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IN1766

Tragedy on Everest

02/2014-5519
This case was written by David Breashears, Morten Hansen and Ludo Van der Heyden, with the assistance of Elin
Williams. It is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective
handling of an administrative situation.
Additional material about INSEAD case studies (e.g., videos, spreadsheets, links) can be accessed at
cases.insead.edu.
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Prologue
On May 10, 1996, a blizzard hit the summit of Mount Everest. On the southeast route alone, five
climbers perished in the storm. Others among them – marooned by darkness, flattened by high
winds, numbed by frostbite, confused by lack of oxygen – were lucky to survive. Some would be
left disabled for life.

Yet, five or six weeks earlier, expeditions had gathered in the warm spring sunshine of Base
Camp staring at the beauty of the world’s highest mountain, hoping and praying for benevolence
from the mountain, the weather and the winds…

Early April: Arrival

Welcome to Base Camp, a ramshackle collection of 300-plus tents and makeshift rock shelters
strewn across the dirty ice of the Khumbu Glacier in Nepal.

While you are picking your way among the rubble of rocks, ice, people and yaks, you soon
realize that this chaos is ordered. The shelters are in fact grouped according to 14 expeditions of
varying sizes. The larger settlements have dedicated tents for cooking, eating, communications
equipment, latrines and even solar-heated showers, as well as sleeping quarters. And if you raise
your eyes above the jagged lines of colourful nylon peaks, you see the world’s most awe-
inspiring skyline in all its celebrated splendour.

As you linger in Base Camp, certain people begin to stand out from the crowd of around 300
temporary residents. The first you notice is a wiry, affable New Zealander with a bushy dark
beard and a dry sense of humour. Behind the twinkle in his eyes, however, lies an unmistakable
intensity and focus. His confident and commanding air suggests that – if such a post existed – he
would indeed be the ‘Mayor of Base Camp’, as some already call him. Indeed, Rob Hall (age 35)
is in charge of the largest expedition that season: 26 people, including eight clients who have
each paid up to US$65,000 to be guided to the world’s highest point. And back again.

They could not be in safer hands. Hall’s marketing material promotes his company, Adventure
Consultants, as the ‘world leader in Everest climbing’. His record speaks for itself, so this is not
just marketing puff. One of his colleagues will later recall that he was “the guy who was seen as
the best in the industry, the one that everybody else looked up to for the organized way in which
he ran his expeditions.” 1 Over six years, he has successfully taken 39 amateur climbers to the
summit of ‘the Hill’, as he calls it. Maybe – some are quick to point out – he has been blessed by
good weather throughout this career, but, as Pasteur said, ‘luck favours the prepared mind.’

Last year, 1995, was not so successful. He and all his clients were forced by conditions to turn
around just 100 meters from the summit. If anything, this one failure to reach the top has only
served to enhance Hall’s reputation for safety.

1 Guy Cotter, Hall’s former climbing partner and an Adventure Consultants guide on another Himalayan
expedition in 1996: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/stories/lifeafter.html

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This year, there is another formidable presence in Base Camp, the American Scott Fischer (age
41). For his Mountain Madness guiding company, based in Seattle, it will be a first ascent of
Everest and only the second peak over 8,000 meters (26,250ft). Fischer himself has already
reached the top of the ‘Big E’, as he calls it, without bottled oxygen. His mountain credentials are
impeccable. His party of 23 is almost as big as Hall’s, charges similar prices and also numbers
eight clients. But assembling the expedition has been tedious, and some of his intended guides
have joined other expeditions, including Hall’s. He still needs to establish his firm’s Himalayan
reputation.

Fischer’s herculean silhouette is in stark contrast to Hall’s. Tall, muscular, square-jawed and
blond-ponytailed, with a gold ring in one ear, he is not only physically impressive but also has a
magnetic personality. ‘People just gravitate to him,’ 2 say his friends. They admit that his easy-
going demeanour makes him less imposing than his Adventure Consultants counterpart but insist
that he is every bit as charismatic.

It takes a little longer to notice a third significant figure, David Breashears (age 40), also from the
United States. He too has a track record: he has reached the top of the world twice already and
broadcast the first live television pictures from the summit back in 1983. In 1985, Breashears
took a friend, the wealthy 55-year-old businessman Dick Bass, to the summit – until then, the
preserve of only elite mountaineers.

This year, however, he has assembled a team of ten paid experts, climbers and cinematographers,
with a total budget of US$5.5 million, to bring back the world’s first IMAX® large-format
footage from the summit. If they succeed it will be an unprecedented technical and logistical feat.
For Breashears, who has been making documentaries about Everest for 15 years, shrinking film
to the size of a television screen each time, the IMAX project is a chance to create images on a
scale (22m wide by 16m high, or 72ft by 53ft) that does justice to the world’s highest mountain.

In addition to noticing these three expedition leaders, you also notice that you are short of breath
and easily tired. This is a consequence of the altitude. At 5,300m (17,600ft), there is only half as
much oxygen in the air as at sea level. As a result, your body is less efficient. Everything takes
more time and much more effort.

Here are some other facts. If you had landed on the summit of Everest instead of at Base Camp,
you would probably be dead by now. The air at 8,848m (29,028ft) – the altitude of a cruising
airliner – has only 20% of the oxygen that is available at sea level, and the humidity is
uncomfortably low. The human body cannot survive more than few minutes at that altitude unless
it has undergone a process of acclimatization – going progressively higher (and then down again)
over the course of several weeks. Even then, above 8,000 meters survival is a matter of hours.
Most climbers, including professionals, rely on bottled oxygen to remain strong enough, warm
enough and clear-headed enough to make it back down quickly. That’s why the area above

2 Neal Beidleman, a Mountain Madness guide:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/etc/remembering.html

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Everest’s South Col at 7,900m (26,000ft), where most expeditions make their high camp in
preparation for the final summit push, has been dubbed the ‘Death Zone’.

