about the same day one yearlater, from the match. And in
that earthquake, 18 people werekilled in base camp and above.
And so two years in a row. Therewere no summit of Mount efforts.
And here we were on that thirdyear. A lot of people stayed
(52:52):
away very was kind of a lifeyear. So we were that nervous.
Just every day you wake up.
Anything happened. You feel theearth shades or avalanches every
day is careful with your stuff.
And I felt, here we go. Let'sjust do this confidence. I knew
it was going to work with thisteam of incredibly powerful
(53:13):
Sherpa assemble. Paul, Georgiaon the left. And here's our
strong team. Many of these guyshave been up to the top of the
mountain several timesthemselves. So look through the
Khumbu Icefall and you can seethese gigantic blocks of ice,
right, so like a week later, thewall on the right didn't exist.
(53:34):
The ice wall in essence is isliterally a river of ice moving
about two feet a day from about19,000 philosophy to about
17,000 feet. And so the Sherpathere's a team a church called
the ice ball doctors and theyliterally build a roof through
the ice ball setting upsometimes six ladders tied
(53:57):
together to have to climb up andthen clip into another rope move
along. And they're probably 12or 13 of these ladders, you have
to go over sometimes more. Andthen if a strap would fall and
crush the ladders and baseballdoctors would come out and set
it back up again. With the routebackups all climbers could move
up the mountain. absolutelyspectacular place as you're
(54:19):
moving through but you can herein step on the on the glacier
and while you're in the icewhile you're here in the
distance, you hear a ceramicfall. Everybody would tense up
and you started walking faster.
And then somebody would say, youknow if you want faster in the
icefall, you might move fasterthrough it. But what if you move
faster to get to a rock that'sjust about to fall? If you go
(54:42):
slower and falls and then you'renot there yet? So it's kind of
like the like the city justYeah, what do you do? Very
interesting thing to think aboutwhen you're there. It's like a
mouse in the maze. You know,looking for the Said cheese,
which way we go which way we go.
(55:02):
So it's a, you're in a quandary.
And you move. I personally likemoving quickly. So I'm not quite
sure but one of the guys in thatearlier picture we literally
john, coming down, running, butyou can see this, these, these
are all justslowly falling downhill. And
when this thing, this thing, youcan see that these are layers
(55:24):
one year of snow another year,another year of snow, building
up pushing this ice downhill twofeet a day, crashing and
crumbling. Pretty cool place tobe thinking, you know, we could
die. But we're not gonna becausewe know what we're doing. We
(55:45):
know how to get through there.
And you know, so we did abovecamp to camp one above the ice
ball, which is now at about19,000 feet, you can see the ice
ball kind of flattens out and anarea of the Western, which is a
washboard CW mm, which meanslike a valley between two
(56:07):
ridges, if you will. So we moveup through this through these
ever expanding gigantic, gapingcrew bosses up toward this,
which is called the load saveface. And so our goal is to get
up here and the space, inessence, take a left turn into
the South Pole, that's 26,000feet. So we're hoping to do get
(56:31):
up there. And see it's no easytask during the day, it might be
110 degrees, you sweat, you passout from the Eat Drink gallons
of water, but at least it wouldfeel that way. And then the
minute someone that was like 20below zero, down suit on he hit
New 40 below bag and freezing.
And then the second the sun cameup, you're sweating. opposites
(56:51):
incredible opposite. So it justtakes that desire to be able to
hang in there through all thesuffering and all the income
uncomfortable feelings that youhave. And the doubts will make
it faster, just a beautifulplace. So you can see lock is
the guy and ladder right here,how we set these up with the fix
(57:12):
the roads. And these were thesewere kind of hammered down with
snow steaks, and you grab one oneach hand, and you'd lean
forward. So we create forwardpressure. And you know, to get
your crampons as you can seethese guys on it have to fit
between the rungs of the ladder.
And you hope that you can kindof get through there without the
(57:32):
rungs getting stuck with yourcrampons and get through there
and then a guy would be on theother side and pull the rope
tight. Pretty cool place that'sa fairly deep provox I don't
know how deep that one is. Butcertainly we want to drop into
that one. So cat two, we'reabout 21 and a half 1000 feet
here, truly a gross place not onthe edge. You know kind of an
(57:58):
advanced base camp, we have afull time cook here who's
cooking for us every day,popcorn for dinner, like to get
for appetizers honestly popcornand make all these great meals
with some of the best food waybetter than I cooked on Mount
McKinley. 20 some odd yearsbefore no complaining just
really good food. And you cansee there's other expeditions,
(58:20):
you know, Camp nearby. You know,this is our staging area to go
higher up toward the load savephase. So you can see this lotay
phase even though it goes offthe screen, about 3000 feet, it
probably there's my pointerthere that far, but it's see
there's our camp free there'sabout 23 and a half 1000 feet.
(58:42):
And this is the route that we'retaking. They're very, very
steep, like bulletproof ice ifyou shot a gun into it, and the
bullet would ricochet away.
Absolutely Stark andoverwhelmingly steep and really,
really scary, but beautiful. Soit's got all these contrasts all
the all the makings of what youwant when you're going to the
(59:04):
big mountains this is this is itwe're in the abode of Gods now.
Now we're going to read thegods. So a lot but here we is
bringing in one of our manyoxygen canisters on summit day.
and beyond. camped along in campthree which is on that wall,
it's a face so when you go outif you have to use the
facilities in the middle of thenight and put your harness on or
(59:25):
risk not using your lights andclip into a fixed road, find
where you are supposed to gobehind the tab. But one that
slip if you have your movies onor, or your you know, you then
you slip you go down. There's atleast 2000 feet from here. So
you have to be very carefulgoing into the bathroom. Next
(59:46):
time you're on a show whileyou're in the background. Six
nice mountain in the world thegorgeous view pumori they call
this Mount Everest. hysterBeautiful, beautiful place to be
ugly and uncomfortable campwhere you just want to get out
(01:00:07):
of there and move upwards. Sobehind us this is tempo Sherpa
is looking kind of behind him.
And there's the summit ofEverest with the telltale
scorching winds up there. Thisis the South Pole. The learning
goal is to get up past thatascend over this called the
(01:00:28):
Geneva spur and drop down in theSouth Pole. Now, here's that
triangular face that BradfordWashburn told me about the way
that when I when I got there, Iwas like, yeah, now I'm standing
where Brad was sitting, thegiant guy who was on that
(01:00:48):
Everest relief model. Now I'm init. And I can remember
everything he told me aboutclimbing up the triangular face
towards the balcony, near theSouth summit toward the Hillary
step and beyond. And now we'rein our perfect place to go look
for the camp of Mount ofHillary, and Tennessee. And so
we get up early on the morningof the 21st. Midnight and start
(01:01:12):
hiking up and upwards we go. Andas the sun starts to play out,
absolutely spectacular view ofmodelu highest mountain in the
world. And that load saved here,the fourth highest mountain in
the world. Now we're up abovethose mountains, we're ready to
ascend and kind of traversearound the peak, or what every
intensity had left. Back in1953. So as we set out, these
(01:01:39):
are fixed roads out there. tenbaSherpa went out first. And Paul
just kept saying, I don't likethis. I don't like this. I don't
like it at all. Just here weare. Let's go. Go. Now I don't
like it. It's not good. This isnot the way it should be. He
goes I have a bad feelingreally, really bad feeling. So I
call just let's keep goingbecause everybody stopped. Here
(01:02:02):
we are the whole expedition.
Everything is on this day. AndPaul just goes expedition over?
Well, let me get a shot first,and then think about it. And
maybe you'll change your mind.
We've got to go find a camp,right? It was not going to like
it, somebody is going to die. Weturned around. And so what made
that decision on that moment,just to cancel the expedition to
(01:02:25):
descend back down the South Poleand thinking this is just great.
So here I am, you know, somehours from the summit. Just
about to go to the top at least.
And so I thought I had thisopportunity. And he canceled and
so we all descended back down.
Very, very disappointed, nosuccess in finding anything all
(01:02:48):
the way back down to our campand see the tents down here at
26,000. And we get down there.
And we climb into the 10thregressed and made some tea.
