Sir Chris Bonington

When Everest was climbed first in 1953 Chris Bonington was a young English mountaineer of 17 years. Later he did historic climbs like the first ascents of Annapurna II in 1960, of the Central Pillar of Freney on the south side of Mont Blanc  in 1961 and of the 7285-meter-high Ogre in the Karakoram together with Doug Scott in 1977 (the second ascent followed only in 2001). But Bonington also proved to be a great expedition leader. In 1970 he led the successful expedition to the South Face of Annapurna, in 1975 the expedition to Mount Everest, during which Doug Scott and Dougal Haston climbed the Southwest Face first. Bonington himself reached the summit of Everest in 1985 as a member of a Norwegian expedition. He was knighted by the Queen in 1996 for his services to the sport. I met the 78-year-old climber last week at the diamond jubilee celebration of the first ascent of Mount Everest in the Royal Geographical Society in London and asked him – of course – about his thoughts on Everest.

Sir Chris Bonington, 60 years after the first ascent of Mount Everest, how do you feel about these pioneers? 

I’m a great believer in the heritage of our sport, looking back, enjoying and learning from what our predecessors have done. In a way that first ascent of the highest point on earth is one of the very, very great occasions. I think it’s story. How they succeeded and worked together, it was a superb team effort. It’s something very special. 

Hillary was a New Zealander, Tenzing Norgay a Sherpa living in India, but I think it was a great push for British mountaineering because it was a British expedition which was first successful on Everest. 

British and New Zealand, because George Lowe and Ed Hillary were two important parts of it. It was a Commonwealth expedition. But the key thing was that the individuals who came together were undoubtedly melted as a team by John Hunt who was a supreme leader. I think he provided a blue print of how to go about planning, organizing and leading an expedition. It was the achievement of all which of course Ed Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay kind of completed.

Has it been an initial point for your generation to do something more difficult?

That’s a natural progression going from the base what has been done in the past to take one step further into the future. And therefore naturally the next generation is trying to take it on other levels. When for instance we climbed the Southwest Face of Everest, that was the next thing to do. Reinhold Messner’s solo ascent of Everest from the north was an extraordinary step. There have been a whole series of developments on Everest and within the mountain as a whole.

But it seems to me that after this era there was a step back when commercial mountaineering took over.

No, it’s not a step back, it’s just natural evolution. You can see exactly the same thing happening in the Alps where mountains like the Matterhorn or Mont Blanc are guided. Hundreds of people go up every single day guided by professional mountain guides. It was almost an inevitable thing that was going to happen in the Himalayas and it has done. And it’s enabled hundreds of people to reach the top of Everest. It’s not a give-away, it’s still a tough game for those individuals, 2000 people at basecamp, 200 people going up the Lhotse face, 100 people going to the summit in a day aligned on a fix rope put up by the Sherpas. That’s something that happens. But what the elite of climbers are doing – and they do extraordinary things – is climbing Alpine style in very small parties, four maximum, usually two, very often solo. That is climbing adventure at its upmost. There are still thousands of unclimbed ridges and faces in the Himalayas on the peaks around 8000 metres. Everest, if you like, is no longer a place for the pioneers. The pioneers have gone elsewhere.

Sir Chris Bonington about commercial climbing on Everest

This spring brought a Sherpa attack against the European top climbers Simone Moro and Ueli Steck in Everest high camp. What do think about it? 

I think that was very unfortunate. I’ve got a great respect and liking for Ueli, I know him and Jon Griffith, the English climber (who was also involved in the brawl). They were doing a kind of acclimatization climb up the Lhotse face to the South Col, maybe dumping a bit of stuff there as well in preparation for what they were planning to do, which was actually to do an amazing ascent. They were trying to keep out of the way of the Sherpas. In no way they did interfere with them. I think there has been a lot of tension and resentment by the Sherpas perhaps feeling that they had not been paid enough. Lots of things that have nothing to do with what these three climbers were doing. But there was a configuration and the Sherpas attacked them. I think that was unforgivable, it was appaling and very unfortunate. But what it highlighted was that the whole system on Everest needs to have a serious look. What is needed is that the commercial expedition leaders, the government, the Sherpa community, all the various people involved on Everest, need to get together and have a serious talk about how can we improve the situation. There is something that needs to be done by consultation, talk and discussion. 

