April 3, 2024 • 36 mins
We're revisiting a popular episode from our archives this week!
It's not easy to get to the top of the world. It takes a lot of training and determination, a willingness to endure pain and suffering--and no small amount of luck. Even the most prepared climber can confront a deadly avalanche or fatal turn in the weather.
Our guest, Jeff Gottfurcht, was the first person ever to summit the tallest mountain in the world--Mt. Everest--with rheumatoid arthritis. Hear his incredible tales of ten years of training (including climbing all of the world's biggest mountains); what a climber eats, sleeps, and wears on Everest (you'll never believe Jeff's diet!); what happened on his summit ascent in a -20 degree windstorm; and what it's like to sit at the highest point on earth.
Jeff also shares the lessons that have shaped his life that he learned while he was "dancing with fate" on Mt. Everest.
Want to learn more about Jeff?
- Check out his company's website: cyberdive.co
Want to know more about What It's Like To...?
- Sign up to be on our Insiders' List! Go to whatitsliketo.net
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, it's Elizabeth Pearson Garr,the host of What It's Like To.
I'm on vacation this week, so wethought it might be interesting
to rerun one of our popularepisodes from our archives.
This episode is from December2021.
I hope you enjoy it.
(00:23):
To me, the thing that was, Ithink, intoxicating for me about
climbing in general.
Is you can't make a mistake.
You can't step wrong.
You can't climb into a ropewrong.
You can't clip your carabinerinto something wrong.
There are no re dos.
There are no second chances.
(00:48):
There are no second chances onhigh stakes, high altitude
mountains.
But some people believe thebiggest risks yield the biggest
rewards.
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Pearson Garr,and this is What It's Like To,
the podcast that lets you walkin someone else's shoes and live
vicariously through their uniqueexperiences.
On this episode, we experiencesomething I definitely never
(01:09):
will in my own life, summittingMount Everest, the tallest
mountain in the world, more than29, 000 feet high.
My guest, Jeff Gottfurcht, hasbeen to Everest twice.
You'll hear why.
Everyone who climbs Everest hasincredible stories.
Jeff's are unique because inaddition to everything else that
mountain throws at climbers,Jeff has a condition called
(01:30):
rheumatoid arthritis.
He was the first person to eversummit Mount Everest with RA.
I wanted to understand how andwhy he wanted to take on such an
enormous challenge.
Thank you so much for beinghere, Jeff.
This podcast is aboutexperiences that people have had
that most of us haven't done orwon't have the chance to do in
(01:52):
our own lives.
And I've got to admit thatclimbing Mount Everest is
something that I would never dobecause I'm just not brave
enough.
I feel like no matter howphysically fit you could be,
mentally fit, there's thatelement of risk involved.
what did you have in you thatwas willing to take that on?
I think the trait that I had inme, there was a couple of them.
(02:15):
Number one, the will to succeed.
And I also understood as I livedby in my personal life,
measurable risk.
You know, people thought, like,climbing Everest and climbing
all these other seven summitsare crazy.
I didn't view it at that.
I'm not a daredevil.
You know, people would say tome.
Oh, it's great if I die on amountain.
I died doing what I loved, andthat was not my vantage point.
(02:39):
I want to die in bed looking atmy great grandchildren.
You know, that's, the idea ofclimbing big mountains is about
celebrating and learning.
amongst that journey.
And after getting to the top ofEverest, it really showed me
that while initially I might'vebeen climbing to saying, like,
look at me.
When I got to the top ofEverest, I realized I can see
(03:02):
the world and what can I do tochange it?
You know, really gave me greatperspective on how small I was
as an individual and being ableto affect change in my life and
other people's lives.
And I would say that on all themountains that I climbed,
especially Everest, climbed witha lot of people who got there
(03:22):
and would just say, not for me.
You, you don't know themagnitude of that mountain and
going through the Khumbu Icefalland doing all those rotations.
And you know, we had a teammatewho died on our team.
So, I mean, those are surrealthings that, like, if we were
out hiking and you saw someonedead, you know, we'd stop
(03:42):
hiking, you know, I mean, that'sit.
We're going home.
We're dealing with that.
Whereas, on Everest when thathappens, it's a more surreal
thing because there is someonethere, a human life.
And, I think for me, just, Ihave an ability to digest risk
differently than other people.
And I've climbed with a lot ofpeople who'd get to Everest and
(04:02):
would get.
I don't know if you've ever seenthe pictures of the ladders
going over the crevasses, youknow, they get to the, they get
to the first one in the Kumbu ofIcefall and they just say, nope.
I'm not going to do it.
You mentioned some people whoget there and can't even get
past base camp, maybe foracclimatizing or different
reasons.
Yeah.
I read a quote from a woman whogot there and said, getting
(04:23):
through the ice falls is likeslow dancing with the fat woman
of fate in the ballroom ofdeath.
Does that resonate with you atall?
Do you feel like the ice fallsor any portion of it, was just
so harrowing that you felt likethis is the part that I just
can't keep going or your resolvekept you moving forward?
I think a mountain like Everesthas the ability to strip someone
(04:47):
down to their true authenticselves.
Where there's no facades.
When I remember when I got tobase camp the first time, I was
like, the Himalayas are hugemountains.
I mean, this is a differentanimal.
I mean, this is different.
I remember being awestruck.
At just, just how big it was.
Just.
I mean, I thought like theCascades and Rainier was big
(05:07):
enough.
When I got to the Himalayas, itwas just like, and I'm actually
going to climb this whole, youknow what I mean?
It was just really frightening,I guess.
But I think when you get to thatfirst ladder and you have to go
over your first crevasse and putyour crampons in and go, I think
that's really a moment of truth.
Like you're definitely dancingwith fate.
(05:27):
And the question is, do you havethe ability to push on?
And not only push on once, Imean push on over and over and
over again through all thesecrevasses and all these ladders
and so forth.
I didn't have that feeling aboutthe Khumbu Icefall.
I think that's a feeling justabout mountaineering.
(05:47):
It's not just about one specificcomponent of getting to like
that one part of the icefall,Camp 1 to Camp 2.
I understood what Everest was.
And I understood that, andlisten.
If you're going to commit todoing this, you got to commit.
You got to see it through.
It's dancing with fate the wholetime on Everest because there's
(06:07):
a lot of things, besides theicefall, that could go wrong.
A lot, lot, lot of things.
And I can tell you, like, on mysummit bid, and that, when we're
in the death zone, and they callthat, that's 26-29,000 feet.
You know, you read about that.
You don't get to go experiencethat anywhere and kind of get
ready for that.
And in my summit bid.
I could tell you I lost myeyesight in my left eye at about
(06:31):
27,000 feet at a feature calledthe balcony, and that was
primarily because.
You leave Camp four in the deathzone.
We left at eight o'clock atnight and within about an hour
my headlamp died and there was,when you're up that high, there
was no way I could take off mygloves to replace the battery,
so I had to climb in front of mySherpa.
(06:54):
Using his headlamp to illuminatethe route.
But I had to take off mygoggles.
Because I couldn't see so well.
So we went up in this bigwindstorm.
So the wind just kept battering.
Was coming from the left side.
Just kept battering my left eye.
So I went blind in my left eye.
Early into that summit bid.
And had to climb the whole wayto the top of Everest.
(07:17):
From about 27 to 29, 000 feet.
With one eye.
And all the way back down.
And that summit bid from 26 to29, 000.
We left at 8 o'clock on May12th.
We did not return to our tentsuntil 9 o'clock on May 13th.
You know, so we had 25 hours ofclimbing.
And I climbed 23 of those withone eye.
(07:39):
And then, that was just back toCamp 4.
They had to climb down the wholerest of the mountain with one
eye, so.
And all the time, not knowing ifyou were going to get your
eyesight back?
Not at all.
And my thought was, well, guesswhat?
I got another one.
It's okay.
Got two of them.
Wow, that's pretty goodperspective, Jack.
Yeah.
I mean, that was kind of mythought, but, I mean, obviously
(08:00):
there was a fear there that whenI lost the eyesight was.
I am very clear what happens ifI would have lost the eyesight
in the other.
That would mean that someoneelse would be walking down my
daughter's down the aisle attheir weddings if that happened.
So I was very clear about whatthat meant.
And for me, that moment of,okay, one eye is gone.
