Everest 2014: Interview with Tim Mosedale – Small and Safe
For 2014, I will be interviewing some of the smaller Everest guide services in addition to the climbers. I welcome suggestions for anyone climbing in 2014. Now here’s Tim Mosedale: Each season the big name guide companies take about half of the total climbers to Everest. So who guides the rest? There are many small companies to fill this gap including Tim Mosedale out of the UK. In 2013, Tim got four of his members plus eight Sherpas on top. Tim has personally summited 4 times including from the north and south sides, becoming only the 10th Brit to summit from both sides. Tim began his climbing career as a climbing instructor in the UK. When he wasn’t cragging, guiding and instructing in England in summer, or climbing and mountaineering in Scotland in winter, he was guiding in the Himalayas or in Greenland. He has over 15 years’ experience in Nepal and has summited Lobuche East, Island Peak, Mera Peak and then added Ama Dablam to his list of ‘ticks’ with November 2013 being the 11th trip there. During 6 expeditions to Greenland, Tim added over 50 unclimbed peaks to his CV and then went on to summit Cho Oyu in 2006. Tim has a focus on safety telling his members “You will turn around – even if you are only 30 minutes from the summit of Everest – if the decision is made for you” Tim and his family live in Keswick in northern England where they also run a Bed and Breakfast. Q: When did your interest in Everest begin? I’d often been asked whether I was interested in Everest and quite frankly it had never appealed to me. It just seemed so high and potentially dangerous and then there was the length of time as well. Partly there was the issue of cost and, being self employed, the prospect of losing income whilst paying to be on the hill was a double whammy. But in essence, regardless of the cost implications, it just never appealed. And then I heard about an expedition that some of my friends were putting together to go North in 2005. This coincided with me meeting a chap (now a great friend) who had just summitted in 2004 (North with Russell Brice) and when he showed me his footage my interest was piqued. The friends who were going are all great guys and prolific expeditioners and mountaineers in their own right. It was going to be a low key trip – just a bunch of mates and a few Climbing Sherpas along with a trip doctor. I realised that if I was going to join a trip on Everest then that would be how I would like to do it. As a team of 8 climbers, 4 Climbing Sherpas, 1 cook, 2 kitchen boys and a doctor we were the smallest, cheapest trip on the hill but we also had the most experience (Ian had over 70 6,000m peaks under his belt along with Gasherbrum II and Cho Oyu (both without Os)). The Climbing Sherpas were hand picked and most of us had worked with them at some stage before so the relationship wasn’t member and guide, or employer and employee – it was just a bunch of mates having a great time on a really big hill. A bit like the old style of expeditioning – except with fewer porters and no Fortnum’s & Mason’s hampers. We had such a great time. It was a very late season and we didn’t summit until the 30th May. Not a crossed word was said during the whole trip, despite the stressful situation that we were in, which is testament to the success of the expedition. That was when I found out that I am pretty good at altitude and my love affair with Everest began. Since then I have led 2 expeditions on the South side and have summited another 3 times – managing a double summit in 2013. Q: Can you share with us something about your Sherpas, their training and your relationship with them? I’ve been going to Nepal for 15 years now and have been working with my Sirdar and the same team of Climbing Sherpas for the last 11 years. They mostly live in the village of Pangboche (below Ama Dablam where I go every November). It becomes a very personal relationship when you work with the same guys year in year out. You get to understand their various strengths and weaknesses which means that I’m in a better position to assign particular Sherpas to particular members according to what the requirements are. I try and take out some goodies for them every year whether it’s clothes for their children (most of them have kids about the same age as mine) or gear. Last November I took 35kg of Haglofs clothing out for them at my own expense. The jackets and shoes were slight seconds and were donated for free but I paid around £300 to get it all freighted out there. I also sponsor a boy in Pangboche and pay towards his schooling. His father was a Climbing Sherpa and died on Ama Dablam in 2006 when he was working with another team. I hadn’t met him but his brother and a cousin always worked on my team. It’s such a close knit community and the death of 3 Climbing Sherpas (and 3 members) in one tragedy affected every family in the village. The boy never met his father and the family have had their income stream removed so it’s nice to be able to put something back and hopefully make a difference. Q: How does your company stand out from the other guide services? I want to be clear here that I don’t want to try and undermine the reputation of another company to benefit mine – I think that a) it’s immoral b) people would see through it immediately and c) this is quite a small community and
Everest 2014: Should Guides Disclose Deaths?
