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Julian
on Everest?
(Brought
to you by: The White Rose Emporium)
Electronic Telegraph - Saturday 24 August 1996 - Issue 459
Everest overrun by social climbers
Everest Assault '96
Brian
Blessed is obsessed with climbing the mountain - too
many others
just want to add it to their CV.
Cassandra
Jardine reports
BRIAN BLESSED
suddenly leapt to his feet and flung the contents of
his teacup into
the bushes. "Get out, go away," he boomed, before
stomping off
theatrically. With that, our discussion of the actor's
latest trip to
Everest was over almost before it began. "You have made
me feel awful
about being an adventurer," he bellowed, before
expelling me
from his animal sanctuary near Chobham, Surrey.
While making
the doomed cup of tea, he had told me that his three
Everest
attempts helped his credibility as a promoter of animal
charities. He
had also agreed that they fitted in with his career as a
theatre
director. Perhaps it had struck him, as we talked, that he
was in danger
of being painted as one of the new breed of Everest
climbers, those
who view its conquest as a way to ascend a social or
career ladder.
These
"peak-baggers" have become the source of controversy. It is
generally
accepted by experts that if the world's highest mountain
had not been
clogged by the inexperienced, there might not have
been a record
death toll of 11 in the disastrous storm of early May.
Woken by
sherpas bearing cups of tea, pampered by guides telling
them exactly
what to do, the dilettantes are flummoxed when
something goes
wrong. Litter, mobile telephones, movie cameras,
Internet
broadcasts and sleeping bag romances have become a
feature of the
world's highest, most exclusive, holiday destination.
In the past
five years, the 29,028-feet summit has become the place
to go for those
seeking a break they can boast about, one that will
give them
dinner-party kudos and add a zing to their CV.
The fashion
began with Dick Bass, a coal, oil and resort tycoon, and
Frank Wells, a
senior Disney executive, who went to Everest in the
late Eighties.
Now, every weekend jogger with a monstrous ego,
money and spare
time can have a go. Tour companies have sprung
up which, with
varying degrees of scruple, will give them that
chance.
'People go
in pursuit of a vain dream. It's not
spiritual:
it's ego'
"Everest
is overrun by people seeking a short cut to stardom," reports
Paul Deegan,
who was there during the disastrous storm. Base camp
has become a
high-altitude circus where more than 100 aspirants
socialise and
acclimatise while awaiting their chance. For one scant
week in May,
when the impending monsoon stills the wind, Everest
is feasible.
Then, team after team files off, and slower climbers can
hold back the
rest - with tragic consequences.
So popular has
the easier South Face grown that the trek to base
camp has become
known as the Yellow Brick Road, in recognition of
the many
wealthy individuals who pay up to £40,000 for their
summit attempt.
Queues of yaks and sherpas arrive bearing their
champagne
bottles and designer kit, along with trekkers such as the
Duchess of
York, who are not tempted to climb the peak but are
quick to spot a
smart holiday destination.
"Some even
bring their cooks," says Matt Dickenson, who filmed
Blessed's
attempt on the North Face this year for Monday's Channel
4 film, Summit
Fever. "There is no doubt that some see Everest as a
social calling
card. But human beings are not meant to go that high.
Even at base
camp you feel apathetic; you wake up gasping for air
and you feel
sick. The cooks do not last long."
Among the
objects of derision this year was a Swede who had
bicycled to
Nepal and was being met by his girlfriend for the ride
back. The South
African team, half of whose members defected, was
also the butt
of jokes. Only a telephone call from President Mandela
cheered them up.
But far and
away this year's most notable show-off was Sandy
Pittman, a New
York socialite, who wanted to scale the peak, her
friends say,
because she likes to be best at everything. She posed for
Vogue before
she left and her departure party was attended by
Bianca Jagger
and Calvin Klein. Accompanied by her espresso
machine and
linen table cloths, she entertained visitors while
waiting for her ascent.
Compared
with some aspirants, Blessed is
almost a realist
She did make it
to the top, though the leader of her party died on
the way down.
Only a few days later, she was holding a cocktail party
in Kathmandu,
which featured margaritas made to her special recipe
and a sherpa
band. Having broadcast on NBC and the Internet, and
told Oprah
Winfrey about her adventure, Pittman is writing a book
entitled
Summits of the Soul.
Climbing is now
commonly viewed as a "spiritual" experience.
Buddhists
believe that mountain tops are holy places, and New
Agers are
clamouring for the thrills of thin-air hallucinations. Brian
Blessed, on a
previous trip, claimed Everest transformed him into
someone
"very happy, very peaceful", and this time he took with him
a scarf from
the Dalai Lama. His aim was to plant it on the top, while
chanting.