We're having snack at one ofthose. We got to this topic
tonight at eight o'clock. So hewhispers we go into this town
and everybody else packs theirstuff goes down and we're like,
(01:03:10):
Hey guys, we're gonna stickaround for about 24 hours. Okay,
other plans. So eight o'clock onMay 21. Block, Sherpa and I and
two other Sherpa who went alittle bit after us left for the
summit of Mount Everest with theidea of a take us maybe 12 hours
to get there. So we can getthere. Maybe eight in the
(01:03:33):
morning, maybe at six. Butcertainly daylight climbed into
the night. Now we're heading upover 20,000 feet here you can
see the lines are fixed. Butthere's some fresh snow, stars
in the sky, this little rockkind of area where you had to
climb straight up, right just inSouth summit. And as I'm
(01:03:54):
climbing up, I kept thinking tomyself, this is absolutely
absurd. After giving up on mydream after just totally
releasing any desire toaccomplish anything at all to do
this mountain, completely noteven caring about it. All of a
sudden here I was taking thefinal steps to the summit of the
(01:04:16):
world under a full moon.
Beautiful, brilliant full moonand even though the smell was
kind of collecting andgathering, but we were just
above the clouds. And there's apicture of literally looking
over the tip of the top you cansee the moon is lighting
everything below. absolutelyspectacular. We spent about 30
(01:04:39):
minutes up there. No emotion, noheartless laughter nothing can
see loadsa here, there's thefinal steps come up 30 below
zero probably 25 mile an hourwinds. And I said a lot but I
said hey, out of respect. I wantto ask you to quit Yes, yes. I
(01:05:02):
said I have a I have a smallfile that's filled with some
ashes, some of my mother, myfather and my brother. And I get
it. Do you mind if I dispersedthese ashes on the summon is
very frowned upon and thatat least culturally, like you're
not supposed to just do that. Ofcourse. So I get into my
(01:05:23):
backpack and I am to the littlecontainer and not really
thinking that I was about tohave a Big Lebowski moment.
ashes up in the air and people'sright here. Right in our mouths.
Anyway, it's just, we justhuddled in laughter it was just
(01:05:45):
the most it was finally we weredone. We didn't done it made it
summited I just rose to theashes, I was free of the burdens
of everything, undoubtedly when.
But not until we took a veryimportant photograph, that I
(01:06:06):
knew staff would be very eagerto receive the New Hampshire
state police, which two monthslater, I think it was I returned
that flag to the colonel of theNew Hampshire state police, and
where I believe it's hangingout, or it's a will one day, but
(01:06:26):
but as I came down from Everest,I had the opportunity to reflect
on something that I had neverreally been expected. And I gave
up on those dreams. I saw toomany people died and want to be
there anymore. But it came to meanyway. And so in coming down,
(01:06:47):
it was almost like literallycoming down from this journey,
not just Mount Everest, but this25 or a year journey where I was
trying to integrate thisprevious life of mine with
whatever new knowledge Iaccumulated, whatever Bradford
Washburn is still differentwhatever spirit and Hillary had
instilled in me, and I had thisplan now that men really nothing
(01:07:11):
other than I did, but it justseemed like, leaving it behind
was the way. And I remembered inthat time that my dad was this
guy who just never thought I hada dumb idea. He was just this
really cool guy.
He says like,it, it's in your heart, go for
just like stand out and do it,if you want to do
(01:07:34):
do it and not be stupid toeverybody else. But go for it.
Never thought your ideas weredumb. He just he just supported
it, you know, and thank God, Ihave my dad because we know all
the stupid things I did thatbrushes with death all the
people that I've hurtalong the way and pursuing it,
like singularly. And it was likemy dad to fight about that. And
(01:07:56):
then I was able to kind ofrelease him from the top. But I
also realized that and lettinggo of my dreams and these goals
and holding too tightly tothings kind of pushed them away
from me. You know, I reallywanted them so badly for so
long. And that my gift was insummoning but I understood a lot
(01:08:19):
that before reaching the top Ienlightenment wasn't that it was
found in all the failures, allthe sadnesses all the things
that had happened to me alongthe way, that the destination
wasn't the top of Mount Everest.
(01:08:40):
The destination was in all thecrap that you go through and
trying to go to the places youwant to go. And so I guess I
stayed to school kids, you know,you're, you're already there.
You've achieved everything youneeded to achieve. You're going
after the summit. This is it.
This is your destination.
(01:09:02):
AUDIENCE CLAPS and MUSIC UPNext week on the happiness
quotient and incredibleconversation with my friend and
colleague and climbing partnerMark Synnott, whose book The
Third Pole mystery, obsessionand death on Mount Everest, will
(01:09:24):
be released on April 13 2021. Wehad a great conversation not
only about the book, but thedeep under the surface story of
our search to try to solve themystery of Mallory and earth and
that will be episode number 76.
(01:09:45):
Look forit here on the happiness
quotient.
Thank you to the woods brothersand their management for the use
of their song happiness Jonesfor our theme song here on The
HQ
The Wood Brothers (01:10:00):
all a my answers came, drivin' myself
insane
Thom Pollard (01:10:04):
if you'd like a free downloadable PDF of the
happiness quotients a course inhappiness visit me@patreon.com
slash the happiness quotient formore information about me to
inquire about personal coachingor public speaking in person or
virtually visit eyes openproductions.com right me anytime
(01:10:27):
at Tom dot Dharmadot pollard@gmail.com
there's a saying in sterquilinusinvinitur, in filth it is found
that which we most want to find,can be discovered where we least
want to look and the deeper anddarker the well. the brighter
(01:10:51):
the light we will discover.
Don't curse the dark cloud. Therain inside may very well turn
your garden green. Thank you forvisiting the happiness quotient.
I will see you all real soon.
The Wood Brothers (01:11:50):
all of those ords I wrote in the storm tha
rocked my boat all of that ws stuck in my throat when I
as happy all of those songsI was singin while my boat
(01:12:18):
as sinkin next Happy Happy.
(01:12:42):
Happy Happy.
Happy, Happy. Happy. HappyHappy. Happy
This is the happiness quotient. Have you
(00:12):
heard of a course in happiness?
In this short colorful guidefilled with beautiful adventure
photography? The easy to readguide suggests that we stop
chasing happiness in our pathtoward unlocking the mysteries
to life's big questions. Itoffers a few guideposts to
contemplate, and to put to usein your daily life. Go to
(00:33):
patreon.com slash the happinessquotient, where you'll find a
free pdf download of a course inhappiness.
The Wood Brothers (00:44):
All of my wisdom came from all the
toughest days I never learned athing bein' happy all of my
sufferin came i didntappreciate it I never learned a
thing bein happy
Thom Pollard (01:05):
Welcome to the happiness quotient. This is Thom
Pollard. Winter appears to havefinally relented and spring is
truly on its way in the WhiteMountains of New Hampshire. Only
a few minutes drive from myhouse I stop at this railroad
(01:28):
trellis and short hike down apath along a river reveals this
lovely sandy beach with stonesalong parts of it. This time of
year always gets me going Aprilto me means Everest season.
(01:55):
This episode is dedicated to theclimbers and trekkers and Sherpa
and the many workers cooksporters who are as we speak
headed toward Everest base campin the Khumbu valley of Nepal.
April is the season where allmove toward the gorgeous and all
(02:18):
powerful mountain, chama llama,Mother Goddess of mountains, as
it's known in Tibet, or saggarMartha in Nepal.
Today, I'm going to share withyou a presentation I did in
Freiburg, Maine, in 2017, calledlessons learned in the pursuit
(02:42):
of Everest. The talk, as itwould turn out, was attended by
a good friend of mine, Mark,Senate. And little did I know
that the talk inspired the birthof the 2019 Sandy Urban Search
expedition. In another week,Mark, Senate, his book, The
(03:03):
third pole, mystery, obsession,and death on Mount Everest will
be released. So I'm sharing withyou that talk that mark Sennett
attended and told me that thisreally was the genesis of all
that took place in the lastthree years of his life and
definitely mine as well in the,in the aftermath of an
(03:25):
incredible expedition to MountEverest.
Here is my talk, lessons learnedin pursuit of Everest. Please
enjoy.
(03:47):
appreciate everybody being here.
It's an honor to have peopleshow up to hear me tell stories,
which is something that I'd loveto do. Because my friends will
attest to my favorite subject.
