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The only one to be blamed is the commercialization of these mountain exhibitions. It is inconceivable that anyone who has the budget, can pay his way up to the summit relying on the Sherpas, the guides and/or anybody else's right or wrong decisions on such an environment.
@@IntotheBangtanUniverseWormhole Bukreev was exceptionaly strong, yet you want too much from him. Had he had the oxygen and put it on a low flow to last longer, there would be people saying: "He should have put it on higher flow to perform better." If he had it and put it on higher flow, he would have run out of it as the rest of them. And climbing without oxygen but carying the bottles up? You realise that we are talking about Death zone and every kilogram weights much more up there, right? The main problem wasn't Bukreev and bottled oxygen. Not even the bloody storm. The main problem were two leaders who were unwilling to turn back before the other. Bukreev decision meant he was able to help when it was really needed.
I don't understand why Anatoli is being blamed for no-oxygen. We know for a fact now that wasnt a factor. He could be blamed for rushing down, but that in retrospective that also was not a bad decision. It is not a given that if he'd stayed with clients or Fisher he would not get lost with them as well. Moreover, he would probably had to stay with Fisher and possibly could not come to the rescue of the stranded group. He wouldn't die, but he would have struggled together with Lopsang to bring Scott down and wasted all his energy just like Lopsang did. And he kept all his clients safe and sound. Real reason for disaster was Rob Hall's decision to stay with Doug stranding another guide up high.
@@IntotheBangtanUniverseWormhole totally disagree. Let's say Anatoli stays until Scott summits. What happens, Scott struggles, can he abandon his boss and friend? He teams up with Lopsang to bring him down. While he would probably manage to do that and save Scott - which is a ridiculous thing since Scott was supposed to a coordinator for the whole summit group - but that probably wouldnt happen until next day and by that time his stranded clients would all die. I also dont recall Scott running out of oxygen, and one bottle for teh group of 10 people is nothing. While he was super strong, had he stayed there is no reason to think, he would be in better shape than Neil - the other guide - when he reached the camp, completely exhausted and unable to take care of client. His decisions actually SAVED the client, any other decision would have had them dead. Not Scott unfortunately, but he is a different story.
I'm not a climber. I remember reading "K2" at 15 and knew myself well enough to know it would always be beyond my abilities. Sometimes when you know, you know. Wow. That was a deviation away from my original comment! I wanted to say that I love the way you tell these stories. You are honest yet always sensitive, blunt, balanced with real humanism. You're a good guy for this.
Watched Scott Fisher take a ground fall on a small un-developed crag near Lake Wenatchee just before he left for Everest. As I recall, he was taken to the hospital emergency room suffering a concussion and broken ribs. I always wondered how that affected his abilities on that fateful trip. I've never heard anything ever mentioned about that accident.
That's extremely interesting, especially with what new research has shown about the effects of concussions being more serious and longer lasting than we used to think they were! I wonder now if Scott Fisher's brain was affected not just by that fall, but all the others he'd taken, in combination with extreme altitude?
I love Beck Weathers and his story. The man came down from Everest with something infinitely more valuable than a $65K summit selfie - a new found appreciation for his life and his loved ones and the inspiration to make a real change. To this day, Beck still refers to losing both hands and his nose as “a significant discount, seeing as climbing Everest these days can cost an arm and a leg.”
As sad, as hard as it is to realize, dear Rob and Scott, who both did NOT make their decisions with the realization that clients would die let alone themselves, we must be willing to attach part of the “blame” with them 😭
@@chebbohagopNone of Fischer’s clients died or were seriously injured. It’s amazing how much this is ignored or forgotten. I believe it is mostly due to Krakauer, who is a compelling author and was clearly trying to make “his” expedition look better. If Fischer had survived, the story of this event would have been entirely about Hall’s team, and Fischer would be regarded as a hero.
Your genuine, palpable compassion and empathy for the people who lost their lives, and your willingness to express that emotion for them publicly is a truly rare and wonderful thing to see. Never lose that. Thank you for telling their story factually and with so much kindness. I know very little about the details of this story, but I do know from my experience in journalism that Jon Krakauer is the real deal and I would absolutely believe his version of events based on his history of journalistic integrity and pursuit of the truth.
Thank you very much for your comment. I honestly appreciate it so much, it makes this all worth it. I read this one aloud to my wife...she watches me pour my heart out on stages during presentations and tells me to bring that to the videos. Big fan of Krakauer here, with the understanding we all sure do have faults!
Also, even though some of my comments are a bit harsh, sometimes only because I’m very passionate about this subject and all Climbing and mountaineering. I appreciate your channel your candidness your kindness, and everything else. keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll keep enjoying everything you do and support you.
Much appreciated. Debate and disagreements are totally okay....it's when some individuals get personal and begin the attacks, then the line is drawn. I welcome your insight and opinions!
Great commentary and questions raised. One thing I come back to time and again is that each person on that mountain made a choice to be there. There should be no expectation of rescue when you’ve decided to put yourself in a dangerous situation. Those climbers who decided to go down rather than risk climbing to the summit are the ones who were the most responsible and considerate of putting anyone else’s life in danger to be rescued. The loss of so many lives is terrible, but that risk was no secret. Looking to blame anyone just shirks one’s own duty to be responsible for oneself.
Based on what you said about Bukreev's performance as a guide with the Indonesian expedition, Bukreev grew as a guide. Beck Weathers' Texas sized ego was what got him in trouble. He doesn't talk about that. He was a Medical Doctor, a Pathologist. He elected to have eye surgery so as not to be wearing glasses. It is called Radial Kereotomy. When that surgery is done, you lose your vision at high attitudes, because your eye balls expand and the surgical cuts into iris come apart. RK surgery patients were warned that they can lose eye sight in the pressurized cabin of the commercial aircraft, never mind Everest. Beck Wrathets had that surgery, could not have been ignorant about the effects of that surgery, especially as an MD and yet he goes to climb Evetest. If he knew he was going to climb Everest, why did he have surgery? And what was he hoping for whe he went blind during the climb? He said he was waiting for the eye sight to improve, but it wasn't going to, unless he got off the mountain. Was he waiting for someone to short rope him down? No, he was waiting for his guide to short ripe him up! How insane is that. And of course, he didn't tell his guide that he had eye surgery that can make him go blind at high attitude. Weathers was willing to cheat ti get to Evetest. If Beck Weathers did the same thing and tried to become as US Paratrooper and went blind during a jump, US government would criminally prosecute him for lying on a Health Questionnaire. Weathers had no business climbing Mt. Everest after his RK eye surgery, and so far nobody called him out on it. His ego driven ambition pushed him past the point of sanity.
Thank you for this! I was wondering for some time about this eye-surgery thing, and how he was allowed to join to climb. He lied, he was wiling to risk not only his own life, but those around him...
Neither did Doug. Not eveyone is built for it but that didn't seem to stop Rob from letting him go again. Instead of making the hard decision which is what men are supposed to do, he totally ignores the cutoff time he set, and instead pushes Doug to the summit. Basically he caused his death.
I am not at all an expert, but i think it is unfair how Anatoli has been treated. I understand that there might have been a cultural difference at stake here but for me he was one of the strongest and most heroic of the teams. I have a lot of slavic/eatern european friends and I can get how people can find them "cold" or even headstrong but he knew his limits and did his duty more than the other guides. He kept risking his life and deserved better than being publicly shamed and accused of negligence.
Agree with you...Toli had his own style & Scott very well knew about this...Scott & Neal kept Anatoli out of most of decision making meetings in base camp
I also think there were cultural issues for Anatoli. He was a product of the soviet system and trained under their system of mountaineering which was hierarchical. He was considered an elite mountaineer in a system that expected everyone on the mountain to be experienced, fit and trained in the same way. Being a guide in the western sense was likely to be confusing. The importance of individuals being more of more importance than the team as a whole was likely to be a cognitive dissonance for him until it became very clear that it was a rescue situation. Then his role was simple and clearcut. But who really knows. His language issues will have impacted on communication but I personally believe it was a cultural mismatch combined with his conditioning that HE was elite made him difficult to work with. The Scott should have been aware of this and emphasised the actual role but management of climbers isn't the easiest of management tasks!
@dawnmoriarty9347 I greatly appreciate your comment. It is very thoughtful and gives insights that I wouldn't have had since I wasn't born at the time and don't know much about the Soviet union aspect of his upbringing.
I think he should have used oxygen, but I don't think his not using oxygen changed anything, I can't see how this change would have saved Scott Fischer.
@@romanesybel8956 It is amazing how Anatoli B. polarizes opinions. It seems that many people can not accept that he might not have been perfect, but could still finish rescuing people. It seems that flawed (=human) heroes are not acceptable - most people look for a superhero/saint or the devil. Maybe such a "binary" world view holds some comfort for them. - I think he should gave climbed wih oxygen, but he 'made up' amply by rescuing people the way he did. RIP Anatoli Boukreev.
Anatoli did not change the events on the mountain just because he wasn’t using O’s , the storm changed the events of preventing folks getting down when they lingered too long. Honestly for those who believe the mountain has the say well I guess in this case it’s true
Rob Hall's circumstances of death are heartbreaking, but his decision-making is baffling- not only encouraging Doug Hansen, but also telling Beck Weathers to stand and wait for him to summit. Especially baffling given the video clip of the meeting at Base Camp where he says he's prepared to be the one making unpopular decisions. Perhaps if he had survived, Adventure Consultants would have faced legal action from the families of those who lost their lives, as well as Weathers.
@@czarcastic1458 Such waivers do not protect the companies in case they are found at fault. It only protects them against the outcomes of accidents. Rob Hall not enforcing his 2PM turn around deadline after having made clear at base camp how important it was is a very serious mistake, probably prosecutable.
I can't blame anyone. All were undertaking an adventure where you need everything to go perfectly right in an incredibly dangerous place where things can and will go quickly wrong.
I have recently read the Climb, after having read Into Thin Air and watched a lot of videos and documentaries. I found the Climb surprising, very moving; not at all what I expected. I don’t know if the book tells the truth or not about the oxygen but I now suspect that a big part of the controversy with Anatoly comes from a deep cultural clash between him and the American climbers; not only in relation to his ideas about mountaineering but in general. (People from the USSR had been quite isolated for decades and were also quite different from Europeans). There were obvious communication problems with him because of this cultural clash and also the language barrier and this probably generated undeserved rejection towards him. It’s very sad.
You are the second person who has mentioned culture, as well as myself. As an Australian, I'm quite often misunderstood by those from English speaking countries. We have a very different culture, even from our 'Kiwi Cousins' in New Zealand. I can't count how many times that I've been attacked in comments by those in particular from the US. If this is what it is like between English speaking countries, imagine the position that Anatoli was put in? I think there would be much professional jealously between Anatoli and the Americans. Anatoli was, in my opinion, a freak of nature for his mountaineering abilities. I'm sure that many would be jealous of this. It really hit home to me when it was mentioned that a translator was used in Anatoli's book, which can make things sound very different. If it wasn't for Anatoli, many more would have died. I'm grateful for what he did. As for the agreement between he and Scott about the use of oxygen, no-one can state what was agreed to unless every single discussion was overheard regarding the use of oxygen. Even if one conversation was overheard, that doesn't mean that others didn't follow. I refuse to damn one who saved lives and then sadly lost his own just a year later. Thank you for picking up on the cultural aspect.
"Cultural clash", as you say, helped lives of 3 people. Soviet people have very high morals, sense of camaraderie, as opposite to european/American individualism.
I think it's simpler. For decades (at least 70 years), whenever there's a well publicized mountaineering mishap, the public and some mountaineering pundits have always been intensely critical of whomever was the strongest climber on the mountain that day: Bonatti, Desmaison, Messner, now Boukreev. They always find some lame excuse to do that even when the actual facts compellingly demonstrate that that person went way beyond what could ever be expected to save people. Envy? Unwillingness to blame people who perished for their faults? Who knows, but it has been happening for ages in mountaineering.
If one views client safety as a priority, which is the premise of criticism of Boukreev for not using oxygen, it seems decisive that all of Fischer’s clients survived intact. It might be argued that the teams were operating together and thus guides assumed duties to the other team’s clients, but I’ve never seen reporting or evidence of such an agreement. It may be inferred from convention or basic morals, perhaps, but those arguments are complex and uncertain, and seem unfair in those extreme and fluid conditions. As you point out, the Hansen decision likely cost three lives, and possibly Namba’s, since Harris and Hall weren’t there to help her. Weathers survived, but suffered significant injuries that might have been avoided if guides had returned to him on time. As for Boukreev turning Fischer around, that does not appear to have been his duty or responsibility-they were peers, and Fischer was even Boukriev’s employer. It seems unclear that he could have persuaded Fischer not to summit. Finally, it does not appear likely that Fischer would have survived whether or not Boukreev had oxygen-he was a great climber who had summited previously without oxygen but showed evidence of medical problems before the climb. His fate was likely sealed before Boukreev could have intervened.
@Redskies453 Scotts decision to personally take his friend back down to base camp, then come right back up to rejoin his team at camp 4 was crazy. Someone should have convinced him to take a long rest before attempting to summit. But no one questioned it because scott had a reputation of being one of the strongest climbers in the world. They had the mindset of "if anybody can do it, it would be scott"
@@peggyleadingham4528 I believe because he needed to head back down almost immediately after summiting and thus wasn't available to help get the clients down
@@teijaflink2226 the funny thing is though, every one of Scott's clients that made the summit, lived. Every single one of Robs clients who reached the summit died. Except for Krakauer, but he wasn't really a paying customer.
In my opinion, the tragedy was mainly an issue of poor leadership mixed with competition between Scott and Hall. Proper enforcement of turn around times likely would be the thing that made the most difference. If Anatoli is to be criticised for not staying with clients, then Scott holds a larger fault as he summitted past turn around time instead of helping his clients back to camp. There is an argument to be made that Anatoli using oxygen might've helped, but I can equally see how by not using oxygen he was required to return to camp earlier, ultimately allowing him the ability to be rested enough to rescue other climbers. If he had used oxygen and stayed at the summit he may have gotten caught in the storm himself, or if he did get back to camp he may have been too tired to aid other climbers. Ultimately though the majority of blame absolutely lies with Scott and Hall as it was their poor decision making that directly lead to the deaths of others.
This very much. It is the duty of a leader to choose the right people for the job and to make them follow the safety precautions, themselves included. And it was the delay in returning that put them into the path of the storm, not Boukreev's absence, which indeed might have saved more lives than had he stayed.
WOW you bring up something I’ve never thought about in the past. I’ve read every book I can find on this subject. I didn’t realize that The Climb was written thru a translator. I speak English and Arabic and I know sometimes when I translate from Arabic to English it comes across as very blunt but this is just the language. Now I wonder if this may be the case with some of the language going from Romanian (I believe) to English.
DeWalt apparently approached Boukreev with the book idea, and then did a lot of work to gin up controversy. Krakauer says he was able to talk to Boukreev before he died, and made peace with him.
I'm an Australian, yet many from other English speaking countries do not understand my culture, the way in which I speak, write or express myself. Imagine if a translator was then used to interpret what I meant? The mentioning of using a translator jumped out at myself to and I added this to my comment. A rather poignant point.
@@krisushi1 Yes, but it's mentioned more than once in the book that his main language was Russian, as he grew up when Kazakhstan was part of the USSR, and all Soviet citizens needed to speak Russian. It's what was taught in schools and what all official business was conducted in. I'm assuming that it was much the same in Kazakhstan as it was in Ukraine at the time; I have Ukranian friends who grew up in the old days of the USSR, then moved here to Canada, and they say that they spoke about equal amounts Russian and Ukranian, learning English on their own time.
It’s not so much that I can’t get enough of this story - it’s that I’m still wondering what the truth is about what happened and why. The fascination is how the story has changed and developed since Into Thin Air was published
I'm afraid that you're never going to know the truth, as no single person witnessed all that occurred during this disaster. We have to accept that there aren't answers to all that happens.
First thing, you do a very heartfelt analysis. Much respect to you. I think what is left out in these discussions, though is the law of karma playing out in everyone’s lives. Our lives are a combination of free will, and our previously accrued karma. There’s an old adage, “if it is not time for you to die then nothing can kill you, and if it is your time to die, nothing can save you. “
In all of the videos and research I've done on this tragedy, it always astounds me how often the debate turns to blaming various clients for the loss of life. The one thing I get from every single account is that Hall and Fischer were good men who made some poor choices that day. I think if they'd lived they would be the fist to step forward and take responsibility. They were the leaders, their were the ones making decisions for their clients. It's tragic that they perished, their poor decisions don't make them bad people, but the buck stops with the leaders, and I get the impression that if they'd lived they would have owned the responsibility entirely..