Can I still get to the top, youknow, and get back down because
(08:22):
these aren't choices that arelike, okay.
Hey, let me just go on my phoneand order something off Amazon
that saves this.
You know, you're the umbilicalcord is really stretched out
really far.
There is no umbilical cord.
It's really at that juncture,so, but I was confident in my
mindset and that I wouldprobably say climbing Everest,
(08:44):
especially when things gettough, it's, you know, probably,
you know, 90 percent mental.
You know, your head is saying,don't go, don't go, because you
can't breathe, but, um, youknow, you just have to be able
to dig down deep and really wantit, and I was pretty confident
that, I figured my right eyewould hold up.
The temperature is what?
Negative?
(09:05):
It was probably negative 20.
And then we had a, the, when wewent up there was a windstorm,
so it even made it moreproblematic for us.
But that also kept a lot ofpeople off the mountain.
There was only six of usclimbing that day.
So you know, it was sixWesterners and six Sherpa.
So, and we had the wholemountain to ourselves.
(09:26):
I was on the summit.
By myself with my Sherpa and aswere the rest of my teammates
and so forth, which doesn'talways happen.
There's a lot of times, a lot oflines up there.
And for us, none of that at all.
It was a beautiful experience inthat, it was just us and
climbing in our own pace, nopeople to worry about and
sitting up on top of the summitfor the two minutes that we did.
(09:50):
Oh, you were only up there fortwo minutes.
I was wondering how long you gotto sit at the top of the world.
Yeah, we were only up there forliterally two, maybe two, two
and a half minutes.
And because once you're at thetop, the journey's not done.
Right.
I read that going down isactually more dangerous than
getting up.
Yeah.
And I think that's a number ofreasons why that is.
(10:10):
Number one, you're tired.
Number two, gravitational pull.
It's harder to climb downbecause you're being pulled down
a little bit.
And you know, you've beenclimbing a long time.
It's hard.
It's a harder thing.
And for me, it was equally ashard because I had lost the
eyesight.
I didn't have depth perception.
So climbing down was a lesson inleaning over and looking at
(10:34):
every single step, trying tofigure out where do I place my
crampon, where crampon are thespikes on the bottom of your
boots.
And over on one side, is it justa steep drop?
Like if you take a wrong step?
Yeah.
There are steep drops along thatwhole way at certain parts and
it, you know, to me, the thingthat was I think intoxicating
(10:57):
for me about climbing in generalis you can't make a mistake.
You can't step wrong.
You can't climb into a ropewrong.
You can't clip your carabinerinto something wrong.
There are no redos.
There are no second chances.
You know, it's a very.
You can't do anything wrong.
(11:18):
On Everest or on any othermountain, because if you do
something wrong, it means you,you don't get to come back.
And that's not the point ofclimbing.
In my opinion, the point is tocome back, celebrate, and apply
what you've learned to, youknow, the people around you and
to, if you have children, toyour children and to your
(11:38):
friends and family and how theycan maybe glean something from
it.
Can you describe what it waslike when you were at the top
for those two minutes?
I would say those two minutes atthe top were two things.
If I can get down, everything inmy life after this will be
gravy.
And the second thought was, getdown.
(12:01):
I have one eye, I have to getdown.
I want to celebrate this.
With my wife and with my kids.
To be honest, I really didn'tcelebrate it until I landed back
stateside.
Because I knew there was a lotto do and climb.
So, I was ecstatic about beingat the top.
I took a video and it was a lotsmaller than I had imagined.
(12:21):
I'll put it that way.
How big is it about?
I read it's about the size of adining table.
The top, I don't know, 10 feet.
You know, I just remember thatlast, like, 50 feet to the top
as it was just getting smallerand smaller.
And I was like, this is gettingI was like, I thought this was
gonna be, you know, ratherlarge.
But it was quite small in myopinion when I got up there.
(12:42):
And there are a bunch of flagsup there.
Is that right?
Yeah, there's a bunch ofBuddhist flags and I put up
pictures of my wife and kidsthat I took a video Oh that they
were on top of the world and Iwas ecstatic but I knew that if
I was gonna live the rest of mylife like a champion that I had
to get down and I knew that Ihad a Big struggle going down
(13:03):
because again, I had one eye.
And I could feel that the othereye was maybe starting to get a
little bad.
So I knew that time was of theessence and that it was going to
be a lot harder climbing down.
There was going to be a majorstruggle.
When I was on Everest, I reallyfigured out what happens when
you die.
And you know what it is?
(13:24):
The people who love you willmiss you.
You know, that to me was myvantage point of climbing.
I wasn't, The risk of meclimbing, I didn't take it as an
individual, like, if I die, thisis gonna happen.
I worried about those people,the people who love me the most,
my wife and kids and my parentsand my friends are gonna miss
me.
And to me, I think climbingEverest gave me a very unfair
(13:45):
advantage in the business I'm innow, because the risk I face
every day in a startup, in ourlife cycle, doesn't scare me.
You know, I've already dealtwith something really scary.
Climbing every day knowing I candie at every minute.
There's only so much, you canmitigate especially on Everest.
You can mitigate having goodequipment.
You can mitigate being in prettygood shape but being in good
(14:09):
shape doesn't really dictate howaltitude is gonna affect you or
or the winds or a sudden changein weather or An avalanche 100
percent I mean it was veryinteresting even a couple years
after I climbed Everest.
There was a major earthquake onEverest and I had a friend who
died at base camp during theearthquake.
A rock came and hit him and hepassed away.
(14:30):
You know what I mean?
And that's where you think, youknow, that can happen on Everest
when you're in your tent.
And I remember my first night,when I got to Everest the first
time in my first tent, and youwould hear these major
thunderstorms.
And then like my Sherpa, greatguy who I was climbing with, he
said, those aren'tthunderstorms.
Those are avalanches.
You know, and you're like, what?
Like, what do you mean?
(14:51):
And you're like, those areavalanches, you know, in the
surrounding mountains.
So, you know, for me, I hadclimbed Everest twice.
I didn't make it the first time.
The first time I climbed in2010.
I had some altitude issues up atabout 23, 000 feet that were
affecting me.
What did that feel like?
You just physically couldn'tkeep going on?
(15:13):
I was having some high altitudecoal air induced asthma attacks.
Oh, wow.
it was almost like climbing analtitude was already hard, but
it was almost like constrictedto like a straw.
And I could not breathe at 23,000 feet and I knew I mean I
knew obviously if I went furtherthat was gonna I would pass
(15:33):
away, so.
I had always understood that Ilived by these things.
Mountains endure not so muchpeople.
And I knew that Everest wouldalways be there.
So I knew when I didn't feelgood, even though that was a
punch in the teeth, and I'd haveto train all over again.
And I mean, it was really hardto kind of come to that
decision.
(15:53):
But, you know, as I'm saying it,I remember being at Camp 3 and
looking to the top of Everest,turning my back and saying like,
This is not my year.
I need to sort this issue out.
Before I come back again and,turned back, went back home,
trained harder, figured out howto deal with the high altitude,
(16:14):
cold, air induced asthma, and, Igot back up to 23,000.
The second time it was like.
Oh oh, is it going to happenagain?
Yeah, the mental game kicks in.
The mental game, you know, and Ithink those are things that.
I just have this ability to pushthrough those obstacles and
handle those.
situations in a manner that Ilean into risk like it's
(16:37):
chocolate milk and I just try tojust be Measurable in that risk
but.
So when it didn't work out thefirst time, did you know right
away, I'm coming back.
This isn't over for me.
The moment I took those firststep down.
I Knew that I was gonna comeback.
I knew I would do the things tofigure out.
Why was this happening?
(16:58):
Because Everest was somethingthat I always wanted to climb as
a young child and I just knew Iwas going to go back.
I was determined to do it.
I was determined to get to thetop and rightly or wrong when I
got home the first time I didfeel like a failure.
I really did.
(17:18):
I was like, I didn't make it.
And, you know, my wife, Emilywas like, you're not a failure.
You turned, you know, you'redoing things that most people.
You know, they're not going toactually go out and try to do
this.
And I felt like a failurethough.
I was like, I didn't do it.
But I, you know, I got over thatrather quickly and I was just
even more determined to go intothat dark cave every day of
(17:41):
training because I knew it heldthe treasure that I wanted.