Here are some final facts for anyone on the mountain this spring of 1996. The path to the top is
strewn with bodies, some preserved by the low temperatures for decades. By now, thousands of
people have attempted to reach the world’s highest summit – and many have been successful.
Everest has been climbed more than 800 times by various routes, with and without bottled
oxygen. Nearly 150 people have paid for their dreams and ambitions with their lives. In the 1980s
alone, 1,871 climbers set off from Base Camp. Just 180 made it to the summit; 56 died. The odds
of failure are high. You’d better get on with preparations – it takes your mind off these statistics.
If you think too hard about them, you will never make it to the top.

Mid-April: Acclimatization
‘Climb high, sleep low’ is the relentless mantra of the acclimatization process. Up and down, up
and down – 600m (2,000ft) or so higher each time, as your body adapts. Four to six weeks of
danger and boredom in equal measure, passing between the chiasmic crevasses and teetering
towers of the Khumbu Icefall, just above Base Camp, on every upward and downward trip.

Hall’s Adventure Consultants stick together throughout the acclimatization phase. He runs the
proverbially tight ship, carefully controlling the seasoned Base Camp team and meticulously
supervising his two fellow guides, Australian Mike Groom (37) and fellow New Zealander Andy
Harris (31). Groom has already climbed the world’s four highest peaks without bottled oxygen.
However, on one expedition he lost the front third of both his feet to frostbite; it took him two
years to walk again. His feet are now more vulnerable to frostbite. Harris, on the other hand, has
never climbed anything above 7,000m (22,100ft); his great climbing skills, youthful enthusiasm
and dedication to his hero, Rob Hall, amply compensate for his lack of experience.

As well as a professional base camp manager and a team doctor, the other paid members of the
team are Sherpas, the Nepalese mountain people who are essential members of any major
Himalayan expedition, and are all the more important when guiding clients. Born and raised at
14,000 feet, Sherpas have adapted physiologically to cope with backbreaking work at altitude.
They are the undisputed pioneers of Everest climbing and have a reputation for unwavering
loyalty – at least to members of their own team. For cultural and economic reasons, even the most
experienced Sherpas are reluctant to challenge Westerners.

Thanks to Hall’s experience, reputation and resources, Adventure Consultants has been able to
recruit seven of the most respected Sherpas in the business. Their tasks include fixing ropes,
carrying equipment and hauling supplies up the mountain, including the burdensome, expensive,
yet life-preserving oxygen cylinders. Most of them have climbed with Hall before and are as
devoted to him as young Harris.

The eight clients, in contrast, have no load-hauling or gear-fixing duties. They do not even have
to make their own tea. Among the assorted, international group are a lawyer, a publisher and

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three doctors, including Beck Weathers (49), a talkative Texan pathologist. The only woman is
Yasuko Namba (47), a diminutive and very quiet personnel director from Tokyo, who is
following in a proud tradition: the first woman to climb Everest back in 1975 was Japanese.
Weathers and Namba are well on their way to completing the ‘Seven Summits’ (the highest peaks
on each of the world’s seven continents). But Everest is in a different league from the other six.
How different becomes apparent only when you set foot on it.

Not all clients exude affluence – or its attendant confidence. Doug Hansen (46), from Seattle, was
turned back by Hall in 1995 just 100m (330ft) below the summit. He was suffering from altitude
sickness and only narrowly avoided catastrophe. Postal worker by day and construction worker
by night, Hansen has spent the intervening year trying to raise enough money to return. He didn’t
succeed, but Hall has let him come at a reduced price. He likes Hansen.

Another bargain was struck over one of the last clients to join the team, Jon Krakauer (42), an
American journalist, former carpenter and keen climber, though without high-altitude experience.
He has been assigned by Outside, an influential and high-circulation American adventure
magazine, to write about the burgeoning industry of Everest guiding. His passage is paid in the
form of advertising space. He was due to climb with his old friend Scott Fischer, but at the final
hour Hall offered the editor a better deal. Fischer is still none too pleased about Krakauer’s
defection.

Mountain Madness and Fischer have achieved their own publicity coup in recruiting Sandy Hill
Pittman (41) as a client. Although Pittman – back for her third attempt on Everest – is a well-
known columnist, she is also a wealthy New Yorker whose society exploits are said to fill more
pages than she writes herself. She is not the only extrovert on the team. Flame-haired, flamboyant
Danish lawyer Lene Gammelgaard (35) is set on becoming the first Scandinavian woman to
climb Everest – and insists she will get there without bottled oxygen.

Other clients include Fischer’s very good friend Dale Kruse (45). He is a dentist from Colorado
who, as the first client to sign up at full price, has effectively provided the “seed funding” for the
Mountain Madness expedition. Though technically accomplished, he has a poor record of coping
with altitude. Like Doug Hansen on the other team, he is physically fit but cannot overcome his
own genetic heritage. Also on the team is American mountaineering legend Pete Schoening (68),
bidding to become the oldest man to ascend Everest. He has brought with him his nephew, a
former downhill skiing champion. Two other skiers (a romantically linked pair of ski patrollers
from Alaska with strong mountaineering experience) and a Wall Street trader, also a seasoned
mountaineer, complete the client list.