I agree that there is plenty of blame to be spread between the clients, staff and the leaders. What I keep going back to, is that both Scott and Rob were not infallible. They were just as at risk from poor decision making due to the altitude that anyone else. They can't be blamed for the effects that the altitude had on them. Just due to being leaders, doesn't make them inhuman. When it's witnessed the effects of altitude on the body and thought processes, it wakes one up to how everyone is affected. Being a leader doesn't make one immune.
It's clear Krakaurer hated Anatoli but is too much of a coward to admit it so he hides behind the excuse of Anatoli not using bottled oxygen. I can't stand liars like him.
Beautifully and sensitively told. I love this channel. Someone experienced who knows ultimately there should be no dump by those who are on the ground and have the bravery of being warm and dry. All you give us is an analysis and a bit of a reprimand. I love the challenge of thinking differently with better information. Thanks for these great videos.
I cannot believe a commenter stated that he cannot blame anyone for this disaster??WTF The 2 primary guides were arrogant and became complacent and let their guard down. There were an unlimited number of bad decisions that were made, throughout this journey. When people underestimate mother nature, they type of fatalities happen. Rob Hall should not be considered a hero at all. He had a pregnant wife at home, so his personal and financial focus should have been towards his family. Thanks for putting together this 2-part series.
Also, there are the debated questions about why Anatoli didn’t have oxygen during the search. We need to be a little more objective when attempting to draw an accurate picture of events, to the extent we can. Human beings are riddled with flaws and ambitions. I do not believe much of Into Thin Air. It’s absolutely self-serving at every turn. Photos and others’ interviews do not jibe with Krakauer’s narrative in far too many cases. This is why I have to discount the entire book.
I enjoy your informative, no-nonsense delivery of these fascinating accounts. Your passion for the climbing community is evident. Thanks for educating those of us who love the outdoors but have never experienced anything like Everest.
Sorry one more comment. Your last remarks about Anatoli is making it sound like that everyone that is still alive from that fateful day and also many who weren’t there believes if only he used oxygen every life would have been saved, I don’t think it’s fair to put that on him alone, he wasn’t the one and only guide and certainly not for all the teams there!
Yep, now the story begins to skew towards that Anatoli's oxygen thing... Ok, he was the guide but so was Scott himself and Neal and Sherpas some of whom I believe were specifically tasked with personal guide assistance. Lopsang was personally short-roping VIP client Pittman and not using oxygen too. What do we know next? Boukreev reaches the summit fist after helping to place the missing ropes(!!!) and spends 1.5 hours helping the others to reach the summit. Beidleman and Krakauer among others were the first to reach the summit. Boukreev (for well discussed reasons), Adams and Krakauer (not his client but was one of the first to reach the summit) begin descend leaving few Sherpas and Neil behind (No signs of the storm). Beidleman stays on the peak and spends prolonged time with Fox and Pittman while waiting for Scott's orders to begin descend (!) Scott is nowhere to be seen and although exhausted and past the 2pm turnaround time continues to push for the summit(!) Beidleman finally decides it is time to begin the descend with Fox, Pittman and others, with Lopsang and other Sherpa's help (clients are in the safe hands). Exhausted Scott meets but refuses to join them on the descend (potentially providing extra assistance to his clients if needed(!!!) and instead makes irrational decision to push towards the summit. Lopsang stays with him (less help for the clients (!) Beidleman continues to descent with exhausted Fox and Pittman and others who spent too much time at the peak when the storm hits. Mountain Madness clients and Beidleman are lost in the storm and can no longer walk. Storm clears a bit and Beidleman (+ guide form another team Groom and few others) set off to find help. Refreshed Boukreev leaves camp IV to save 3 of his clients (Fox, Pittman, Madsen). Essentially all of the Mountain Madness clients were saved and survived the storm. How is Boukreev guilty of endangering his clients by leaving early or responsible for Scott's death? Also it feels almost like Krakauer preferred to stay closer to the strongest guy Anatoli during the push for the summit and followed him on the way back to the camp.
@@AB-ys4ynKrakauer, although a very experienced climber, was a client there to experience climbing Mt. Everest then to write an article for his magazine. He was not a guide and didn’t sign on to be a helpful assistant. He was an experienced climber and did what ANY SMART CLIMBER would do. By the time he returned to his tent at camp IV (yes?) the high winds and freezing temp there was nothing more Krakauer could do. After a few hours waiting He was one of two people, I think, that went out of his tent to look for other returnees coming in, then happened upon Beck Wethers who was literally inching his way towards camp, blind and stiff and with obvious frostbite. I think what’s not told so much is the winds were gale force and even experienced unencumbered climbers had difficulty seeing. Once snow blindness set in and even into the evening darkness the visibility was a very short distance in feet….like 3 feet. So, even helping people come in at base camp was almost impossible to see them coming towards you. It was a frightening storm.
Lopsang did not convince Fischer to descend while he was still able. I see no reason to believe that Anatoli would have succeeded where Lopsang failed.
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer is the only book that I've reread several times and I'm still not able to say why. Rob Halls death was so avoidable; Doug Hansen stepped out of the line early on summit day saying that he was too cold and not feeling well. After a brief exchange with Hall he continued to ascend. Hansen lagged behind his climbing group all day and should have been turned around when it was obvious that he would not summit before the 1 or 2pm turn around time. ignoring that deadline defies credulity. That Hall waited on the summit for Hansen past 4pm was incomprehensible. That Hall refused to abandon Hansen, knowing that that was his only chance to survive, says an awful lot about Hall. Rereading the account of that disaster was frustrating to say the least because all the deaths were preventable.
Thank you, Thom, for taking such an empathetic look at this incident. Too many people want to assign blame, or find fault with the various accounts, rather than trying to understand what may have been going through peoples’ minds that led them to take such tragic decisions.
Many people keep asking this question, the only Scott Fisher probably could answer. Maybe personal ambitions, maybe to proof to himself that being one of the strongest mountaineers he could do it. Maybe ... We will never know
Haven't read the other comments so likely repeating something here but I read both books and I so appreciate the journalism and courage to speak to what at least I was thinking about the story here. Well done, thank you.
I think our view is coloured somewhat by the fact their were two teams (loosely combined) climbing the mountain. As a thought experiment, imagine what the story would have been if there had only been Scott's team- I would venture it would go something like, Scott made a bad decision as the leader and sadly died, everyone else survived and Boukreev's actions were heroic. However, this judgement is clouded by deaths on another team.
I read Krakauer’s book when it came out. I’ve always remembered the portion about the climber who rode his bike with all of his gear all the way from (Sweden, I believe) to Nepal and then summitted (without supplemental oxygen, I believe)- but before he eventually summitted he turned back when he was very close (prior to this tragedy) then went back down and had a successful climb after the events of May 10/11. These climbers were all there and according to Krakauer were very impressed by his ability to make that call. Of course, he was alone and the mental calculus you’re describing here about how and why decisions were made was more complex plus the timing of the storm. Very thoughtful presentation.
@@unionhack6126 Goran Kropp - Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey. Amazing story, amazing guy, and you picked up on a key part of it and what makes it even more impressive. I first bought it many years ago along with every other first hand experience book on or related to the subject I could find - Lene Gammelgaard, Beck Weathers, Anatoly Boukreev, many more. Those three gave me different views especially, which have since and continue to form my opinions about those individuals which differ from many mainstream views, which are all too often in the Into Thin Air camp and all too often don’t consider the alternative version of the ‘facts’. But then they’re not such good story tellers, they just recount their own experiences from their own perspectives. I prefer a rounded view based on all of these perspectives rather than just one narrative. Goran Kropp’s I keep buying copies of for friends, it’s harder to find in Europe now but plenty on an international auction site in the US. Worth every penny/cent if it interests you, it certainly puts another perspective on self-sufficient vs. ‘assisted’ summiting of any sort!
That was Swedish climber Göran Kropp. He showed great restraint being able to abort his first attempt at the summit. I remember him from Swedish TV with a short clip of him filming himself on the summit on his second attempt where he stated that he was happy but more than anything afraid, having passed all the recently dead climbers on his way up.
@ his book Ultimate High - My Everest Odyssey is a fantastic read. Amazing adventure. Died falling off a 18m crag when gear came out and a wire gate karabiner failed apparently. All that stuff going on at Everest and ironically ended up succumbing to something seemingly far more mundane. Very sad. Thanks for mentioning a film clip, I’d never thought to look for one and just found something on FB. 👍
One can point out that someone goofed without being against them or 'taking sides.' It is possible. It is only impossible for unreasonable, emotionally unhealthy people who operate in extremes.
Anitolli was the only one who stuck to the plan. All of his clients got down and survived. This was Rob Hall's disaster not Anitolli's. But he was there to clean up the mess because of his actions that day. And saved lives. The turn around times were totally ignored.
Scott and Rob's decisions lower down the mountain most definitely played out while at the top. Scott burned the candle at both ends lower down the mountain and paid for it with his life at The Balcony. Rob should have turned Doug around at C4 as Doug was already in distress before they even left camp for the summit. He should have been short roped down to BC. Regardless, you would have to be a cold hearted bastard not to be moved by Rob's call to his wife. Just thinking about it make me wanna cry from anger because Rob should have been there for his daughter but rash decisions left her fatherless and that, in my book, is not forgivable. I know Rob was trying to be a man of his word but at certain point, health and safety are more important than words or promises. I would not call Rob and Scott villains in this whole debacle as there is nothing productive to come from it. Personally there was too much chaos happening with the storm for anything other than sheer survival. There was a lot of bravery and courage shown on that mountain that fateful day by all involved but the absolute beast in this story is Peach Weathers and Col. KC. These 2 people are the true heroes in this whole story. Peach literally moved mountains and threatened people to get her husband, Beck Weathers, off that mountain and THEN you have Col KC pulling off some of the most difficult helicopter flying anyone has ever done to save Makalu Gao and Beck off that mountain. I am still in awe at how Col. KC pulled that off not once but twice that day. I truly believe that the powers that protect Everest also allowed Col. KC to make his rescues that day and no one can tell me any different on this. There was alot of things happening on the mountain that fateful day, 2 of them being ego and Mother Nature. Both of these can get you killed.
My eyes are watery now, so I'll keep this brief. Thank you for mentioning those unsung heroes that never are mentioned in any other video or comment. Its okay for Rob and Scott to make rules at BC but even they are not invincible to the effects of altitude and what it can do to their decision making. I will never understand why Rob gave his life for a client, when his beloved wife and unborn daughter were awaiting his return. He knew that Doug was not capable of making the summit and returning. I can only put it down to the altitude affecting his mind that he agreed to take Doug up, 2hrs after the turnaround time. He still had strength to try and make it down himself, yet for some unknown reason he stayed with Doug. Rob was told by BC that a team was being assembled to reach Doug and to get himself down whilst he could. He couldn't do anything for Doug, so why did he stay with him? Doug knew the risks, just like anyone else. If it wasn't for Doug, both Rob and Andy Harris would most likely be alive. Andy's loyalty towards Rob just breaks my heart.😢
@@krisushi1Doug turned around and began coming down until he reached Rob at the back of the group. Rob convinced Doug to keep going for the summit. Then when the storm hit both were doomed, even if Rob abandoned Doug he wouldn't have made it down, he was way to high.
@kylemma33 I've heard so many variations of this story of whether Doug convinced Rob or Rob encouraging Doug, that I've give up trying to sort out what went on. It makes more sense for the client who had failed to summit the previous year to be the one to want to push on and talk Rob into allowing him to summit, not the other way around. The majority of times I've heard about this part of the disaster, it's always Doug wanting Rob to allow him to keep going. I guess we'll never know for sure. Even if there was a witness to this conversation, we've learnt from the many stories that not all are credible, whether deliberate or by misinterpretation. We can analyse this disaster until we're blue in the face, but it won't get us any closer to finding out what went on in all aspects of this story.🤷🏼♀️
I did find introspection and self-criticism in the Climb. For example, it says that Anatoly collected Yasuko’s belongings and was able to hand them over to Yasuko’s husband, to whom: “he apologized, saying repeatedly that he wished he’d been able to do more. As he spoke, tears ran down his cheeks. He said that he’d felt a personal sense of failure around Yasuko’s death, because he’d not brought to her the aid that he’d brought to Charlotte Fox and Sandy Hill Pittman. He’d made assumptions; he’d hoped for help that never came. He was sorry.” This may be a lie; but then again, so may be what others have written about this tragedy.
I have not yet read The Climb, but what you have related brought tears to my eyes. As I have seen in other comments, including my own, I believe that Anatoli was misunderstood due to his culture. I can understand this as I'm always being misunderstood despite being from an English speaking country. Americans think they know Australians, yet it's far from the truth. Despite how close New Zealand is from Australia, our cultures are very different. Just imagine how Anatoli was demonised for being from a Baltic country? As not one single person was in all places during this 1996 Disaster, no-one can speak for everything that occurred.
@@dilyaramarsh7770 Everyone is capable of lying for many reasons, especially self-serving. I personally don't believe this story is a lie, yet we can only know for sure via Yasuko's family.
I thought Anatoli was from Kazakhstan? Baltic countries border the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). Kazakhstan is in Central Asia.
You forgot the most fundamenal of facts - every client of Scott's survived. Anatoli's primary job was to keep his clients alive and he did exactly that. Scott likely died from HAPE - why no mention of that? Scott was not Anatoli's responsibility. Rob's clients were not Anatoli's responsibility (obviously). On the other hand, Rob made some massive errors in judgement and command that cost several people their lives. I just don't understand why people continue to vilify and criticize Anatoli then he 100% accomplished his job. The results prove his sound decisions. In reality, there should have been 2 videos made of this day in history. First is MM team's sucesses (all clients lived) despite the weather. Then discuss why Scott was so off his game (HAPE). Second video is of AC team's very bad decisions that lead to so many deaths. Why muddy the water by combining them?
I think Hall knew in that moment when he saw Doug up there and struggling that he made a mistake and decided to go down with the ship. I imagine he felt sham and disappointment, he probably felt with the death he would give his own life as well. Scott really did too much, him being a perfectionist and wanting things a certain way, going up and down the mountain so many times, while his body was telling him to stop, made it to where he didnt have the energy to make it down that last time. He really should have designated the sherpas to do some of the work. They both had way too much riding on this summit and paid the ultimate price with there lives.
From what I read because she they felt she shouldn’t have been short roped by lopsang who was supposed to help Ang dorjee rope the Hillary step. Because the ropes were ready it pushed everyone summit times back.
Leadership isn't about being popular or cool. It's about making and enforcing rules without fear or favour and if necessary riding over egos and basically saying "if you don't do this you're off the team". Are climbers known for being team players? I don't think so
Boukrerev was used to operating without oxygen and that evidently worked for him. The middle of an evolving crisis may not be the time to change how your strongest climber operates. I think Krokauker's gripe about Boukrerev is about personal antipathies and possibly even the beta male's instinctive hatred for the alpha male. Just my impression
I remember reading Into Thin Air because I had read Into The Wild - I remember doing a double take like “wait, he was in this story??” I couldn’t believe. Very good book. Scary.
Postal worker Hansen had NO business climbing Everest. He is responsible for Hall's death. And Hall & Hansen weren't friends. Hansen was just a client..