And I knew that treasure wasgetting to the top and back down
and learning all those lessonsalong the way.
And I knew that I'd be able toapply.
back on terra firma, back onsolid ground, you know, in my
everyday life and so forth, so.
(18:01):
What does that training looklike preparing for it?
Yeah, what I would do was fivedays a week and I did this for
10 years.
You know, climbing Everestwasn't just, hey, I'm going to
go climb Everest.
Everest started with climbingMount Whitney, then climbing
Mount Rainier, then going downto Mexico and climbing the
(18:23):
highest mountains there.
Then I went to Russia andclimbed Mount Elbrus.
Then Aconcagua, which is inSouth America, which is the
highest mountain outside of theHimalayas at 23,000 feet.
So that journey was not just,Hey, I'm climbing Everest.
I'm going to go do that.
That took 10 years of climbingand training and the training
(18:43):
that I would do.
And again, this just is whatworked for me.
I would hike in the Los Altospreserve.
There was a 3,000 foot mountainthere called the Black Mountain.
And I think it was 12 milesround trip and it's a 3,000 foot
elevation gain.
I would hike that with 35 poundsof water in my pack.
(19:06):
Oh my goodness.
And I would dump the water atthe top to make it easier coming
down.
And I would do that in two and ahalf hours.
So I wasn't hiking as in.
You know, slow hiking.
I was kind of jogging going upto the best of my, and then I
was running, coming down.
I do that on Monday, Wednesday,and Friday.
And then on Tuesdays andThursdays, I would go to a
(19:31):
college called FoothillCommunity College.
And on the football field, Iwould do interval training.
And what that meant was from theend zone, to the other end zone
line, which is 120 yards if youinclude the end zones.
I would sprint that as fast as Ican, getting my heart rate up.
And then around the corner, Iwould drop to a jog to bring my
(19:54):
heart rate down.
And then I would sprint the 100again.
And I would do that 100 times.
100 times?
100 times each Tuesday andThursday.
So that again, that would justgreatly elevate the heart rate,
you know.
Bam, bang it up and then bringit down a little, bang it up.
(20:14):
My goodness.
And that's what I did for mytraining.
It depends on where you live andwhat you do.
And, but that's what reallyworked for me and for getting my
cardiovascular system ready andmy legs, because I knew,
especially when I went back toEverest the second time, I knew
there was never an issue with mylegs.
(20:36):
Meaning that I knew my legs weregoing to get me through wherever
I needed to go.
And I knew that when that eyewent, I knew I just said my legs
will get me there.
And not slow legs, you know, notlike, hey, I can take 50 hours
to do.
I knew my legs were musclememory.
You know, I knew they knew whatto do.
And that's what I think allowedme to get up to the top with the
one eye and get back down.
(20:58):
When we talk about all thosethings, having one eye.
Climbing in the death zone, notbeing able to breathe, it's
cold, you're tired, you haven't,you know, we didn't rest for
that 25 hours, and, you know, Ialso have rheumatoid arthritis.
Yeah, how did that affecteverything?
How did you deal with thatthrough this entire climb?
You know, I have the ability tohandle suffering.
(21:21):
And, guess what?
You know, people often ask me,why do you do it?
And, I think when I was climbingEverest.
Putting my feet on the floorevery morning were for the
people I knew who couldn't dothat.
I know there's people who havemy affliction, who have
rheumatoid arthritis, or hasother conditions and diseases
who are at home and they can'tdo things.
You know, they just can't andthat's not their fault.
(21:42):
You know, they're just not ableto do that.
And for me, I was like, I can doit.
I can endure the pain.
I can endure the suffering.
That's great.
And it still gets me out everyday in the morning when I put my
feet on the floor, because Iknow there's.
There's people who are climbingEverest with a really rough
affliction.
That affects for me personally,my toes, my ankles, my knees,
(22:04):
and my hips.
That's predominantly what we'reusing to climb a mountain.
Not to mention all the training.
I mean, you dealt with that painthrough all the training as
well, I'm sure.
All the training and every day.
Still do every day.
So that was an added obstacle.
To have to endure, you know, Iwas fortunate that.
(22:24):
You know, maybe i've just beenlucky.
I have a characteristic thathelps me digest pain and
suffering different than otherpeople, you know, if someone
gets feels pain and they're at a10 well.
And they have to stop i'm at a10, but I think I can push till
it's a 50.
You know, and that's justsomething that you know I'm,
just lucky that i'm able to dothat, but to be honest with you
(22:45):
not getting to the top the firsttime.
Was probably the most valuablepart of the journey.
Because when I got to the topthe second time, and you know,
got back down, back stateside.
It made victory even better.
I know a lot of people who go toEverest and they don't make it
their first time, and guesswhat?
They don't go back.
(23:06):
You know, they just don't,because it takes lots of
determination, lots of tenacity,lots of energy, the ability to
handle a lot of suffering.
And the atmospheric pressure upthere is one third what it is at
sea level.
So, yeah, the oxygen you'regetting is one third of the
oxygen you're normally getting.
And it takes so long.
(23:26):
Is this right?
I read that that last mile cantake 12 hours to climb.
Yeah, I mean we took 25 hoursthat just that 26, 000 to 20
minutes, 3, 000 feet.
But that last 3, 000 feet.
And remember that's not 3000feet.
It's 6000 Feet because you gotto go up.
And back.
So that's just an incrediblefeet and there you are with one
(23:48):
eye and you're struggling withoxygen even with the
supplemental.
And you can't breathe and Imean, and I almost put it, it's
like running with a straw inyour mouth and a bag on your
head.
It's just really hard tobreathe.
That altitude is the greatequalizer.
You know, that you can go astrained as you are and with the
(24:08):
greatest attitude, but if thataltitude hits you, and it hits
people, I mean it, it killspeople.
So what's the process when youdecide you want to go?
Do you have to get a permit?
Do you sign up with a guide?
Or how do you find the Sherpas?
Yeah, you know, I think when youwant to begin that journey,
there's some steps you have totake, especially because hiking
(24:30):
is not mountain climbing,mountaineering.
Those are two different sports.
Mountaineering is different inthat it entails altitude.
It entails crevasses, avalanche,how to cook with melted ice.
How to carry big loads.
I mean, it's just a differentthing.
So when I started, I initially,I had climbed Mount Whitney as a
(24:53):
kid during the summer.
So that's the hike basically.
But then I went and climbedMount Rainier and that's, was my
real taste of mountaineering.
And how to do it.
How to survive climbing.
How to sleep at night.
What do you deal with going tothe bathroom and you got to come
out of your tent at night onsteep terrain?
(25:13):
Dealing with all of theequipment.
Getting accustomed to layeringand how to deal with that.
With taking breaks.
What do you do?
Do you put on jackets?
Do you put on more cloves.
Can you go into some of that?
I really am interested in that.
I mean, I've watched a lot ofdocumentaries in Everest and all
that.
Yeah.
What do you, what do you wear?
What do you carry in your pack?
(25:35):
And how do you sleep at night inthese steep places?
It varies in different mountainson Everest.
Our base camp was at 17,000feet.
Then our camp one, and you dowhat are called rotations on
Everest.
So you just don't climb Everestand go from.
Cat Man Dude a top of Everest.
You have to acclimate as you'redoing this.
(25:56):
So it takes us two weeks to hikein to Everest Base Camp.
And you have to spend two weekshiking to Base Camp and Base
Camp is at 17,000 feet and you,then you'll climb up to Camp 1
at 19,000 feet, spend a couplenights, then back down to Base
Camp and you'll spend like threenights down there and you climb
(26:18):
back up to Camp 1 for threenights.
Then you go up to camp two forthree nights.
Then you'll climb all the wayback down for five nights.
Then you'll repeat that and thenyou go up to camp three.
So it's this, so when people seelike ladders, they think you're
just going over like 30 laddersonce.
You're really going over like200 ladders because you're doing
it so many times and your tentand your sleeping are different
(26:42):
at different parts of themountain.
At base camp you have kind ofyour own tent and you have your
supplies in there and you'reable to have more in there.
The higher you go you have lesswith you.
You just carry less about whatyou're going to do and you know
it's a learning process butthere's, you can read any book
(27:04):
or any magazine or any guidesthat you're with and you know
you'll take these necessitieswith you which are obviously you
know.