Sir Chris Bonington about the brawl on Everest

Would you say it’s a conflict that has emerged long ago and has now broken out? 

I think it has been simmering for quite some time. It’s the same with everything. When there are too many people, when there are two bigger crowds, when that kind of pressure is involved, when money is involved as well, that’s why things start going wrong. 

Dawa Steven Sherpa

Mount Sherpa. That would be a better suited name for the highest mountain of the world, which instead was named after Sir George Everest, a Surveyor-General of India in the 19th century. The history of Mount Everest is also a history of the Sherpas. The „eastern people” who had fled from Tibet to Nepal in earlier times were engaged for the early British expeditions in the 1920s. One of the two climbers who scaled Everest first in 1953 was a Sherpa: Tenzing Norgay. At the latest since commercial climbing was established on Everest sherpas have become indispensable. Without their support most of the clients wouldn’t have any chance to reach the summit. Due to this important role sherpas have an excellent reputation all over the world, many have achieved modest prosperity. Sherpas are also working as successful entrepreneurs, doctors or pilots. They know that these achievements are due to Everest. „As a Nepali, Mount Everest is my identity to the world. As a Sherpa, Mount Everest is the reason we have education, health care and prosperity”, Dawa Steven Sherpa wrote to me. „As a mountaineer, Mount Everest is the playground where I learned to explore myself, my limitations and my abilities as a person.” 

Twice on the summit of Everest 

Dawa Steven (r.) cleaning garbage on Everest

The 29-year-old Nepali belongs to a generation of Sherpas that has benefited from Everest from an early age. Together with this father Ang Tshering Sherpa Dawa Steven is managing „Asian Trekking“, a leading agency for expeditions and trekking in Nepal. His mother comes from Belgium, he studied in Edinburgh in Scotland. In 2006 Dawa Steven summited Cho Oyu, in 2007 for the first time Mount Everest. The following year the young Sherpa scaled Lhotse and five days later Everest again. For the last five years he has been leading „Eco Everest Expeditions“, which combine business and ecology: The clients are led to the summit on 8850 meters. In addition all members collect garbage from the slopes and bring it down to the valley. 

Basecamp bakery 

Dawa Steven is creative in raising money for ecology. In 2007 he founded the „world’s highest bakery” at 5350 meters in the basecamp on the Nepalese south side of Everest. Chocolate cake, apple pie, doughnuts and croissants went fast. The climbers were willing to pay higher prices because it was to a good cause. The money was used for projects to prepare local villages in Nepal for the effects of climate change. To raise awareness to the dangers of global warming Dawa Steven in 2012 walked together with Everest record climber Apa Sherpa on the „Great Himalaya Trail” 1555 km from the east to the west of Nepal. Later he was awarded with a first ever WWF award for outstanding achievements of people under the age of 30 for nature conservation around the world.   

Love for mountains and ecology 

On Island Peak (Ama Dablam r.)

On the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest Dawa Steven wishes a „next generation of adventurers, who will love the mountains and protect them from harm”. (You really should read his full statements on the two Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.) For Sherpas Dawa Steven hopes that the mountain will provide opportunities furthermore. „For the Nepali, I wish that Mount Everest will continue to make them proud to be a Nepali”, he writes. „For all the people in the world, I wish that Everest will continue to remind them that it is the highest mountain in the world.  Therefore, as citizens of this world Mount Everest belongs to all of us.”

Miss Hawley (and Ralf Dujmovits)

Perhaps I have exaggerated. Following my request to send her comments on Mount Everest 60 years after the first ascent Elizabeth Hawley replied: „Your questions seem to anthropomorphize Everest, and I don’t see it that way at all.” The world’s preeminent chronicler of Himalayan mountaineering is already 89 years old. For more than half a century the Amercian, living in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, has been documenting expeditions to high Himalayan mountains. It’s an unwritten law that you haven’t been on the summit until Miss Hawley has confirmed that you really have been on the top.

Only an enormous mass of rock

Prior to and after expeditions she or one of her assistants visits the climbers at their hotel and asks them about their plans and afterwards about what happened. Although she herself has never climbed a high mountain the Chicago born journalist knows about so many details of the 8000ers that she is able to expose any liar. That way Miss Hawley has also been playing an important role in Everest history. Nevertheless she only sees Mount Everest „as an enormous mass of rock shaped roughly like a pyramid with numerous features that are treacherous for mountaineers. (e.g., cornices, crevasses) and possible sudden change in the weather, all at extremely high altitudes”. (You can read Miss Hawley’s complete statements on both Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.)