I love how real you are and you don't hide your emotions. It still makes me cry when I think about that conversation Rob and his pregnant wife had 😢😢😢😢 The fact he was unsavable but could still speak to the one he loved more than anyone, it's just heartbreaking 😢😢😢 I found Into Thin Air when I was 14 years old and was Instantly obsessed with this story and like so many people, it's had a grip on me ever since. I think Rob and Scott really had the best intentions for their teams, it was a whole cluster fuck of conditions that caused such chaos
@@sourgummiez The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I can not argue that Rob and Scott had the best of intentions for their teams. That is obvious to see by anyone. What you could also see was ego and arrogance. EVERYONE paid a very high price for that ego and arrogance. Some paid for it and only got PTSD. A couple paid for it with lost body parts. Quite a few paid for it with their lives. Everest is one of the places on Earth that you ABSOLUTELY have to humble yourself because she will not allow you to climb if you do not. There is absolutely ZERO room for ego or arrogance on her slopes. Safety rules lower down the mountain became mere suggestions at C4 and above. Poor decisions lower down showed their awful results the higher up everyone got until it all collided at the intersection of ego, arrogance and Mother Nature. This whole climb was a slow motion train wreck from bottom to top and the only people that could have changed the whole outcome were Rob and Scott. Had Rob sent Doug back down when Doug started having issues out of C3, Rob would probably still be alive after this climb. If Scott hadn't worn himself out by playing porter lower down, he would have had the strength to get down from The Balcony. It is one thing to play fast and loose with your own life. It is another thing entirely to play fast and loose with someone else's life. Scott and Rob both did this and we are all still trying to figure out WHY.
Let's be real here, had both Rob and Scott simply stuck to their self declared cutoff time, they would still be alive. How was this Anatoli's fault? Anatoli knew his own strengths and weaknesses and made a decision not to use oxygen. Ignoring the cutoff time and the unforeseeable storm is what doomed them. Anatolia saves all of his clients and gets the blame? Blame the one who lived while giving the guides who were ultimately responsible a pass. Scott exhausted himself which is what killed him.
I know very little about climbing, but isn't having Viesturs, as part of a team with Breshear, "not liking the conditions up high" kind of like a mafia don suggesting that maybe in would be better if your face wasn't seen in town for a year or so? Edit: Great breakdown of the events, sensitive to human realities, good and bad.
Do you follow everything that others choose to do? We are human beings with minds of our own. These very experienced leaders from Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants were capable of making up their own minds. Weather forecasting in 1996 was not as reliable as it is now on Everest. They made their choice but unfortunately the weather came. They had no way of knowing. It wasn't only the weather that impacted this expedition either, yet many choices made.
@@krisushi1 That is an interesting argument. "Weather forecasting in 1996 was not as reliable". Isn't that a reason to be more cautious than a team might be today? "Yet many choices made". When my seven year old makes a mistake, I don't excuse it with, "that's okay. You made several other mistakes that got you in this mess in the first place." Absolutely agreed, for example, that turn around time was critical. They didn't do it. "Do you follow everything that others choose to do?" The advisers weren't some random climbers. Scott and Rob were well aware that Viesturs and Breshear were far more capable than their charges, yet these superior climbers had decided to not go.
@@jeffreybaker4399 I understand your point and have addressed other reasons elsewhere. My father would say to me when I was a child, "if I told you to jump off a cliff, would you"? I'll state again that Rob and Scott had extremely impressive resumes, look them up on Wikipedia to see how experienced they were. They felt that going for the summit when they did was the right choice. The others who did not agree, made their choices too. I have stood on top of a mountain next to the Eiger in Switzerland, which is at a higher altitude and in the middle of summer. The weather had been perfect all day with beautiful blue skies. Whilst I was overlooking a rather large crevice by myself, a white-out hit in only seconds. It came from the side of the mountain where I could not see. Before I knew it, visibility was shocking. Have you watched the movie 'Nordwand'? (It's free on YT). You'll also see in this, which is based on a true story, that weather is everything and you simply can't wait forever at Base Camp. You make the decisions you think are best. Rob and Scott believed that any bad weather had passed and continued to summit. Others on the mountain clearly felt otherwise. It's something that has to be a personal choice with the information at hand. Sorry to make this longer but you did ask.😉 It may have been having the two journalists with them that made their decision making a tad irresponsible. Just because Rob and Scott had much experience, it doesn't make them immune from them feeling the affects of altitude either. There was no reason for Scott to summit, as all of his team had summitted, yet he tried to keep going. I have to believe that in his weakened state from doing so much, that he really wasn't fully aware of what he was doing. It's much easier to enforce turnaround times when one is thinking clearly at BC. It's much different if impaired by altitude. Rob should have never allowed Doug to summit. It went against everything that he did the previous year when he made Doug go back down due to the time. Was Rob thinking clearly or did guilt also play a part? I can't begin to feel for all of those impacted by this decision by Rob, especially when Andy Harris died trying to help Rob after Doug had perished. Rob's wife and unborn child would never see him again, yet surely they had to mean more to him than a client from the US? Rob had been very strict with his rules, yet why this insane choice? As I stated in my comment, we can go over the decisions made during those fateful days and never find a solution. We can't know as both Rob, Scott, Doug and Andy are all dead. The weather never had a bearing on this initial decision that took these four lives. We must simply accept that high-altitude mountaineering is an extremely dangerous activity to undertake and there will be many more deaths over the more than 300 that have so far perished. I wish I could give you a better answer, yet no one person can know what occurred in those different areas where people perished. Despite Beck surviving, he should never have been permitted to climb so soon after eye surgery. Due to becoming snow blind, it almost took his life. It was only by some miracle that he got himself down to safety. The reason that we cannot take Jon Krakour's book literally, is because there was no way he could have been everywhere at once. Sure, he is an accomplished author, yet he critiqued when he shouldn't have. I'll finish on the oxygen usage by Anatoli. Even if another had heard Scott tell Anatoli that he was to use oxygen, we cannot know if there may have been other discussions on this issue. I have so many opinions to offer up on this that I could write a book too. If you haven't seen Nordwand, I thoroughly recommend it. Touching the Void is also worth the time. I'm glad that you're asking questions despite not being an expert on climbing. We can always learn valuable lessons.
@@jeffreybaker4399 I am late replying but it seems that the team leaders had been given weather forecasts predicting a storm. I had always been under the impression it was an unexpected event. But according to a few who were there, increasing winds had been forecast reaching max intensity on 11 May. You would think that the conditions going up should have been a signal to them but the pressure of competition may have played a role. Of course the Imax team wanted especially clear conditions for filming so they may have been more selective than other teams. But the weather was being tracked quite closely among the main teams and there was apparently awareness of an approaching severe storm. They might have hoped conditions would hold off for awhile but they spent too long getting back from summit and walked right into it.
Was this a mountaineering disaster though? I would say it was a commercial guiding disaster, the root cause of which was leading un-skilled or underskilled climbers up to heights where mistakes lead to death. It seems if modern weather forecasting ever fails during a summit push, and theres huge lines up high now, well, there will be another, much worse tradegy.
It was the weather that turned this expedition into a disaster. Those who have no experience in climbing have been doing so for ages and they have to accept the responsibility if they lose their lives, although the Expedition Companies should not be allowing inexperienced climbers to take a chance. I agree that anyone without mountaineering experience should not be allowed on Everest or any other high-altitude peak. If it wasn't for the weather that impacted this expedition, many more would have been saved. Beck should never have been allowed to climb so soon after eye surgery. It's great that more advanced weather forecasting systems have been placed on the mountain, yet as you stated, if these fail, all hell can break lose with the excessive permits given out by the Nepalese Gov't. that cause the over-crowding on the mountain. I have no interest in climbing Everest with so many inexperienced climbers or witnessing the excessive garbage dumps. It's not for me.
I agree it was a commercial guiding disaster, but I disagree that the root cause, or even much of a contributing cause, was the presence of underskilled climbers on the mountain that day. That tale has been told in print, but I don't think the evidentiary support for it is very strong at all (closer to lacking entirely). The root cause was a complete lack of leadership or contingency planning, which were 100% the responsibility of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. Hall didn't provide enough oxygen; moreover some was quite clearly taken from the cache by another expedition. There was zero, absolutely zero attempt by the group leaders/company owners to keep people together, or to assort them by rate of ascent/descent. Zero clarity on what the guides were supposed to do. Everybody, guides and clients alike, just wandered up randomly. No contingency plan for what was supposed to happen with Beck Weathers other than to stand in the snow for another day or three until Rob returned...which he was never ever going to do because he decided not to return at all but to stay with another client who was obviously not making it back alive. The other guides did their best, but there was no real plan at all. Even on a casual half day hike in nice conditions, we make sure somebody is running sweep, somebody is keeping the pace reasonable for all participants, and making wise decisions. These highly paid "leaders" did not do any of that. All of the people that day were totally capable of making it up and down safely, with the possible exception of Weathers who was subject to a vision issue that might have been predictable. Knowing that, Hall should have sent someone back down with him right away that there was a problem. But he didn't have spare personnel or a plan for how to make use of a smaller guiding/sherpa team that would result if someone took Weathers back to safety. Lack of skill or even physical fitness played no role. The late hour and totally expected storm (should have been - same gales had blown up mere hours before they all departed) did.
The first thing that came to mind before starting to watch this video was the impact the two journalists had in the decision making of both Scott and Rob. It doesn't matter what their previous climbing achievements were, every time is different. We can go on asking 'what if' for the rest of our lives, yet all we can do is speculate. Personally, I do think that having Jon Krakour and Sandy Pittman on the teams caused both Rob and Scott to make decisions that they probably wouldn't have made if the journalists were not present. It continues to baffle me why Scott continued on to summit, despite being after the turnaround time. Could it be that it would make a better story if the entire Mountain Madness Team had summitted instead of just the clients? There was no-one present to prevent Scott from continuing up towards the summit. It was clear that Scott wasn't thinking in a rational manner or he would have turned around. His entire team had summitted, so why did he need to? It's not as if he didn't already had a very impressive resume in this field, so why continue to summit? Then, we always have to remember that our reasoning and thought processes will never be as they are at such an altitude. At least Rob was filled with guilt about Doug not summitting the previous year and wished to grant him his dream. Again, one can't think logically at these altitudes when feeling overwhelmed with other emotions. If one doesn't have the strength to order a client or employee to do as they say, they shouldn't be in this position as a leader. Doug had no right to demand that he got to the summit and Rob should have had the strength to tell him that it was too late. Due to Rob allowing his client to dictate the terms, it cost them both their lives and just as sadly, Andy Harris. It frustrates me that Rob refused to save himself and return to his wife and unborn child. They meant more to him than a client from the other side of the globe. He was told that a team was being assembled to reach Doug and to get himself down, yet he refused. We will never know why, as we can't ask Rob. I find it strange that Rob would have told Beck to stay below the summit due to his eye sight diminishing and wait for him to return. I can never understand why Beck didn't go back down with John Taske and the other two when they came across him sitting in the snow. Beck shouldn't have been permitted to climb so soon after eye-surgery in the first place. It was by sheer miracle that Beck even survived this expedition. We can never know for sure what the agreement was between Scott and Anatoli in regards to the use of oxygen, unless this entire conversation was heard and any others that may have ensued afterwards. Sure, things would have played out for the better if Anatoli had of been using oxygen - but he wasn't. I will not damn him as I was not present and neither was Jon Krakour in every place on that mountain at all times and therefore cannot possibly comment on all that happened. What we do know is that Anatoli saved lives that otherwise may have also died. Another thing we must remember when critiquing another, is their culture. Despite being Australian, many from the US etc. cannot understand my culture and how I speak, write or express myself. We are all different. As for many disliking the way in which Anatoli wrote his book, did anyone think that the way he told of what occurred was impart due to his culture? He was being called a villain in a best selling book by Jon Krakour and I can understand why Anatoli would feel that he needed to defend himself. Just because he didn't word it as an American, etc. would, doesn't make him a bad person. We can go over this tragedy time and time again and never be able to tie it all up in a neat little bow. There will always be questions which no single person can ever answer, as no single person was in all places on Everest during this disastrous expedition. No matter how often we go over such tragedies such as this 1996 Disaster, David Sharp, Joe Simpson in the Peruvian Andes, Toni Kurtz on the North Face of the Eiger, Mallory and Irvine, there will always be questions that we can never know the answers to. How many times do we need to go over everyone's story involved in this 1996 Disaster? We'll still end up with differing points of view, just as we have now. All that climb mountains or engage in any dangerous activity know that there is the possibility that they may not emerge alive. You're fooling yourself otherwise. My heart breaks for my 'Kiwi Cousins' who lost their lives, especially for Rob's wife and the daughter he never met. How much I admire Andy Harris whose objective was to somehow help his dear friend to live, yet perished himself. Sure, we've learnt lessons from what occurred, but should we continue to re-hash the same story when there are so many more to tell?🇦🇺
Thom, you're the best my man, your kindness to everyone involved with this tragedy in all your different videos about it speaks volumes, you never demonize anyone, like Sandy Pittman, everyone loves to demonize her and make her the bad guy but as you know in situations like that there are no bad guys. I'm one of the few people you'll find in your comments that "gets it" about situations like that, I've never been a mountain climber but I did have an occupation that has people cut from the same cloth, I was a union ironworker, I built buildings and bridges, so I know what it's like to live in a world where you have to literally trust the people around you with your life, and I also know that when tragedy strikes there is no finger pointing, it's just something that's not done, it's a given that everyone did whatever was humanly possible at the time, like ironworking mountain climbing is on of those things where you know what you're getting into, so you accept the dangers yourself and would never want someone to be demonized over something that happened to you, it's called wearing big boy pants and accepting that no matter what happened you put yourself in the situation you're in. I'm not particularly fascinated with mountain climbing but you make your videos very much worth watching, you and Jake Norton, you guys make the only videos I'll watch on the subject, you and Jake are the best, you never run anyone into the ground or demonize anyone, and you're very receptive of others ideas and respond kindly and with respect even to the people who've fallen under the spell of "you know who" and throw shade and spit venom at you. Wishing you, yours and Jake all the best in life, keep up the good work, you're a true inspiration my man.
Thanks my friend, your thoughts are truly appreciated! I agree on the Jake Norton take: he is one of my best friends from mountaineering, a kind, generous and humble soul. The world could do well to have more like him! Thanks for everything!
Anatoli when he decided to descend.... Everything was going well. No storm in site. Quick climber beast of A man, reached the camp and decided to chill. Suddenly storm hits. Guy doesn't know whether to move out in the storm and wander around or stay out and let some information percolate in. Once he has information, goes out 4 times save 3 people. Doesn't come and rest after toiling in death zone the whole night. But goes to Scott Fischer when he learnt he did not want to return. Finally climbs back down.
I wonder if there was an exchange of words and egos between Hall and Fischer that nobody knew about before the Summit push that made them ignore their rules
I really love your videos, but I have to make this comment. There is an interview with Scott on March 31st, 10 days before the summit day in ‘96. He talks about how Anatoli will be climbing without oxygen and that he thinks it’s a cool/impressive thing. Why listen to what anyone else says about how Scott felt about this situation, when we have Scott’s words on video?
A wonderful narration you have done Sir, my utmost admiration for your skill and sensitivity. I will no doubt be recommending your channel to my family and friends. Thank you.
Hi Thom, love the channel. There is a theory out there, on another Everest channel, that fully blames Krakauer for the death of Yasuko Namba, abandoning her on the descent, what's your thoughts?
I love your videos and will continue to watch them all, but can you rethink leaning into the anti-Sandy Pittman nonsense. She is no more or less to "blame" than anyone on the mountain that day. She was villainised by the incredibly popular book by a journalist who saw her as a rival and perpetuated his personal opinions about her as fact. That is highly unfair, imo. She DID make several public thanks to Anatoly, yet everyone who wants to lambaste her leans into a statement made in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy that she may or may not have actually said (or said in the way or with the tone suggested in Into Thin Air). Nothing she did or was done on her behalf "caused" the tragedies and the "blame the silly little lady" trope is very tired now.
Thanks so much for your insight and for watching the video. You may have seen my video on Sandy, and in it she receives no blame whatsoever for what happened that day: ruclips.net/video/HUDODhCqgbY/видео.html
Good conclusions! I just want to add that while he didn't survive trying to save a client, Rob had a responsibility to Beck that was waiting for him. When he makes the decision to accompany Doug to the top, he completely forgot about Beck, leaving him alone with his blindness and freezing, and he also did not notify anyone on his team to help him get down (at least as far as we know). That decision seemed incorrect to me too.
Hall alliviated his clients of all decisionmaking, that's central to Krakauers book - and probably a bad thing. Given that most of his clients were accustomed to making decisions every day; thus, Krakauer could have fixed ropes on the way up, Beck could have elected to go down with the first group of downbound clients - and so on....