Whatever, you know, yourcrampons, your ice axe, your
different layers, your differentsets of goggles.
But I mean, but like I indicatedto you, my headlamp died.
And there's nothing to stopthat.
Maybe you have an extraheadlamp.
I did have an extra headlamp,but I lost it somewhere along
(27:26):
the way.
Just in the process of climbingwith an oxygen mask on and so
forth.
And those are the things thatyou have to adapt to.
After climbing for those 25hours and getting into my tent
that night and upon stopping.
It was very apparent that withinan hour things were going to go
bad for me because my clotheswere wet from sweating and I was
(27:49):
going to become hypothermic frombeing wet and now sitting still
in a tent and, you know, havingto adjust and figure out, okay,
all I want to do is go to bed,but now I got to figure out who
on my team has some clean, youknow, who has some dry clothes
that I can wear because I'm notgoing to make it through the
night.
I remember.
(28:10):
Only a couple people had someclothes I could wear and I was
so cold that night that Iactually put my gloves on my
feet because it was, you know,it was so.
What an anecdote.
But those are the things thatyou just don't, you can't
prepare for.
Like you just can't prepare forlosing an eye.
You can't prepare for on thatsummit bid.
(28:31):
There was a guy who had aJapanese guy who had passed away
at about 28,000 feet and seeingthat body up there just hooked
into a rope, just, and he hadgotten, either HACE or HAPE,
those are called.
HACE is high altitude cerebraledema.
HAPE is high altitude pulmonaryedema, and when you do that, you
have a tendency to think you'rehot, and you take your clothes
(28:53):
off.
So he was up on the top, likepretty close to the top, with,
you know, his down suitunzipped, his gloves off, all of
his layers off, and, you know,and seeing those things are, You
know, surreal things as you'redoing the same thing he's doing.
It makes me think of theSherpas, because it is nice to
have comrades in arms there.
(29:15):
And these guys have climbedmany, many times.
What are your thoughts about therole of the Sherpa on the
mountain?
Yeah, I think number one, youknow, people think that the word
Sherpa is associated withsomeone who carries things, and
that's not what it is.
The Sherpa are the native peopleto the Kubu region of that part
of the Himalayas.
You know, and obviously some ofthem are still in Tibet and some
(29:37):
of'em are on that, in that KubuValley, it's called the Solo
Kubu region, and they are amagnificent humble people and
especially as we would hike intobase camp.
He would stop by these buddhistmonasteries and go in there and
it was just an incredible lessonfor me seeing a warm easy people
(30:02):
where you know they might nothave the luxuries that there are
no cars up in that area there'sno there's no a lot of things
let me put it that way.
I encountered a wonderfulSherpa, whose name was Danuru.
And we climbed that mountaintogether, and his ability to
(30:23):
know the mountain, and, youknow, here's where we go, here's
what we're gonna do, and, youknow, I think that was
refreshing, I would also say, onthat summit bit, obviously,
we're wearing an oxygen mask.
Because it was so windy, thoseoxygen masks have like a
regulator on the side that'skind of open to the wind.
So it releases the co2 when youbreathe, you know so it goes out
(30:46):
and that was freezing on thatnight of the summit bed.
So about every 15 minutesDhanuru or I would have to take
off our mask and we would putour mouth on the other person's
mask.
And blow into it to clear it.
I mean, it's like right here onyour mouth so I mean.
You're getting like the innerworkings of the person next to
(31:08):
you.
We had to do that for 10 hours,doing that.
A very intimate experience witheach other.
Those are experiences, again,that you don't get to learn
about.
It was just like, hey, how arewe going to make this work to
pull this off?
So, um, I, I think for mepersonally, I learned a lot from
the Sherpa people.
And you know, I've hoped that.
(31:30):
What I learned, I've broughtthat humility back to with what
I do in my professional life aswell as with my personal life
with my wife and my children.
And getting to the top is great,but to me it's seeing the world
and how you want to change it.
Is what matters.
It's not about, hey this is whatI've done.
A practical question, what doyou eat?
(31:52):
How do you eat while you'reclimbing?
That's a wonderful question andI definitely was a lot skinnier
when I was climbing.
Because I now get to eatMcDonald's and french fries
every time I want because Icelebrate.
Easier access to food right now.
100%.
For me, when I was climbing,when you get up in altitude,
(32:13):
your appetite changes.
So for me, what I loved to eatwas candy.
I don't eat candy, ever.
So I'd get everything from MilkyWays, Hershey's, Twix, M& M's,
Jolly Ranch, I mean.
Like Halloween, every day.
Just this huge bag and that'sall I would eat, was just wheat
candy.
I didn't eat.
(32:34):
Not protein and healthy food?
No, because you don't need theprotein, you need energy.
You don't want to burn sugar.
Oh.
You know, you're just burning,burning.
So you got to keep the, you gotto keep the tank going.
So protein is great for, ofcourse, muscle building.
And at base camp, yeah, I mighthave, we had a tendency to have
a lot of spam.
Yeah.
(32:54):
So I might have, uh, These aresome of the most unexpected
answers.
You ate candy and spam ham.
A little spam at base camp.
But other than that, it was, ohmy gosh, a hundred gram bars.
Nestle Crunch.
Smarties, you know, Smarties.
Oh yeah.
Smarties.
I would just throw in my mouthand I would literally just take
a swig of water and just, it'sjust sugar, you know, just, just
(33:17):
keeps, just keeps you going andso forth.
I remember when I.
After two months, because thetrip is two months of climbing.
When I got back, when I flewfrom Kathmandu to Hong Kong, the
only thing I wanted after twomonths was milk.
They had like Ben and Jerry's inthe airport in Hong Kong.
(33:37):
And all I did between my flightswas just eat ice cream.
You know, my body just yearnedhaving, you know, that calcium.
But for me, on every climb, it'salways been candy.
And lots of it.
When you're at the height ofwhere jets are flying, which is
where you were, you're going forcandy.
You're going for candy and justJolly Ranchers and Swedish fish.
(34:00):
Oh my gosh.
And gummy bears and cola bottle.
So before I let you go, I'd liketo circle back.
You mentioned you learned somany lessons while you were on
Everest.
Can you share some of those withme?
Yeah, I think the main lessons Ilearned are number one, don't
let anyone walk through yourmind with dirty feet.
I think that was something thatreally, that I still apply today
in my daily life.
(34:21):
That most of the people who arecriticizing you are people who
are doing nothing.
I think that is something that Ilive with.
I also live by a great MuhammadAli quote that I love.
It's not the mountain that wearsyou out, it's often the pebble
in your shoe.
And I think the last one is, Thedark cave you fear often holds
the treasure that you want.
(34:43):
Not to be a broken record, youknow, you climb mountains, not
so people can see you climbing,so you can see the world and
change it.
And, that was my experience onEverest and that's, and as well
as other mountains.
And that's what, I've learnedand that's what drives me
forward every single day.
And I consider myself verylucky.
I know there's a lot ofunfortunate souls that lose
(35:04):
their life mountaineering and,um, they don't get to celebrate
like I get to and, you know,continue life.
Well, thank you so much.
This has been so enlighteningfor me.
I really appreciate you tellingme about this because like I
said, I'm never going to climbMount Everest, so I really
appreciate experiencing itvicariously through you.
Well, it was a pleasure.
(35:25):
I'm glad, glad it wasinteresting.
And thank you.
I'm simply in awe of people whotake on such huge physical and
emotional challenges.
I can't imagine ever climbing tothe summit of Mount Everest, but
still much of what Jeff saidresonated with me.
Here are my takeaways from ourconversation.
Number one (35:45):
Not achieving a goal on the first try is sometimes a
blessing.
Keep trying.
Victory tastes even sweeter thesecond, or third, or eighth time
around.
2.
Preparation is key, but youcan't mitigate for every
possibility.
3.
Be adaptable.
Sometimes you need to wear yourfriend's dry clothes and wear
(36:05):
your gloves on your feet to keepwarm.
4.
If you're going to commit tosomething like climbing Mount
Everest or something else inlife, see it through.
And finally, number 5.
Even if you're on top of theworld, literally or
figuratively, the importantthing isn't that you're there.
It's what you can do to changeit for the better.