While Hall’s clients are marshalled up and down en masse through the perilous beauty of the
Khumbu Icefall, and progressively higher, Fischer’s are encouraged to acclimatize individually
and at their own pace under his watchful (if sometimes distant) eye. Of course, they are also
given ample support. Mountain Madness, like the other big expeditions, has a sizeable group of
climbing Sherpas as well as a Base Camp team. In fact, Fischer has managed to find an
adventurous young medic who is willing to act as both base camp manager and team doctor –
without pay.

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Fischer has also succeeded in enlisting one of the most highly respected mountaineers in the
world as his second-in-command. High-altitude legend Anatoli Boukreev (38) is planning to
climb without bottled oxygen, as he always does, despite his guiding responsibilities. The
Russian-born Kazakhstani has worked as a guide previously and climbed Everest multiple times,
but the combination of imperfect English, professional pride and natural aloofness does not
always make for an easy relationship with the clients – or, as the weeks wear on, with his
expedition leader. He is fortunate that Mountain Madness’ other guide, Neal Beidleman (36), an
experienced American climber but Everest first-timer, is often on hand to smooth things over.

The IMAX team includes some very seasoned climbers. But the most famous name belongs to
possibly the least experienced. Jamling Tenzing Norgay (31) is the son of Tenzing Norgay, the
Sherpa who made the first-ever ascent of Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1953. Now Jamling has
decided to follow in his father’s footsteps up the Southeast Ridge. With him are Araceli Segarra
(26), a photogenic, exuberant Catalan with an impressive climbing résumé, and maverick Sumiyo
Tsuzuki (28), the second Japanese woman at Base Camp that spring. Culturally, she is very
different from the rest of the team – and she takes a decidedly iconoclastic approach to Japanese
culture too, especially her country’s male-dominated climbing scene. All three, if successful, will
be making their long-yearned-for first ascent of Everest. In fact, both women have experienced
the anguish of turning around high on Everest in the last few years.

Not so for Ed Viesturs (38), Breashears’ deputy. He has already been to the top twice without
bottled oxygen and is considered one of America’s finest mountaineers. At the same time, he is
known for his reliability and resourcefulness. ‘Steady Ed’, as he is nicknamed, has even brought
his new wife along as base camp manager for a distinctive honeymoon experience. He has
climbed several other 8,000 meters peaks and worked as an Everest guide for Rob Hall just last
year. His catchphrase is ‘Getting up is optional. Getting down is mandatory.’

The roll call of experts is completed with a strong team of Sherpas, a Base Camp production crew
and an Austrian cameraman, Rob Schauer (42), who is also one of Europe’s leading
mountaineering filmmakers. With so many experts on board, it is not easy for a self-confessed
micromanager like Breashears.

The international character of the team makes for an exotic and eclectic cuisine. Segarra’s parents
own a bistro near Barcelona, so the mess tent is well stocked with fine Serrano ham prepared by
her mother. Tsuzuki has brought unagi (smoked eel) and plum wine from Tokyo, and Schauer
shares smoked meat and pungent Austrian cheeses. Mealtimes are as important for bonding as
climbing together – and the team spirit is soon strong. 3 Breashears will later recall: “There wasn’t
a prima donna in the bunch. None of us harboured any illusions about who the real diva was.
Everest would take centre stage.” 4

However, there is one impostor in the camp in the guise of a 19kg (42lb) behemoth: the low-
temperature, high-altitude, ‘lightweight’ IMAX camera that has been specially engineered for the

3 Breashears, 1999, p. 232

4 Ibid., p. 234

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occasion. Before coming to the mountains, Breashears spent weeks testing the camera in a cold
chamber at temperatures of –45°C (–49°F) to the point that he had total confidence it would
work. With the battery, lens and loaded film magazine removed, the unit can be reduced to just
about 11.5kg (25lb) – the maximum weight a very strong Sherpa can be expected to carry above
7,600m (25,000ft). On the other hand, this means reassembling the monster at the summit –
without any pieces rolling down into Tibet.

Late April: Acclimatization (continued)

As April marches on, the inexorable routine of acclimatization continues and the temperature
rises. The steady up and down of carrying loads, preparing camps and shaping human physiology
seems as if it will never end. Most of the hard work is left to the Sherpas, but crossing the
Khumbu Icefall and climbing the valley above it become unpleasantly hot work for everyone.
Temperatures here can reach as high as 37°C (99°F), making the terrain of land-locked icebergs
melting slowly downwards all the more dangerous.

Back at Base Camp for the obligatory rest between upward forays, there are good times,
especially in the three expeditions’ mess tents of an evening. Team dinners are the most
enjoyable and bonding part of the routine. But during the day, boredom inevitably sets in. The
main activities are eating, sleeping, reading, writing home, washing clothes in plastic buckets and
most of all waiting.

During this time, the teams barely communicate with one another. Rob Hall is immersed in his
meticulous planning and strict regime, under which Adventure Consultants clients are told when
to sleep, when to climb, when to eat and when to drink. His less accomplished clients work hard
on improving their technical skills under his watchful eye. Hall continues to involve himself in
every detail of life at Base Camp and of the increasingly higher climbs the group is now
performing.

In the Mountain Madness camp, there is less need to improve ice-climbing skills. Team members
continue to acclimatize at a more individual pace, but the up-and-down routine is the same. Scott
Fischer faces a number of early logistical issues – from customs problems with his Russian
consignment of oxygen canisters to price disputes with the Nepali porters who bring Base Camp
supplies. A high-altitude tent designed to withstand extreme winds fails to arrive.

There are fewer unforeseen setbacks in the IMAX camp – except for the regular, lawnmower-like
roaring of the monstrous camera (which became a full member of the team when the others
nicknamed it ‘the pig’) and the occasional unwanted ‘extra’ when a member of another team
wanders into a shot.