And that's as instead of me asmyself and I try to throw it to
other people who are far moreinspiring than I am. Without
further ado, I'm not sure how wegot there. I know Liam Smith was
(04:10):
supposed to be here. I don'tknow. She's made it more
extended. Hopefully those guyswere able to get in without
getting bounced at the door. Isee that hearing and hear
another person from sportsmedicine. Glad to have you here.
Thank you. But, but you know,I've, I've had the privilege of
going on many adventures aroundthe world. And it It started
(04:33):
kind of, in a very humble way. Iwas a person who had no dreams
to travel, no trains decline. Ireally just wanted to be a
filmmaker and a reporter. I wasa reporter for channel 22 and
NBC affiliate in Springfield,Massachusetts. And I didn't
think anything of going to themountains. In fact, I went on a
(04:56):
camping trip with my brother andsister one time and I complained
Instead of putting in olive oilto coat the chicken, my sister
put like dishwashing liquid. AndI was so angry, I just
it was awful. It was just it wasan audition. And I'm sure you
remember that I was prettyupset. And so but but it would
(05:20):
turn out that my brother pursuedthis. And he brought me ice
climbing up in North Conway backin probably 86 or 87. And it was
as if the minute my cramponstouched the ice, that there was
this, this complete change inme, something hit me that was so
deep and profound, that Irealized at that time that I had
(05:42):
to completely change my life, inorder to continue going after
those things, finding thatfeeling. And it was like a
spiritual thing. I was soobsessed with it, that I
literally transformed my careerjust to integrate whatever
filmmaking experience I had withmountain climbing. And it
started in small ways doingfilms on computer lift, and
(06:06):
great climbers like thisScottish guy, Jerry Hanford, and
it was like a stud in the 80s,one 500 teams and putting up new
routes and, and, you know, sofor me, it just continued to go,
I looked for other people whowere better than me, who could
teach me things that I didn't.
So I went to France, and Iclimbed extensively with this
(06:27):
Welsh guy, his name is TerryTaylor. And he took me to these
crazy places. In the end, hetold me that I shouldn't be able
to trust my feet, my abilities,and we went to do all sorts of
stupid things together, neverwrote up on clients, like the
friend ghosts are a waste ofmoney and, and did all sorts of
neat things. That working outback it literally gives me
(06:49):
chills, that I did something sofoolish and close to death. But
I was confident I was cocky, Ididn't have enough experience to
know any better. And, you know,so we went up. And we did that
to two seasons in a row, sixweeks each time, I just climbed
up throughout Germany in theFrench Alps, and, and ate
everything out that I possiblycould. And then that was it. I
(07:12):
felt like I kind of had somefoundations, something that I
could bring to the world. And atthat time, I also met Rick
Wilcox, who many of you know,he's the guy, the local Everest
guy. In 1991, he became thefirst New Hampshire least local
guy to climb Mount Everest. Andwhile this is the north side of
(07:33):
Mount Everest reclined in fromthe south, Rick hire me to
produce a documentary forumcalled in which we call thin
air. And it was at that timethat I discovered Mount Everest,
it became like a holy grail forme, like if I get really good,
if I become like Frick, and likethose climbers that I admire so
(07:53):
much, maybe someday, I'll beable to go up there and be one
of them. I just wanted tocontinue pushing it. And so it
became literally like aspiritual quest for me, you
know. And so, at the same time,I was meditating five hours a
day, like to pursue whateverpath toward enlightenment that
(08:14):
might bring me to, and when Ifound the mountains, it was like
this perfect kind of divergentpath, if you will, they bounced
together and then they bouncedapart, but it was all linked.
And, and in Nepal, they call itthe Himalaya, the mountain
shaman is the abode of snow. Andit was believed for many 1000s
(08:35):
of years that at the summit,that the gods lived in the
summit's and that if any manshould be so daring and so brave
as you're trying to climb intothe summit, that he or she would
be killed instantly in a gobbledup by the gods and just thrown
back to Earth. But that, for mewas even a greater reason to go
after it. Like I could climb up,I could become enlightened, I
(08:59):
can go up to the top of thatpeak, and live, maybe I can go
up there and survive and bringit back down. So onward and
upward. I continue to go. And myfirst opportunity to do
something about that newfoundknowledge. My experience on
mountains throughout France, wasto go to Mount McKinley as an
(09:22):
assistant guy for inter mountaininternational mountain climbing
school. I went to wickedly itwas in the early 90s with Mark
show and and as the assistantguide. It's a dubious
distinction on the guide. Ididn't get paid anything but all
my expenses got paid. And reallywhat you're doing is you're
cooking for four or five or sixclients about six or seven hours
(09:43):
a day. So you have the portal ofyour tent, and you have two
stoves going literally seven oreight hours a day. And then you
get to say, Oh my God, that's areally, really amazing stuff.
And then they're constantlybitching about the stuffing
Ladies and gentlemen again.
Yeah, well, yes, I guess we are,I'm not going to head down to
(10:04):
grants and buy.
desire. So. So Mark and I, wewere on our route what's called
the West rib. It's a slightlytechnical route. It's not really
that hard. We fix roads outthere. But there's like a 2000
foot very steep face that youhave to ascend to make it toward
(10:24):
the summit. And all the clientsexcept for this one guy,
firefighter from the Bronx, wasthey just got freaked out by the
steepness of the pavement. Youknow, so we were sending the
iPhone left and right that thisguy just hung in there, and we
went up and we finally got nearto a place where we were in that
(10:49):
desirous area where we knew wewere going to start going for
the summit in a day or two. So Ican't find the about 14 and a
half 1000 feet, we look up andthere's this Mayor scale over
the summit. And if you havedrive by Mount Washington often
enough and you see somethinglike that, you know that the
property storms coming in? Andlike any smart people, what did
we do when we knew a storm wascoming in? We went up so let's
(11:15):
go we can we can handle anystorm. So we did go into the
side of the mountain, we're upthere with our road and we're
ready to go. Or whatever MountMcKinley is gonna throw us and
witching hour just an absolutelyor roshe storm comes in. And
about four or five hours intothe storm Mark looks at videos,
(11:37):
I don't think the tent is gonnamake it literally, like,
possibly be yours. No, I'mserious. But tensely starting to
shred and rip. So, as thefilming guy, I had to do the
hard job. I'll stay in the tentwhile you guys go dig a snow
cave. And so they literallycrawled outside of the tent and
(11:58):
started digging the sun. Okay,that took about four hours. And
they built this tiny littleshelter. This is me sending hot
drinks out today whose moustacheis completely iced up. It was
literally epic, this, the windsare probably 100 120 miles an
hour. And if you if you splitup, they would threaten to blow
you over. And as it turned out,we climb into the belly of the
(12:21):
mountain. And it was cold. And Ihave these old climbing boots
side and my feet were reallycold. But I kept thinking, this
is it. I'm gonna lose my toes.
Are they lucky? If I just losemy toes? I mean, I think we're
going to die here. And but ofcourse I get my camera. It's
like, well, I'm gonna die. Andthey wouldn't want to get some
good pictures of this.
(12:42):
So I can click a picture. And uptonight, Mark's, like what the
hell are you doing?
We got to get this down. This isreally cool. Looking at die,
smile.
So I kept filming and tookselfies selfies existed in the
(13:03):
early 90s. Kids just wanted tolet you know. And so I was, I
was kind of scared, I will behonest, I was kind of freaking
out in a day with the client.
having the time of his life, Ihad to pee so bad. He just said
if you move your elbow, even oneinch, I will either explode or
go in my bag. And so there wasno moving, we literally could
(13:25):
not move. And as it would turnout, as I had said, I've been
meditating like hours and hoursa day, and leading up to this
expedition. So Mark was right infront of me in his head. He
wrestled his head on my knee.
And there was no rudder justcrunched on top of each other.
(13:46):
And so what would happen, youput his head on my knee. And I
was so painful. I just had tokind of move the knee a little
bit because I was like, butevery time I move the knee can
go into these violent shakingconvulsions and it's so cold and
that we just shaved like,violently I was like, Oh my God,
he's gonna, like die here infront of me being so cold. So it
(14:10):
happened a couple of times, Ikept moving my knee and I was
saying to you, it's reallyticking me. So, so but I made
the decision after it happened acouple of times seeing how cold
he was, I was like, no matterwhat, I'm not going to move my
name. He's going to put his headon my knee and I do not care how
much pain I feel I'm not goingto do he is going to fall asleep
(14:33):
and rest and not be too cold.
