Interview with Mike Farris: Alone on Everest
A constant debate within the climbing community is not what you climb, but how you climb. Style. It is all about style. Mike Farris found himself in the middle of this argument on the summit of Everest last spring. He climbed with style but paid a price with the removal of portions of seven fingers, try both big toes, and portions of six smaller toes. Climbing pundits will rate Reinhold Messner as a superior climber to Ed Viesturs even though both climbed the fourteen highest mountains on earth without supplemental oxygen. Messner climbed new routes and Viesturs used standard routes. Messner had superior “style” according to the pundits. Mike had over 30 years of climbing under his belt. He is an experienced rock and ice climber and a veteran of five 8000 meter expeditions including K2. Mike has written a book entitled The Altitude Experience: Successful Trekking and Climbing Above 8,000 Feet, where he explains the details of high altitude climbing. In other words, Mike was quite experienced when it came to altitude. He did not go to Everest believing it was “easy”. He wrote prior to his climb about Everest: Nobody who has climbed it has said that it’s easy. It is technically easier that K2 (second highest) and Kangchenjunga (third highest peak), both of which I’ve attempted, but there are still difficult sections high up on the mountain, and of course the extreme altitude has a major effect. So it’s a real mistake to underestimate the difficulty of any peak. Yet with all his experience, this Professor of biology at Hamline University in Saint Paul, MN found himself alone on top of the world, late in the day and running low on oxygen. His goal was to climb as an independent climber. Before the climb, he explained what climbing in style meant to him: Using most of the available fixed rope is unavoidable. I have to be content with the knowledge that I could climb the route without them, if need be. This doesn’t include the icefall, which requires fixed ropes for safety’s sake for all climbers. Anything I want to use above Base Camp, including oxygen, is carried by me. I won’t have any Sherpas carrying tents, food, fuel, stoves, etc. Except: Most teams set up an Advanced Base Camp at about 6400m (21,000 ft) and have a kitchen staff to prepare meals. Since I’m paying for this service anyway, I will use this ABC facility. I will use the minimum amount of bottled oxygen needed for safety. I won’t know what that amount is until I assess my level of acclimatization and fitness. He made it to the South Col per his plan and left at 10:00 PM – alone. I have followed Mike for years and find him a confident individual who strives to do his in the high altitude world. I was curious about his decisions on Everest, his thoughts on style and on the other climbers who probably saved his life. Q: You wanted to climb Everest in ”style”. What did that mean to you exactly and why was that important? I began as a rock and ice climber at a time when style was very important and changing rapidly. No pitons, no aid climbing, no step cutting–all very different from the 1960s. The emphasis was on skill rather than equipment. As the author of two rock climbing guidebooks I’ve had to think a lot about style for the benefit of the guidebook users. I think this has carried over into my high altitude mountaineering. Mark Jenkins’ book ” A Man’s Life” has a wonderful chapter on climbing style, and I recommend that to anybody contemplating climbing a high peak. At many levels, style is a completely personal choice. If your goal is to collect summits, you may not care how you get up or down. If the journey is more important than the destination, then style does matter. I wanted to have a satisfying experience; the summit would be great but not essential. Given the reality of Mount Everest on the standard routes, I had to decide what was feasible for me to do. For me, climbing in good style meant using the least amount of outside help possible. I used the fixed rope and the kitchen at ABC; otherwise I carried my own gear and oxygen. I didn’t use supplemental oxygen below the South Col. The truly committed stylist would have avoided the fixed ropes as well. Safety has also been central to my climbing ethic, so I wasn’t willing to go that far as an independent climber. Q: On your summit bid, you were climbing alone – no teammates or Sherpas. You are an experienced mountaineer with five 8000m attempts at that point but why choose to go it alone? There is a difference between being with people and being alone. Above 8000 m you’re really alone unless you’re traveling with a group large enough to evacuate an incapacitated climber. Of course a partner serves other purposes: psychological support and help with decision-making. Up to this point I’ve never had a problem traveling alone on 8000 m peaks. I suppose it was part of the test I gave myself–could I do it completely on my own? In this case, I couldn’t. Q: Let’s look at your summit night. You climbed to the Balcony in 8 hours, which is on the slow side and then arrived at the South Summit around 10:45 AM, almost 12 hours after leaving the South COl. This was quite late. Did you consider turning back then given your pace? Yes. I had a constant discussion with myself from about 3 AM onward. Once I reached the Balcony and changed oxygen bottles, I felt I was moving better. At about 9:30 AM I set a turnaround time of 11 AM if I hadn’t reached the South Summit. When I arrived there at 10:45 AM I felt okay. I had been moving faster and the weather was