As well as acclimatizing and filming at lower altitudes, the team is also planning to stash a
carefully calculated number of extra oxygen bottles at Camp IV, high on the mountain. That will
give them the option of more than one summit bid if necessary. Breashears has purchased extra

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oxygen bottles accordingly and has also paid extra for a climbing permit that allows enough time
for a possible second attempt.

April–May: Setbacks
Only when faced by unlikely circumstances do the parallel existences of the teams meet. On
April 7, an Adventure Consultants Sherpa falls into a crevasse. Rob Hall is forced to enlist the
help of Sherpas from other teams to rescue him. They are not pleased. They have enough tiring
and dangerous work of their own to do.

In mid-April, Sumiyo Tsuzuki from the IMAX team cracks a rib during a coughing fit – a
common injury at high altitude. She stoically soldiers on. In the Mountain Madness team, there
are similar problems. Dale Kruse is starting to show symptoms of his old propensity for altitude
sickness. And, after severe insomnia brought on by altitude, Pete Schoening comes to accept that
he will not become the oldest man to climb Everest after all. He counts himself out of the final
push.

The problems are not just physical. On April 20, Fischer has a minor showdown with Boukreev
in Lene Gammelgaard’s presence. He tells him:

“Anatoli, you were hired to guide on this trip – to mingle with the team – not just to
work hard high on the mountain. If you merely function as a strong climber, I might
as well have hired an altitude Sherpa”. 5

On April 22, a more serious incident shakes the Mountain Madness team. As Scott Fischer is
descending, he comes across one of his Sherpas sitting high on the mountain. The man is
exhibiting the symptoms of high-altitude pulmonary oedema (HAPE): difficulty breathing,
coughing, tightness in the chest and extreme weakness. Fischer tells him to go down immediately
– the only cure. But instead, perhaps to save face or simply out of misplaced loyalty, the veteran
Sherpa chooses to go up and spend the night recovering at 6,500m (21,300ft) in Camp II. He
arrives delirious and coughing up pink fluid.

With no Mountain Madness guides present, four clients undertake emergency treatment, radioing
their inexperienced team doctor on the team’s antiquated communications equipment for
instructions. She calls on another expedition’s physician for advice, but the recommended
treatment has no effect and, the next day, a rescue party of guides and Sherpas is sent up.
Meanwhile the clients try to drag the sick man down to meet them on a makeshift toboggan – one
of them exhausting himself to such an extent that Scott Fischer has to effect a second rescue
mission himself. While the critically ill Sherpa is evacuated by helicopter to Kathmandu, the
rescuers are left in a state of fatigue at Base Camp.

As the camps take root higher up the mountain, mid-May is fast approaching – and with it, so
everyone hopes, the window of summit-enabling weather that usually opens up at this time of

5 Gammelgaard, p. 107

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year. Rob Hall’s high-tech satellite communications crackle with forecasts. A sense of
anticipation – mingled with dread – hangs heavy in the thin air of Base Camp.

The realization is also dawning that a comparatively large number of climbers are targeting the
same small annual time window for the climb to the top. Some coordination is needed. Rob Hall,
predictably, steps up to organize matters. There is a meeting of expedition leaders in the
Adventure Consultants mess tent, and an agreement is negotiated. The IMAX team will go ahead
of the other groups and reach the summit on May 8 or 9. That leaves them with the option of a
second attempt. Hall, Fischer and company, whose tight schedules allow for only one summit
bid, will follow next on May 10. Remaining teams, including a small Taiwanese group, will
follow later.

Thus, if things go according to plan – and the mountain herself is in agreement – all three of our
teams will meet, Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness going up as IMAX comes down
on May 10.

May 8: Departure
For all the rigorous planning, the teams’ paths cross earlier than expected – and much lower.

The traditional Everest timetable is to climb to Camp I above the Icefall, possibly spending the
night there, before moving on through the steep valley known as the Western Cwm to Camp II –
and the next day to Camp III, perched on a tiny ledge on the face of Lhotse (Everest’s lower
neighbour). This is the highest point at which the clients have slept during their acclimatization,
but most of them have also been as far as the final camp at 7,900m (26,000ft) on the South Col
(between the summits of Everest and Lhotse and just below the Death Zone). As day trips go,
Camp III to Camp IV is not far: only 500m (1,640ft), but most of them are vertical – and they
include the rocky challenges of the Geneva Spur and the Yellow Band.

On the morning of May 8, the IMAX team are indeed at Camp III, as planned. They went to bed
yesterday evening in peak physical condition with a sense of unstoppable momentum. Then high
winds battered their tents all night, thwarting all attempts at sleep. Sumiyo Tsuzuki has cracked
another rib in another coughing fit. Now, looking up with bleary eyes, they see clear skies. But
the more experienced climbers scan the slopes above and detect strong winds up high. Looking
down with the same weary gaze, they see 55-plus tiny figures beginning the climb from Camp II.

Breashears consults Ed Viesturs and Rob Schauer. Instincts born of experience tell them to wait
at Camp III another day for the winds to die down and for everyone to get some sleep. However,
if they wait, they will get caught up in a procession of climbers of varying abilities. And that
spells risk – with no benefit. In any case, Breashears and his team are there to make a film about
majestic isolation rather than the mass ascent of 16 clients with their guides and Sherpas.