I'd like to thank JeffGottfurcht for sharing his
(36:26):
inspiring stories with me.
If you'd like to learn moreabout Jeff and his company, go
to cyberdive.co.
Please visit our website,whatitsliketo.net, to explore
other episodes, sign up for ourinsiders' list, and find out how
to follow us on social media.
And if you liked what you heard,please rate, review, and
subscribe to this podcast.
It helps others discover us.
(36:47):
I'm Elizabeth Pearson Garr.
Thanks for being curious aboutwhat it's like.
Hi, it's Elizabeth Pearson Garr,the host of What It's Like To.
I'm on vacation this week, so wethought it might be interesting
to rerun one of our popularepisodes from our archives.
This episode is from December2021.
I hope you enjoy it.
(00:23):
To me, the thing that was, Ithink, intoxicating for me about
climbing in general.
Is you can't make a mistake.
You can't step wrong.
You can't climb into a ropewrong.
You can't clip your carabinerinto something wrong.
There are no re dos.
There are no second chances.
(00:48):
There are no second chances onhigh stakes, high altitude
mountains.
But some people believe thebiggest risks yield the biggest
rewards.
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Pearson Garr,and this is What It's Like To,
the podcast that lets you walkin someone else's shoes and live
vicariously through their uniqueexperiences.
On this episode, we experiencesomething I definitely never
(01:09):
will in my own life, summittingMount Everest, the tallest
mountain in the world, more than29, 000 feet high.
My guest, Jeff Gottfurcht, hasbeen to Everest twice.
You'll hear why.
Everyone who climbs Everest hasincredible stories.
Jeff's are unique because inaddition to everything else that
mountain throws at climbers,Jeff has a condition called
(01:30):
rheumatoid arthritis.
He was the first person to eversummit Mount Everest with RA.
I wanted to understand how andwhy he wanted to take on such an
enormous challenge.
Thank you so much for beinghere, Jeff.
This podcast is aboutexperiences that people have had
that most of us haven't done orwon't have the chance to do in
(01:52):
our own lives.
And I've got to admit thatclimbing Mount Everest is
something that I would never dobecause I'm just not brave
enough.
I feel like no matter howphysically fit you could be,
mentally fit, there's thatelement of risk involved.
what did you have in you thatwas willing to take that on?
I think the trait that I had inme, there was a couple of them.
(02:15):
Number one, the will to succeed.
And I also understood as I livedby in my personal life,
measurable risk.
You know, people thought, like,climbing Everest and climbing
all these other seven summitsare crazy.
I didn't view it at that.
I'm not a daredevil.
You know, people would say tome.
Oh, it's great if I die on amountain.
I died doing what I loved, andthat was not my vantage point.
(02:39):
I want to die in bed looking atmy great grandchildren.
You know, that's, the idea ofclimbing big mountains is about
celebrating and learning.
amongst that journey.
And after getting to the top ofEverest, it really showed me
that while initially I might'vebeen climbing to saying, like,
look at me.
When I got to the top ofEverest, I realized I can see
(03:02):
the world and what can I do tochange it?
You know, really gave me greatperspective on how small I was
as an individual and being ableto affect change in my life and
other people's lives.
And I would say that on all themountains that I climbed,
especially Everest, climbed witha lot of people who got there
(03:22):
and would just say, not for me.
You, you don't know themagnitude of that mountain and
going through the Khumbu Icefalland doing all those rotations.
And you know, we had a teammatewho died on our team.
So, I mean, those are surrealthings that, like, if we were
out hiking and you saw someonedead, you know, we'd stop
(03:42):
hiking, you know, I mean, that'sit.
We're going home.
We're dealing with that.
Whereas, on Everest when thathappens, it's a more surreal
thing because there is someonethere, a human life.
And, I think for me, just, Ihave an ability to digest risk
differently than other people.
And I've climbed with a lot ofpeople who'd get to Everest and
(04:02):
would get.
I don't know if you've ever seenthe pictures of the ladders
going over the crevasses, youknow, they get to the, they get
to the first one in the Kumbu ofIcefall and they just say, nope.
I'm not going to do it.
You mentioned some people whoget there and can't even get
past base camp, maybe foracclimatizing or different
reasons.
Yeah.
I read a quote from a woman whogot there and said, getting
(04:23):
through the ice falls is likeslow dancing with the fat woman
of fate in the ballroom ofdeath.
Does that resonate with you atall?
Do you feel like the ice fallsor any portion of it, was just
so harrowing that you felt likethis is the part that I just
can't keep going or your resolvekept you moving forward?
I think a mountain like Everesthas the ability to strip someone
(04:47):
down to their true authenticselves.
Where there's no facades.
When I remember when I got tobase camp the first time, I was
like, the Himalayas are hugemountains.
I mean, this is a differentanimal.
I mean, this is different.
I remember being awestruck.
At just, just how big it was.
Just.
I mean, I thought like theCascades and Rainier was big
(05:07):
enough.
When I got to the Himalayas, itwas just like, and I'm actually
going to climb this whole, youknow what I mean?
It was just really frightening,I guess.
But I think when you get to thatfirst ladder and you have to go
over your first crevasse and putyour crampons in and go, I think
that's really a moment of truth.
Like you're definitely dancingwith fate.
(05:27):
And the question is, do you havethe ability to push on?
And not only push on once, Imean push on over and over and
over again through all thesecrevasses and all these ladders
and so forth.
I didn't have that feeling aboutthe Khumbu Icefall.
I think that's a feeling justabout mountaineering.
(05:47):
It's not just about one specificcomponent of getting to like
that one part of the icefall,Camp 1 to Camp 2.
I understood what Everest was.
And I understood that, andlisten.
If you're going to commit todoing this, you got to commit.
You got to see it through.
It's dancing with fate the wholetime on Everest because there's
(06:07):
a lot of things, besides theicefall, that could go wrong.
A lot, lot, lot of things.
And I can tell you, like, on mysummit bid, and that, when we're
in the death zone, and they callthat, that's 26-29,000 feet.
You know, you read about that.
You don't get to go experiencethat anywhere and kind of get
ready for that.
And in my summit bid.
I could tell you I lost myeyesight in my left eye at about
(06:31):
27,000 feet at a feature calledthe balcony, and that was
primarily because.
You leave Camp four in the deathzone.
We left at eight o'clock atnight and within about an hour
my headlamp died and there was,when you're up that high, there
was no way I could take off mygloves to replace the battery,
so I had to climb in front of mySherpa.
(06:54):
Using his headlamp to illuminatethe route.
But I had to take off mygoggles.
Because I couldn't see so well.
So we went up in this bigwindstorm.
So the wind just kept battering.
Was coming from the left side.
Just kept battering my left eye.
So I went blind in my left eye.
Early into that summit bid.
And had to climb the whole wayto the top of Everest.
(07:17):
From about 27 to 29, 000 feet.
With one eye.
And all the way back down.
And that summit bid from 26 to29, 000.
We left at 8 o'clock on May12th.
We did not return to our tentsuntil 9 o'clock on May 13th.
You know, so we had 25 hours ofclimbing.
And I climbed 23 of those withone eye.
(07:39):
And then, that was just back toCamp 4.
They had to climb down the wholerest of the mountain with one
eye, so.
And all the time, not knowing ifyou were going to get your
eyesight back?
Not at all.
And my thought was, well, guesswhat?
I got another one.
It's okay.
Got two of them.
Wow, that's pretty goodperspective, Jack.
Yeah.
I mean, that was kind of mythought, but, I mean, obviously
(08:00):
there was a fear there that whenI lost the eyesight was.
I am very clear what happens ifI would have lost the eyesight
in the other.
That would mean that someoneelse would be walking down my
daughter's down the aisle attheir weddings if that happened.
So I was very clear about whatthat meant.
And for me, that moment of,okay, one eye is gone.
Can I still get to the top, youknow, and get back down because
(08:22):
these aren't choices that arelike, okay.
Hey, let me just go on my phoneand order something off Amazon
that saves this.
You know, you're the umbilicalcord is really stretched out
really far.
There is no umbilical cord.
It's really at that juncture,so, but I was confident in my
mindset and that I wouldprobably say climbing Everest,
(08:44):
especially when things gettough, it's, you know, probably,
you know, 90 percent mental.