Thank you for your video and your honest words! I have been following reports and films about this mountaineering tragedy for a long time and, above all, I find completely uncritical portrayals of heroes about it quite inappropriate. Even someone who has done great things and died a rather tragic death can have acted irresponsibly or even stupidly in a particular situation and therefore be criticized. And this applies to Rob Hall in particular, but undoubtedly also to Scott Fisher and Anatoli Bukrejew, all legends of mountaineering. You are right to say that good leadership on the mountain and great commitment are no substitute for planning, organization, a sense of reality and responsibility for many other lives.
As I said on one of your shorts, it's possible Anatoli B. could have been on the autism spectrum. This is why his book would be mostly detailed observations rather than feelings, why he didn't really care for the interpersonal connections with the clients, why he "saved" the MM clients but left the AC clients - because that was literally his job. He was supremely talented and focused on one thing: high-alt climbing. Just something to consider when we look back and analyze the situation.
In an interview with another guide on the mountain at the time, it was believed he didn't support it. I believe now that it was nuanced, that Scott wanted him to use 0's but tolerated him not using it. Thanks for watching
I’m not finished watching the video but I want to comment now so I don’t forget - what you said, about people being human and making decisions - so accurate - and the difference between Jon’s book and Anatoly’s book - so spot on. Very, very insightful and thoughtful analysis.
Rob Hall was a prince. He had told his friend he would get to the top this time. Unfortunately, promised, this time... He was begged not to leave his friend. How could he have? His wife is also a great person, I think, and did not hold any bitterness it seems. The conversations were full of unsaid but communicated anguish. Which drives home the tragedy of the whole day.
Who would you deem closer to Rob? His wife and unborn child or a client from the other side of the globe? Doug was not Rob's friend. He was a client. Rob was far to kind hearted and wanted to make Doug's dream come true, yet not at the expense of forever losing his wife and unborn child. I believe it was the effect of the altitude and Doug begging for Rob taking him to the summit that screwed everything up. With Rob feeling guilty about Doug not making it again, he went against his better knowledge and succumbed to his client, instead of Rob telling Doug it was all over. Just remember, it was because of Doug's obsession that Andy Harris lost his life too. Instead of possibly one losing his life, three did and for what? Doug was the one that started this chain of events. He should have gained climbing experience on other mountains before attempting Everest. He simply shouldn't have been on the mountain.
Without a doubt he was a fine person, very well liked by everyone. But I would not pronounce him as a "prince". He abandoned a client on a major climb, hours from safety, told him to stay put, and then decided to prioritize a different client who he had to have known was not going to survive the day, just to get that other person to the summit before he became immobile. Hall made no contingency plan whatsoever for Beck Weathers. He just abandoned him without any known second thought. That is neither a prince nor a competent expedition leader. Nor a worthy husband and father. Alas that fine human qualities are not enough to remedy these failings.
@@7phyton Beck should never have been given a permit to climb so soon after eye surgery. Beck was a mature man and should have gone down with John Taske and the others when they turned back. It sounds far to strange for Rob to simply tell Beck to stay sitting in the snow and await his return. There seems to be something fishy in this story. Someone suffering snow blindness at this point was never going to summit.
Basically he wasn't a manager. He didn't keep multiple factors in mind and it had catastrophic consequences. Very difficult sometimes to be a manager and a nice person
I have always been captivated by the 8000'ers stories of those who have climbed. I celebrate their victories and grieve their losses and pray for them on the mountains. I would have loved to climb Mt. Everest and K2 but it would never happen. I'm an armchair mountaineer living vicariously through those who climb. I love these stories and I am always sad when climbers don't make it and perish. I love the way you tell their stories with such compassion and concern. Thank you!!
Isn’t that extremely dangerous to linger for six hours? Are you kidding me? It doesn’t matter if he’s a guide he shouldn’t have to be put in that position as well as he told them before he started expedition that he would do it he could be without oxygen so that’s not his fault at all.
Again - Rob Hall failed his clients, particularly Beck Weathers, because he decided to 1) allow Beck Weathers to wait for him to come back down from the summit and then 2) delayed coming back down from the summit even longer to assist Doug Hansen to the summit (causing Hall to summit twice and expend that additional energy and oxygen as well). In so deciding, he was putting more importance on helping Namba and Hansen get to the top than his obligation to assist Weathers (who had indicated he needed help directly to Hall). Fischer failed his clients when he persisted to summit after he was aware that they had already begun to descend. As a guide and exhausted as he was, he should have given up his own summit plans accompanied his clients and his guide down the mountain. These were the two crucial mistakes on the mountain that day - both made by the the expedition leaders. I acknowledge that they are human beings. So was Anatoli and Lopsang. Pitman was merely a client, and it was acknowledged even by Krakhauer that she did not ask Lopsang to short-rope her. I find it really odd that people continue to criticize Boukreev on his non-use of oxygen when it so clearly did not compromise his performance. Using oxygen would not have caused him to summit more slowly and, in all likelihood, would not have caused him to descend more slowly or to stick with the slower clients. He was, by all accounts, a notoriously fast climber. The only difference his using oxygen would have made to the events that transpired would have been that he consumed 3 bottles of oxygen that could have been (and likely were used) by someone else on the mountain that day. I also find it odd that people insist on blaming Pitman for any of it. She was merely another client and was clearly a better climber than some of the other clients and a lesser climber than some others.
I watched the first video and I'm about halfway through this video, but you're starting to lose me. For all of Krakauer's supposed introspection, he really doesn't talk about real decisions or how his decisions impacted anything. As far as I can see, he didn't make any real decisions. He can whine about the ambition that drives him and others to climb the mountain, but he doesn't evaluate decisions in any kind of analytical way. He seems to engage in navel-gazing about climbing but not in risk analysis or root cause analysis. He thinks that his empty mea culpas give him the right to attack everyone else's decisions on the mountain that day. I disagree. My background is in engineering with a great deal of experience in root cause analysis. Before my health failed, I spent my career looking at why things happened. I looked at both the technical factors and the decisions that people made. I don't see many people doing worthwhile analysis of these kinds of factors. The deaths on the south side of the mountain seem to boil down to a few decisions. Most of these decisions were related to Rob Hall's team. Yasuko Namba, Beck Weathers, and Doug Hansen didn't go down the mountain in time. Lou Kasischke and John Taske realized that they couldn't summit by the turnaround time, and they returned. As a result, they are alive and have suffered no physical injuries from the climb. Rob Hall had asked Beck Weathers to promise not to descend until Rob Hall was there to help him. That decision cost Beck Weathers all of those injuries. If Beck Weathers had agreed to descend with Lou Kasischke and John Taske as they descended, Beck Weathers would have been safe in his tent instead of nearly dying. If Rob Hall and Andy Harris hadn't been trying to get Doug Hansen to the summit and back even though they were past their turnaround time, they would have returned to the tents before the storm was bad. If they had turned Yasuko Namba around when she showed that she was clearly not able to make the ascent and descent, she would probably have survived. Again, the specific decisions were 1. the failure to turn around Doug Hansen when he clearly wasn't able to make a safe ascent and descent; 2. extracting a promise from Beck Weathers to wait specifically for Rob Hall rather than to descend with the first people who offered to help him; and 3. the failure to turn around Yasuko Namba while she still had the strength and time to descend. Scott Fischer didn't need to summit Everest that day. He continued climbing even after all of his clients were heading down the mountain. People attack Boukreev for not being with the clients, but they seem to excuse Scott Fischer for continuing upwards while all of his clients were descending to Camp Four. If Scott Fischer had gone down with his clients as they descended instead of continuing to ascend, he'd probably be alive today. I don't see any way that Boukreev's decisions had any impact on anything. He couldn't have moved any of the Mountain Madness clients down the mountain any faster than they were already going. While he was the strongest climber, he didn't have the authority to make them leave the summit any sooner or turn around once they were beyond the two o'clock return time. If he could have moved them down the mountain faster, then his using oxygen and being there with them might have mattered. As it was, I see no way that his using oxygen and staying with them would have improved anything. If nothing he did could have changed anything, then criticizing him is foolish. I may not like the fact that he didn't use oxygen, but I don't see that decision as having an impact on anything. He went forward to the summit ahead of the others because he was setting rope towards the summit. His being without oxygen might have forced him to return earlier, but again, I don't see how his being there would have made the others move any faster on their descent. If they didn't move faster descending, then they wouldn't have been caught in the storm. If they hadn't slowed to take care of Beck Weathers and Yasuko Namba, they might have gotten back to the tents before the storm anyway. The competitiveness of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer might have influenced their decisions that day, but the decisions are still only influenced by competitiveness. The decisions didn't depend on competitiveness. If they had made better decisions at the top of each team, deaths on the south side of the mountain would have been much less likely.
I can't remember the different teams and who lead which, but non of Bukreev's team (apart from the leader) died that day. Not only that, but Bukreev had climbed Mount Everest a fair few times previously, ALL without oxygen. By no means a novice on this climb. Being able to move quickly is what allowed him to save the lives of many climbers that day. Also, Krakow is well known for exaggerating stories and bending the truth (Into the Wild is another example of this to his take on the Everest expedition).
Fantastic video series. I've been watching them for the better part of the last week if for no other reason than the sheer depth of information and the nuanced takes. I will say, I think we have a tendency to not blame the dead too often for actions which could be seen as their responsibility. The more I've learned about the 1996 expedition and subsequent disaster, the more I'm convinced that Krakauer had a bias against blaming the deaths on Rob and Scott. I can understand if he did so with that bias in mind to not blame the dead. But then I look at who he ultimately blamed (Anatoli and Sandy Pittman along with Lopsang) and I just shake my head. Because in the end, of the three, only Sandy survives to this day. And as a result, she's come to be seen wrongly as the villain in all this. It's all kind of sad. But at the least, I'm glad you've been making these videos and kind of setting the record straight as it were. And I will say videos such as this finally got me to go hiking into the local mountains more. With an eye first and foremost on safety and being more aware, so as to avoid situations which could put me in unnecessary risk.
Hey, sorry a bit off topic but I recently saw your Nat Geo documentary on finding Sandy Irvine. Do you have any video's on this channel covering that? I also checked out the band King Gizzard you mentioned when I commented on your last video. I would recommend the band Tool if you like psychedelic prog rock. Cheers.
I have watched rob halls stories and he was a great man who lost his life looking out for other peoples best interests. His conversation with his wife the past conversation was deeply heart wrenching..may he rest in peace.
Granted it was almost 30 years ago. As I get many more laps around the sun I feel the as an Expedition Leader you need to be the one to make the hard calls. If you set the rule turn at 2, you turn at 2. One of the questions that i do not see talked about that often is should an expedition leader even be climbing. As the person in charge and responsible for the entire group you should be the one with a clear head at all times. Also one of the sentiments that Anatoli brings up is if you have 65 K and are in reasonable shape you can buy your way on to an expedition. I think there are way to many permits given to people that have not paid their dues on lesser mountains that would prepare you to climb Everest.
You’re right, it wasn’t the one thing that caused this disaster. It was the lining up of all the holes in the Swiss cheese, a term used in dissecting air crashes.
Hall's decision to continue to the summit was obviously catastrophic, had he turned Hanson around, perhaps most everyone not named Hanson, live to breath another day!
I don't think any of your comments were an attack on anyone's character. You gave your honest, professional opinion about the circumstances of the climb and the storm. You didn't condemn anyone's character or villainize a group or individual. I found this video (and your others) incredibly insightful. The only thing I will say about Boukreev's claim that he did everything right and made no mistakes is, what else could he say? Any sort of introspective doubt he may have expressed would have resulted in someone suing him.
I appreciate very much your empathy, insights & fair analytics on this tragedy. As a lay person I now understand everyone is summiting for very different reasons. It’s also amazing the differing levels of expertise, personalities & how all that cohesion (or not) plays into a successful expedition. Of course there is much to be learned (!!) But excessive ambition can be blinding. Same mistakes will be made again by many bc some think they are different. It‘s a flaw of human nature. Those who made the excruciating decision to turn back & therefore survived, are real heroes, great examples of discipline by true professionals & lived another day to summit if they so chose to. (Did those 3 try again & did they succeed??)
Your explanation of this tragedy is so very valuable to us who follow climbing in the Himalayas. Your expertise brings reality to the conversation. Thank you Thom!!
Just came across your videos, in looking to do a trek to Everest Base Camp. Your content is fantastic. Just one question, I have watch a lot of videos on the 1996 disaster and during one of those videos, it is mentioned that extra oxygen bottles may have been stolen from the south summit that could have been used by Fischer and Hall. Is this something you have come across
Thanks so much, I'm glad you found the channel. I personally have never heard anything about bottles of O's being stolen. Unless that info is directly attributable to quotes from someone who was there, ie primarily guides like Beidleman & Mike Groom., I'd doubt very seriously that anything was stolen. But, it has happened before on the mountain and will happen again. All that said, O's near the South Summit were there, and because of altitude disorientation, one of the guides thought they were completely empty....but they were actually full. So, essentially, the O's were there. Cheers, keep me posted on your journey to Everest Base Camp!
Jon Krakhaur was very jealous of Bourkeev. 1. Bourkeev got on the summit first. 2. Bourkeev did not fix the ropes because his team clients did not have oxygen yet and if he fixed it the Jon and his team would get their first. 3. Jon refused to go help others when Bourkeev asked him to. 4. Jon slept through the storm in which he famously reported on (the irony) while Bourkeev was saving lives 5. Eventually Bourkeev team had one casualty and he even went back for that one causualty to make sure that he could save him. 6. Boekeev was a hero. Jon was a jealous journalist. 7. Remember Jon was paid by Rob’s company to report on it, he had to find someone to blame that was not in his team. Who better than the man he was jealous of
Thanks for being here and for watching the video, we'd love it if you shared your thoughts in the comments!
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The only one to be blamed is the commercialization of these mountain exhibitions. It is inconceivable that anyone who has the budget, can pay his way up to the summit relying on the Sherpas, the guides and/or anybody else's right or wrong decisions on such an environment.
@@IntotheBangtanUniverseWormhole easy to say from behind a keyboard outside of the death zone
@@IntotheBangtanUniverseWormhole Bukreev was exceptionaly strong, yet you want too much from him. Had he had the oxygen and put it on a low flow to last longer, there would be people saying: "He should have put it on higher flow to perform better." If he had it and put it on higher flow, he would have run out of it as the rest of them. And climbing without oxygen but carying the bottles up? You realise that we are talking about Death zone and every kilogram weights much more up there, right?
The main problem wasn't Bukreev and bottled oxygen. Not even the bloody storm. The main problem were two leaders who were unwilling to turn back before the other. Bukreev decision meant he was able to help when it was really needed.
I don't understand why Anatoli is being blamed for no-oxygen. We know for a fact now that wasnt a factor. He could be blamed for rushing down, but that in retrospective that also was not a bad decision. It is not a given that if he'd stayed with clients or Fisher he would not get lost with them as well. Moreover, he would probably had to stay with Fisher and possibly could not come to the rescue of the stranded group. He wouldn't die, but he would have struggled together with Lopsang to bring Scott down and wasted all his energy just like Lopsang did. And he kept all his clients safe and sound. Real reason for disaster was Rob Hall's decision to stay with Doug stranding another guide up high.
@@IntotheBangtanUniverseWormhole totally disagree. Let's say Anatoli stays until Scott summits. What happens, Scott struggles, can he abandon his boss and friend? He teams up with Lopsang to bring him down. While he would probably manage to do that and save Scott - which is a ridiculous thing since Scott was supposed to a coordinator for the whole summit group - but that probably wouldnt happen until next day and by that time his stranded clients would all die. I also dont recall Scott running out of oxygen, and one bottle for teh group of 10 people is nothing. While he was super strong, had he stayed there is no reason to think, he would be in better shape than Neil - the other guide - when he reached the camp, completely exhausted and unable to take care of client. His decisions actually SAVED the client, any other decision would have had them dead. Not Scott unfortunately, but he is a different story.
I'm not a climber. I remember reading "K2" at 15 and knew myself well enough to know it would always be beyond my abilities. Sometimes when you know, you know. Wow. That was a deviation away from my original comment!
I wanted to say that I love the way you tell these stories. You are honest yet always sensitive, blunt, balanced with real humanism. You're a good guy for this.
Watched Scott Fisher take a ground fall on a small un-developed crag near Lake Wenatchee just before he left for Everest. As I recall, he was taken to the hospital emergency room suffering a concussion and broken ribs. I always wondered how that affected his abilities on that fateful trip. I've never heard anything ever mentioned about that accident.
Very few climbers have fallen as many times as Scott. He was known for it.