The choice is stark: go up quickly as planned or go down and wait several days at Base Camp for
the rush hour of human traffic to abate. There is, however, no guarantee that the pre-monsoon
window of good weather will stay open long enough for a second attempt to be feasible, no

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matter how much they have planned for it. After examining options and conditions, the three
senior team members collectively agree that going down now – however paradoxical and
disappointing for the team – is the best way to safeguard the film project at this time. The upward
momentum that has been building during the climb quickly deflates. But at least the worst will
have been avoided: to be caught in traffic, with bad weather and plenty of congestion, while
being unable to either film or move.

Throughout their morning descent, the tiny figures climbing towards them grow and one by one
turn into familiar faces. A few are clearly struggling but refusing to give in. Others are strong and
moving well. Jon Krakauer, ever the journalist, noted down Doug Hansen’s words during the
previous day of rest at Camp II, but they express what everyone is feeling: ‘I’ve put too much of
myself in this mountain to quit now.’ 6

Breashears meets Hall at about the midpoint of the strung-out group. It has turned into a beautiful
day. ‘I felt embarrassed explaining to Rob why we were heading down now that it was a warm
and sunny day,’ the filmmaker will later recall. ‘Rob looked diligent, competent and in complete
control.’ 7

Last of all, surprisingly late in the morning, comes a tired-looking Scott Fischer, whose
friendship with Breashears goes back many years. He has forgone the rest day on May 7 to take
Dale Kruse back to Base Camp after a recurrence of the dentist’s altitude sickness. By now, only
six of Fischer’s clients remain. Yet still he wears his characteristic charismatic grin.

May 9: Diversion
The IMAX team has slept at Camp II. They wake late on May 9 and linger in the sun. By now the
line of tiny figures is far above them, inching towards the distinctive smudge of the Yellow Band
that leads towards Camp IV. And above Camp IV looms the summit, whose attraction they can
feel even here.

The last of the tiny figures finally arrives at Camp IV in the afternoon. The members of the
watching IMAX team know that only the lucky ones will be able to snatch a few hours’ sleep,
even with the help of bottled oxygen, before setting off once again for the final assault just before
midnight.

That afternoon, a distress call comes through on Breashears’ radio. A member of the small
Taiwanese expedition left his tent at Camp III in the early hours of the morning to relieve himself
– and slipped into a crevasse. He didn’t seem badly injured at the time, so his colleagues headed
on upwards. Despite an earlier promise to wait until Hall’s and Fischer’s expeditions are on their
way down, the Taiwanese leader, accompanied by Sherpas, is now aiming to reach the summit on
May 10 too. Meanwhile, the condition of the injured man is deteriorating, hence the emergency
message from the Sherpas who stayed with him.

6 Krakauer, p. 148
7 Breashears, 1999, pp. 254–255

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Breashears and the two senior members of his team, Viesturs and Schauer, immediately offer to
form a rescue party. They move swiftly up to Camp III. But to their horror, they find only a dead
body. They decide to drag the corpse down and arrive back at Camp II late in the evening. As
they settle down for a second night there, a dead man whose name they do not know is lying just
outside their camp. They are tired and in disbelief as to how this could have happened.

Meanwhile, up at Camp IV, a storm roars all evening, making it all the more difficult to rest. ‘It
was living hell in those tents,’ one of the expedition members will later say. But at 8.00 pm calm
descends. Despite protests from several clients, Hall communicates his decision: ‘11 o’clock. Be
ready. We’re going.’ In just a few hours, while the IMAX team sleeps on at Camp II, Adventure
Consultants and Mountain Madness will be entering the Death Zone.

Morning and Afternoon, May 10: Ascent

Just past midnight, Hall’s and Fischer’s teams have already been climbing for an hour. It is a
perfect, clear night. ‘The Milky Way was on fire,’ one of the guides will later recall. With their
headlamps, the climbers look like a procession of white spots on the black mountain, moving one
by one at a safe distance from each other, yet keeping the line intact.

Everyone is feeling the effects of altitude: while hearts pound rapidly, movement and thought are
sluggish. Andy Harris, Hall’s junior guide, is also feeling stiff and bruised after being hit on the
chest by a falling boulder between Camp II and Camp III.

As usual, the plan is to climb through the night and – except for a few Sherpas and Fischer’s head
guide, Anatoli Boukreev – with bottled oxygen. The route lies along the rocky Southeast Ridge to
the Balcony, a small snow ledge with breathtaking views at dawn. From here they must press on
to the mini-peak of the South Summit, where the ridge becomes knife-edged before rising into a
forbidding 12m (40ft) wall of rock: the notorious Hillary Step. Two Sherpas from each team have
already gone ahead to fix ropes, including the lifelines that will enable the clients to ascend (and
later descend) the Step one at a time. After that, it is a comparatively easy climb to the top
through deep snow.

Speed (or at least what passes for speed at high altitude) is essential, as the body and brain
deteriorate with every passing second in the Death Zone. Even with the extra oxygen bottles,
stashed by the Sherpas on the South Summit, each person has only enough to last until about 5.00
pm. They must be back at the relative safety of Camp IV – or very close to it – by then.

Rob Hall has drummed the rules into his clients: first, his word is law on the mountain; second,
they must stick close together so that the guides can keep track of them; third, they must respect
the turnaround time of 1.00 pm (in poor weather) or 2.00 pm (in good weather). Even easy-going
Scott Fischer has insisted on the importance of a turnaround time. Yet today, puzzlingly, no one
has mentioned it. The excitement of the final push has focused all minds on the climb, not on the
descent.

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At 5.30 am, the first climbers arrive at the Balcony on schedule, only to find that there are no
fixed ropes. For some reason, the advance Sherpas did not leave ahead of the others after all.
Later, some will blame bad or competitive relationships between the two groups of Sherpas.
Others will cite erroneous reports that an earlier expedition had already fixed ropes. But to this
day no one truly knows why the fixed ropes were not there.