You know, your head is saying,don't go, don't go, because you
can't breathe, but, um, youknow, you just have to be able
to dig down deep and really wantit, and I was pretty confident
that, I figured my right eyewould hold up.
The temperature is what?
Negative?
(09:05):
It was probably negative 20.
And then we had a, the, when wewent up there was a windstorm,
so it even made it moreproblematic for us.
But that also kept a lot ofpeople off the mountain.
There was only six of usclimbing that day.
So you know, it was sixWesterners and six Sherpa.
So, and we had the wholemountain to ourselves.
(09:26):
I was on the summit.
By myself with my Sherpa and aswere the rest of my teammates
and so forth, which doesn'talways happen.
There's a lot of times, a lot oflines up there.
And for us, none of that at all.
It was a beautiful experience inthat, it was just us and
climbing in our own pace, nopeople to worry about and
sitting up on top of the summitfor the two minutes that we did.
(09:50):
Oh, you were only up there fortwo minutes.
I was wondering how long you gotto sit at the top of the world.
Yeah, we were only up there forliterally two, maybe two, two
and a half minutes.
And because once you're at thetop, the journey's not done.
Right.
I read that going down isactually more dangerous than
getting up.
Yeah.
And I think that's a number ofreasons why that is.
(10:10):
Number one, you're tired.
Number two, gravitational pull.
It's harder to climb downbecause you're being pulled down
a little bit.
And you know, you've beenclimbing a long time.
It's hard.
It's a harder thing.
And for me, it was equally ashard because I had lost the
eyesight.
I didn't have depth perception.
So climbing down was a lesson inleaning over and looking at
(10:34):
every single step, trying tofigure out where do I place my
crampon, where crampon are thespikes on the bottom of your
boots.
And over on one side, is it justa steep drop?
Like if you take a wrong step?
Yeah.
There are steep drops along thatwhole way at certain parts and
it, you know, to me, the thingthat was I think intoxicating
(10:57):
for me about climbing in generalis you can't make a mistake.
You can't step wrong.
You can't climb into a ropewrong.
You can't clip your carabinerinto something wrong.
There are no redos.
There are no second chances.
You know, it's a very.
You can't do anything wrong.
(11:18):
On Everest or on any othermountain, because if you do
something wrong, it means you,you don't get to come back.
And that's not the point ofclimbing.
In my opinion, the point is tocome back, celebrate, and apply
what you've learned to, youknow, the people around you and
to, if you have children, toyour children and to your
(11:38):
friends and family and how theycan maybe glean something from
it.
Can you describe what it waslike when you were at the top
for those two minutes?
I would say those two minutes atthe top were two things.
If I can get down, everything inmy life after this will be
gravy.
And the second thought was, getdown.
(12:01):
I have one eye, I have to getdown.
I want to celebrate this.
With my wife and with my kids.
To be honest, I really didn'tcelebrate it until I landed back
stateside.
Because I knew there was a lotto do and climb.
So, I was ecstatic about beingat the top.
I took a video and it was a lotsmaller than I had imagined.
(12:21):
I'll put it that way.
How big is it about?
I read it's about the size of adining table.
The top, I don't know, 10 feet.
You know, I just remember thatlast, like, 50 feet to the top
as it was just getting smallerand smaller.
And I was like, this is gettingI was like, I thought this was
gonna be, you know, ratherlarge.
But it was quite small in myopinion when I got up there.
(12:42):
And there are a bunch of flagsup there.
Is that right?
Yeah, there's a bunch ofBuddhist flags and I put up
pictures of my wife and kidsthat I took a video Oh that they
were on top of the world and Iwas ecstatic but I knew that if
I was gonna live the rest of mylife like a champion that I had
to get down and I knew that Ihad a Big struggle going down
(13:03):
because again, I had one eye.
And I could feel that the othereye was maybe starting to get a
little bad.
So I knew that time was of theessence and that it was going to
be a lot harder climbing down.
There was going to be a majorstruggle.
When I was on Everest, I reallyfigured out what happens when
you die.
And you know what it is?
(13:24):
The people who love you willmiss you.
You know, that to me was myvantage point of climbing.
I wasn't, The risk of meclimbing, I didn't take it as an
individual, like, if I die, thisis gonna happen.
I worried about those people,the people who love me the most,
my wife and kids and my parentsand my friends are gonna miss
me.
And to me, I think climbingEverest gave me a very unfair
(13:45):
advantage in the business I'm innow, because the risk I face
every day in a startup, in ourlife cycle, doesn't scare me.
You know, I've already dealtwith something really scary.
Climbing every day knowing I candie at every minute.
There's only so much, you canmitigate especially on Everest.
You can mitigate having goodequipment.
You can mitigate being in prettygood shape but being in good
(14:09):
shape doesn't really dictate howaltitude is gonna affect you or
or the winds or a sudden changein weather or An avalanche 100
percent I mean it was veryinteresting even a couple years
after I climbed Everest.
There was a major earthquake onEverest and I had a friend who
died at base camp during theearthquake.
A rock came and hit him and hepassed away.
(14:30):
You know what I mean?
And that's where you think, youknow, that can happen on Everest
when you're in your tent.
And I remember my first night,when I got to Everest the first
time in my first tent, and youwould hear these major
thunderstorms.
And then like my Sherpa, greatguy who I was climbing with, he
said, those aren'tthunderstorms.
Those are avalanches.
You know, and you're like, what?
Like, what do you mean?
(14:51):
And you're like, those areavalanches, you know, in the
surrounding mountains.
So, you know, for me, I hadclimbed Everest twice.
I didn't make it the first time.
The first time I climbed in2010.
I had some altitude issues up atabout 23, 000 feet that were
affecting me.
What did that feel like?
You just physically couldn'tkeep going on?
(15:13):
I was having some high altitudecoal air induced asthma attacks.
Oh, wow.
it was almost like climbing analtitude was already hard, but
it was almost like constrictedto like a straw.
And I could not breathe at 23,000 feet and I knew I mean I
knew obviously if I went furtherthat was gonna I would pass
(15:33):
away, so.
I had always understood that Ilived by these things.
Mountains endure not so muchpeople.
And I knew that Everest wouldalways be there.
So I knew when I didn't feelgood, even though that was a
punch in the teeth, and I'd haveto train all over again.
And I mean, it was really hardto kind of come to that
decision.
(15:53):
But, you know, as I'm saying it,I remember being at Camp 3 and
looking to the top of Everest,turning my back and saying like,
This is not my year.
I need to sort this issue out.
Before I come back again and,turned back, went back home,
trained harder, figured out howto deal with the high altitude,
(16:14):
cold, air induced asthma, and, Igot back up to 23,000.
The second time it was like.
Oh oh, is it going to happenagain?
Yeah, the mental game kicks in.
The mental game, you know, and Ithink those are things that.
I just have this ability to pushthrough those obstacles and
handle those.
situations in a manner that Ilean into risk like it's
(16:37):
chocolate milk and I just try tojust be Measurable in that risk
but.
So when it didn't work out thefirst time, did you know right
away, I'm coming back.
This isn't over for me.
The moment I took those firststep down.
I Knew that I was gonna comeback.
I knew I would do the things tofigure out.
Why was this happening?
(16:58):
Because Everest was somethingthat I always wanted to climb as
a young child and I just knew Iwas going to go back.
I was determined to do it.
I was determined to get to thetop and rightly or wrong when I
got home the first time I didfeel like a failure.
I really did.
(17:18):
I was like, I didn't make it.
And, you know, my wife, Emilywas like, you're not a failure.
You turned, you know, you'redoing things that most people.
You know, they're not going toactually go out and try to do
this.
And I felt like a failurethough.
I was like, I didn't do it.
But I, you know, I got over thatrather quickly and I was just
even more determined to go intothat dark cave every day of
(17:41):
training because I knew it heldthe treasure that I wanted.
And I knew that treasure wasgetting to the top and back down
and learning all those lessonsalong the way.
And I knew that I'd be able toapply.
back on terra firma, back onsolid ground, you know, in my
everyday life and so forth, so.
(18:01):
What does that training looklike preparing for it?
Yeah, what I would do was fivedays a week and I did this for
10 years.
You know, climbing Everestwasn't just, hey, I'm going to
go climb Everest.