Just breathe, breathe, breathe.
And it was almost as if, in thisinstance of the absolute pain
that I thought I can no longerbear. It's like my body became
molecules and just when Ifloated world bliss, as if I was
just watching from outside of mybody. This is three guys in the
(14:58):
belly of the mountain womenSince we can't afford for from
shape, and that was it, we werethere for like 24 hours thinking
this could be our favorite goldand finally hit the wind
debated. And that's when wejumped out. And there was these
rescue crews coming up lookingfor all for the other team,
(15:19):
including us on the mountain.
And Mark and I've lost onecrampon we had to do this long
descent down to 14,000 feet,this big flat area. So we had
one cramp on one ice that made apoint like do not accept any
help from the rescue guys.
Nothing. Don't even tuck them ineven a wrapper. Don't accept any
(15:40):
food, water. Don't let themcarry your backpack. No rescues.
We're doing this all on our own100% nobody's gonna report about
this and accidents andmountaineering. Meet up we got
to rescue. And so we did it.
Ever you guys are like rightnext to us. Like you want help?
No. Literally, like, they werejust like, come on. Do it. No,
(16:02):
no, we got all the way down tocamp no rescue. And it was
pretty cool. So we went back upthe next day to gather our
stuff. And there's our tent,destroyed, ripped to shreds.
Still there, that's where I wasinside staying warm while they
dug the snow. Okay. And, youknow, we, we realize that in
(16:23):
that moment, at least I didpersonally, like, I can do this.
Pretty good at this stuff likesuffering. You know, as I wish I
was a surfer or something. Ishould have picked up a guitar
earlier and gone to a wine orsomething but, but no wine or
(16:43):
so. But that was it. It was itwas it was like an epiphany
there was like, I'm good that Ithink I can do this but or
whatever, whatever brush withdeath. And I just thought that I
could I can have someone take meunder their wing. You know, I
can learn from the real masters.
Like maybe, you know, maybe itcan become something not just
(17:06):
something comfortable, you know.
So we went down to the onenatural place where you would
end up after a dresser withevery fact reflected for a
while. And home I went and madea tiny little mini documentary
that I called storm over Denali.
And it was a 25 minute film. AndI sent it all over the United
(17:30):
States producers from NationalGeographic Discovery Channel.
You name it any televisionproducer that had any interest
in seeing adventure filmmaking,I sent VHS cassettes all over
weeks and weeks to implicate andwrite letters to Chicago
typewriter. And, you know, thatwas it, I said about it. But in
(17:51):
that time, I also sent one ofthose tapes to this guy, Radford
Washburn, who's known as themodern day, founder of Boston
Museum of Science. So he becamemy mentor almost accidentally,
he called me up in the middle ofthe storm over Denali, to visit
Brad Washburn is the greatestvillain ever seen, come to my
(18:14):
house. God, Brad Washington's Iget in my car like the next day
drive to see him. And justbecause of this free thing of
timing and everything, he'slooking for a guy to take under
his wing, and I'm looking forthat guy to do it. And he became
a trusted friend and mentor formany, many years. But the
opposite of me, a pragmatist,the science is a guide and never
(18:38):
had anybody ever get to getremotely heard on 13. First, a
sense throughout Alaska, in mapsMcKinley mapped out for his map,
the Grand Canyon, Swan Lake, amap even I mean, this guy
doesn't know. And this is anactual relief map of Mount
Everest that's in the BostonMuseum of Science. And he took
(18:59):
me down he said, let me show youthis and why he took his shoes
off and walked all over thatthing. He talked about the South
Pole. And when you gopestalozzi, you take a turn by
load, say and you go up theSouth Pole. And coincidentally,
I never knew it at that time.
But I realized how much I lovenow numbers. But this is the I
want you to remember that shaperight there. And Brad is
(19:19):
pointing to something that'scalled the south coast of Mount
Everest, 26,000 feet inelevation as an exact replica of
the mountain. He told me allabout how to climate where
people left cancer, where thegarbage was and where bodies
where it was like, reallycompelling stuff. So Brad
continued to share this stuffwith me. We traveled to Alaska,
(19:42):
and two weeks that are filmingall around, McKinley doing
aerial surveys, and what agrouchy but great guy. He's just
like the biggest grump who everlived. And when I go to his
house, he gave me a big hug andhis wife would say you will be
proud Your kids like? Well, Idon't know, maybe, maybe because
(20:03):
he knows I can go away. But inthat after going under the wing
of Brad, I was ready to take myexperience now. And some of that
knowledge instilled into meunder the big scale. So 1996, I
traveled to Pakistan with asmall group of New Hampshire
(20:24):
guys with low cost one. This isa group of just a small part 178
quarters of artist on borders,walking under the shadow of
broadpeak. crowd, incrediblemountain through the K to
glacier up toward a mountaincalled gasherbrum to 12 highest
mountain in the world, one ofthe 8000 meter peaks. And our
(20:46):
goal was as a small team to goup and fix all our own roads and
ascend up this route here allthe way out, set up a high camp
here and then tag to summit. Andwe went and it was one of the
hardest things that you couldever imagine, we thought we need
(21:07):
to find a route to just abovethe ice wall here took us weeks
to navigate through the bossesand you know, upward and upward
we went. And you can just seehow steep and there's no other
tents or no other teams there.
And we didn't I still didn'tknow any better. I didn't know
(21:27):
what to be afraid. I didn't evenknow what it was like to truly
be afraid. It was almost like Iwas able to compartmentalize any
fears that I had had on mycampaign. And so right about the
time we got into our high camp,I was with Maureen McKinney and
Brad white and Lori and I hashedthe plan that we would go summit
(21:48):
the day before everybody else.
And then we get the summit.
Everybody have the wait foreverybody else make tea when you
guys came down. And that night aradio call from a lower cap rate
book God's day does not. Pleasedo not go for the summit. Like
we got it. We're right there.
Just don't keep the teamtogether, keep the team
together. Dang does. It took anhour radio.
(22:10):
Battery's dying. Please do noteven after radio call Maury and
I fall asleep at night. And weopted not to do it didn't go as
it would turn out that next daywhen the other team came up. A
massive storm came in and madethe one on McKinley look like a
(22:33):
little you know, likefirecracker. And then we were
stuck up at 24 25,000 feet onthe side of gasherbrum to
witness ominous to set ahead ofus about a foot or two of snow
falling every six hours or everyfew hours. So we had to go down
(22:53):
slowly. What would we have doneon state we have made at the
high campus we have dropped ourharnesses and we climbed
primarily without harnesses androse scent became kind of
grueling and any one false stepand it's over. So what I want to
show you real quickly is in thatdescent, we had one guy down in
(23:15):
camp, one guy with guns saidthat you're going to see him
talk in a second. During ourdescent, we were all pretty sure
that this was like we'redefinitely going to die. No
question in my mind. Of course,I've got the camera, hey, we're
gonna die and smile from thecamera. Don't be negative, you
know, you want to keep thingspositive and upbeat. For the
people that are my favorite. Iwas surprised by this one it was
(23:38):
was legit. But anyway, you'llsee how serious it was. And he
wants to run this but it's gotto solve it as well.
Joe Lentini (ON VIDEO) (23:57):
When I didn't hear from the team at 10
I was extremely concerned.
I heard a really large avalanchecome down to this at 1030. I
didn't think too much of thatuntil noon. When again, I didn't
hear anything on the radio lyingdown in camp one. At that point,
(24:20):
I started scanning glacierlooking for bodies. At that
point I was formulating in mymind.
How am I going to tell everyoneback home that these guys didn't
make it that some of the team.
At least was dead.
Brad White (ON VIDEO) (24:47):
everybody has a little crispness in their
voice, a little edge ofeverybody's voice and nobody
wants to admit, God I'm scard.
like nobody wants to admiteverybody Do you think yourself,
do you think of yourself, butyou think about how close you
are to everybody else sittingthere who says it could happen
(25:07):
like that? Yeah, just you justhave to do that. It was very
hard to deal with because youremotions run, just why your
emotions run from one end of thespectrum to the other, on the
down cloud and the visions in myhead popping into my head.