The ropes must now be installed, causing the clients to back up on the Balcony. They huddle for
nearly an hour, getting colder and edgier. Then the sun rises and with it their spirits. For some,
the beautiful view alone justifies all the efforts so far. However, not everyone is there to see it.
The publisher on Rob Hall’s team has already turned back. And now at just 7.30 am Beck
Weathers can’t see it either. He has suddenly become more or less blind. As a doctor he realizes
that his condition is due to a combination of altitude and a recent eye surgery. No medical
expertise is needed to realize that he cannot go on. Hall volunteers two Sherpas to accompany
him down, but Weathers refuses:

− I just climbed all night to get to this place. I’m not going to go.
− I want you to promise me that you’re going to stay here till I come back.
− Cross my heart, hope to die. I’m sticking. 8
Later in the morning, the team shrinks yet further when the lawyer and the two other doctors turn
back. One of them will later recall the moment very clearly:

“It was a struggle at that point within myself, a struggle of the voices, the one voice
inside of me saying: ‘Just do it, go for it, come on, 120 minutes, what’s the big deal?
Besides, others are still going, so it must be OK.’ … But another voice was saying:
‘Wait a minute, think for yourself. It’s getting too late.”’ 9

Despite Hall’s insistence on obedience, they take the decision into their own hands, and turn
back. Of the Adventure Consultants clients, only Krakauer, Hansen and Namba are still climbing.
All six of the Mountain Madness clients who made it to Camp IV are still going strong.

There is a second bottleneck at the South Summit. The two teams gather under the remains of
tattered old ropes from previous expeditions, increasingly hypoxic, sleep-deprived, hungry and
dehydrated. Boukreev eventually leads the climb up the Hillary Step, fixing the rope that others
will use as he goes. By now, vital time has been lost. The first suggested turnaround time of 1.00
pm comes and goes. Only Boukreev from Mountain Madness and Harris and Krakauer from
Adventure Consultants have reached the summit. Boukreev has to head straight down, as he is
not using bottled oxygen.

At 2.00 pm just three more have made it: two Mountain Madness clients and their junior guide,
Neal Beidleman. The largest group does not arrive until 2.30 pm: Rob Hall; his senior guide,
Mike Groom; their quiet Japanese client, Yasuko Namba; the considerably louder Gammelgaard

8 As remembered by Beck Weathers in Breashears, 2008.

9 Lou Kasischke, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/stories/unfolding.html

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and Pittman, both from Mountain Madness; and Fischer’s two remaining clients. They celebrate
for a full 40 minutes. No one mentions the turnaround time, which has long since passed. It is no
longer possible to reach Camp IV before dark.

At 3.10 pm Beidleman finally insists that they must go down. They leave Hall alone to wait for
Hansen. Shortly after setting off, the descending group meets a weary Scott Fischer, still on his
way up. He always intended to act as the rear guard but seems to have fallen farther behind than
planned. They greet each other briefly, Fischer as intent on going up as the others are eager to get
down. There is no sense in lingering to talk. A bit later they encounter Doug Hansen, clinging to
his ambition. At this point, he is clearly struggling just as he did last year, but he keeps pointing
his finger to the top, as an indication of his resolve to conquer the mountain – which he finally
does at 4.15 pm.

In total, including the Taiwanese team leader and his Sherpas, 23 people reach the top of the
world on the afternoon of May 10, 1996 – their celebrations watched through the binoculars of
the IMAX team below. Counting Weathers, who is still waiting faithfully on the Balcony, that
makes 24 people who have to get down to Camp IV on the South Col much faster than planned.

But there is more ominous news that the IMAX team can see all too well without their binoculars:
storm clouds are now gathering, up from the valley, black and threatening.

Evening and Night, May 10: Chaos

The full force of the storm finally hits higher altitudes at around 5.00 pm. In the space of five
minutes, it changes from a perfect day to atrocious conditions. Of those who reached the summit,
only Mountain Madness guide Anatoli Boukreev is safe back at Camp IV, drinking hot tea with
the Sherpas who stayed behind and the Adventure Consultants clients who turned back. Everyone
else is stranded at various points on the mountain by the thick, icy, whirling blizzard. One of the
survivors will later liken it to ‘the disorientation that comes with swimming in a bottle of milk –
you can’t even see where your feet are on the ground’. 10

Just below the summit is Rob Hall with Doug Hansen, who is now too weak to descend the
Hillary Step and desperately in need of oxygen. Just below, on the South Summit, Andy Harris,
increasingly disoriented, tries to climb back up to assist. Pleas come in by radio to leave Hansen
behind, but the Adventure Consultants leader refuses to abandon his client. He is reported as
saying: ‘I can get myself down the Hillary Step, but I don’t know how I can get this man down. I
need a bottle of gas, somebody, please, I’m begging you.’ 11

One of the other guides will later say:

10 John Taske, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/stories/unfolding.html

11 Breashears, 1999, p. 262

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I remember a conversation at Base Camp just before we went up. It was just between
Rob and myself. And Rob said to me, you know, if you did lose a client on Mount
Everest, you might as well be dead. 12

Further down, near the Balcony, Fischer too is stranded, along with the surviving climber from
the Taiwanese expedition. Twice, lightning strikes close to them. Fischer complains increasingly
of feeling ill. ‘I am sick, I am sick,’ he repeats. 13

Some distance below them, the largest group of climbers is trying to struggle down. It consists of
two guides (Groom and Beidleman), two Sherpas, and seven assorted clients, including Pittman,
Gammelgaard, Namba and Weathers – who has finally abandoned his long, faithful wait for Rob
Hall. Pittman, Namba and Weathers can barely stand. Weathers is still blind. Soon, as the
blizzard thickens and the wind lashes, no one is able to stand, no one can see – unless they break
the ice off their eyelids. With the wind chill, the temperature drops below –18°C (0°F).