Everest started with climbingMount Whitney, then climbing
Mount Rainier, then going downto Mexico and climbing the
(18:23):
highest mountains there.
Then I went to Russia andclimbed Mount Elbrus.
Then Aconcagua, which is inSouth America, which is the
highest mountain outside of theHimalayas at 23,000 feet.
So that journey was not just,Hey, I'm climbing Everest.
I'm going to go do that.
That took 10 years of climbingand training and the training
(18:43):
that I would do.
And again, this just is whatworked for me.
I would hike in the Los Altospreserve.
There was a 3,000 foot mountainthere called the Black Mountain.
And I think it was 12 milesround trip and it's a 3,000 foot
elevation gain.
I would hike that with 35 poundsof water in my pack.
(19:06):
Oh my goodness.
And I would dump the water atthe top to make it easier coming
down.
And I would do that in two and ahalf hours.
So I wasn't hiking as in.
You know, slow hiking.
I was kind of jogging going upto the best of my, and then I
was running, coming down.
I do that on Monday, Wednesday,and Friday.
And then on Tuesdays andThursdays, I would go to a
(19:31):
college called FoothillCommunity College.
And on the football field, Iwould do interval training.
And what that meant was from theend zone, to the other end zone
line, which is 120 yards if youinclude the end zones.
I would sprint that as fast as Ican, getting my heart rate up.
And then around the corner, Iwould drop to a jog to bring my
(19:54):
heart rate down.
And then I would sprint the 100again.
And I would do that 100 times.
100 times?
100 times each Tuesday andThursday.
So that again, that would justgreatly elevate the heart rate,
you know.
Bam, bang it up and then bringit down a little, bang it up.
(20:14):
My goodness.
And that's what I did for mytraining.
It depends on where you live andwhat you do.
And, but that's what reallyworked for me and for getting my
cardiovascular system ready andmy legs, because I knew,
especially when I went back toEverest the second time, I knew
there was never an issue with mylegs.
(20:36):
Meaning that I knew my legs weregoing to get me through wherever
I needed to go.
And I knew that when that eyewent, I knew I just said my legs
will get me there.
And not slow legs, you know, notlike, hey, I can take 50 hours
to do.
I knew my legs were musclememory.
You know, I knew they knew whatto do.
And that's what I think allowedme to get up to the top with the
one eye and get back down.
(20:58):
When we talk about all thosethings, having one eye.
Climbing in the death zone, notbeing able to breathe, it's
cold, you're tired, you haven't,you know, we didn't rest for
that 25 hours, and, you know, Ialso have rheumatoid arthritis.
Yeah, how did that affecteverything?
How did you deal with thatthrough this entire climb?
You know, I have the ability tohandle suffering.
(21:21):
And, guess what?
You know, people often ask me,why do you do it?
And, I think when I was climbingEverest.
Putting my feet on the floorevery morning were for the
people I knew who couldn't dothat.
I know there's people who havemy affliction, who have
rheumatoid arthritis, or hasother conditions and diseases
who are at home and they can'tdo things.
You know, they just can't andthat's not their fault.
(21:42):
You know, they're just not ableto do that.
And for me, I was like, I can doit.
I can endure the pain.
I can endure the suffering.
That's great.
And it still gets me out everyday in the morning when I put my
feet on the floor, because Iknow there's.
There's people who are climbingEverest with a really rough
affliction.
That affects for me personally,my toes, my ankles, my knees,
(22:04):
and my hips.
That's predominantly what we'reusing to climb a mountain.
Not to mention all the training.
I mean, you dealt with that painthrough all the training as
well, I'm sure.
All the training and every day.
Still do every day.
So that was an added obstacle.
To have to endure, you know, Iwas fortunate that.
(22:24):
You know, maybe i've just beenlucky.
I have a characteristic thathelps me digest pain and
suffering different than otherpeople, you know, if someone
gets feels pain and they're at a10 well.
And they have to stop i'm at a10, but I think I can push till
it's a 50.
You know, and that's justsomething that you know I'm,
just lucky that i'm able to dothat, but to be honest with you
(22:45):
not getting to the top the firsttime.
Was probably the most valuablepart of the journey.
Because when I got to the topthe second time, and you know,
got back down, back stateside.
It made victory even better.
I know a lot of people who go toEverest and they don't make it
their first time, and guesswhat?
They don't go back.
(23:06):
You know, they just don't,because it takes lots of
determination, lots of tenacity,lots of energy, the ability to
handle a lot of suffering.
And the atmospheric pressure upthere is one third what it is at
sea level.
So, yeah, the oxygen you'regetting is one third of the
oxygen you're normally getting.
And it takes so long.
(23:26):
Is this right?
I read that that last mile cantake 12 hours to climb.
Yeah, I mean we took 25 hoursthat just that 26, 000 to 20
minutes, 3, 000 feet.
But that last 3, 000 feet.
And remember that's not 3000feet.
It's 6000 Feet because you gotto go up.
And back.
So that's just an incrediblefeet and there you are with one
(23:48):
eye and you're struggling withoxygen even with the
supplemental.
And you can't breathe and Imean, and I almost put it, it's
like running with a straw inyour mouth and a bag on your
head.
It's just really hard tobreathe.
That altitude is the greatequalizer.
You know, that you can go astrained as you are and with the
(24:08):
greatest attitude, but if thataltitude hits you, and it hits
people, I mean it, it killspeople.
So what's the process when youdecide you want to go?
Do you have to get a permit?
Do you sign up with a guide?
Or how do you find the Sherpas?
Yeah, you know, I think when youwant to begin that journey,
there's some steps you have totake, especially because hiking
(24:30):
is not mountain climbing,mountaineering.
Those are two different sports.
Mountaineering is different inthat it entails altitude.
It entails crevasses, avalanche,how to cook with melted ice.
How to carry big loads.
I mean, it's just a differentthing.
So when I started, I initially,I had climbed Mount Whitney as a
(24:53):
kid during the summer.
So that's the hike basically.
But then I went and climbedMount Rainier and that's, was my
real taste of mountaineering.
And how to do it.
How to survive climbing.
How to sleep at night.
What do you deal with going tothe bathroom and you got to come
out of your tent at night onsteep terrain?
(25:13):
Dealing with all of theequipment.
Getting accustomed to layeringand how to deal with that.
With taking breaks.
What do you do?
Do you put on jackets?
Do you put on more cloves.
Can you go into some of that?
I really am interested in that.
I mean, I've watched a lot ofdocumentaries in Everest and all
that.
Yeah.
What do you, what do you wear?
What do you carry in your pack?
(25:35):
And how do you sleep at night inthese steep places?
It varies in different mountainson Everest.
Our base camp was at 17,000feet.
Then our camp one, and you dowhat are called rotations on
Everest.
So you just don't climb Everestand go from.
Cat Man Dude a top of Everest.
You have to acclimate as you'redoing this.
(25:56):
So it takes us two weeks to hikein to Everest Base Camp.
And you have to spend two weekshiking to Base Camp and Base
Camp is at 17,000 feet and you,then you'll climb up to Camp 1
at 19,000 feet, spend a couplenights, then back down to Base
Camp and you'll spend like threenights down there and you climb
(26:18):
back up to Camp 1 for threenights.
Then you go up to camp two forthree nights.
Then you'll climb all the wayback down for five nights.
Then you'll repeat that and thenyou go up to camp three.
So it's this, so when people seelike ladders, they think you're
just going over like 30 laddersonce.
You're really going over like200 ladders because you're doing
it so many times and your tentand your sleeping are different
(26:42):
at different parts of themountain.
At base camp you have kind ofyour own tent and you have your
supplies in there and you'reable to have more in there.
The higher you go you have lesswith you.
You just carry less about whatyou're going to do and you know
it's a learning process butthere's, you can read any book
(27:04):
or any magazine or any guidesthat you're with and you know
you'll take these necessitieswith you which are obviously you
know.
Whatever, you know, yourcrampons, your ice axe, your
different layers, your differentsets of goggles.
But I mean, but like I indicatedto you, my headlamp died.
And there's nothing to stopthat.
Maybe you have an extraheadlamp.
I did have an extra headlamp,but I lost it somewhere along
(27:26):
the way.
Just in the process of climbingwith an oxygen mask on and so
forth.
And those are the things thatyou have to adapt to.