"We come
not to conquer you, but to befriend you," he told the
impervious lump
of rock in fruity thespian tones. For Blessed,
Everest is a
woman - "sphinx-like, insoluble, beckoning". But Geoff
Birtles, editor
of High magazine, is sceptical about the Om-talk:
"People go
in pursuit of a vain dream. It's not spiritual: it's ego."
Simon Lowe, of
Himalayan Kingdoms, the company which took
Blessed,
debunks the idea of any enjoyable sensations. "You don't
get a high. It
is not a euphoric realm; it is exhausting and painful."
Bathed in a
golden light, the mountain looks alluring from afar, but
its charms are
not apparent to those struggling up in bitter winds.
Sunglasses mist
up, oxygen masks obscure the view. At the
"snooker-table
sized" summit, as Dickenson describes it, there is
only enough
time to add a little to the debris at the top - a scarf, a
family
photograph or, in the case of Sandy Pittman, a specially
designed piece
of jewellery - before making way for the next group.
Blessed is a
borderline case of self-promotion. He seems genuinely
obsessed with
following in the footsteps of his hero, George Mallory,
who died
attempting the northern approach in 1924. Despite being
59, overweight
and with a bad foot, he has reached 25,000 feet,
higher than any
non-sherpa of his age without oxygen.
He went to
prove a point. "If a stupid old pillock like me can get up
Everest,
anything is possible," he told me, before his temper got the
better of him.
His doctors had told him there was no way he would
make it to the
top without oxygen cylinders, and they were right.
Some blame
the commercial expeditions for
taking risks
in order to please existing clients
and attract more
Compared with
some aspirants, Blessed is almost a realist. "I have
high achievers
telling me they want to climb Everest, who have never
been climbing
before," says Todd Burleson, who runs Alpine Ascents
of Seattle.
"Some take two steps and decide it's enough."
"People
want to climb Everest who can scarcely get up their own
staircases,"
adds his friend, actor Julian Sands. Sands' passion for
climbing began
during his childhood in the North of England. The
star of A Room
With A View, who more recently played a pimp in
Leaving Las
Vegas, now lives in Los Angeles, but he dissociates
himself from
the thrill-seekers who treat Everest as the next
challenge after
the Hollywood Hills.
Sands would
have been on Everest himself this year, in the same
expedition as
Pittman, but for "providenza". The death of his
mother-in-law
and his wife's pregnancy prevented him going, but he
intends to try
one day. "The deaths have not put me off, because I
trust those I
climb with," he says.
To him,
mountains are "the greatest cathedrals in the world", but he
keeps his head.
"I climb as a recreation, not because of a void within
or a need to
prove myself. The less good climbers need to get to the
top as evidence
that they can do it. Such mad dogs exist, and you
usually find
them curled up and frozen solid. If you take risks, the
odds turn
against you."
It is that
crazed desire to get to the top, whatever the conditions, that
has killed so
many. Some blame the commercial expeditions for
taking risks in
order to please existing clients and attract more. "It's
all
money-driven and clients want to be able to say they reached the
summit,"
says Birtles. The commercial expedition leaders see it
otherwise:
"People are safer with us than on their own," says
Burleson.
"Had it not been for the commercial expeditions who laid
the ropes and
showed the way, there would have been many more
deaths this year."
Base camp is
regularly visited by helicopters
lifting off
those with broken legs, heart
attacks and
a good story to tell
Three Indians
who died on the North Face this year showed how
foolish the
unguided can be. Having not planned to go to the
summit, they
set off nine hours too late for an attempt, but decided
they couldn't
resist. They reached the top at 6.30 pm, allowing
themselves only
half an hour of daylight for the descent, with the
temperature
dropping, the wind rising and their oxygen cylinders
nearly empty.
"In thin air, your objectivity goes," says Sands.
Burleson
believes the standard of climber has dropped in the past
five years
because recent successes have made it sound "like a yak
trail" to
the summit. "With advances in equipment and clothing,
understanding
of acclimatisation and time and money to spend on
recreation,
more people feel they can do it," says Sands.
As a result,
the base camp is regularly visited by helicopters lifting
off those with
broken legs, heart attacks and a good story to tell. A
helicopter has
even managed to rescue an American teenage girl at
21,000 feet: a record.
This year's
death toll is shocking. But tour companies are not
worried that
business will dry up. "The disasters could be good for
business,"
says Dickenson. "So many people have been lucky in
recent years
that Everest was in danger of losing its reputation for
being a killer mountain."
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