Ultimate challenge Horseshoe route

Miss Hawley doesn’t wish anything for the mountain itself, because „it is sufficiently formidable that no humans can harm it”. But the chronicler of Himalayan mountaineering calls for more sporting spirit. She would „wish much better vetting of the people who attempt to climb it, thus eliminating the many incompetent men and women”. Miss Hawley condemns „circus antics such as standing at the summit for six minutes with no clothing above the waist or playing a stringed instrument at the top or hitting a golf ball off the summit”. Instead, climbers should have a try at unsolved problems on Everest, e.g. climbing new routes on the vast east face or “by the ultimate challenge of a continuous traverse via the Horseshoe Route along only ridges”: up the west ridge of Nuptse then over Lhotse and South col to the summit of Everest and finally down the west ridge back to the starting point, „all at very high altitudes without the crutch of any bottled oxygen”. Miss Hawley “would also like to see many women pioneers”. Women had been catching up with men, but “it’s time for them to do something new and different that men have not yet done”.

Namasté, Chomo! Stefan speaking.

Oh no, you again.

Take it easy!I haven’t woken you up from your hibernation, have I?

Look at your calendar! Pre-season. I’m still on vacation.

Do you look forward at least a little bit to the climbers who will visit you in this jubilee season during which the 60th anniversary of the first ascent will be celebrated?

Do you really want me to answer honestly?

Yes, please.

If it was up to me, at least 90 percent of them could go to hell. Nevertheless they will come. Without my invitation.

In this case ten percent remain for you to welcome.

You don’t listen. I said at least 90 percent. But between you and me: Indeed I look forward to a few of the climbers.

For example?

Simone Moro from Italy and Ueli Steck from Switzerland, the Kazakh-Russian Team Denis Urubko/Alexej Bolotov and the Russians Gleb Sokolov und Alexander Kirikov. They will scratch me, where I feel itchy.

Please, explain it to me!

Have you ever heard of RSI?

Should I?

RSI stands for Repetitive Strain Injury. Someone who is always doing the same move, e.g. mousing, will sometime feel pain in his shoulders, neck, arm or hand.

And what has all this got do with you?

(He groans) For lunkheads like you: Year after year hundreds of people are crowding around on the two normal routes, that’s completely overusing. It really hurts. And where nobody is climbing, that is on my beautiful steep walls, I feel itchy. A withdrawal symptom. The opposite of RSI.

I understand: Climbers on new routes offer relief.

No shit, Sherlock! If Urubko and Bolotov climb on southwest face, Sokolov and Kirikov on east face and Moro and Steck whereever but on a new route, they are like a yaktail I can use for chasing the flies away.

That comparison falls short, because these top climbers may scratch your unattended areas, but won’t make you get rid of RSI.

For this I have my own yaktail.

But you don’t even want to …

Come on, don’t give me ethics!

But can you turn a blind eye this jubilee season at least?

My eye has been closed for years.

Why?

Because the blowflies are sitting on it.

Does it mean that you threaten them?

I am only a mountain, do you remember?

Bernd Kullmann

Bernd Kullmann has a unique place in the annals of Mount Everest. When he stood on the summit on 8850 meters on October 17,1978, he wore an original Levi’s blue jeans. „I wasn’t only the first, but probably the only one, who ever did it”. Kullmann, now aged 58 years, said, at that time it was common to wear knickerbockers in the Alps. „We as young people wanted to provoke. We climbed the north face of Eiger in Jeans. So I found it logical to use Jeans on Everest too.” Above Camp 3 at about 7000 meters Kullmann covered his jeans with padded overtrousers. „We had not enough money for down garments. I didn’t even have long johns beneath.” Kullmann wore his jeans for all seven weeks they spent on Everest – with consequences: „In Kathmandu I could put it literally in the corner of my hotel room.” Kullmann didn’t dispose his durable trousers even then. „Later it was washed and I used it again. Jeans were simply my favourite garments.” 