(25:31):
I have to fightto get to this I have to fight
to survive, I will stop thisdrive exactly, I will survive. I
will do this, I will crawl downon my hands and knees if I have
to. Because I will see mychildren. I will live my life. I
will do this. And I was soemotionally driven by that.
Thom Pollard (25:59):
So it took us two days to get down. And that's
what the turnout. About twoweeks later, a group of guys
from Spain went up and had thesame conditions happened and
they chose to stay up on themountain and like wait out the
storm. And they never heard fromthose guys again. They just
disappeared. So apparently wemade the right decision to
(26:21):
descend. That was really, reallygrueling and we lost. I mean,
I've been just that normal wayof I came home they skated like
absolutely no bloody way they'vestarved. I've literally
restocked ourselves on thattrip. And but what apparently
came out of that trip is I havelearned to an extent, I guess
(26:43):
maybe one of the lessons was,maybe it was more of a team
player than I thought I was. Youknow, I wanted to runagate my
way to the top tag system and belike, john roskilly, or
something the great Americanalpinist, who just kind of did
his own, you know, got me in forhimself doing that. But there I
was like planning team leadingthe team down, taking the lead
(27:05):
and navigating our way tolosses. And as we determine our
about that time, it seems thatproducers from Nova from a PBS
documentary program called Novarecognize my work, and I got a
call. About that time, theybought some of the footage that
I had produced with red on his1991 Everest expedition to play
(27:30):
right after the disaster thathad taken place in Nepal on
Mount Everest in 1996,popularized by Jon Krakauer, his
book into thin air. And thenmore recently, the film that
came out a major motion picturecalled Everest. And so it was a
few years later, in January1999, I got my first shot at
(27:52):
Mount Everest. And we're lookingat Everest right now from the
north, from Tibet. So we'reactually looking south from
what's called the wrong book,glacier. And you can see that
the fast north face with verylittle snow on it. And the good
thing about there being verylittle snow is that we were
going there to try to solve oneof the world's greatest
(28:15):
mysteries that of explorationone of the great, certainly not
nearing mysteries, but allexploring. It was to find out if
George Mallory and partner Sandyorphan had in fact in the purse
to summit mount efforts back in1924. And back in 24, here they
(28:36):
are as the last known photographof Mallory in earthen at 23,000
feet on the North Pole. And youcan see Mallory on the left with
his travels on an earthen withvery primitive type of oxygen.
Because this was a new thingback in the 20s. Mallory
depended upon return two timespreviously, this is his third
(28:58):
expedition in four years. Andaboard they went and on June 8
of 1924, one of the climberswould unsuccessfully drive for a
summit a couple of days before,you looked up and saw two bodies
walking toward above 20,000 feeton the ridge, heading toward the
(29:21):
summit. And a few minutes later,after observing mountains and
clouds came in their bodiesvanished in the clouds. And
virtually that was the last timeanybody ever saw our interview.
They disappeared and then for 75years, this is a mystery route.
Mallory became not only a greatknowledge of Mount Everest,
(29:46):
great Shakespearean scholar,this but he became mystical
fated almost like a god like hedied out there but because
nobody ever found him. Maybe heresided there. There were all
sorts of incredible storiesabout him. And it was our job
our goal to go and try todiscover where he had fallen
(30:08):
based on several clues. So thisteam of climbers, four of whom
had previously already summitedMount Everest.
Pretty powerful team. It waslike I applied to some strong
guys before, but it was like Ijust hit the Olympics. This was
world class stuff. And Iactually had no idea. I mean, I
(30:29):
was praying as all hell. Andthese guys were top notch studs
of the enth degree. And I justpretend that I knew what I was
doing. Green didn't bear that Ijust didn't ever let on that. I
kind of thought maybe I was overmy head. So one of the other
guys in the team is this guyhere named grandpa ointment, and
(30:51):
his great uncle was on theMallory expedition in 2014. It
was Howard Somerville. And whenMallory and Irvine were heading
up to their high camp, theypassed out Somerville and
Mallory said, I forgot mycamera. And so Somerville gave
Mallory his camera. So take thisto the sun and take some
pictures and you know, bring thecamera back copies. And so,
(31:15):
previously summited MountEverest, said he was back to try
to go get his family's cameraback, which is pretty cool. And
what unfortunately happened withGraham about the day before this
is he had a minor stroke. So hehad to go home. So he had, he
was very, very sick in thispicture. And he was unable to
(31:37):
climb with us. But what we'regoing to do is we climb up this
mountain, and our goal was tolaunch a search at about 26 and
a half 1000 feet up to about27,000 feet on this north face.
And if you look here, this isthese three months. These are
called the first step, thesecond step, the third step. So
(32:00):
the second step is the maintechnical obstacle on Mount
Everest. And then a lot ofpeople surmise that if anything
stopped mowing in urban, it wasthe second step that's about 30
to 40 feet, or maybe even 60feet of relatively technical
climbing, including dihedralcrack at about five nine in
difficulty. And based on those1924 standards, it's just no way
(32:24):
that anybody could ever conceiveof getting out that at 20,200
feet. So a few years later, anice axe was found in this
vicinity. So we staged oursearch generally in that area,
and headed up toward themountain from Base Camp 17,000
feet up through the great wallthat leads to the north cold,
(32:48):
where the last photograph knownphotograph of Mallory and this
is right at the top here. Thisis just the furniture running
behind it. You can see theselittle guys right there
climbing. Absolutely fantasticplace to be really, really cool.
It's the best climbing on theexpedition. And then on the
morning of May 1 1999. Aboutfive o'clock in the morning, the
(33:11):
sun is rising the full moonsetting in the distance, Jake
Norton fixes his oxygen mask andit was ready for the search. So
he's 30 below zero 30 mile anhour gusts and affordably headed
for where we thought maybe wecould find an operator and or
one or the other, maybe both,but we're really after the
(33:32):
camera. Right? So which is true,so we fanned out across the
face. And with us we carried ametal detector, we're looking
for any metal objects that mighthave fallen near them. Lo and
behold, Conrad Anker comesacross something out of the
ordinary. And if you lookclosely at this, this is this is
(33:52):
the floor arm of George Malloryexactly where he has been for 75
years, undiscovered, untouched.
And suddenly the icon The GreatGod of mountaineering has been
found. So we set about lookingthrough his body area and where
(34:16):
he was looking, hoping to findthe camera. And it was great
moral dilemma for me. And I satthere near Mallory and saying
what right do I have to eventouch this site, sacred site?
What do I What do I how do I gethere and just suddenly get to
search his pockets for a cameraor something. And then we
(34:40):
remembered that Mallory hadtraveled around the world doing
talks sharing his knowledge ofMount Everest, like his desire
to learn about altitude and howto handle altitude. And the cold
was it was the most importantthing in his life. And so I
realized that I was helpingAgain, to bring that story home.
(35:02):
So we excavated as carefully aswe could. And you can see the
summit not far away, there's thesecond step that I told you
about. And we looked, and lookedin here, Sandy. And then after
we couldn't find anything wecovered and what happened was he
was fully clothed. And becauseof 75 years of, of all the, you
(35:27):
know, the sunlight, if you will,kind of just deteriorating his
clothes, the clothes literallyjust, like, just just became
particulate, they just flewaway. And so as you can see, you
know, there's nothing on righthere, but we couldn't find
anything. So we took that timeto cover him as best as we
(35:48):
could. And we took someartifacts home. And it was in
that moment that I realized,after looking into the face of
this guy, that, that maybe, youknow, maybe there wasn't
enlightenment, up on the top ofthis mountain, maybe maybe it
was just a place that fools todie, was really depressing to
(36:12):
see him and literally look intohis face, knowing that he had
three children at home, or nowin their 70s and 80s, with no
memories of their dad. And nowhere I am with a 15 month old
son. And when I got home, my sonhad forgotten who I was because
I was gone for so long. And so,in, in that thought alone, we
(36:37):
come home with these incrediblephotographs that everybody in
the world wanted was on thecover of The New York Times,
Newsweek, and Time magazine hada bidding war, for the
photograph taken by Dave Hahn,first photograph, did not show
him but in that bidding war,desire for people to possess
(36:57):
what we have these images, therewas this incredible backlash, if
you will, and the dissension inthe team was so shocking and
upsetting to me to see andachieving in the lies that took
place, and it would probablymake a great book, but I made
(37:18):
many enemies. And at the sametime, my photographs, we sent
all our photographs back to theUnited States, we're still
shooting on film back then. Anda week after we sent all the
film that there was a reportfrom one of the producers at
NOVA Hey, Tom, your film is notwith all the other film at the
(37:39):
center of the photo agency inNew York City called gamma he is
on my phone somehow mysteriouslydisappeared at 36 rolls of film.