After climbing for those 25hours and getting into my tent
that night and upon stopping.
It was very apparent that withinan hour things were going to go
bad for me because my clotheswere wet from sweating and I was
(27:49):
going to become hypothermic frombeing wet and now sitting still
in a tent and, you know, havingto adjust and figure out, okay,
all I want to do is go to bed,but now I got to figure out who
on my team has some clean, youknow, who has some dry clothes
that I can wear because I'm notgoing to make it through the
night.
I remember.
(28:10):
Only a couple people had someclothes I could wear and I was
so cold that night that Iactually put my gloves on my
feet because it was, you know,it was so.
What an anecdote.
But those are the things thatyou just don't, you can't
prepare for.
Like you just can't prepare forlosing an eye.
You can't prepare for on thatsummit bid.
(28:31):
There was a guy who had aJapanese guy who had passed away
at about 28,000 feet and seeingthat body up there just hooked
into a rope, just, and he hadgotten, either HACE or HAPE,
those are called.
HACE is high altitude cerebraledema.
HAPE is high altitude pulmonaryedema, and when you do that, you
have a tendency to think you'rehot, and you take your clothes
(28:53):
off.
So he was up on the top, likepretty close to the top, with,
you know, his down suitunzipped, his gloves off, all of
his layers off, and, you know,and seeing those things are, You
know, surreal things as you'redoing the same thing he's doing.
It makes me think of theSherpas, because it is nice to
have comrades in arms there.
(29:15):
And these guys have climbedmany, many times.
What are your thoughts about therole of the Sherpa on the
mountain?
Yeah, I think number one, youknow, people think that the word
Sherpa is associated withsomeone who carries things, and
that's not what it is.
The Sherpa are the native peopleto the Kubu region of that part
of the Himalayas.
You know, and obviously some ofthem are still in Tibet and some
(29:37):
of'em are on that, in that KubuValley, it's called the Solo
Kubu region, and they are amagnificent humble people and
especially as we would hike intobase camp.
He would stop by these buddhistmonasteries and go in there and
it was just an incredible lessonfor me seeing a warm easy people
(30:02):
where you know they might nothave the luxuries that there are
no cars up in that area there'sno there's no a lot of things
let me put it that way.
I encountered a wonderfulSherpa, whose name was Danuru.
And we climbed that mountaintogether, and his ability to
(30:23):
know the mountain, and, youknow, here's where we go, here's
what we're gonna do, and, youknow, I think that was
refreshing, I would also say, onthat summit bit, obviously,
we're wearing an oxygen mask.
Because it was so windy, thoseoxygen masks have like a
regulator on the side that'skind of open to the wind.
So it releases the co2 when youbreathe, you know so it goes out
(30:46):
and that was freezing on thatnight of the summit bed.
So about every 15 minutesDhanuru or I would have to take
off our mask and we would putour mouth on the other person's
mask.
And blow into it to clear it.
I mean, it's like right here onyour mouth so I mean.
You're getting like the innerworkings of the person next to
(31:08):
you.
We had to do that for 10 hours,doing that.
A very intimate experience witheach other.
Those are experiences, again,that you don't get to learn
about.
It was just like, hey, how arewe going to make this work to
pull this off?
So, um, I, I think for mepersonally, I learned a lot from
the Sherpa people.
And you know, I've hoped that.
(31:30):
What I learned, I've broughtthat humility back to with what
I do in my professional life aswell as with my personal life
with my wife and my children.
And getting to the top is great,but to me it's seeing the world
and how you want to change it.
Is what matters.
It's not about, hey this is whatI've done.
A practical question, what doyou eat?
(31:52):
How do you eat while you'reclimbing?
That's a wonderful question andI definitely was a lot skinnier
when I was climbing.
Because I now get to eatMcDonald's and french fries
every time I want because Icelebrate.
Easier access to food right now.
100%.
For me, when I was climbing,when you get up in altitude,
(32:13):
your appetite changes.
So for me, what I loved to eatwas candy.
I don't eat candy, ever.
So I'd get everything from MilkyWays, Hershey's, Twix, M& M's,
Jolly Ranch, I mean.
Like Halloween, every day.
Just this huge bag and that'sall I would eat, was just wheat
candy.
I didn't eat.
(32:34):
Not protein and healthy food?
No, because you don't need theprotein, you need energy.
You don't want to burn sugar.
Oh.
You know, you're just burning,burning.
So you got to keep the, you gotto keep the tank going.
So protein is great for, ofcourse, muscle building.
And at base camp, yeah, I mighthave, we had a tendency to have
a lot of spam.
Yeah.
(32:54):
So I might have, uh, These aresome of the most unexpected
answers.
You ate candy and spam ham.
A little spam at base camp.
But other than that, it was, ohmy gosh, a hundred gram bars.
Nestle Crunch.
Smarties, you know, Smarties.
Oh yeah.
Smarties.
I would just throw in my mouthand I would literally just take
a swig of water and just, it'sjust sugar, you know, just, just
(33:17):
keeps, just keeps you going andso forth.
I remember when I.
After two months, because thetrip is two months of climbing.
When I got back, when I flewfrom Kathmandu to Hong Kong, the
only thing I wanted after twomonths was milk.
They had like Ben and Jerry's inthe airport in Hong Kong.
(33:37):
And all I did between my flightswas just eat ice cream.
You know, my body just yearnedhaving, you know, that calcium.
But for me, on every climb, it'salways been candy.
And lots of it.
When you're at the height ofwhere jets are flying, which is
where you were, you're going forcandy.
You're going for candy and justJolly Ranchers and Swedish fish.
(34:00):
Oh my gosh.
And gummy bears and cola bottle.
So before I let you go, I'd liketo circle back.
You mentioned you learned somany lessons while you were on
Everest.
Can you share some of those withme?
Yeah, I think the main lessons Ilearned are number one, don't
let anyone walk through yourmind with dirty feet.
I think that was something thatreally, that I still apply today
in my daily life.
(34:21):
That most of the people who arecriticizing you are people who
are doing nothing.
I think that is something that Ilive with.
I also live by a great MuhammadAli quote that I love.
It's not the mountain that wearsyou out, it's often the pebble
in your shoe.
And I think the last one is, Thedark cave you fear often holds
the treasure that you want.
(34:43):
Not to be a broken record, youknow, you climb mountains, not
so people can see you climbing,so you can see the world and
change it.
And, that was my experience onEverest and that's, and as well
as other mountains.
And that's what, I've learnedand that's what drives me
forward every single day.
And I consider myself verylucky.
I know there's a lot ofunfortunate souls that lose
(35:04):
their life mountaineering and,um, they don't get to celebrate
like I get to and, you know,continue life.
Well, thank you so much.
This has been so enlighteningfor me.
I really appreciate you tellingme about this because like I
said, I'm never going to climbMount Everest, so I really
appreciate experiencing itvicariously through you.
Well, it was a pleasure.
(35:25):
I'm glad, glad it wasinteresting.
And thank you.
I'm simply in awe of people whotake on such huge physical and
emotional challenges.
I can't imagine ever climbing tothe summit of Mount Everest, but
still much of what Jeff saidresonated with me.
Here are my takeaways from ourconversation.
Number one (35:45):
Not achieving a goal on the first try is sometimes a
blessing.
Keep trying.
Victory tastes even sweeter thesecond, or third, or eighth time
around.
2.
Preparation is key, but youcan't mitigate for every
possibility.
3.
Be adaptable.
Sometimes you need to wear yourfriend's dry clothes and wear
(36:05):
your gloves on your feet to keepwarm.
4.
If you're going to commit tosomething like climbing Mount
Everest or something else inlife, see it through.
And finally, number 5.
Even if you're on top of theworld, literally or
figuratively, the importantthing isn't that you're there.
It's what you can do to changeit for the better.
I'd like to thank JeffGottfurcht for sharing his
(36:26):
inspiring stories with me.
If you'd like to learn moreabout Jeff and his company, go
to cyberdive.co.
Please visit our website,whatitsliketo.net, to explore
other episodes, sign up for ourinsiders' list, and find out how
to follow us on social media.
And if you liked what you heard,please rate, review, and
subscribe to this podcast.
It helps others discover us.
(36:47):
I'm Elizabeth Pearson Garr.
Thanks for being curious aboutwhat it's like.
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