Eventually, at 7.30 pm, the group stops and huddles together, hoping for a lull in the storm – less
and less anxious to escape death. One of the surviving clients will later recall:

I turned inward and just decided to go into that hypothermic sleep that’s so
comfortable, that people mention when they’re dying of hypothermia. And it just
seemed like the easiest thing to do, rather than endure any more pain. 14

The most tragic is that they do not know that they are only a few hundred horizontal meters from
Camp IV – a distance they could cover in 20 minutes if they could only see where they were
going. What the guides do know is that if they walk in the wrong direction they will fall straight
off the sheer drop of the Kangshung Face into Tibet.

As the large group huddles, two other clients, who have been travelling alone, make it back to the
tents of Camp IV – one of them Jon Krakauer. His article for Outside magazine, if he survives to
write it, will be very different from the one he envisaged. For even in the tents, safety is not
guaranteed. Those lucky enough to be there can hear only the terrifying roar of the wind, which
batters them relentlessly.

It is around midnight when a brief lull arrives. Most of the climbers in the huddle out on the
South Col are by now barely conscious. A few of them, including Neal Beidleman, who has
become the unofficial leader of the group, and Lene Gammelgaard, think they can see the tents.
They head off in desperation, promising to bring help. But when they get there, only Boukreev
seems physically capable of rescuing anyone. And conditions are worsening again.

12 Mike Groom, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/stories/leadership.html

13 As remembered by Makalu Gau in Breashears, 2008.
14 Charlotte Fox, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/stories/unfolding.html

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May 11: Aftermath

After several attempts throughout the early hours, at 4.30 am on May 11, Boukreev finally
reaches the ragged, frostbitten remaining members of the huddle. While Sandy Hill Pittman is
among those capable of moving, Yasuko Namba and Beck Weathers seem close to death.
Boukreev has no choice but to leave the two Adventure Consultants clients behind.

When day finally breaks, the storm is still raging, yet further rescue attempts are made. Namba
and Weathers are easily found: two bodies partly buried in the snow, their faces covered in a
thick crust of ice. Weathers has lost one glove, Namba two. Remarkably, they are still breathing,
but both are so close to death that the decision is made not to try to move them.

Meanwhile, a team of Sherpas heads upwards. Battered by still-strong winds, they fail to find
Hall, Hansen or Harris. They do manage to reach Fischer and the leader of the Taiwanese team.
They give Fischer oxygen, but he is unresponsive. The Taiwanese climber revives a little with the
help of oxygen and hot tea. He is so severely frostbitten that the rescuers think he cannot survive;
they haul him down anyway.

Most members of Mountain Madness have already limped out of Camp IV – leaving Anatoli
Boukreev behind to coordinate the fruitless attempt to save Fischer. At Camp III, visibly shaken,
they cross paths once again with the IMAX team, which is hurrying up to help the rescue effort.
Breashears and his colleagues had already radioed up directions about where to find their store of
50 oxygen bottles – more valuable for the survivors than any buried treasure. Rob Hall has
always voiced concerns about having to come to the aid of one of the other expeditions, thus
jeopardizing his own team’s summit bid. Now Rob Hall has turned the tables himself.

Revived by the IMAX oxygen bottles, the Adventure Consultants survivors are getting strong
enough to contemplate their own descent tomorrow. But at 4.35 pm they are alarmed to see a
gruesome, two-legged creature staggering into Camp IV. With a blackened frostbitten stump for
an arm and a rotting nose, it looks like one of the living dead. Dr Beck Weathers – in defiance of
medical science – has just walked back into camp. He is swiftly bundled into an empty tent and
stuffed into two sleeping bags with several hot water bottles, an oxygen mask covering what
remains of his face. No one expects him to survive the night. Even if he does, the rescuers have
no idea how to get someone in that state down the mountain.

By early evening on May 11, the horrible realization is beginning to sink in: Mountain Madness
has lost its leader in the storm. So has Adventure Consultants, along with its junior guide, Andy
Harris, and three clients: Doug Hansen, Yasuko Namba and, in all likelihood, Beck Weathers.
That makes six fatalities in total, plus the Taiwanese man who died earlier. Hall’s state-of-the-art
radio enables him to talk to his wife who – back home in New Zealand – is expecting their first
child. His voice is feeble but his last words to her are heard clearly: ‘I love you. Sleep well, my
sweetheart. Please don’t worry too much.’ 15

15 Breashears, 1999, p. 269

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Against all the odds, Beck Weathers wakes up on the morning of May 12 and is even able, with
assistance, to walk much of the way down. The IMAX team takes him the rest of the way to
Camp II. Just as remarkably, a helicopter rescue by a Nepalese air force pilot – rare and
dangerous at such altitude and prompted by the tireless efforts of Weathers’ wife in Seattle – lifts
the leader of the Taiwanese expedition (found next to Fischer) and Beck Weathers out of Camp
II. It takes him two lifts, as the thin air makes flying a helicopter a very risky affair. After
amputations and reconstructive face surgery, both will survive.