And so as we found out,there was there was something
afoot underneath behind thescenes that there was a plan to
have my film taken away andhidden, so all the other
(38:01):
people's film would be used, butmy film would not go into the
pool, if you will, of financialbenefit from the sale of these
images. So no further executiveproducer, no call the United
States Marshal and they went tothe house and one of the
expedition organizers knocked onthe door. And so it had to do
with the film that Thom Pollardhad no idea what you're talking
(38:23):
about. We're going to come toyou and stuff to you right now.
If you don't give us the film,and lo and behold, the film
magically appeared. And so myshow was brought home. And
interestingly, that created thisopportunity for me to work
directly with NationalGeographic. Well, what happened
was in that it's okay in manyrespects, but I was so naive. So
(38:46):
just willing to put all my trustand belief in this team. People
came home devastated,disappointed, absolutely blown
away. Like so against everythingthat this stood for that not
only did I reject the idea ofthat team, but Everest at that
(39:09):
time became the opposite of whatthat enlightenment you know,
holy grail was, I turned my backfrom emphasize I've never gone
back again, I've literally criedmyself to sleep over this amazed
that people could be so unkindand, and she and why while
looking right at your face. So Iliterally did turn my back and
(39:31):
went to the natural opposite.
And I joined today read shipexpedition in 2003. sponsored in
part I filmed by NationalGeographic, and what we did was
we built with the help of IMO daIndians in Bolivia, who have
(39:51):
carried through many generationshundreds, if not 1000s of years,
how to build relationships thatcan sail vast distances. across
the ocean. So our goal was tobuild a 65 foot long Totoro
reach is total our rates werecut two and a half million rains
from the shores of Lake Titicacain Bolivia and Peru, and they
(40:14):
were made into a 15 metre longchoice. So some sausages that
made the whole of this boat. Wewent into the woods and we
chopped down eucalyptus treesand made our match. We sold
sales. We met we had naturalhemp groves, no nails, nothing.
We made a ship literally, thatmight have been built 500 or
(40:34):
1000 years ago. And our goal wasto find out was it possible pre
inking or pre Columbian marinersto set sail from the South
American continent and region,Eastern Polynesia, primarily
Easter Island. So that's thecaptain Phil back there on the
right, the absolute craziest guyI've ever known. He's on his
(40:56):
third drive right now, by theway. So the goal was to reach
ease drive 3000 miles away. PartOne, he wanted to sail all the
way to Australia 1000 nauticalmiles a six month voyage. And
instead of this being a simple14 day voyage to Easter Island,
(41:17):
we had a nearly disastrouslaunch, the boat was launched,
you can see the railroad tracksthat we built literally right
down in the water. She thinksthis is really funny. Meanwhile,
the boat that took us a year tobuild weighs 12 tons. And as a
seven crew member ready to setsail is being destroyed in the
(41:39):
ways of the Union.
And it was bashed mercilesslyagainst the beach. And finally a
small little vessel came in anda guy was Ron McCurdy ran out
with swim out with a broken theytowed the boat away. And off we
went toward Easter Island. Andwhat happened on that expedition
(42:00):
in those 40 days, as theystretched to 72. In the
doldrums, we ran out of food ranout of just about every every
provision you can want,including candy, which was
really at a premium. And on thatexpedition, I realized that I
(42:20):
was truly lost, no doubt, reallyhave lost lost soul. And I can
remember sitting on the ceilingdeck. At about three o'clock in
the morning, I was in charge ofsecuring the ship from a two to
4am ship looked overhead and Isaw the International Space
Station go overhead. It wasright after the Space Shuttle
(42:43):
Challenger exploded. And sothere was astronauts who were
stuck up in that InternationalSpace Station. And I just looked
up and I just thought, I knowhow those guys feel right now.
We're 2000 miles out in themiddle of the ocean, I'm getting
satellite phone calls from themom of my kids telling me, I've
done just about everything infive easy steps to destroy a
(43:07):
fairly decent marriage. Andthere's no way to get on one
level it would probably be forme four weeks or whenever the
wind starts blowing, we weregoing the opposite direction,
which was not a good thing. Butin that I realized in my
(43:27):
solitude and my desire toachieve something I was even
more lost. I couldn't find myway. And finally, as it would
turn out after still not wantingto be any part of Mount Everest,
as it would turn out in 2014. Igot a call from a private and
(43:47):
independent producer from LosAngeles who asked if I would be
interested in filming adocumentary about a 68 year old
guy who wanted to be the firstgreat grandfather to summit
Mount Everest or something. Butit was very, very well funded.
And it was hard to turn down,you know, 75 full day rain days
(44:08):
in a row guaranteed whether theexpedition happens or not. So I
took the challenge, fairly open,not really caring but thinking
this could be my shot. Maybedon't get that that was after
all. So we traveled in thatwe're on the south side of
Everest, where we did the gnabryexpedition and 99 was from
Tibet. Now we're in the fall seethe Khumbu glacier sweeping in
(44:32):
and this is the Khumbu Icefalland notorious ice on the left
shoulder that resin and here inthe background is at the top of
the highest point in the world.
So our root in order to go withthis, this guy's name is James
Geiger set up our base camp downhere at 17 five, cut up through
the icefall and this is inessence the route taken by Sir
Edmund Hillary, and Tenzing in1953. So, James With practice,
(44:55):
we're learning how to climb onladders with spam and cut losses
in the ice ball. A lot oftraining this guy for 68 was an
absolute mophie shake your handand bring it down to your knees.
When it came time to go climb uphigh, he struggled mightily. And
(45:15):
you know, we work very, veryhard. And, you know, got a lot
of scenes. This is Ken Harvey, abuddy of mine, this is actually
filming the Everest film, themajor motion picture, we share
Basecamp with those guys. He'spart of our team to kind of do a
shot and never made the filmunfortunately. One morning,
(45:35):
morning of April 18. How theconference came was I mean to
Basecamp early It was like seveno'clock in the morning, which
was very early for Basecamp gotout of our tents completely
annoying. What the heck is goingon? like nobody flies minutes
early, you know, must have somedad. Yeah, so scrambling
everywhere. And as we turn outat about 630 that morning, a
(46:00):
gigantic chunk of ice. This areaon my shoulder dislodged when
they surmise that this chunk ofice and probably the size of a
six storey building, and thentumbled down the face. And it
exploded into the icefall andso this is, this is
(46:27):
about wearing this watch. And ithit this funnel here. And when
it exploded into here, therewere literally about 100 mostly
Sherpa, climbing and working inthe ice ball bringing, bringing
blows up through here. And thenan instance 16 were killed on
(46:48):
that morning. And so we watchedthroughout the day, still not
knowing how many of the parish,watch this helicopters were long
line the bodies out and depositthem in this one area near our
tests. And it was it wasoverwhelming to watch. And we
(47:09):
knew that this was the app thatwe wouldn't be going up any
further. They ultimately endedup finding 13 of the bodies. And
three are still out there. AndJames Jim Geiger, the
protagonist of the film, so I'mnot going to I'm not going to
walk over where people aremarried. And so we respected his
(47:33):
wishes, but also the governmentinvolvement that completely
closed. All expeditions had toleave. So we packed up, went
back home. And in that few daysback in Katmandu, the producers,
and I came up with the idea thatwe could go back and visit some
of the families of the men whohad been killed that day. Which
(47:57):
was probably the hardest day.
We went tothree houses in this particular
day. And so you can see a mom,and a two week old baby will
never know her dad is out offocus in the foreground here.
And a wife and mitashi areSherpa friend translated, as the
(48:20):
mother told about not onlylosing her son, but her brother,
her uncles and all the men, inhis Sherpa family with lost
their lives in service, workingto try to help like guys like me
make money doing a film, kind ofjust after this course, who ego
(48:42):
and it was overwhelming. And sowe left there, and I just I said
that's it. There's never evereffort going back. I've seen too
many people die too much. I was100% done. And we went home. And
(49:02):
this film is never seen thelight of day. It's absolutely
captivating and tragic all inone. But I really believed
myself when I said I'm not goingto go back. I really thought I
knew what I was talking about. Iwas lost. And now at least I at
least have the strength to makethe decision not to do it. Well,
(49:25):
wouldn't shut out two years agoby somebody gives me a call.