Three pillars 

Ten years later Kullmann returned to the 8000-meter-peaks for a double expedition in Tibet. In spring 1988 he climbed Shishapangma in Tibet. A little later on Cho Oyu he had to turn back below the summit due to a storm. „Afterwards the issue 8000-meter-peaks was settled for me,” Kullmann said. He was not only focused on mountains. „My life is based on three pillars: family, job and climbing. None of these may suffer, because in this case my whole life would suffer.” Kullmann can combine job and sports. He is managing director of the outdoor company Deuter in the city of Augsburg. „I myself can test all the products we are selling.” On average he is still spending about 80 days per year on climbing or hiking in the mountains.

Ten guardian angels 

Kullmann said, that he had become more careful. Not without reason. At the beginning of the 1980s he fell seriously when he did a solo climb, „in a period, when we thought nothing could happen to us. We were slightly arrogant.” He spent one and a half year in hospital and in a wheelchair. Afterwards he started climbing again. „Often there was plenty of luck involved”, Kullmann said. „ And sometimes I needed not only one, but ten guardian angels.” 

Commerce kills good style 

The „jeans-climber” is still watching what’s happening on Everest. „Today I wouldn’t like to climb there.” Kullmann said, adventure had got lost. “In 1978 I stood on the summit alone and in a storm, with fear of climbing down. It was an incredible situation. Tears were rolling down my cheeks.” A picture of him on the summit of Everest doesn’t exist.

Kullmann said, that day Everest was tied up with ropes. Everywhere guides and sherpas were leading up their clients. „Today they must queue to reach the summit.” Due to improvements of gear, sports medicine and training methods in his opinion all climbers should try to climb without supplementary oxygen. „Exactly the opposite happens. Commerce has killed the good style. But where a demand exists, a market develops. Unfortunately this happened on Everest too.” 

P.S. Bernd Kullmann has also given his statements concerning the 60-years-jubilee of the first ascent of Mount Everest. You can read and hear his words on the Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.

Edurne Pasaban

In sports the second is often seen as the first looser. On May 17,2010 Edurne Pasaban from Spain finished the climbing of all fourteen 8000ers. But up to now it’s not clear whether she was the first or second woman who achieved this. Oh Eun-Sun completed the 8000ers three weeks earlier, but it remains disputed, whether the Korean really reached the summit of Kangchenjunga. When I talked to Edurne at the trade fair ISPO in Munich, I felt that the 39 years old climber is in harmony with the world around her, with the mountains and herself:

Edurne, you completed the fourteen 8000ers in 2010. Have you been in the Himalayas since then?

I came back to Everest in 2011. Everest was my first 8000er in 2001, I used (supplementary) oxygen for the summit. So after I had finished all 8000ers I wanted to try Everest without oxygen. But we didn’t make the summit. 

Until now there have been debates whether Oh Eun-Sun really reached the summit of Kangchenjunga or not. Have these discussions been difficult for you or have they left you cold? 

I think this kind of dispute is neither good for me nor for Miss Oh nor for all alpinists. It’s no good image for climbers. It was a difficult situation that I could do nothing. The Korean Alpine Federation said that she didn’t climb Kangchenjunga, so the debate began and it was a very crazy moment for me. 

Edurne Pasaban: The dispute about Miss Oh

In this case not Miss Oh, but you would be the first woman who climbed all 8000-meter-peaks. Do you feel you are the first or the second? 

It was the big project, the big challenge of my life to finish all 8000-meter-peaks some day. It’s true that it’s nice to be the first one if you make something, but it’s not the most important, there are many more things. I spent a lot of time in this one. It was one part of my life, but now I’m in another period. 

Did you fall into a deep hole after you had reached your target? 

I thought: What can I do now? I had spent a big part of my life on expeditions. When you make one, you already make plans for another one. I saw a big hole in front of me. But when I took care of it, I said: First I need time for me. Now I have spent two years. I continued climbing in the Alps or elsewhere. I never thought that I could live one day without 8000ers, but now I can. Life continues. 

Edurne Pasaban: Life without 8000ers

Is it a kind of new freedom? 

Yes. But when you are at the end of something, you don’t see this freedom very clear. You need time to see that you can make something more – like going to the Pyrenees with my friends or to the Alps for ten days climbing or skiing. I didn´t have this time before, now I have it. 

Have the 8000ers lost the fascination for you? 

No. They are still important. I have spent nice years of my life there. If now a good friend asks me ‘Edurne, do you want to come with me to an 8000er?’, I will go. Because I like the area in the basecamp and I like expeditions.

Next May the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest will be celebrated. How do you think now about the highest mountain on earth?