That's extremely interesting, especially with what new research has shown about the effects of concussions being more serious and longer lasting than we used to think they were! I wonder now if Scott Fisher's brain was affected not just by that fall, but all the others he'd taken, in combination with extreme altitude?
Interesting point...
Very interesting point. I would’ve had no idea it happened if you hadn’t commented about it.
Would be interesting to know if hypoxia and other effects of altitude sickness statistically are more likely in a concussed patient.
I love Beck Weathers and his story. The man came down from Everest with something infinitely more valuable than a $65K summit selfie - a new found appreciation for his life and his loved ones and the inspiration to make a real change. To this day, Beck still refers to losing both hands and his nose as “a significant discount, seeing as climbing Everest these days can cost an arm and a leg.”
As sad, as hard as it is to realize, dear Rob and Scott, who both did NOT make their decisions with the realization that clients would die let alone themselves, we must be willing to attach part of the “blame” with them 😭
Good men can screw up. It's tragic but it happens
Going onto Everest.
You definitely realize you may not survive.
Not any human.
@@chebbohagopNone of Fischer’s clients died or were seriously injured.
It’s amazing how much this is ignored or forgotten. I believe it is mostly due to Krakauer, who is a compelling author and was clearly trying to make “his” expedition look better. If Fischer had survived, the story of this event would have been entirely about Hall’s team, and Fischer would be regarded as a hero.
Your genuine, palpable compassion and empathy for the people who lost their lives, and your willingness to express that emotion for them publicly is a truly rare and wonderful thing to see. Never lose that. Thank you for telling their story factually and with so much kindness. I know very little about the details of this story, but I do know from my experience in journalism that Jon Krakauer is the real deal and I would absolutely believe his version of events based on his history of journalistic integrity and pursuit of the truth.
Thank you very much for your comment. I honestly appreciate it so much, it makes this all worth it. I read this one aloud to my wife...she watches me pour my heart out on stages during presentations and tells me to bring that to the videos. Big fan of Krakauer here, with the understanding we all sure do have faults!
Also, even though some of my comments are a bit harsh, sometimes only because I’m very passionate about this subject and all Climbing and mountaineering. I appreciate your channel your candidness your kindness, and everything else. keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll keep enjoying everything you do and support you.
Much appreciated. Debate and disagreements are totally okay....it's when some individuals get personal and begin the attacks, then the line is drawn. I welcome your insight and opinions!
Great commentary and questions raised. One thing I come back to time and again is that each person on that mountain made a choice to be there. There should be no expectation of rescue when you’ve decided to put yourself in a dangerous situation. Those climbers who decided to go down rather than risk climbing to the summit are the ones who were the most responsible and considerate of putting anyone else’s life in danger to be rescued. The loss of so many lives is terrible, but that risk was no secret. Looking to blame anyone just shirks one’s own duty to be responsible for oneself.
Based on what you said about Bukreev's performance as a guide with the Indonesian expedition, Bukreev grew as a guide. Beck Weathers' Texas sized ego was what got him in trouble. He doesn't talk about that. He was a Medical Doctor, a Pathologist. He elected to have eye surgery so as not to be wearing glasses. It is called Radial Kereotomy. When that surgery is done, you lose your vision at high attitudes, because your eye balls expand and the surgical cuts into iris come apart. RK surgery patients were warned that they can lose eye sight in the pressurized cabin of the commercial aircraft, never mind Everest. Beck Wrathets had that surgery, could not have been ignorant about the effects of that surgery, especially as an MD and yet he goes to climb Evetest. If he knew he was going to climb Everest, why did he have surgery? And what was he hoping for whe he went blind during the climb? He said he was waiting for the eye sight to improve, but it wasn't going to, unless he got off the mountain. Was he waiting for someone to short rope him down? No, he was waiting for his guide to short ripe him up! How insane is that. And of course, he didn't tell his guide that he had eye surgery that can make him go blind at high attitude. Weathers was willing to cheat ti get to Evetest. If Beck Weathers did the same thing and tried to become as US Paratrooper and went blind during a jump, US government would criminally prosecute him for lying on a Health Questionnaire. Weathers had no business climbing Mt. Everest after his RK eye surgery, and so far nobody called him out on it. His ego driven ambition pushed him past the point of sanity.
Thank you for this! I was wondering for some time about this eye-surgery thing, and how he was allowed to join to climb. He lied, he was wiling to risk not only his own life, but those around him...
Neither did Doug. Not eveyone is built for it but that didn't seem to stop Rob from letting him go again. Instead of making the hard decision which is what men are supposed to do, he totally ignores the cutoff time he set, and instead pushes Doug to the summit. Basically he caused his death.
I am not at all an expert, but i think it is unfair how Anatoli has been treated. I understand that there might have been a cultural difference at stake here but for me he was one of the strongest and most heroic of the teams. I have a lot of slavic/eatern european friends and I can get how people can find them "cold" or even headstrong but he knew his limits and did his duty more than the other guides. He kept risking his life and deserved better than being publicly shamed and accused of negligence.
Agree with you...Toli had his own style & Scott very well knew about this...Scott & Neal kept Anatoli out of most of decision making meetings in base camp
I also think there were cultural issues for Anatoli. He was a product of the soviet system and trained under their system of mountaineering which was hierarchical. He was considered an elite mountaineer in a system that expected everyone on the mountain to be experienced, fit and trained in the same way.
Being a guide in the western sense was likely to be confusing. The importance of individuals being more of more importance than the team as a whole was likely to be a cognitive dissonance for him until it became very clear that it was a rescue situation. Then his role was simple and clearcut.
But who really knows. His language issues will have impacted on communication but I personally believe it was a cultural mismatch combined with his conditioning that HE was elite made him difficult to work with. The Scott should have been aware of this and emphasised the actual role but management of climbers isn't the easiest of management tasks!
@dawnmoriarty9347 I greatly appreciate your comment. It is very thoughtful and gives insights that I wouldn't have had since I wasn't born at the time and don't know much about the Soviet union aspect of his upbringing.
I think he should have used oxygen, but I don't think his not using oxygen changed anything, I can't see how this change would have saved Scott Fischer.
@@romanesybel8956 It is amazing how Anatoli B. polarizes opinions. It seems that many people can not accept that he might not have been perfect, but could still finish rescuing people. It seems that flawed (=human) heroes are not acceptable - most people look for a superhero/saint or the devil. Maybe such a "binary" world view holds some comfort for them. - I think he should gave climbed wih oxygen, but he 'made up' amply by rescuing people the way he did. RIP Anatoli Boukreev.
Anatoli did not change the events on the mountain just because he wasn’t using O’s , the storm changed the events of preventing folks getting down when they lingered too long. Honestly for those who believe the mountain has the say well I guess in this case it’s true
I agree
Any mountaineer who doesn't realize the mountain - including it's mercurial weather - is the bottom line, is in the wrong game.
What we should have learned from this is, when you make rules on the mountain, don't break them.
That's easily said, yet how can rules be enforced when at an altitude were the human mind is incapable of logical thought?
@@krisushi1 kind of the whole point of sticking to the rules you made before getting to altitude
Rob Hall's circumstances of death are heartbreaking, but his decision-making is baffling- not only encouraging Doug Hansen, but also telling Beck Weathers to stand and wait for him to summit. Especially baffling given the video clip of the meeting at Base Camp where he says he's prepared to be the one making unpopular decisions. Perhaps if he had survived, Adventure Consultants would have faced legal action from the families of those who lost their lives, as well as Weathers.
High altitude and exhaustion contributed to the bad decision making. Read Into Thin Air.
@@Sue-uw2oi great 📘
They sign papers not holding the companies responsible for anything as it is a dangerous endeavor.
@@czarcastic1458 Such waivers do not protect the companies in case they are found at fault. It only protects them against the outcomes of accidents. Rob Hall not enforcing his 2PM turn around deadline after having made clear at base camp how important it was is a very serious mistake, probably prosecutable.
You people! All you think about is suing someone. You are ruining the world.
I can't blame anyone. All were undertaking an adventure where you need everything to go perfectly right in an incredibly dangerous place where things can and will go quickly wrong.
Thank you once again Thom!
It's my pleasure, and thank you for supporting the channel, it means very much to me
I have recently read the Climb, after having read Into Thin Air and watched a lot of videos and documentaries. I found the Climb surprising, very moving; not at all what I expected. I don’t know if the book tells the truth or not about the oxygen but I now suspect that a big part of the controversy with Anatoly comes from a deep cultural clash between him and the American climbers; not only in relation to his ideas about mountaineering but in general. (People from the USSR had been quite isolated for decades and were also quite different from Europeans). There were obvious communication problems with him because of this cultural clash and also the language barrier and this probably generated undeserved rejection towards him. It’s very sad.
You are the second person who has mentioned culture, as well as myself. As an Australian, I'm quite often misunderstood by those from English speaking countries. We have a very different culture, even from our 'Kiwi Cousins' in New Zealand. I can't count how many times that I've been attacked in comments by those in particular from the US. If this is what it is like between English speaking countries, imagine the position that Anatoli was put in? I think there would be much professional jealously between Anatoli and the Americans. Anatoli was, in my opinion, a freak of nature for his mountaineering abilities. I'm sure that many would be jealous of this. It really hit home to me when it was mentioned that a translator was used in Anatoli's book, which can make things sound very different. If it wasn't for Anatoli, many more would have died. I'm grateful for what he did. As for the agreement between he and Scott about the use of oxygen, no-one can state what was agreed to unless every single discussion was overheard regarding the use of oxygen. Even if one conversation was overheard, that doesn't mean that others didn't follow. I refuse to damn one who saved lives and then sadly lost his own just a year later. Thank you for picking up on the cultural aspect.
"Cultural clash", as you say, helped lives of 3 people. Soviet people have very high morals, sense of camaraderie, as opposite to european/American individualism.
I think it's simpler. For decades (at least 70 years), whenever there's a well publicized mountaineering mishap, the public and some mountaineering pundits have always been intensely critical of whomever was the strongest climber on the mountain that day: Bonatti, Desmaison, Messner, now Boukreev. They always find some lame excuse to do that even when the actual facts compellingly demonstrate that that person went way beyond what could ever be expected to save people. Envy? Unwillingness to blame people who perished for their faults? Who knows, but it has been happening for ages in mountaineering.
@@7phyton The 'tall poppy syndrome'. Others take pleasure in cutting down those who acheive great deeds on any platform.
Beck weathers; Blind trust.
If one views client safety as a priority, which is the premise of criticism of Boukreev for not using oxygen, it seems decisive that all of Fischer’s clients survived intact. It might be argued that the teams were operating together and thus guides assumed duties to the other team’s clients, but I’ve never seen reporting or evidence of such an agreement. It may be inferred from convention or basic morals, perhaps, but those arguments are complex and uncertain, and seem unfair in those extreme and fluid conditions. As you point out, the Hansen decision likely cost three lives, and possibly Namba’s, since Harris and Hall weren’t there to help her. Weathers survived, but suffered significant injuries that might have been avoided if guides had returned to him on time. As for Boukreev turning Fischer around, that does not appear to have been his duty or responsibility-they were peers, and Fischer was even Boukriev’s employer. It seems unclear that he could have persuaded Fischer not to summit. Finally, it does not appear likely that Fischer would have survived whether or not Boukreev had oxygen-he was a great climber who had summited previously without oxygen but showed evidence of medical problems before the climb. His fate was likely sealed before Boukreev could have intervened.
@Redskies453 Scotts decision to personally take his friend back down to base camp, then come right back up to rejoin his team at camp 4 was crazy. Someone should have convinced him to take a long rest before attempting to summit. But no one questioned it because scott had a reputation of being one of the strongest climbers in the world. They had the mindset of "if anybody can do it, it would be scott"
I don't fully understand how Boukreev having oxygen or not could have such an impact on everything.
@@peggyleadingham4528 I believe because he needed to head back down almost immediately after summiting and thus wasn't available to help get the clients down
It wouldn't
If any human even was responsible it was more Rob Hall and Scott Fisher in that case.
100% true
@@teijaflink2226 the funny thing is though, every one of Scott's clients that made the summit, lived. Every single one of Robs clients who reached the summit died. Except for Krakauer, but he wasn't really a paying customer.
Nice video. Well thought out and intriguing.
It's always good to have you here!
In my opinion, the tragedy was mainly an issue of poor leadership mixed with competition between Scott and Hall. Proper enforcement of turn around times likely would be the thing that made the most difference. If Anatoli is to be criticised for not staying with clients, then Scott holds a larger fault as he summitted past turn around time instead of helping his clients back to camp. There is an argument to be made that Anatoli using oxygen might've helped, but I can equally see how by not using oxygen he was required to return to camp earlier, ultimately allowing him the ability to be rested enough to rescue other climbers. If he had used oxygen and stayed at the summit he may have gotten caught in the storm himself, or if he did get back to camp he may have been too tired to aid other climbers.
Ultimately though the majority of blame absolutely lies with Scott and Hall as it was their poor decision making that directly lead to the deaths of others.
You are right. No need for Fischer to summit; he'd done previously. But - top fewer.
This very much. It is the duty of a leader to choose the right people for the job and to make them follow the safety precautions, themselves included. And it was the delay in returning that put them into the path of the storm, not Boukreev's absence, which indeed might have saved more lives than had he stayed.
WOW you bring up something I’ve never thought about in the past. I’ve read every book I can find on this subject. I didn’t realize that The Climb was written thru a translator. I speak English and Arabic and I know sometimes when I translate from Arabic to English it comes across as very blunt but this is just the language. Now I wonder if this may be the case with some of the language going from Romanian (I believe) to English.
DeWalt apparently approached Boukreev with the book idea, and then did a lot of work to gin up controversy. Krakauer says he was able to talk to Boukreev before he died, and made peace with him.
I'm an Australian, yet many from other English speaking countries do not understand my culture, the way in which I speak, write or express myself. Imagine if a translator was then used to interpret what I meant? The mentioning of using a translator jumped out at myself to and I added this to my comment. A rather poignant point.
Russian
@@dilyaramarsh7770 Anatoli is referred to being Kazakh. He even held Kazakhstan citizenship.
@@krisushi1 Yes, but it's mentioned more than once in the book that his main language was Russian, as he grew up when Kazakhstan was part of the USSR, and all Soviet citizens needed to speak Russian. It's what was taught in schools and what all official business was conducted in. I'm assuming that it was much the same in Kazakhstan as it was in Ukraine at the time; I have Ukranian friends who grew up in the old days of the USSR, then moved here to Canada, and they say that they spoke about equal amounts Russian and Ukranian, learning English on their own time.
It’s not so much that I can’t get enough of this story - it’s that I’m still wondering what the truth is about what happened and why. The fascination is how the story has changed and developed since Into Thin Air was published
I'm afraid that you're never going to know the truth, as no single person witnessed all that occurred during this disaster. We have to accept that there aren't answers to all that happens.
First thing, you do a very heartfelt analysis. Much respect to you. I think what is left out in these discussions, though is the law of karma playing out in everyone’s lives. Our lives are a combination of free will, and our previously accrued karma. There’s an old adage, “if it is not time for you to die then nothing can kill you, and if it is your time to die, nothing can save you. “
In all of the videos and research I've done on this tragedy, it always astounds me how often the debate turns to blaming various clients for the loss of life. The one thing I get from every single account is that Hall and Fischer were good men who made some poor choices that day. I think if they'd lived they would be the fist to step forward and take responsibility. They were the leaders, their were the ones making decisions for their clients. It's tragic that they perished, their poor decisions don't make them bad people, but the buck stops with the leaders, and I get the impression that if they'd lived they would have owned the responsibility entirely..
I agree that there is plenty of blame to be spread between the clients, staff and the leaders. What I keep going back to, is that both Scott and Rob were not infallible. They were just as at risk from poor decision making due to the altitude that anyone else. They can't be blamed for the effects that the altitude had on them. Just due to being leaders, doesn't make them inhuman. When it's witnessed the effects of altitude on the body and thought processes, it wakes one up to how everyone is affected. Being a leader doesn't make one immune.
It's clear Krakaurer hated Anatoli but is too much of a coward to admit it so he hides behind the excuse of Anatoli not using bottled oxygen. I can't stand liars like him.