Twice while I was on an expedition a team member died. The guide company never mentioned it publicly. Were they correct? Let’s look at this in detail as it happens more than you know and there are two sides to this argument. Every climber who joins a guided expedition signs a contract with words to the effect that removes the guide from any responsibility if death or injury occurs. Some even add that the member will not speak to the press or blog from the mountain without the guides review and/or permission. Most everyone signs this without thought as they are there to climb, hospital not to be a reporter. But when one of their teammates die, the fine print comes into focus. Can they tell their families? How about their friends. What about after the climb. Did they really agree to be censored? Transparent or Opaque? Most important to climbers is why their guide never talked about the death. I fully understand that we live in a world of lawyers and people ing money when money is not due. But isn’t there a way to be transparent without being exposed to a lawsuit? Perhaps not. Guides will defend their silence saying it is no one’s business other than the family. The family makes the decision if the death of their loved one is made public. The cynical will say the guides are trying to protect their reputation and manage any bad news to protect their reputation even if they are not to blame. News Travels Fast Today with everyone having a cell phone, sat phone and computers, word spreads fast throughout the world when an incident occurs. However, the first reports always contain incorrect information. Let me emphasize this – in my experience almost every first report of a serious incident has wrong information all the way from the number of people involved, to the names, team, location and cause of death or severity of injury. Information on the mountain is through word of mouth. So you have language and cultural issues. Usually there were only a few people near the incident so the majority of information is second hand at , more likely tenth hand. Climbers desperate for information to use for their own safety are eager to hear the news. And it is inevitable they tell someone back home who tells someone else and on and on. Finally, there are some climbers who view themselves as a reporter and post the information on their website, based on these inaccuracies. It is no wonder the guide companies are hesitant to get involved. But asking the teammates not to talk puts them in a bind with family back home wondering what happened and if their loved one is also in danger. And future members wonder if the guide was not transparent about a death, what else are they hiding. A Complicated Situation In my two cases, as a teammate, I was devastated. When asked not to talk about the death, I felt shut down. The guides didn’t want to talk about it and my teammates spoke in whispers. Our teams carried on but there was a cloud over the expedition. A simple ceremony would have brought acknowledgment and closure for many of us. We did make calls home to family at some point before the news became public through other sources. In both cases, the guides were not at fault. The normal protocol when a death occurs is to notify the family and the officials of the country where the incident occurs. Beyond that it is up to the guide company. Some will post a short sentence stating that a death occurred, expressing condolences. Others will post a lot of details on what happened along with the condolences. But some will never mention the death, ever. What is the correct approach? I would like to hear your views. Climb On!AlanMemories are Everything [poll id=”12″]
Everest 2014: Keeping Your Mountain Guide from Killing You, and Vice Versa
You spent tens of thousands of dollars to be guided on your lifelong dream to climb Mt. Everest. But in the middle of your expedition, ambulance you realize you made a horrible mistake – your guide is trying to kill you! OK, a little dramatic, I admit, but for some members it might feel that way. You are pushed so hard, you feel like you will die. The lack of information creates sleepless nights. Climbing alone, you feel abandoned. And for the guide, they look at you and wonder; who reviewed your application? Have you ever climbed anything other than the stairs back home? Do you realize you are on Mt. Everest and not Mt. Couch Potato? Let’s look at both sides, what went wrong and how to avoid getting into this situation in the first place The Nightmare Member I have been on over 35 climbs and have seen the good, the bad and the very, very ugly. And I’m talking abut my teammates. Members join a guided expedition for one primary reason: get them back home alive, according to surveys on my site. But this expectation is quite broad. For some members this means being told what should be in their pack, how fast to walk, what food to eat, and they follow each footstep of their guide. They are the clingers. For others, all they want is help with the route and beta on the weather. They want to be as independent as possible. In some cases they have as much experience as the guide but need the logistics. These are the independents. These