Mid-May: Return
Precisely one week after the fateful day of May 10, the IMAX team sets off from Base Camp
once again. It is a joint and carefully weighed decision to retrace the painful steps of
acclimatization and two rescue missions in order to finish the film. Viesturs’ new wife, the base
camp manager, is outraged by the decision and shouts, ‘Enough is enough!’ She retires down the
valley in protest, while the others scrape together as many oxygen bottles as they can. Then they
wait three days at Camp II for good weather. Maybe it is already too late in the season?

At last, the longed-for forecast of good summit conditions comes through. Up they go through
memories more difficult than the terrain. Sumiyo Tsuzuki is still coughing and has now strained
her diaphragm muscles (to add to her two cracked ribs). The higher she goes, the slower she
becomes. Breashears watches her carefully. Together with Viesturs and Schauer, he decides to
give her one last chance: she will leave camp one hour before the rest of the team and will be
allowed to go on only if she reaches Camp IV ahead of the others (who have to carry ‘the pig’
and the rest of the equipment). The leaders hope that this will make her realize that she ought to
stop her quest for the summit. She fails the test, yet remains adamant that she can continue.

Breashears knows that he must now do what is most painful for him and for her, and that he had
wished to avoid. He crawls into the tent Tsuzuki is sharing with Tenzing Norgay, who takes the
hint and leaves. Left alone with Sumiyo, he breaks the news that she cannot join the summit bid.
She pleads, claiming that she has been climbing slowly only to conserve her energy. She pleads
again, claiming that she will lose face back home. The producer has also reminded Breashears
that Tsuzuki is essential to the film’s success in Japan, a market with great potential for IMAX.
But Breashears does not give in to the commercial or emotional pressures. ‘A team is only as
strong as its weakest member,’ he is fond of saying. And too many have been allowed to go up
when they should have been turned down. He is resolved and will not allow her any farther.

On May 23 Breashears finally gets his summit shots. The joyful faces of Araceli Segarra and
Jamling Tenzing Norgay express the feelings of the entire team. They are preserved on IMAX
film for the entire world to see.

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Epilogue
In the spring of 1996, a total of 98 people reached the summit of Everest and 15 died – more
fatalities than in any other year before or since.

Just as the history of war is written by the victors, the history of mountaineering is written by the
survivors. No one will ever know the whole truth about what happened on May 10, 1996. But
several of those who made it back down have written their versions of the events, allowing for an
almost complete picture to emerge. It’s a story of human mistakes, successes, failures and tragedy
as much as it is a story about mountaineering. There are valuable lessons for anyone involved in
teamwork and leadership – in any context.

To learn those lessons may also be the best way to keep alive the memory of the people who died
on Everest in May 1996.

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02/2014-5519
Exhibit 1

17
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 For the exclusive use of C. Lee, 2023.

02/2014-5519
Exhibit 2

18
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 For the exclusive use of C. Lee, 2023.

02/2014-5519
Exhibit 3

19
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 For the exclusive use of C. Lee, 2023.

02/2014-5519
Exhibit 4

20
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 For the exclusive use of C. Lee, 2023.

02/2014-5519
Exhibit 5

21
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 For the exclusive use of C. Lee, 2023.

02/2014-5519
Exhibit 6

22
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 For the exclusive use of C. Lee, 2023.

Exhibit 7
Timeline of Events on May 10 and 11, 1996

11.00 pm (9th) Expeditions depart from Camp IV

5.30 am (10th) Krakauer and one of the Sherpas are the first to reach the Balcony (8,500m)

7.30 am Weathers stops at the Balcony to wait for Hall’s return

10.00 am Beidleman is the first to reach the South Summit (8,748m)
11.30 am Taske, Hutchison and Kasischke turn back below the South Summit
1.00 pm Harris, Boukreev and Krakauer are first on the summit
1.25 pm Beidleman, Schoening and Adams reach the summit
2.30 pm Hall, Groom, Madsen, Fox, Gammelgaard, Pittman and Namba arrive
3.10 pm Beidleman leads the first group down the mountain
3.45 pm Fischer reaches the summit
4.15 pm Hansen arrives at the top
5.00 pm Boukreev enters Camp IV
7.30 pm Beidleman, Groom and others huddle together near Camp IV
8.00 pm Adams and Krakauer reach Camp IV
11.30 pm Beidleman, Groom, Schoening and Gammelgaard reach Camp IV

4.30 am (11th) Boukreev rescues Madsen, Fox and Pittman

4.43 am Hall reports to Base Camp that he is above the South Summit and that Hansen
has died
7.30 am Hutchison finds Namba and Weathers close to death and leaves them
9.00 am Hall breathes supplemental oxygen at South Summit after 16 hours without it
10.00 am Sherpas try to rescue Fischer but he is unresponsive
4.30 pm Weathers walks back to Camp IV on his own and receives oxygen and hot tea
6.20 pm Hall speaks with his wife one last time on the radio and says goodbye

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Exhibit 8
Sources/Further Reading and Viewing

Footnotes refer to the sources below. Web pages last accessed on January 17, 2011.
Books
Boukreev, Anatoli, and G. Weston DeWalt. 1998. The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest. New
York: St Martin’s Press.
Breashears, David. 1999. High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving
Places. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Gammelgaard, Lene. 1999. Climbing High: A Woman’s Account of Surviving the Everest
Tragedy. Seattle, WA: Seal Press.
Krakauer, Jon. 1997. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Everest Disaster. New York:
Random House.
Weathers, Beck. 2000. Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest. New York: Random
House.

Films
Breashears, David. Storm Over Everest (Frontline, 2008)
Breashears, David, Greg MacGillivray and Stephen Judson. Everest (Miramax, 1998)

Websites
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/
http://www.adventureconsultants.com/
http://www.mountainmadness.com/

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