033 Baker Perry and Panuru Sherpa on installing the highest weather station in the world.

Host Megan Hayes welcomes Dr. Baker Perry, a high altitude climber and higher education professional who along with a team sponsored by Rolex and National Geographic installed the world's highest weather station on top of Mount Everest. On this SoundAffect he is joined my Panuru Sherpa who helped lead the team.

Transcript

Megan Hayes: Well, it's been a long time since we've been able to record a SoundAffect podcast and I am so very, very pleased to be returning with climate scientist Dr. Baker Perry, who is a professor in App State's Department of Geography and Planning, and his colleague, Panuru Sherpa.

Megan Hayes: In 2019, as part of the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Expedition to Mount Everest, Baker Perry and Panuru Sherpa were part of an expedition team that braved record crowding, temperatures of nearly negative 22 degrees fahrenheit and icing that compromised their oxygen intake to install the two highest operating automated weather stations in the world on Mount Everest.

Megan Hayes: In 2021, the global COVID pandemic prevented many members of the expedition team from returning to Everest weather station maintenance. Sherpas in the village of Phortse, who make nearly every Everest expedition possible, were able to service the weather stations which are providing scientists with an unprecedented level of weather data that will improve weather forecasting across the globe.

Megan Hayes: Today I'm joined by Dr. Baker Perry and Panuru Sherpa to talk about the project, their expeditions and their partnership. Baker Perry and Panuru Sherpa, welcome to SoundAffect.

Panuru Sherpa: Thank you.

Baker Perry: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Megan Hayes: Oh, we're so glad to have you. Baker, let's start. If you could tell me a little bit about yourself and how you came to be interested in climate science.

Baker Perry: Well, I had some unique experiences as a child. I lived in the Andes of Bolivia and Peru, and as high as 13,000 feet and we would take outings up higher than that. So I had this natural fascination. And for some reason too, as a kid I read a lot of books about Everest. And I didn't really expect necessarily to be back on Everest, but as a result of the National Geographic expedition and my relationship with the director Paul Mayewski, I had the opportunity to go.

Baker Perry: And so clearly these early experiences were very formative in my own childhood. And there were some memorable snow events in the Southern Appalachians too that I can point to, in 1987 and 1993, the big blizzard, and I think those experiences were very important in my career path.

Megan Hayes: So how did you end up on an expedition to Mount Everest?

Baker Perry: Right. So this particular expedition, the opportunity to join it came through an existing relationship, collaboration with Dr. Paul Mayewski from the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine. We had collaborated on a project in the Andes together. And then he was invited to head up the expedition to Everest and knew that I had experience working with weather stations in the Andes and invited me to come along.

Baker Perry: And again I had not necessarily been planning to go to the Himalayas for research. I'd been there once before in 1999 when I was a graduate student, but this was an opportunity that came up and of course I was very excited to be a part of it. And it was through that opportunity that I developed the relationship here with Panuru and the other Sherpas in the communities there in Nepal.

Megan Hayes: So Panuru, I understand you grew up in Phortse, the Sherpa village in the Himalayas which is home to the Khumbu Climbing Center. Did I say that correctly? Panuru Sherpa: Yes.

Megan Hayes: I understand this village and your climbing center has more Everest summiters than anywhere on Earth. Talk about your childhood responsibilities in Phortse.

Panuru Sherpa: Yeah. So when I was younger, I started school at 3 years old. After 3 years I had to look out for my family, my father, mother's yak and nak, looking after them in the mountains.

Panuru Sherpa: I like trekking and that time, first time I worked as a trekking porter. I carried 30 kilo bags, carrying for the trekking. My job was to set up tents and pack them up. 1988 was my first expedition to Mount Everest, in September and October. First time I climbed the South Col route., which is very steep. So I continued to climb in mountain and trek in mountain.

Baker Perry: So how old were you the first time you went up above base camp? Up through the icefall. How old were you?

Panuru Sherpa: That time I was 17 years old. Before, I had no climbing training, did not know how to use rope or use crampons, harness, nothing. Just I trek, I went to base camp and my big brother's name is [Passan Goltsen Sherpa 00:05:14]. He taught me how to use crampons, how to us