Beautifully and sensitively told. I love this channel. Someone experienced who knows ultimately there should be no dump by those who are on the ground and have the bravery of being warm and dry. All you give us is an analysis and a bit of a reprimand. I love the challenge of thinking differently with better information. Thanks for these great videos.
Me too! ❤
Thank you so much....I'm glad you feel that way and happy to have you here!
Another excellent video. I just love to hear about the happenings up there when tragedy hits and common sense seems to go missing.
Thanks so much....really happy you took the time to watch
I cannot believe a commenter stated that he cannot blame anyone for this disaster??WTF The 2 primary guides were arrogant and became complacent and let their guard down. There were an unlimited number of bad decisions that were made, throughout this journey. When people underestimate mother nature, they type of fatalities happen. Rob Hall should not be considered a hero at all. He had a pregnant wife at home, so his personal and financial focus should have been towards his family. Thanks for putting together this 2-part series.
Also, there are the debated questions about why Anatoli didn’t have oxygen during the search. We need to be a little more objective when attempting to draw an accurate picture of events, to the extent we can. Human beings are riddled with flaws and ambitions. I do not believe much of Into Thin Air. It’s absolutely self-serving at every turn. Photos and others’ interviews do not jibe with Krakauer’s narrative in far too many cases. This is why I have to discount the entire book.
I enjoy your informative, no-nonsense delivery of these fascinating accounts. Your passion for the climbing community is evident. Thanks for educating those of us who love the outdoors but have never experienced anything like Everest.
Sorry one more comment. Your last remarks about Anatoli is making it sound like that everyone that is still alive from that fateful day and also many who weren’t there believes if only he used oxygen every life would have been saved, I don’t think it’s fair to put that on him alone, he wasn’t the one and only guide and certainly not for all the teams there!
Absolutely!!!!
Very True 👍
Yep, now the story begins to skew towards that Anatoli's oxygen thing...
Ok, he was the guide but so was Scott himself and Neal and Sherpas some of whom I believe were specifically tasked with personal guide assistance.
Lopsang was personally short-roping VIP client Pittman and not using oxygen too.
What do we know next?
Boukreev reaches the summit fist after helping to place the missing ropes(!!!) and spends 1.5 hours helping the others to reach the summit.
Beidleman and Krakauer among others were the first to reach the summit.
Boukreev (for well discussed reasons), Adams and Krakauer (not his client but was one of the first to reach the summit) begin descend leaving few Sherpas and Neil behind (No signs of the storm).
Beidleman stays on the peak and spends prolonged time with Fox and Pittman while waiting for Scott's orders to begin descend (!)
Scott is nowhere to be seen and although exhausted and past the 2pm turnaround time continues to push for the summit(!)
Beidleman finally decides it is time to begin the descend with Fox, Pittman and others, with Lopsang and other Sherpa's help (clients are in the safe hands).
Exhausted Scott meets but refuses to join them on the descend (potentially providing extra assistance to his clients if needed(!!!) and instead makes irrational decision to push towards the summit. Lopsang stays with him (less help for the clients (!)
Beidleman continues to descent with exhausted Fox and Pittman and others who spent too much time at the peak when the storm hits.
Mountain Madness clients and Beidleman are lost in the storm and can no longer walk.
Storm clears a bit and Beidleman (+ guide form another team Groom and few others) set off to find help.
Refreshed Boukreev leaves camp IV to save 3 of his clients (Fox, Pittman, Madsen). Essentially all of the Mountain Madness clients were saved and survived the storm.
How is Boukreev guilty of endangering his clients by leaving early or responsible for Scott's death?
Also it feels almost like Krakauer preferred to stay closer to the strongest guy Anatoli during the push for the summit and followed him on the way back to the camp.
@@AB-ys4ynKrakauer, although a very experienced climber, was a client there to experience climbing Mt. Everest then to write an article for his magazine. He was not a guide and didn’t sign on to be a helpful assistant. He was an experienced climber and did what ANY SMART CLIMBER would do. By the time he returned to his tent at camp IV (yes?) the high winds and freezing temp there was nothing more Krakauer could do. After a few hours waiting He was one of two people, I think, that went out of his tent to look for other returnees coming in, then happened upon Beck Wethers who was literally inching his way towards camp, blind and stiff and with obvious frostbite. I think what’s not told so much is the winds were gale force and even experienced unencumbered climbers had difficulty seeing. Once snow blindness set in and even into the evening darkness the visibility was a very short distance in feet….like 3 feet. So, even helping people come in at base camp was almost impossible to see them coming towards you. It was a frightening storm.
Lopsang did not convince Fischer to descend while he was still able. I see no reason to believe that Anatoli would have succeeded where Lopsang failed.
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer is the only book that I've reread several times and I'm still not able to say why.
Rob Halls death was so avoidable; Doug Hansen stepped out of the line early on summit day saying that he was too cold and not feeling well. After a brief exchange with Hall he continued to ascend. Hansen lagged behind his climbing group all day and should have been turned around when it was obvious that he would not summit before the 1 or 2pm turn around time. ignoring that deadline defies credulity.
That Hall waited on the summit for Hansen past 4pm was incomprehensible. That Hall refused to abandon Hansen, knowing that that was his only chance to survive, says an awful lot about Hall.
Rereading the account of that disaster was frustrating to say the least because all the deaths were preventable.
Thank you, Thom, for taking such an empathetic look at this incident. Too many people want to assign blame, or find fault with the various accounts, rather than trying to understand what may have been going through peoples’ minds that led them to take such tragic decisions.
SCOTT FISCHER TOLD ANATOLI TO GO BACK DOWN AND PREAPRE FOR THE CLIMBERS!!!! AND WHY WAS SCOTT INSISTENT ON GOING TO SUMMIT?
Many people keep asking this question, the only Scott Fisher probably could answer. Maybe personal ambitions, maybe to proof to himself that being one of the strongest mountaineers he could do it. Maybe ... We will never know
Reinhold Messner, while no stranger to controversy, had very few kind words for Anatoli.
@@awmlawoffice Which is rich coming from a guy who got his own brother killed.
Messener is the greatest climber of all time, but hes a total sociopath.
I can't blame you for being choked up about rob. That absolutely tore me up, Thom. Such sad stories to tell from that expedition.
Outstanding story and intriguing from all points of view. Thank you Thom.
Glad you enjoyed it I truly appreciate it, and as always, thank you for your support!
If we’ve learned nothing else from this tragedy, as well as the Oceangate tragedy, it is that nature and profit cannot be reconciled.
Haven't read the other comments so likely repeating something here but I read both books and I so appreciate the journalism and courage to speak to what at least I was thinking about the story here. Well done, thank you.
I think our view is coloured somewhat by the fact their were two teams (loosely combined) climbing the mountain. As a thought experiment, imagine what the story would have been if there had only been Scott's team- I would venture it would go something like, Scott made a bad decision as the leader and sadly died, everyone else survived and Boukreev's actions were heroic. However, this judgement is clouded by deaths on another team.
I read Krakauer’s book when it came out. I’ve always remembered the portion about the climber who rode his bike with all of his gear all the way from (Sweden, I believe) to Nepal and then summitted (without supplemental oxygen, I believe)- but before he eventually summitted he turned back when he was very close (prior to this tragedy) then went back down and had a successful climb after the events of May 10/11. These climbers were all there and according to Krakauer were very impressed by his ability to make that call. Of course, he was alone and the mental calculus you’re describing here about how and why decisions were made was more complex plus the timing of the storm. Very thoughtful presentation.
@@unionhack6126 Goran Kropp - Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey.
Amazing story, amazing guy, and you picked up on a key part of it and what makes it even more impressive.
I first bought it many years ago along with every other first hand experience book on or related to the subject I could find - Lene Gammelgaard, Beck Weathers, Anatoly Boukreev, many more. Those three gave me different views especially, which have since and continue to form my opinions about those individuals which differ from many mainstream views, which are all too often in the Into Thin Air camp and all too often don’t consider the alternative version of the ‘facts’. But then they’re not such good story tellers, they just recount their own experiences from their own perspectives. I prefer a rounded view based on all of these perspectives rather than just one narrative.
Goran Kropp’s I keep buying copies of for friends, it’s harder to find in Europe now but plenty on an international auction site in the US.
Worth every penny/cent if it interests you, it certainly puts another perspective on self-sufficient vs. ‘assisted’ summiting of any sort!
That was Swedish climber Göran Kropp.
He showed great restraint being able to abort his first attempt at the summit. I remember him from Swedish TV with a short clip of him filming himself on the summit on his second attempt where he stated that he was happy but more than anything afraid, having passed all the recently dead climbers on his way up.
@ his book Ultimate High - My Everest Odyssey is a fantastic read. Amazing adventure.
Died falling off a 18m crag when gear came out and a wire gate karabiner failed apparently. All that stuff going on at Everest and ironically ended up succumbing to something seemingly far more mundane. Very sad.
Thanks for mentioning a film clip, I’d never thought to look for one and just found something on FB. 👍
If you say you don't take sides, don't take sides.
Yep. He shat on Anatoli first. And then said don't take side
One can point out that someone goofed without being against them or 'taking sides.' It is possible. It is only impossible for unreasonable, emotionally unhealthy people who operate in extremes.
I´m looking forward to the next re edit of into thin air. Will be interesting to see, what kind of timeline will be invented this time.
So moving especially Rob Hall’s message messages. What a man.
Anitolli was the only one who stuck to the plan. All of his clients got down and survived. This was Rob Hall's disaster not Anitolli's. But he was there to clean up the mess because of his actions that day. And saved lives.
The turn around times were totally ignored.
Actually he didn't. He was supposed to be a GUIDE.
@@IGuess...A guide not a baby sitter. Turn around times rules should have been followed.
Scott and Rob's decisions lower down the mountain most definitely played out while at the top. Scott burned the candle at both ends lower down the mountain and paid for it with his life at The Balcony. Rob should have turned Doug around at C4 as Doug was already in distress before they even left camp for the summit. He should have been short roped down to BC. Regardless, you would have to be a cold hearted bastard not to be moved by Rob's call to his wife. Just thinking about it make me wanna cry from anger because Rob should have been there for his daughter but rash decisions left her fatherless and that, in my book, is not forgivable. I know Rob was trying to be a man of his word but at certain point, health and safety are more important than words or promises.
I would not call Rob and Scott villains in this whole debacle as there is nothing productive to come from it. Personally there was too much chaos happening with the storm for anything other than sheer survival.
There was a lot of bravery and courage shown on that mountain that fateful day by all involved but the absolute beast in this story is Peach Weathers and Col. KC. These 2 people are the true heroes in this whole story. Peach literally moved mountains and threatened people to get her husband, Beck Weathers, off that mountain and THEN you have Col KC pulling off some of the most difficult helicopter flying anyone has ever done to save Makalu Gao and Beck off that mountain. I am still in awe at how Col. KC pulled that off not once but twice that day. I truly believe that the powers that protect Everest also allowed Col. KC to make his rescues that day and no one can tell me any different on this.
There was alot of things happening on the mountain that fateful day, 2 of them being ego and Mother Nature. Both of these can get you killed.
My eyes are watery now, so I'll keep this brief. Thank you for mentioning those unsung heroes that never are mentioned in any other video or comment. Its okay for Rob and Scott to make rules at BC but even they are not invincible to the effects of altitude and what it can do to their decision making. I will never understand why Rob gave his life for a client, when his beloved wife and unborn daughter were awaiting his return. He knew that Doug was not capable of making the summit and returning. I can only put it down to the altitude affecting his mind that he agreed to take Doug up, 2hrs after the turnaround time. He still had strength to try and make it down himself, yet for some unknown reason he stayed with Doug. Rob was told by BC that a team was being assembled to reach Doug and to get himself down whilst he could. He couldn't do anything for Doug, so why did he stay with him? Doug knew the risks, just like anyone else. If it wasn't for Doug, both Rob and Andy Harris would most likely be alive. Andy's loyalty towards Rob just breaks my heart.😢
@@krisushi1Doug turned around and began coming down until he reached Rob at the back of the group. Rob convinced Doug to keep going for the summit. Then when the storm hit both were doomed, even if Rob abandoned Doug he wouldn't have made it down, he was way to high.
@kylemma33 I've heard so many variations of this story of whether Doug convinced Rob or Rob encouraging Doug, that I've give up trying to sort out what went on. It makes more sense for the client who had failed to summit the previous year to be the one to want to push on and talk Rob into allowing him to summit, not the other way around. The majority of times I've heard about this part of the disaster, it's always Doug wanting Rob to allow him to keep going. I guess we'll never know for sure. Even if there was a witness to this conversation, we've learnt from the many stories that not all are credible, whether deliberate or by misinterpretation. We can analyse this disaster until we're blue in the face, but it won't get us any closer to finding out what went on in all aspects of this story.🤷🏼♀️
Excellent explanation of the events that occurred!! Thank you Thom!
I did find introspection and self-criticism in the Climb. For example, it says that Anatoly collected Yasuko’s belongings and was able to hand them over to Yasuko’s husband, to whom: “he apologized, saying repeatedly that he wished he’d been able to do more. As he spoke, tears ran down his cheeks. He said that he’d felt a personal sense of failure around Yasuko’s death, because he’d not brought to her the aid that he’d brought to Charlotte Fox and Sandy Hill Pittman. He’d made assumptions; he’d hoped for help that never came. He was sorry.” This may be a lie; but then again, so may be what others have written about this tragedy.
I have not yet read The Climb, but what you have related brought tears to my eyes. As I have seen in other comments, including my own, I believe that Anatoli was misunderstood due to his culture. I can understand this as I'm always being misunderstood despite being from an English speaking country. Americans think they know Australians, yet it's far from the truth. Despite how close New Zealand is from Australia, our cultures are very different. Just imagine how Anatoli was demonised for being from a Baltic country? As not one single person was in all places during this 1996 Disaster, no-one can speak for everything that occurred.
Why you think it was a lie?
@@dilyaramarsh7770 Everyone is capable of lying for many reasons, especially self-serving. I personally don't believe this story is a lie, yet we can only know for sure via Yasuko's family.
I thought Anatoli was from Kazakhstan? Baltic countries border the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). Kazakhstan is in Central Asia.
@@Sigismund right. But on a bigger scale, he was a russian from Soviet Union. USSR had collapsed in 1991, just 5 years prior.
You forgot the most fundamenal of facts - every client of Scott's survived. Anatoli's primary job was to keep his clients alive and he did exactly that. Scott likely died from HAPE - why no mention of that? Scott was not Anatoli's responsibility. Rob's clients were not Anatoli's responsibility (obviously).
On the other hand, Rob made some massive errors in judgement and command that cost several people their lives.
I just don't understand why people continue to vilify and criticize Anatoli then he 100% accomplished his job. The results prove his sound decisions.
In reality, there should have been 2 videos made of this day in history. First is MM team's sucesses (all clients lived) despite the weather. Then discuss why Scott was so off his game (HAPE). Second video is of AC team's very bad decisions that lead to so many deaths. Why muddy the water by combining them?
It's sour grapes.🍇
love your videos. Great voice. OH! love the new outline included above, credits and characters and time. Solid.
Thanks so much, I truly appreciate it!
I think Hall knew in that moment when he saw Doug up there and struggling that he made a mistake and decided to go down with the ship. I imagine he felt sham and disappointment, he probably felt with the death he would give his own life as well. Scott really did too much, him being a perfectionist and wanting things a certain way, going up and down the mountain so many times, while his body was telling him to stop, made it to where he didnt have the energy to make it down that last time. He really should have designated the sherpas to do some of the work. They both had way too much riding on this summit and paid the ultimate price with there lives.
I have never summitted Everest and I am still Alive so there is that
I’ve always failed to see where and why Sandy Pittman is considered so at fault for this string of events
From what I read because she they felt she shouldn’t have been short roped by lopsang who was supposed to help Ang dorjee rope the Hillary step. Because the ropes were ready it pushed everyone summit times back.
Leadership isn't about being popular or cool. It's about making and enforcing rules without fear or favour and if necessary riding over egos and basically saying "if you don't do this you're off the team". Are climbers known for being team players? I don't think so
You really have no idea.
Team leaders are often trying to herd cats when they try to manage all of the conflicting egos of climbers. They pretty much have to be superhuman
Boukrerev was used to operating without oxygen and that evidently worked for him. The middle of an evolving crisis may not be the time to change how your strongest climber operates. I think Krokauker's gripe about Boukrerev is about personal antipathies and possibly even the beta male's instinctive hatred for the alpha male. Just my impression
I remember reading Into Thin Air because I had read Into The Wild - I remember doing a double take like “wait, he was in this story??” I couldn’t believe. Very good book. Scary.