are very different styles and when combined in a close knit team in a high pressure environment, personalities will clash and the guide will be stressed. The independent member is less of a problem than the clinger. They are always on time, ask almost no basic questions and sometimes even help the clingers. But they can also be a problem. They can come across as know-it-alls, refusing to take advice from the guide. Sometimes doing their own thing even to disappear at times – MIA. The guides have to implement a trust but verify strategy The clingers require a different approach. Everything needs to be checked, rechecked and checked again. They take up a disproportional amount of the guides time, and more importantly their mental bandwidth. The guide will often shadow the clinger to ensure their safety. This prevents the guide from rotating to other members who may at times also need advice or help. A good guide will be constantly scanning the team looking for the small signs of trouble like poor eating or hygiene habits, techniques that need improvement to ensure speed and safety. Also to help each member have a positive experience. When one or more member dominate the guide, that is trouble for everyone else. But the real nightmare member may be the one who is quiet, invisible and does not engage – the sleeper. The guide does not know what they are thinking. At least with the clinger and the independent, they know what is going on – good or bad. The sleeper, is a mystery. Are they happy, afraid, unsure of their own skills? Will they crash on summit night? They require extra attention to protect them from themselves. The Nightmare Guide Near 7000 meters, I hear my guide berating his fellow guide. I lie in my tent wondering if the expedition will continue. On another climb, I slow down, too slow, and my guide using the tough love approach, starts screaming at me believing that he can will me to keep going, and never asks the simple question of “What’s wrong, Alan?” Guides are people too. 🙂 There are the good, the bad and the ugly. They are often put in impossible situations having multiple balls in the air, unpredictable mountain conditions, irrational members, staff issues and their own personal problems back home that may distract them on the mountain. They are on-mountain project managers. But they are also professionals, paid to do a job. And for most guides, that job is to get you home alive, not to get you to the top of the mountain. If you summit, that is a bonus. If you get home alive and didn’t summit, you live another day to try again. But the bad guides can ruin your expedition or even taint climbing as a sport for you. For me a ‘bad guide’ is one who does not communicate. This Strong & Silent type is probably a guide because they have excellent climbing skills, are strong and demonstrate some level of expertise in running a safe expedition. The guides do all that plus create a positive experience for the team. Those are rare. When a guide is quiet, or sullen, it impacts the entire team. Some members wonder what is not being said. Is there bad news? The insecure member will wonder if the guide doesn’t like them. Conversely, the over-confident guide, brags about their own exploits. The Loud & Proud talks of how fast they are on some recent route adding that you could never do it with your skills. The team both admires and begins to loathe him. While there are certifications for professional guides, most anyone can put up a website claiming to be a guide. Yes they might have climbed that mountain (or maybe not) but this Poser will pull people in with tall tales of their conquests but have no training or experience in leading members on a climb. It is truly a climber beware world. As in most things in life balance is the key. Members want the guide who has climbed their mountain multiple times in good and bad weather, dealt with difficult members. They are paying for that experience. But they want it in a positive, supportive environment where there are no dumb questions, no irrational judgments, no public fights. Most members want the Good Guy guide. Mutual Responsibility
Everest 2014: The Cost to Climb Everest
During my annual coverage of Everest, one of my most popular posts is about money; well how much money it takes to climb Everest. What most readers want to know is 1) how little do I have to spend and 2) where do I get it? If you value this post and find the ads interesting, clicking on them will help support this site. This post was updated on February 19 2014. Update February 2014 In February 2014, the Nepal’s ministry of tourism and civil aviation announced a new fee structure for their mountains. Please read this post for all the details but the main change for Everest was that effective January 1, 2015, a new single climber permit for $11,000 replaces to the long time Everest permit fee structure of 7 members for $70,000 or $10,000 per person. Thus I have updated this post to reflect an $11,000 permit fee for going it solo instead of $25,000. All other fees remained unchanged for this analysis. Bottom line is that prices will go up for 99.9% of all Everest climbers.. I predict the majority of Western