Everest is a special mountain, it’s the highest, the top of the world. And everybody, who starts climbing in the Himalayas or elsewhere, has the goal to climb Everest at least once in his life. When I made it in 2001 I thought before that I would cry on the summit or would be crazy. But it was not like that. I felt fear, took a picture and went back. I lost a little bit there. Everest is nice and the highest, but it’s not a fantastic place. Everest has changed a lot during the last years. It’s true that it’s a commercial mountain in spring, on the normal route from the south and the north side. But if you want to go to Everest without anybody you can do so: In winter or on another route. There are more than 15 routes where nobody is climbing. We speak a lot about the many people on Everest. But there is another Everest that you can find if you want to.

Would it be attractive for yourself to do it?

Only two percent of the people on Everest are without oxygen. When I started to climb 8000ers I checked it out and said: Only a few are without O2. So I also used oxygen in 2001. But after all 8000ers I know that you can go to Everest without oxygen, if you train a lot. Now I know my body, how I feel in high altitude. So I have this inside me that maybe one day I will like to come back to Everest without oxygen.

Edurne Pasaban: Everest without oxygen

What do you wish Mount Everest for the future?

The last news from Everest were not good news. It looks like Everest is a show, like a Disneyworld. But it’s not like that. So I think the best present we can give Everest is to have big respect for him. Maybe Mount Everest is a commercial thing, but it’s a mountain, the highest, and we must respect him.

P.S. You can hear the statements of Edurne concerning the 60th anniversary on the pinboards on the right side of the blog.

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is still dreaming of Mount Everest. The 42 years old Austrian has not yet given up her plan to climb through the north face to the summit on 8850 meters via the so-called „supercoloir“-route, although she failed twice. In 2005 and 2010 the conditions on the wall hadn’t allowed to climb this route. „In my eyes Mount Everest is still a beautiful mountain, especially from the North, when you stand directly at the foot of the north face”, Gerlinde said (you can read and hear her statements on both Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog). „Nevertheless I won’t return to Everest in the near future.” 

She watched the scene from Nuptse 

The shock is still present about what she saw last year on the highest mountain on earth. Together with David Göttler Gerlinde had climbed the 7861 meter peak Nuptse, it was the sixth ascent of this mountain in the immediate vicinity of Mount Everest. From there she saw the long queue of Everest climbers in the Lhotse wall. Before, she had noticed how unsteady many of them used their crampons. „All this troubled me greatly”, Gerlinde said. „And it hurts. This mountain hasn’t deserved it.” Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner was the first woman who climbed all fourteen 8000ers without supplementary oxygen, 2010 she was successful on Everest via the Tibetan normal route. 

Her proposal fell on stony ground 

On occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first ascent Gerlinde wishes Mount Everest more quiet and climbers „who visit him by conviction, with real enthusiasm, and who try to climb the mountain on their own, not using all available means, whatever the cost”. At the debriefing with Nepalese authorities in Kathmandu after her expedition in spring 2012 Gerlinde proposed to give Everest permits only to mountaineers who have climbed at least another 8000-meter-peak before. Her appeal fell on deaf ears.

Tibetan side of Mount Everest

Mount Everest is celebrating a 60-years-jubilee. Not concerning his real age. Chomolungma counts millions of years, not decades. 60 years ago on the 29th May Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first to set their feet on the the highest point of the earth. Since 1953 Mount Everest has been climbed more than 6000 times, about 4500 times in the last ten years.  

Not unchangeable 

Thinking about how climbing of Chomolungma has changed in the past two decades, it’s difficult for me to celebrate this 60th birthday light-hearted – although it would deserve it. The first climb of Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay was a pioneering achievement of two outstanding adventurers. Both are dead and we cannot turn back time. But do we have to accept the current situation? The problems are caused by human beings and they can be solved by human beings. 

Everest 60 

I open two pinboards titled „Everest 60“. You find them now on the right side of the blog. I invite you to write on the first pinboard how you consider Mount Everest. On the second you can send „birthday-boy“ Chomolungma your wishes for the future. Send your notes by email to stefan.nestler(ad)dw.de! I pin them to the board. Please don’t write a novel. In this case I claim the right to shorten the text.

During my visit on the trade fair ISPO in Munich I started to ask famous mountaineers to contribute their views on Everest. You will find these statements soon in blog-posts and on both pinboards too. And I’ll keep on collecting.