Big support for Thom from Zagreb, Croatia🇭🇷
Postal worker Hansen had NO business climbing Everest. He is responsible for Hall's death. And Hall & Hansen weren't friends. Hansen was just a client..
I love how real you are and you don't hide your emotions. It still makes me cry when I think about that conversation Rob and his pregnant wife had 😢😢😢😢 The fact he was unsavable but could still speak to the one he loved more than anyone, it's just heartbreaking 😢😢😢 I found Into Thin Air when I was 14 years old and was Instantly obsessed with this story and like so many people, it's had a grip on me ever since. I think Rob and Scott really had the best intentions for their teams, it was a whole cluster fuck of conditions that caused such chaos
@@sourgummiez The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I can not argue that Rob and Scott had the best of intentions for their teams. That is obvious to see by anyone. What you could also see was ego and arrogance. EVERYONE paid a very high price for that ego and arrogance. Some paid for it and only got PTSD. A couple paid for it with lost body parts. Quite a few paid for it with their lives. Everest is one of the places on Earth that you ABSOLUTELY have to humble yourself because she will not allow you to climb if you do not. There is absolutely ZERO room for ego or arrogance on her slopes. Safety rules lower down the mountain became mere suggestions at C4 and above. Poor decisions lower down showed their awful results the higher up everyone got until it all collided at the intersection of ego, arrogance and Mother Nature. This whole climb was a slow motion train wreck from bottom to top and the only people that could have changed the whole outcome were Rob and Scott. Had Rob sent Doug back down when Doug started having issues out of C3, Rob would probably still be alive after this climb. If Scott hadn't worn himself out by playing porter lower down, he would have had the strength to get down from The Balcony.
It is one thing to play fast and loose with your own life. It is another thing entirely to play fast and loose with someone else's life. Scott and Rob both did this and we are all still trying to figure out WHY.
Let's be real here, had both Rob and Scott simply stuck to their self declared cutoff time, they would still be alive. How was this Anatoli's fault? Anatoli knew his own strengths and weaknesses and made a decision not to use oxygen. Ignoring the cutoff time and the unforeseeable storm is what doomed them. Anatolia saves all of his clients and gets the blame? Blame the one who lived while giving the guides who were ultimately responsible a pass. Scott exhausted himself which is what killed him.
I know very little about climbing, but isn't having Viesturs, as part of a team with Breshear, "not liking the conditions up high" kind of like a mafia don suggesting that maybe in would be better if your face wasn't seen in town for a year or so? Edit: Great breakdown of the events, sensitive to human realities, good and bad.
Do you follow everything that others choose to do? We are human beings with minds of our own. These very experienced leaders from Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants were capable of making up their own minds. Weather forecasting in 1996 was not as reliable as it is now on Everest. They made their choice but unfortunately the weather came. They had no way of knowing. It wasn't only the weather that impacted this expedition either, yet many choices made.
@@krisushi1 That is an interesting argument. "Weather forecasting in 1996 was not as reliable". Isn't that a reason to be more cautious than a team might be today? "Yet many choices made". When my seven year old makes a mistake, I don't excuse it with, "that's okay. You made several other mistakes that got you in this mess in the first place." Absolutely agreed, for example, that turn around time was critical. They didn't do it. "Do you follow everything that others choose to do?" The advisers weren't some random climbers. Scott and Rob were well aware that Viesturs and Breshear were far more capable than their charges, yet these superior climbers had decided to not go.
@@jeffreybaker4399 I understand your point and have addressed other reasons elsewhere. My father would say to me when I was a child, "if I told you to jump off a cliff, would you"? I'll state again that Rob and Scott had extremely impressive resumes, look them up on Wikipedia to see how experienced they were. They felt that going for the summit when they did was the right choice. The others who did not agree, made their choices too. I have stood on top of a mountain next to the Eiger in Switzerland, which is at a higher altitude and in the middle of summer. The weather had been perfect all day with beautiful blue skies. Whilst I was overlooking a rather large crevice by myself, a white-out hit in only seconds. It came from the side of the mountain where I could not see. Before I knew it, visibility was shocking. Have you watched the movie 'Nordwand'? (It's free on YT). You'll also see in this, which is based on a true story, that weather is everything and you simply can't wait forever at Base Camp. You make the decisions you think are best. Rob and Scott believed that any bad weather had passed and continued to summit. Others on the mountain clearly felt otherwise. It's something that has to be a personal choice with the information at hand. Sorry to make this longer but you did ask.😉 It may have been having the two journalists with them that made their decision making a tad irresponsible. Just because Rob and Scott had much experience, it doesn't make them immune from them feeling the affects of altitude either. There was no reason for Scott to summit, as all of his team had summitted, yet he tried to keep going. I have to believe that in his weakened state from doing so much, that he really wasn't fully aware of what he was doing. It's much easier to enforce turnaround times when one is thinking clearly at BC. It's much different if impaired by altitude. Rob should have never allowed Doug to summit. It went against everything that he did the previous year when he made Doug go back down due to the time. Was Rob thinking clearly or did guilt also play a part? I can't begin to feel for all of those impacted by this decision by Rob, especially when Andy Harris died trying to help Rob after Doug had perished. Rob's wife and unborn child would never see him again, yet surely they had to mean more to him than a client from the US? Rob had been very strict with his rules, yet why this insane choice? As I stated in my comment, we can go over the decisions made during those fateful days and never find a solution. We can't know as both Rob, Scott, Doug and Andy are all dead. The weather never had a bearing on this initial decision that took these four lives. We must simply accept that high-altitude mountaineering is an extremely dangerous activity to undertake and there will be many more deaths over the more than 300 that have so far perished. I wish I could give you a better answer, yet no one person can know what occurred in those different areas where people perished. Despite Beck surviving, he should never have been permitted to climb so soon after eye surgery. Due to becoming snow blind, it almost took his life. It was only by some miracle that he got himself down to safety. The reason that we cannot take Jon Krakour's book literally, is because there was no way he could have been everywhere at once. Sure, he is an accomplished author, yet he critiqued when he shouldn't have. I'll finish on the oxygen usage by Anatoli. Even if another had heard Scott tell Anatoli that he was to use oxygen, we cannot know if there may have been other discussions on this issue. I have so many opinions to offer up on this that I could write a book too. If you haven't seen Nordwand, I thoroughly recommend it. Touching the Void is also worth the time. I'm glad that you're asking questions despite not being an expert on climbing. We can always learn valuable lessons.
@@jeffreybaker4399 I am late replying but it seems that the team leaders had been given weather forecasts predicting a storm. I had always been under the impression it was an unexpected event. But according to a few who were there, increasing winds had been forecast reaching max intensity on 11 May. You would think that the conditions going up should have been a signal to them but the pressure of competition may have played a role. Of course the Imax team wanted especially clear conditions for filming so they may have been more selective than other teams. But the weather was being tracked quite closely among the main teams and there was apparently awareness of an approaching severe storm. They might have hoped conditions would hold off for awhile but they spent too long getting back from summit and walked right into it.
@@Jay-f3f Interesting.
Was this a mountaineering disaster though? I would say it was a commercial guiding disaster, the root cause of which was leading un-skilled or underskilled climbers up to heights where mistakes lead to death.
It seems if modern weather forecasting ever fails during a summit push, and theres huge lines up high now, well, there will be another, much worse tradegy.
It was the weather that turned this expedition into a disaster. Those who have no experience in climbing have been doing so for ages and they have to accept the responsibility if they lose their lives, although the Expedition Companies should not be allowing inexperienced climbers to take a chance. I agree that anyone without mountaineering experience should not be allowed on Everest or any other high-altitude peak. If it wasn't for the weather that impacted this expedition, many more would have been saved. Beck should never have been allowed to climb so soon after eye surgery. It's great that more advanced weather forecasting systems have been placed on the mountain, yet as you stated, if these fail, all hell can break lose with the excessive permits given out by the Nepalese Gov't. that cause the over-crowding on the mountain. I have no interest in climbing Everest with so many inexperienced climbers or witnessing the excessive garbage dumps. It's not for me.
I agree it was a commercial guiding disaster, but I disagree that the root cause, or even much of a contributing cause, was the presence of underskilled climbers on the mountain that day. That tale has been told in print, but I don't think the evidentiary support for it is very strong at all (closer to lacking entirely). The root cause was a complete lack of leadership or contingency planning, which were 100% the responsibility of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. Hall didn't provide enough oxygen; moreover some was quite clearly taken from the cache by another expedition. There was zero, absolutely zero attempt by the group leaders/company owners to keep people together, or to assort them by rate of ascent/descent. Zero clarity on what the guides were supposed to do. Everybody, guides and clients alike, just wandered up randomly. No contingency plan for what was supposed to happen with Beck Weathers other than to stand in the snow for another day or three until Rob returned...which he was never ever going to do because he decided not to return at all but to stay with another client who was obviously not making it back alive. The other guides did their best, but there was no real plan at all.
Even on a casual half day hike in nice conditions, we make sure somebody is running sweep, somebody is keeping the pace reasonable for all participants, and making wise decisions. These highly paid "leaders" did not do any of that. All of the people that day were totally capable of making it up and down safely, with the possible exception of Weathers who was subject to a vision issue that might have been predictable. Knowing that, Hall should have sent someone back down with him right away that there was a problem. But he didn't have spare personnel or a plan for how to make use of a smaller guiding/sherpa team that would result if someone took Weathers back to safety. Lack of skill or even physical fitness played no role. The late hour and totally expected storm (should have been - same gales had blown up mere hours before they all departed) did.
The first thing that came to mind before starting to watch this video was the impact the two journalists had in the decision making of both Scott and Rob. It doesn't matter what their previous climbing achievements were, every time is different. We can go on asking 'what if' for the rest of our lives, yet all we can do is speculate. Personally, I do think that having Jon Krakour and Sandy Pittman on the teams caused both Rob and Scott to make decisions that they probably wouldn't have made if the journalists were not present. It continues to baffle me why Scott continued on to summit, despite being after the turnaround time. Could it be that it would make a better story if the entire Mountain Madness Team had summitted instead of just the clients? There was no-one present to prevent Scott from continuing up towards the summit. It was clear that Scott wasn't thinking in a rational manner or he would have turned around. His entire team had summitted, so why did he need to? It's not as if he didn't already had a very impressive resume in this field, so why continue to summit? Then, we always have to remember that our reasoning and thought processes will never be as they are at such an altitude. At least Rob was filled with guilt about Doug not summitting the previous year and wished to grant him his dream. Again, one can't think logically at these altitudes when feeling overwhelmed with other emotions. If one doesn't have the strength to order a client or employee to do as they say, they shouldn't be in this position as a leader. Doug had no right to demand that he got to the summit and Rob should have had the strength to tell him that it was too late. Due to Rob allowing his client to dictate the terms, it cost them both their lives and just as sadly, Andy Harris. It frustrates me that Rob refused to save himself and return to his wife and unborn child. They meant more to him than a client from the other side of the globe. He was told that a team was being assembled to reach Doug and to get himself down, yet he refused. We will never know why, as we can't ask Rob. I find it strange that Rob would have told Beck to stay below the summit due to his eye sight diminishing and wait for him to return. I can never understand why Beck didn't go back down with John Taske and the other two when they came across him sitting in the snow. Beck shouldn't have been permitted to climb so soon after eye-surgery in the first place. It was by sheer miracle that Beck even survived this expedition. We can never know for sure what the agreement was between Scott and Anatoli in regards to the use of oxygen, unless this entire conversation was heard and any others that may have ensued afterwards. Sure, things would have played out for the better if Anatoli had of been using oxygen - but he wasn't. I will not damn him as I was not present and neither was Jon Krakour in every place on that mountain at all times and therefore cannot possibly comment on all that happened. What we do know is that Anatoli saved lives that otherwise may have also died. Another thing we must remember when critiquing another, is their culture. Despite being Australian, many from the US etc. cannot understand my culture and how I speak, write or express myself. We are all different. As for many disliking the way in which Anatoli wrote his book, did anyone think that the way he told of what occurred was impart due to his culture? He was being called a villain in a best selling book by Jon Krakour and I can understand why Anatoli would feel that he needed to defend himself. Just because he didn't word it as an American, etc. would, doesn't make him a bad person.
We can go over this tragedy time and time again and never be able to tie it all up in a neat little bow. There will always be questions which no single person can ever answer, as no single person was in all places on Everest during this disastrous expedition. No matter how often we go over such tragedies such as this 1996 Disaster, David Sharp, Joe Simpson in the Peruvian Andes, Toni Kurtz on the North Face of the Eiger, Mallory and Irvine, there will always be questions that we can never know the answers to. How many times do we need to go over everyone's story involved in this 1996 Disaster? We'll still end up with differing points of view, just as we have now.
All that climb mountains or engage in any dangerous activity know that there is the possibility that they may not emerge alive. You're fooling yourself otherwise.
My heart breaks for my 'Kiwi Cousins' who lost their lives, especially for Rob's wife and the daughter he never met. How much I admire Andy Harris whose objective was to somehow help his dear friend to live, yet perished himself. Sure, we've learnt lessons from what occurred, but should we continue to re-hash the same story when there are so many more to tell?🇦🇺
Thom, you're the best my man, your kindness to everyone involved with this tragedy in all your different videos about it speaks volumes, you never demonize anyone, like Sandy Pittman, everyone loves to demonize her and make her the bad guy but as you know in situations like that there are no bad guys.
I'm one of the few people you'll find in your comments that "gets it" about situations like that, I've never been a mountain climber but I did have an occupation that has people cut from the same cloth, I was a union ironworker, I built buildings and bridges, so I know what it's like to live in a world where you have to literally trust the people around you with your life, and I also know that when tragedy strikes there is no finger pointing, it's just something that's not done, it's a given that everyone did whatever was humanly possible at the time, like ironworking mountain climbing is on of those things where you know what you're getting into, so you accept the dangers yourself and would never want someone to be demonized over something that happened to you, it's called wearing big boy pants and accepting that no matter what happened you put yourself in the situation you're in.
I'm not particularly fascinated with mountain climbing but you make your videos very much worth watching, you and Jake Norton, you guys make the only videos I'll watch on the subject, you and Jake are the best, you never run anyone into the ground or demonize anyone, and you're very receptive of others ideas and respond kindly and with respect even to the people who've fallen under the spell of "you know who" and throw shade and spit venom at you.
Wishing you, yours and Jake all the best in life, keep up the good work, you're a true inspiration my man.
Thanks my friend, your thoughts are truly appreciated! I agree on the Jake Norton take: he is one of my best friends from mountaineering, a kind, generous and humble soul. The world could do well to have more like him! Thanks for everything!
Thank you for your well balanced analysis of that expedition.
Anatoli when he decided to descend.... Everything was going well. No storm in site. Quick climber beast of A man, reached the camp and decided to chill. Suddenly storm hits. Guy doesn't know whether to move out in the storm and wander around or stay out and let some information percolate in. Once he has information, goes out 4 times save 3 people. Doesn't come and rest after toiling in death zone the whole night. But goes to Scott Fischer when he learnt he did not want to return. Finally climbs back down.
I wonder if there was an exchange of words and egos between Hall and Fischer that nobody knew about before the Summit push that made them ignore their rules
I've often wondered the same thing. Even a non-verbal battle of egos is fatal at high altitudes.
@@thing_under_the_stairs I agree
I really love your videos, but I have to make this comment. There is an interview with Scott on March 31st, 10 days before the summit day in ‘96. He talks about how Anatoli will be climbing without oxygen and that he thinks it’s a cool/impressive thing. Why listen to what anyone else says about how Scott felt about this situation, when we have Scott’s words on video?
@@Joseph-00-32 thank you! Please if you could, would you send me the link?
A wonderful narration you have done Sir, my utmost admiration for your skill and sensitivity.
I will no doubt be recommending your channel to my family and friends. Thank you.
Hi Thom, love the channel. There is a theory out there, on another Everest channel, that fully blames Krakauer for the death of Yasuko Namba, abandoning her on the descent, what's your thoughts?
It's total nonsense. Although, JK blames himself for the loss of Andy Harris...no one is harder on JK than JK himself.