Guides will increase their base prices for 2015 by $2500 to $5000. Click for Current Coverage of the Everest 2014 Season The Big Picture For 2014, costs have increased pushing the prices higher on both sides, especially for the low cost operators. Those at the high-end have held their prices steady absorbing the increases. The average price of the companies I surveyed looks to be about $48,000 on the south and $37,000 on the north with the primary difference being the permit costs and support staff salaries. There are real costs involved to climb Everest and it is not the place to save money. However, with guided expeditions charging from $30K to $100K, it is confusing. You can sometimes get a deal, but don’t count on it given the popularity of Everest. Most leading commercial guides sell out months in advance each year. The Nepal and Tibet governments control much of the costs today with permit fees and requirements on wages, insurance and ment of Sherpas, cooks and porters so a base price has been effectively established. There are three ways to climb Everest: put together your own expedition, join a logistics only expedition or join a fully guided team. Some climbers believe a solo expedition in the Messner 1980 north style is the way to save money; however the notion of a solo climb is somewhat academic today. Before the explosion of commercially organized guides with dedicated Sherpas, ropes and ladders; a climber could go to the mountain (usually the north) and climb alone without using any of the common support systems. Some people try these days but end up using a ladder someone else put across a crevasse or a cook at base camp thus never really making a true solo climb. The you can really achieve is without Sherpa support and still the costs are significant. The majority of climbers use commercial expeditions because they spread the costs across multiple climbers thus reducing expenses and improving safety. On Your Own It is tempting to dream of planning your own Everest expedition. After all, anyone can fly to Kathmandu, a permit, food for 6 weeks; fly to Lukla or Lhasa, hire yaks and porters to get your gear to BC, establish your own base camp, cook all your own meals, determine your own weather forecast, make multiple climbs to ferry your own gear while establishing your high camps, pay for use of the fixed ropes, /rent oxygen, regulator, mask, summit, hire more yaks to get your gear back out or carry it yourself, and a ton of other stuff. It is certainly possible and done occasionally. However even these “independent” expeditions rely on some level of local logistics. If saving money is the goal, you will be disappointed. You might have been able to do all this for under $15K back in the last century but definitely not today. The permit alone is $11,000. Even the first Swiss and British expeditions were massive undertakings requiring funding on a national level. Cost Breakdown To get started on the costs let’s look at the south but the north is similar with the permit being about $3700 cheaper. There are fees every climber and expedition must pay – directly or indirectly: a climbing permit, liaison officer, visa, park fee, yaks, porters, icefall ladders and fixed ropes, waste deposit, travel, insurance, tents, food and fuel. At a minimum these total $23,000 for one person going alone. Even splitting group expenses the base costs are $25,000 for a 7 person team. If you wanted to do a true solo, unsupported (no oxygen, Sherpa or cook support but using ladders and ropes) on the south side for one person it would cost at least $24,000. When you add in oxygen and base camp support, a one-person climb with Sherpa support approaches $45,000 but a 7 person team leveraging the group costs comes in at $37,000. All these estimates assume you get your $4,000 trash deposit back, not always true. None of these estimates include western guides, add another $10,000 to $25,000 for that. To fully gear up for an 8000m climb from nothing, add another $7,000 for boots, down suits, layers, etc. Finally, this does not include tips which can be a couple of thousand dollars in total. The bottom line for me is that even with the 2015 individual permit price reduction, going with a team is less expensive and safer. The reason they can offer climbs less than what I have calculated is that they reuse gear from season to season, get volume discounts and, in some cases, pay below market wages to staff. Remember you always pay your own personal expenses like airfare, extra hotel nights, alcohol and tips. This is my estimated break down and there are additional costs I have not included for example travel, insurance, etc. for the support staff
Everest 2014: Welcome to Everest 2014 Coverage
