An Untimely Death [Remembrance]

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Rob Gauntlett, a young British explorer with a long list of feats to his name and many more on the drawing board. He was a guest of honor at the National Geographic Society‘s Best of Adventure Awards, on hand with his expedition partner James Hooper.

Amid the all the attention, Gauntlett was refreshingly self-effacing for someone of his considerable achievements. In 2006, at 19, he’d become the youngest Briton to scale Mt. Everest, and last year, with Hooper, completed a 26,000 mile geomatic-pole-to-geomagnetic-pole expedition that was chronicled in the December/January edition of National Geographic Adventure. During that trip, the longtime friends came close to dying more than once. But they weathered the ordeals with grit and a goodnatured commitment. 

Last week Gauntlett—only 21—was killed while ice-climbing a couloir on the east face of 13,937 Tacul peak, in the Mont Blanc range, French Alps. It was, to say the least, an untimely accident that took the life of an extraordinary young person. Here’s more on the story from the NGA Web site’s blog, the NY Times, and The Independent. My condolences to his family and friends.

The Savior and the Storm on K2 [Heroism]

On newsstands and online tomorrow, November 20th, I have a new cover story for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ADVENTURE: the Best of Adventure Annual (December/January double issue). It tells the tale of the unsung hero of August’s disaster on K2, the worst climbing accident in over a decade and one that generated front page and primetime news around the world for days on end. But this is the first time Pemba Gyalje Sherpa himself has gotten his due for his extraordinary selflessness. Below, a teaser.

In the same issue I also profile Olympic Silver Medal-winning snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler as well as French Crazypants “Speed Flyer” Francois Bon, who parachutes off of Death Zone summits wearing skis—on purpose. The 12 pp package also features the tales of teenage Brit explorers who trekked from magnetic pole to magnetic pole; daring Amazon river scientists tracking pollution; a journalist tracking the human slave trade; and a profile of Emma Stokes, a field biologist who discovered 125,000 previously unknown lowland gorillas in the Congo, among others. Please pick up a copy!

PEMBA GYALJE SHERPA On August 1, 2008, at just about 8 p.m., a massive serac cleaved from a glacier near the summit of K2, the world’s second highest mountain, and barreled down a section of the Cesen climbing route called the Bottleneck. In an instant, one climber was dead, key safety lines were swept away, and 17 climbers were trapped above 27,000 feet with little chance of escape…

RELATED COVERAGE:

Katie Couric segment

AP video

A1 NYT

The Lede (NYT)

The Everest Archives [Toil and Trouble]

I’m humbled, honored, and more than a little surprised that Outside Magazine has included my story about Sherpas relocating to New York City from the Himalayas on a list of its best ever stories relating to Mount Everest. On the roster are several articles by writers I admire, including the massive feat of reporting that became Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, and eleven other alternately harrowing and hilarious high-altitude yarns by Mark Bryant, Nick Heil, Eric Hagerman, Brad Wetzler, and Kevin Fedarko, among others. Be sure to check out the photo galleries, too, with film and video work by the likes of Martin Schoeller, Jimmy Chin, and writer/producer Jenny Dubin. 

After the jump, unedited, is Outside’slist. 

Storms Over Everest, Past and Present

   Good reason to stay home tomorrow: “Storm Over Everest” on PBS’s FrontLine,  airing Tuesday night from 9-11PM on PBS. Here’s why: the film, created by veteran mountaineer and filmmaker David Breashears, and producer David Fanning, is riveting and timely. May marks Everest’s annual climbing period, and though it’s been 12 years since the deadly 1996 season (which claimed 15 lives, 8 on a single day), interest in the peak and its yearly life-and-death dramas never seems to wane, despite the increasing triviality and hype surrounding some expeditions and the fabled debauchery of Base Camp.  On the contrary: last year, 500 people attained the 29,035′ summit, an astonishing total given that only around 2,000 had previously managed the feat since 1953.

  This season has been drastically different. The Chinese government recently closed the Tibet side of the mountain to climbers for an Olympic Torch-touchdown mission to the summit, broadcasting the successful climb on TV. With ongoing protests worldwide over the Olympics, three significant new books on the ill-fated 2006 season (including HIGH CRIMES, by Michael Kodas, and DARK SUMMIT, by Nick Heil), and now the Breashears film (which not only departs from Jon Krakauer’s take in crucial ways but also recreates scenes from the disaster with certain survivors portraying themselves, and presents moving interviews with physician Beck Weathers, twice left for dead on the peak ), it’s a ripe moment to look at the peak’s enduring grip on the Western imagination–and in the media. 

 

Calling The Colossus

 

The news that Sir Edmund Hillary had died of a heart attack at the age of 88 on Thursday in New Zealand didn’t particularly come as a shock to me—I’d been afraid of hearing the news since reading of his failing health over the past few years. But it did bring back a vivid memory. Reading the tributes (a few found here), I remembered a surreal afternoon about eight years ago when I sat up bolt-straight in a wooden chair, and, over a phone line, heard his voice crackle through the earpiece. “Ed Hillary,” he said. I nearly froze.

High Plains Drifter

Who ever said New York doesn’t have everything? Now that Sherpas have moved en masse from the Himalayas to New York City, it only makes sense the Himalayas should follow suit. After all, the great range has around 100 peaks that soar above 7,000 meters; New York City has some 35 high-rise buildings that soar over 700′; ambition itself dwells here! (OK, so do giant rats, and toxic preschools). In the spirit of reaching higher, though, some very enterprising Hindu monks in Queens have been working on a remarkable basketball court-sized replica of the sacred range since 1994, nearly filling a former electronics warehouse in Woodside, scheduled to open sometime in 2008. Amid snowcapped peaks that rise to nearly 20′ are a dozen model train sets, model fire engines, and a few teal colored convertibles parked outside an ersatz American-style diner. There’s no sign of any yeti so far; supplemental oxygen won’t be necessary. Via Gothamist. Related: Sherpas on Prime Time.

Sherpas on Prime Time

A few weeks ago I got a surprising phone call from producers at ABC News who hoped to turn my recent piece on Sherpas in New York from Outside Magazine into a segment for World News Tonight. After two days of filming in SoHo and Queens, the result was broadcast last night, the closing segment of Sunday’s show. Miraculously the interview with me did not end up on the cutting room floor. Enjoy!