@EverestMystery thanks so much for replying. The analysis of 96' is so fascinating, why would both teams not have more Sherpa assistance?
I love your videos and will continue to watch them all, but can you rethink leaning into the anti-Sandy Pittman nonsense. She is no more or less to "blame" than anyone on the mountain that day. She was villainised by the incredibly popular book by a journalist who saw her as a rival and perpetuated his personal opinions about her as fact. That is highly unfair, imo. She DID make several public thanks to Anatoly, yet everyone who wants to lambaste her leans into a statement made in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy that she may or may not have actually said (or said in the way or with the tone suggested in Into Thin Air). Nothing she did or was done on her behalf "caused" the tragedies and the "blame the silly little lady" trope is very tired now.
Thanks so much for your insight and for watching the video. You may have seen my video on Sandy, and in it she receives no blame whatsoever for what happened that day: ruclips.net/video/HUDODhCqgbY/видео.html
Good conclusions! I just want to add that while he didn't survive trying to save a client, Rob had a responsibility to Beck that was waiting for him. When he makes the decision to accompany Doug to the top, he completely forgot about Beck, leaving him alone with his blindness and freezing, and he also did not notify anyone on his team to help him get down (at least as far as we know). That decision seemed incorrect to me too.
Hall alliviated his clients of all decisionmaking, that's central to Krakauers book - and probably a bad thing. Given that most of his clients were accustomed to making decisions every day; thus, Krakauer could have fixed ropes on the way up, Beck could have elected to go down with the first group of downbound clients - and so on....
Thank you for your video and your honest words! I have been following reports and films about this mountaineering tragedy for a long time and, above all, I find completely uncritical portrayals of heroes about it quite inappropriate. Even someone who has done great things and died a rather tragic death can have acted irresponsibly or even stupidly in a particular situation and therefore be criticized. And this applies to Rob Hall in particular, but undoubtedly also to Scott Fisher and Anatoli Bukrejew, all legends of mountaineering. You are right to say that good leadership on the mountain and great commitment are no substitute for planning, organization, a sense of reality and responsibility for many other lives.
As I said on one of your shorts, it's possible Anatoli B. could have been on the autism spectrum. This is why his book would be mostly detailed observations rather than feelings, why he didn't really care for the interpersonal connections with the clients, why he "saved" the MM clients but left the AC clients - because that was literally his job. He was supremely talented and focused on one thing: high-alt climbing. Just something to consider when we look back and analyze the situation.
I genuinely love how empathetic you are. It’s nice to see in a man, considering all the horrible stuff going on.
There is a VIDEO of Scott saying Anatoli wasnt going to use oxygen. How can you say Scott didnt know?
In an interview with another guide on the mountain at the time, it was believed he didn't support it. I believe now that it was nuanced, that Scott wanted him to use 0's but tolerated him not using it. Thanks for watching
I’m not finished watching the video but I want to comment now so I don’t forget - what you said, about people being human and making decisions - so accurate - and the difference between Jon’s book and Anatoly’s book - so spot on. Very, very insightful and thoughtful analysis.
Rob Hall was a prince. He had told his friend he would get to the top this time. Unfortunately, promised, this time... He was begged not to leave his friend. How could he have? His wife is also a great person, I think, and did not hold any bitterness it seems. The conversations were full of unsaid but communicated anguish. Which drives home the tragedy of the whole day.
Who would you deem closer to Rob? His wife and unborn child or a client from the other side of the globe? Doug was not Rob's friend. He was a client. Rob was far to kind hearted and wanted to make Doug's dream come true, yet not at the expense of forever losing his wife and unborn child. I believe it was the effect of the altitude and Doug begging for Rob taking him to the summit that screwed everything up. With Rob feeling guilty about Doug not making it again, he went against his better knowledge and succumbed to his client, instead of Rob telling Doug it was all over. Just remember, it was because of Doug's obsession that Andy Harris lost his life too. Instead of possibly one losing his life, three did and for what? Doug was the one that started this chain of events. He should have gained climbing experience on other mountains before attempting Everest. He simply shouldn't have been on the mountain.
Without a doubt he was a fine person, very well liked by everyone. But I would not pronounce him as a "prince". He abandoned a client on a major climb, hours from safety, told him to stay put, and then decided to prioritize a different client who he had to have known was not going to survive the day, just to get that other person to the summit before he became immobile. Hall made no contingency plan whatsoever for Beck Weathers. He just abandoned him without any known second thought. That is neither a prince nor a competent expedition leader. Nor a worthy husband and father. Alas that fine human qualities are not enough to remedy these failings.
@@7phyton Beck should never have been given a permit to climb so soon after eye surgery. Beck was a mature man and should have gone down with John Taske and the others when they turned back. It sounds far to strange for Rob to simply tell Beck to stay sitting in the snow and await his return. There seems to be something fishy in this story. Someone suffering snow blindness at this point was never going to summit.
Yes, that really drives a stake in one's heart to recall that conversation Hall had with his wife.....
Basically he wasn't a manager. He didn't keep multiple factors in mind and it had catastrophic consequences. Very difficult sometimes to be a manager and a nice person
I have always been captivated by the 8000'ers stories of those who have climbed. I celebrate their victories and grieve their losses and pray for them on the mountains. I would have loved to climb Mt. Everest and K2 but it would never happen. I'm an armchair mountaineer living vicariously through those who climb. I love these stories and I am always sad when climbers don't make it and perish. I love the way you tell their stories with such compassion and concern. Thank you!!
Isn’t that extremely dangerous to linger for six hours? Are you kidding me? It doesn’t matter if he’s a guide he shouldn’t have to be put in that position as well as he told them before he started expedition that he would do it he could be without oxygen so that’s not his fault at all.
Not on the summit....of course that would be nuts...but somewhere above the S Col and closer to where the clients were clearly struggling.
@@EverestMysterywouldn't the right thing to do be to send a struggling client down with a Sherpa/guide?
Again - Rob Hall failed his clients, particularly Beck Weathers, because he decided to 1) allow Beck Weathers to wait for him to come back down from the summit and then 2) delayed coming back down from the summit even longer to assist Doug Hansen to the summit (causing Hall to summit twice and expend that additional energy and oxygen as well). In so deciding, he was putting more importance on helping Namba and Hansen get to the top than his obligation to assist Weathers (who had indicated he needed help directly to Hall). Fischer failed his clients when he persisted to summit after he was aware that they had already begun to descend. As a guide and exhausted as he was, he should have given up his own summit plans accompanied his clients and his guide down the mountain. These were the two crucial mistakes on the mountain that day - both made by the the expedition leaders.
I acknowledge that they are human beings. So was Anatoli and Lopsang. Pitman was merely a client, and it was acknowledged even by Krakhauer that she did not ask Lopsang to short-rope her. I find it really odd that people continue to criticize Boukreev on his non-use of oxygen when it so clearly did not compromise his performance. Using oxygen would not have caused him to summit more slowly and, in all likelihood, would not have caused him to descend more slowly or to stick with the slower clients. He was, by all accounts, a notoriously fast climber. The only difference his using oxygen would have made to the events that transpired would have been that he consumed 3 bottles of oxygen that could have been (and likely were used) by someone else on the mountain that day. I also find it odd that people insist on blaming Pitman for any of it. She was merely another client and was clearly a better climber than some of the other clients and a lesser climber than some others.
I watched the first video and I'm about halfway through this video, but you're starting to lose me.
For all of Krakauer's supposed introspection, he really doesn't talk about real decisions or how his decisions impacted anything. As far as I can see, he didn't make any real decisions. He can whine about the ambition that drives him and others to climb the mountain, but he doesn't evaluate decisions in any kind of analytical way. He seems to engage in navel-gazing about climbing but not in risk analysis or root cause analysis. He thinks that his empty mea culpas give him the right to attack everyone else's decisions on the mountain that day. I disagree.
My background is in engineering with a great deal of experience in root cause analysis. Before my health failed, I spent my career looking at why things happened. I looked at both the technical factors and the decisions that people made. I don't see many people doing worthwhile analysis of these kinds of factors.
The deaths on the south side of the mountain seem to boil down to a few decisions.
Most of these decisions were related to Rob Hall's team. Yasuko Namba, Beck Weathers, and Doug Hansen didn't go down the mountain in time. Lou Kasischke and John Taske realized that they couldn't summit by the turnaround time, and they returned. As a result, they are alive and have suffered no physical injuries from the climb. Rob Hall had asked Beck Weathers to promise not to descend until Rob Hall was there to help him. That decision cost Beck Weathers all of those injuries. If Beck Weathers had agreed to descend with Lou Kasischke and John Taske as they descended, Beck Weathers would have been safe in his tent instead of nearly dying. If Rob Hall and Andy Harris hadn't been trying to get Doug Hansen to the summit and back even though they were past their turnaround time, they would have returned to the tents before the storm was bad. If they had turned Yasuko Namba around when she showed that she was clearly not able to make the ascent and descent, she would probably have survived. Again, the specific decisions were 1. the failure to turn around Doug Hansen when he clearly wasn't able to make a safe ascent and descent; 2. extracting a promise from Beck Weathers to wait specifically for Rob Hall rather than to descend with the first people who offered to help him; and 3. the failure to turn around Yasuko Namba while she still had the strength and time to descend.
Scott Fischer didn't need to summit Everest that day. He continued climbing even after all of his clients were heading down the mountain. People attack Boukreev for not being with the clients, but they seem to excuse Scott Fischer for continuing upwards while all of his clients were descending to Camp Four. If Scott Fischer had gone down with his clients as they descended instead of continuing to ascend, he'd probably be alive today.
I don't see any way that Boukreev's decisions had any impact on anything. He couldn't have moved any of the Mountain Madness clients down the mountain any faster than they were already going. While he was the strongest climber, he didn't have the authority to make them leave the summit any sooner or turn around once they were beyond the two o'clock return time. If he could have moved them down the mountain faster, then his using oxygen and being there with them might have mattered. As it was, I see no way that his using oxygen and staying with them would have improved anything. If nothing he did could have changed anything, then criticizing him is foolish.
I may not like the fact that he didn't use oxygen, but I don't see that decision as having an impact on anything.
He went forward to the summit ahead of the others because he was setting rope towards the summit. His being without oxygen might have forced him to return earlier, but again, I don't see how his being there would have made the others move any faster on their descent. If they didn't move faster descending, then they wouldn't have been caught in the storm. If they hadn't slowed to take care of Beck Weathers and Yasuko Namba, they might have gotten back to the tents before the storm anyway.
The competitiveness of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer might have influenced their decisions that day, but the decisions are still only influenced by competitiveness. The decisions didn't depend on competitiveness. If they had made better decisions at the top of each team, deaths on the south side of the mountain would have been much less likely.
I can't remember the different teams and who lead which, but non of Bukreev's team (apart from the leader) died that day. Not only that, but Bukreev had climbed Mount Everest a fair few times previously, ALL without oxygen. By no means a novice on this climb. Being able to move quickly is what allowed him to save the lives of many climbers that day. Also, Krakow is well known for exaggerating stories and bending the truth (Into the Wild is another example of this to his take on the Everest expedition).
Fantastic video series. I've been watching them for the better part of the last week if for no other reason than the sheer depth of information and the nuanced takes.
I will say, I think we have a tendency to not blame the dead too often for actions which could be seen as their responsibility. The more I've learned about the 1996 expedition and subsequent disaster, the more I'm convinced that Krakauer had a bias against blaming the deaths on Rob and Scott. I can understand if he did so with that bias in mind to not blame the dead. But then I look at who he ultimately blamed (Anatoli and Sandy Pittman along with Lopsang) and I just shake my head. Because in the end, of the three, only Sandy survives to this day. And as a result, she's come to be seen wrongly as the villain in all this. It's all kind of sad. But at the least, I'm glad you've been making these videos and kind of setting the record straight as it were.
And I will say videos such as this finally got me to go hiking into the local mountains more. With an eye first and foremost on safety and being more aware, so as to avoid situations which could put me in unnecessary risk.
Hey, sorry a bit off topic but I recently saw your Nat Geo documentary on finding Sandy Irvine. Do you have any video's on this channel covering that? I also checked out the band King Gizzard you mentioned when I commented on your last video. I would recommend the band Tool if you like psychedelic prog rock. Cheers.
I have watched rob halls stories and he was a great man who lost his life looking out for other peoples best interests. His conversation with his wife the past conversation was deeply heart wrenching..may he rest in peace.
Your videos are very interesting and informative but also great for falling alseep to!
Granted it was almost 30 years ago. As I get many more laps around the sun I feel the as an Expedition Leader you need to be the one to make the hard calls. If you set the rule turn at 2, you turn at 2. One of the questions that i do not see talked about that often is should an expedition leader even be climbing. As the person in charge and responsible for the entire group you should be the one with a clear head at all times. Also one of the sentiments that Anatoli brings up is if you have 65 K and are in reasonable shape you can buy your way on to an expedition. I think there are way to many permits given to people that have not paid their dues on lesser mountains that would prepare you to climb Everest.
Yes, Beck Wethers is the miracle story of that season. You should interview Beck for your channel. It would be awesome.
You’re right, it wasn’t the one thing that caused this disaster. It was the lining up of all the holes in the Swiss cheese, a term used in dissecting air crashes.
Hall's decision to continue to the summit was obviously catastrophic, had he turned Hanson around, perhaps most everyone not named Hanson, live to breath another day!
Yes, for sure....quite a sad story... Thanks so much for watching!
I don't think any of your comments were an attack on anyone's character. You gave your honest, professional opinion about the circumstances of the climb and the storm. You didn't condemn anyone's character or villainize a group or individual. I found this video (and your others) incredibly insightful.
The only thing I will say about Boukreev's claim that he did everything right and made no mistakes is, what else could he say? Any sort of introspective doubt he may have expressed would have resulted in someone suing him.
I find your videos thought-provoking and very well balanced, which is quite rare and honestly, a breath of fresh air. Thank you.
I'm truly happy you feel that way and glad that you found the channel. Thank you!
I really blame the 2 leaders. Both of them ignored their usual guidelines in part due to the journalists
I appreciate very much your empathy, insights & fair analytics on this tragedy. As a lay person I now understand everyone is summiting for very different reasons. It’s also amazing the differing levels of expertise, personalities & how all that cohesion (or not) plays into a successful expedition. Of course there is much to be learned (!!) But excessive ambition can be blinding. Same mistakes will be made again by many bc some think they are different. It‘s a flaw of human nature. Those who made the excruciating decision to turn back & therefore survived, are real heroes, great examples of discipline by true professionals & lived another day to summit if they so chose to. (Did those 3 try again & did they succeed??)
Your explanation of this tragedy is so very valuable to us who follow climbing in the Himalayas. Your expertise brings reality to the conversation. Thank you Thom!!
I dont climb.. but if I did I would turn around, and live.
A great, informative, well thought out video. Thank you for this.
Just came across your videos, in looking to do a trek to Everest Base Camp. Your content is fantastic. Just one question, I have watch a lot of videos on the 1996 disaster and during one of those videos, it is mentioned that extra oxygen bottles may have been stolen from the south summit that could have been used by Fischer and Hall. Is this something you have come across
Thanks so much, I'm glad you found the channel. I personally have never heard anything about bottles of O's being stolen. Unless that info is directly attributable to quotes from someone who was there, ie primarily guides like Beidleman & Mike Groom., I'd doubt very seriously that anything was stolen. But, it has happened before on the mountain and will happen again. All that said, O's near the South Summit were there, and because of altitude disorientation, one of the guides thought they were completely empty....but they were actually full. So, essentially, the O's were there. Cheers, keep me posted on your journey to Everest Base Camp!
Enjoyed learning from your assessment. You always seem to be fair and humbling no matter what the critique. Thank you.
Jon Krakhaur was very jealous of Bourkeev.
1. Bourkeev got on the summit first.
2. Bourkeev did not fix the ropes because his team clients did not have oxygen yet and if he fixed it the Jon and his team would get their first.
3. Jon refused to go help others when Bourkeev asked him to.
4. Jon slept through the storm in which he famously reported on (the irony) while Bourkeev was saving lives
5. Eventually Bourkeev team had one casualty and he even went back for that one causualty to make sure that he could save him.
6. Boekeev was a hero. Jon was a jealous journalist.
7. Remember Jon was paid by Rob’s company to report on it, he had to find someone to blame that was not in his team. Who better than the man he was jealous of