Welcome to my kick-off for Everest 2014 coverage! This will be my 12th season of Everest: 8 times providing coverage and another 4 seasons of actually climbing on Everest. I did similar coverage for the 2004, advice 2005, here 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013 seasons. I summited Everest on May 21, 2011 and have climbed Everest four times – 2002, 2003, 2008 and 2011. If you are one of my 1 million readers, hello again, if you are new, welcome! My goal is to provide insight and analysis of what is going on up there with no favorites or agendas. I use sources directly from the mountain, public information and my own experiences to develop my posts. Usually I post once a day as the season gets started in early April and ramp up to almost hourly coverage during the intense summit pushes in mid to late May. I spend several hours a day to create these updates. You can sign up for (and cancel) notifications on the lower right sidebar or check the site frequently. Why do I do this? Well, one word : Alzheimer’s. I hope that you enjoy my coverage and make a donation to any of my selected non-profit partners as a tangible thank you. I never benefit financially from your donations. Just click on this button that is always on the top right sidebar. 2013 Update 2013 was a somewhat normal year on Everest with over 600 summits from both sides, 9 deaths, and reasonable weather. The big story was the fight between the professional climbers and the Sherpa rope fixing team. By now, it has been throughly analyzed including a few documentaries looking at both sides including this from Reel Rock. I spoke with Sherpas directly involved while climbing Manaslu last September and for me the conclusion remains the same as as the one I reached almost day one. It was a conflict of extreme personalities and not an indictment of either the Sherpa or Western climbing culture. That said, I do think there will be some good come out of it with everyone thinking carefully when a potential conflict develops. You can read my 2013 recap for details on last year’s Everest season. Also if you get a chance, see the documentary High and Hallowed: Everest 1963 by Dave Morton, Jake Norton and Jim Aikman for an outstanding look at the legendary climb of Everest’s West Ridge in 1963 and the attempt to repeat it in 2012. The Grand Dame of all Everest statistics, Ms. Elizabeth Hawley reports on the Himalayan Database the total number of people who have summited Mt. Everest as of February 2014 to be around 6,866 by 4,513 different climbers, meaning that 2,353 climbers, mostly Sherpas, have multiple summits. The south side (Nepal) remains more popular with 4,416 summits while the north (Tibet) has 2,450 summits. Overall 248 people (161 westerners and 87 Sherpas) have died on Everest from 1924 to 2013, 140 on the Nepal side and 108 from Tibet. Since 1990, the deaths as a percentage of summits have dropped to 3.6% due to better gear, weather forecasting and more people climbing with commercial operations. Annapurna is a much more deadly mountain than Everest with a summit to death ratio of 2:1 deaths for every summit (109:55). 2014 Overview So what does 2014 look like? I am predicting a record year for climbers and summits. The ‘fight’ in 2013 captured the world’s imagination, and scorn, about Everest prompting more interest than ever. As strange as it seems, the more bad publicity Everest receives, the more people are attracted to it. Each year when there were record deaths, the following year had record summits. Go figure. Weather is always a wild card when climbing and Cyclone Phailin in October 2013 dumped huge amounts of snow in the Khumbu. It will be interesting to see the remaining impact on Everest proper come April. Hopefully it will create more stable conditions and climbers will not experience the rock fall down the Lhotse Face as seen in recent years. For 2014, costs have increased pushing the prices higher on both sides, especially for the low cost operators. On the Nepal side, there were changes in requirements for insuring Sherpas and other base charges that have pushed costs up. Those at the high-end have held their prices steady absorbing the increases. The average price of the companies I surveyed looks to be about $48,000 on the south and $37,000 on the north. On the North look for more expeditions than the 10 last year. This is in spite of the fact that some traditional north side teams have shifted to the south due to member demand plus the feeling that the north has become more dangerous in recent years. As we know, the north is colder, windier and often has less snow making the climbing more challenging with crampons on rock at extreme altitude. 2014 looks to be another year of film crews on Everest similar to the Discovery film series in 2006/7 and 9. There are several high profile teams that will have cameras following their every step this year and for many climbers this is a distraction and takes away from the experience but for others it is their 15 minutes of fame. Rumor has it that Google will be there with their mapping cameras doing a “street view” of Everest from Base Camp to Summit. There looks to be several stunts again. Look for a winged suit flight from the summit, perhaps a snow border or two and then there is the widely publicized effort sponsored by Under Armor’s Nick Cienski to climb all the 8000m mountains in under a year with six in 2014 starting with Everest and Lhotse and the rest in 2015. Also look for more a record number of climbs on Lhotse. Many traditional operators are offering it as an “add-on” to Everest for $20,000. AAI’s Michael Horst did this first double in