We've got a budget. We're goingto pay you to go back to my
members again. Okay. So it'samazing. The heart just picks
right back up and I thought,Well, you know what, let's go. I
jumped back in. It took a littlebit of debate for me. I thought
(49:51):
long and hard about it. But whatI do, it's one of my best
attributes. It's what I did. Somuch in my life. And I thought
all right, hold on one moretime.
This one wasintriguing because our goal on
this expedition was to go up toabout 27 and a half 1000 feet to
look for a camp last occupied bySir Edmund, HILLARY IN tensing.
(50:14):
And the reason that camp hadnever been visited since 1953.
It's because they descended leftin the year, nobody will ever go
back here ever. Nobody will everclimb this mountain again. Why
would they? We did it done,close the route.
So they left.
(50:34):
And about seven years later, theAmericans went up there. And
when they did, they changed therules, and went a different
direction. As it turned out, Igot to meet sort of and Hillary.
And talk to him at the ExplorersClub dinner, he explained in
great detail, not about somebodynot about being one of the most
(50:56):
famous explorers in the world,but about giving back about
helping people about buildingschools, he devoted his life to
schools and hospitals. And itleft a strong image on me, I was
like, I thought maybe I had anopportunity to go back to Nepal
and do something positive withthis film. And what this film
(51:18):
was meant is meant to do is tomake a traveling exhibit that
will go around the world wherepeople can pay an admission and
walk into a base camp. Andthere'll be life size gaps. And
there'll be real sure thathelping like like building, you
know, cooking, and greeting youas you enter base camp. That
film is under production rightnow. And But anyway, we get back
(51:43):
to base camp. And a very, verybeautiful place, as I remember
very vividly the avalanche theice and all that came in down
here. They switched the route,they made the route kind of go
to the side, you know, a littlebit of time to the climb up
towards the camp to act inBasecamp. Ready to go. Our puja
(52:08):
ceremony started on early weeksof April where monks came in
from a nearby monastery and theyand they saying they pray for
the auspicious day upon whichwe're allowed to start the
expedition and go up themountain. And people were very
nervous because in the followingyear in 2015, as many of you
(52:31):
may, if you follow mapmyrunNews, there was an earthquake,
about the same day one yearlater, from the match. And in
that earthquake, 18 people werekilled in base camp and above.
And so two years in a row. Therewere no summit of Mount efforts.
And here we were on that thirdyear. A lot of people stayed
(52:52):
away very was kind of a lifeyear. So we were that nervous.
Just every day you wake up.
Anything happened. You feel theearth shades or avalanches every
day is careful with your stuff.
And I felt, here we go. Let'sjust do this confidence. I knew
it was going to work with thisteam of incredibly powerful
(53:13):
Sherpa assemble. Paul, Georgiaon the left. And here's our
strong team. Many of these guyshave been up to the top of the
mountain several timesthemselves. So look through the
Khumbu Icefall and you can seethese gigantic blocks of ice,
right, so like a week later, thewall on the right didn't exist.
(53:34):
The ice wall in essence is isliterally a river of ice moving
about two feet a day from about19,000 philosophy to about
17,000 feet. And so the Sherpathere's a team a church called
the ice ball doctors and theyliterally build a roof through
the ice ball setting upsometimes six ladders tied
(53:57):
together to have to climb up andthen clip into another rope move
along. And they're probably 12or 13 of these ladders, you have
to go over sometimes more. Andthen if a strap would fall and
crush the ladders and baseballdoctors would come out and set
it back up again. With the routebackups all climbers could move
up the mountain. absolutelyspectacular place as you're
(54:19):
moving through but you can herein step on the on the glacier
and while you're in the icewhile you're here in the
distance, you hear a ceramicfall. Everybody would tense up
and you started walking faster.
And then somebody would say, youknow if you want faster in the
icefall, you might move fasterthrough it. But what if you move
faster to get to a rock that'sjust about to fall? If you go
(54:42):
slower and falls and then you'renot there yet? So it's kind of
like the like the city justYeah, what do you do? Very
interesting thing to think aboutwhen you're there. It's like a
mouse in the maze. You know,looking for the Said cheese,
which way we go which way we go.
(55:02):
So it's a, you're in a quandary.
And you move. I personally likemoving quickly. So I'm not quite
sure but one of the guys in thatearlier picture we literally
john, coming down, running, butyou can see this, these, these
are all justslowly falling downhill. And
when this thing, this thing, youcan see that these are layers
(55:24):
one year of snow another year,another year of snow, building
up pushing this ice downhill twofeet a day, crashing and
crumbling. Pretty cool place tobe thinking, you know, we could
die. But we're not gonna becausewe know what we're doing. We
(55:45):
know how to get through there.
And you know, so we did abovecamp to camp one above the ice
ball, which is now at about19,000 feet, you can see the ice
ball kind of flattens out and anarea of the Western, which is a
washboard CW mm, which meanslike a valley between two
(56:07):
ridges, if you will. So we moveup through this through these
ever expanding gigantic, gapingcrew bosses up toward this,
which is called the load saveface. And so our goal is to get
up here and the space, inessence, take a left turn into
the South Pole, that's 26,000feet. So we're hoping to do get
(56:31):
up there. And see it's no easytask during the day, it might be
110 degrees, you sweat, you passout from the Eat Drink gallons
of water, but at least it wouldfeel that way. And then the
minute someone that was like 20below zero, down suit on he hit
New 40 below bag and freezing.
And then the second the sun cameup, you're sweating. opposites
(56:51):
incredible opposite. So it justtakes that desire to be able to
hang in there through all thesuffering and all the income
uncomfortable feelings that youhave. And the doubts will make
it faster, just a beautifulplace. So you can see lock is
the guy and ladder right here,how we set these up with the fix
(57:12):
the roads. And these were thesewere kind of hammered down with
snow steaks, and you grab one oneach hand, and you'd lean
forward. So we create forwardpressure. And you know, to get
your crampons as you can seethese guys on it have to fit
between the rungs of the ladder.
And you hope that you can kindof get through there without the
(57:32):
rungs getting stuck with yourcrampons and get through there
and then a guy would be on theother side and pull the rope
tight. Pretty cool place that'sa fairly deep provox I don't
know how deep that one is. Butcertainly we want to drop into
that one. So cat two, we'reabout 21 and a half 1000 feet
here, truly a gross place not onthe edge. You know kind of an
(57:58):
advanced base camp, we have afull time cook here who's
cooking for us every day,popcorn for dinner, like to get
for appetizers honestly popcornand make all these great meals
with some of the best food waybetter than I cooked on Mount
McKinley. 20 some odd yearsbefore no complaining just
really good food. And you cansee there's other expeditions,
(58:20):
you know, Camp nearby. You know,this is our staging area to go
higher up toward the load savephase. So you can see this lotay
phase even though it goes offthe screen, about 3000 feet, it
probably there's my pointerthere that far, but it's see
there's our camp free there'sabout 23 and a half 1000 feet.
(58:42):
And this is the route that we'retaking. They're very, very
steep, like bulletproof ice ifyou shot a gun into it, and the
bullet would ricochet away.
Absolutely Stark andoverwhelmingly steep and really,
really scary, but beautiful. Soit's got all these contrasts all
the all the makings of what youwant when you're going to the
(59:04):
big mountains this is this is itwe're in the abode of Gods now.
Now we're going to read thegods. So a lot but here we is
bringing in one of our manyoxygen canisters on summit day.
and beyond. camped along in campthree which is on that wall,
it's a face so when you go outif you have to use the
facilities in the middle of thenight and put your harness on or
(59:25):
risk not using your lights andclip into a fixed road, find
where you are supposed to gobehind the tab. But one that
slip if you have your movies onor, or your you know, you then
you slip you go down. There's atleast 2000 feet from here. So
you have to be very carefulgoing into the bathroom. Next
(59:46):
time you're on a show whileyou're in the background. Six
nice mountain in the world thegorgeous view pumori they call
this Mount Everest. hysterBeautiful, beautiful place to be
ugly and uncomfortable campwhere you just want to get out
(01:00:07):
of there and move upwards. Sobehind us this is tempo Sherpa
is looking kind of behind him.
And there's the summit ofEverest with the telltale
scorching winds up there. Thisis the South Pole. The learning
goal is to get up past thatascend over this called the
(01:00:28):
Geneva spur and drop down in theSouth Pole. Now, here's that
triangular face that BradfordWashburn told me about the way
that when I when I got there, Iwas like, yeah, now I'm standing
where Brad was sitting, thegiant guy who was on that
(01:00:48):
Everest relief model. Now I'm init. And I can remember
everything he told me aboutclimbing up the triangular face
towards the balcony, near theSouth summit toward the Hillary
step and beyond. And now we'rein our perfect place to go look
for the camp of Mount ofHillary, and Tennessee. And so
we get up early on the morningof the 21st. Midnight and start
(01:01:12):
hiking up and upwards we go. Andas the sun starts to play out,
absolutely spectacular view ofmodelu highest mountain in the
world. And that load saved here,the fourth highest mountain in
the world. Now we're up abovethose mountains, we're ready to
ascend and kind of traversearound the peak, or what every
intensity had left. Back in1953. So as we set out, these
(01:01:39):
are fixed roads out there. tenbaSherpa went out first. And Paul
just kept saying, I don't likethis. I don't like this. I don't
like it at all. Just here weare. Let's go. Go. Now I don't
like it. It's not good. This isnot the way it should be. He
goes I have a bad feelingreally, really bad feeling. So I
call just let's keep goingbecause everybody stopped. Here
(01:02:02):
we are the whole expedition.
Everything is on this day. AndPaul just goes expedition over?
Well, let me get a shot first,and then think about it. And
maybe you'll change your mind.
We've got to go find a camp,right? It was not going to like
it, somebody is going to die. Weturned around. And so what made
that decision on that moment,just to cancel the expedition to
(01:02:25):
descend back down the South Poleand thinking this is just great.
So here I am, you know, somehours from the summit. Just
about to go to the top at least.
And so I thought I had thisopportunity. And he canceled and
so we all descended back down.
Very, very disappointed, nosuccess in finding anything all
(01:02:48):
the way back down to our campand see the tents down here at
26,000. And we get down there.
And we climb into the 10thregressed and made some tea.
We're having snack at one ofthose. We got to this topic
tonight at eight o'clock. So hewhispers we go into this town
and everybody else packs theirstuff goes down and we're like,
(01:03:10):
Hey guys, we're gonna stickaround for about 24 hours. Okay,
other plans. So eight o'clock onMay 21. Block, Sherpa and I and
two other Sherpa who went alittle bit after us left for the
summit of Mount Everest with theidea of a take us maybe 12 hours
to get there. So we can getthere. Maybe eight in the
(01:03:33):
morning, maybe at six. Butcertainly daylight climbed into
the night. Now we're heading upover 20,000 feet here you can
see the lines are fixed. Butthere's some fresh snow, stars
in the sky, this little rockkind of area where you had to
climb straight up, right just inSouth summit. And as I'm
(01:03:54):
climbing up, I kept thinking tomyself, this is absolutely
absurd. After giving up on mydream after just totally
releasing any desire toaccomplish anything at all to do
this mountain, completely noteven caring about it. All of a
sudden here I was taking thefinal steps to the summit of the
(01:04:16):
world under a full moon.
Beautiful, brilliant full moonand even though the smell was
kind of collecting andgathering, but we were just
above the clouds. And there's apicture of literally looking
over the tip of the top you cansee the moon is lighting
everything below. absolutelyspectacular. We spent about 30
(01:04:39):
minutes up there. No emotion, noheartless laughter nothing can
see loadsa here, there's thefinal steps come up 30 below
zero probably 25 mile an hourwinds. And I said a lot but I
said hey, out of respect. I wantto ask you to quit Yes, yes. I
(01:05:02):
said I have a I have a smallfile that's filled with some
ashes, some of my mother, myfather and my brother. And I get
it. Do you mind if I dispersedthese ashes on the summon is
very frowned upon and thatat least culturally, like you're
not supposed to just do that. Ofcourse. So I get into my
(01:05:23):
backpack and I am to the littlecontainer and not really
thinking that I was about tohave a Big Lebowski moment.
ashes up in the air and people'sright here. Right in our mouths.
Anyway, it's just, we justhuddled in laughter it was just
(01:05:45):
the most it was finally we weredone. We didn't done it made it
summited I just rose to theashes, I was free of the burdens
of everything, undoubtedly when.
But not until we took a veryimportant photograph, that I
(01:06:06):
knew staff would be very eagerto receive the New Hampshire
state police, which two monthslater, I think it was I returned
that flag to the colonel of theNew Hampshire state police, and
where I believe it's hangingout, or it's a will one day, but
(01:06:26):
but as I came down from Everest,I had the opportunity to reflect
on something that I had neverreally been expected. And I gave
up on those dreams. I saw toomany people died and want to be
there anymore. But it came to meanyway. And so in coming down,
(01:06:47):
it was almost like literallycoming down from this journey,
not just Mount Everest, but this25 or a year journey where I was
trying to integrate thisprevious life of mine with
whatever new knowledge Iaccumulated, whatever Bradford
Washburn is still differentwhatever spirit and Hillary had
instilled in me, and I had thisplan now that men really nothing
(01:07:11):
other than I did, but it justseemed like, leaving it behind
was the way. And I remembered inthat time that my dad was this
guy who just never thought I hada dumb idea. He was just this
really cool guy.
He says like,it, it's in your heart, go for
just like stand out and do it,if you want to do
(01:07:34):
do it and not be stupid toeverybody else. But go for it.
Never thought your ideas weredumb. He just he just supported
it, you know, and thank God, Ihave my dad because we know all
the stupid things I did thatbrushes with death all the
people that I've hurtalong the way and pursuing it,
like singularly. And it was likemy dad to fight about that. And
(01:07:56):
then I was able to kind ofrelease him from the top. But I
also realized that and lettinggo of my dreams and these goals
and holding too tightly tothings kind of pushed them away
from me. You know, I reallywanted them so badly for so
long. And that my gift was insummoning but I understood a lot
(01:08:19):
that before reaching the top Ienlightenment wasn't that it was
found in all the failures, allthe sadnesses all the things
that had happened to me alongthe way, that the destination
wasn't the top of Mount Everest.
(01:08:40):
The destination was in all thecrap that you go through and
trying to go to the places youwant to go. And so I guess I
stayed to school kids, you know,you're, you're already there.
You've achieved everything youneeded to achieve. You're going
after the summit. This is it.
This is your destination.
(01:09:02):
AUDIENCE CLAPS and MUSIC UPNext week on the happiness
quotient and incredibleconversation with my friend and
colleague and climbing partnerMark Synnott, whose book The
Third Pole mystery, obsessionand death on Mount Everest, will
(01:09:24):
be released on April 13 2021. Wehad a great conversation not
only about the book, but thedeep under the surface story of
our search to try to solve themystery of Mallory and earth and
that will be episode number 76.
(01:09:45):
Look forit here on the happiness
quotient.
Thank you to the woods brothersand their management for the use
of their song happiness Jonesfor our theme song here on The
HQ
The Wood Brothers (01:10:00):
all a my answers came, drivin' myself
insane
Thom Pollard (01:10:04):
if you'd like a free downloadable PDF of the
happiness quotients a course inhappiness visit me@patreon.com
slash the happiness quotient formore information about me to
inquire about personal coachingor public speaking in person or
virtually visit eyes openproductions.com right me anytime
(01:10:27):
at Tom dot Dharmadot pollard@gmail.com
there's a saying in sterquilinusinvinitur, in filth it is found
that which we most want to find,can be discovered where we least
want to look and the deeper anddarker the well. the brighter
(01:10:51):
the light we will discover.
Don't curse the dark cloud. Therain inside may very well turn
your garden green. Thank you forvisiting the happiness quotient.
I will see you all real soon.
The Wood Brothers (01:11:50):
all of those ords I wrote in the storm tha
rocked my boat all of that ws stuck in my throat when I
as happy all of those songsI was singin while my boat
(01:12:18):
as sinkin next Happy Happy.
(01:12:42):
Happy Happy.
Happy, Happy. Happy. HappyHappy. Happy
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