<\/p>\n
Nobody goes there. It\u2019s almost suicidal. She was there with the world\u2019s best climbers, Steve Swenson and Alex. She never claimed to be elite, but she didn\u2019t let on that she was being guided. She paid Alex to guide her. Once the guiding started, well, it\u2019s the highest mountain in the world. If somebody said you could go to space for a lot of money, people would line up. So in \u201995 Outside <\/i>called and said there was an expedition leaving in a matter of days. I said yeah, I want to go. Then I thought, I don\u2019t want to sit at base camp for two months. I said, let me go next year and I\u2019ll train. And that\u2019s how I ended up there in \u201996. By then it had been going on for a few years, but \u201996 was when it was getting really serious.<\/p>\n
When you finished the magazine story and the book, was there any part of you that thought you\u2019d successfully warned the world and that people would back off?<\/b><\/p>\n
I was sure I\u2019d destroyed the nascent Everest guiding industry. I\u2019d killed it in the crib. I really believed that. Then I found out my book was actually the best advertising it ever got. Eric Simonson said it on the record. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t buy advertising like that book.\u201d I remember on book tour, people would look at me and say, \u201cYou climbed Everest.\u201d You could see them thinking, that f***ing guy.<\/i><\/p>\n
I came home with incredible survivor\u2019s guilt, because my presence on the mountain, I believe, had a direct influence on the catastrophe. I think it distorted Rob Hall\u2019s judgment. Scott Fischer was there, and Scott\u2019s team was younger and stronger, and all his clients made the summit. Rob felt pressure to get as many of his clients up as possible, so he didn\u2019t turn around people he should have.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Listen, there are still a lot of people up there who don\u2019t belong. There\u2019s a real chance you\u2019ll pass somebody in trouble and be unable to help them. Are you prepared for that moral quandary? <\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
I only learned recently from Frank Fischbeck, the oldest guy on our team, who lives in Hong Kong. He turned around early on May 10 because he didn\u2019t feel right. What I didn\u2019t know until a few months ago is that as he was descending, he passed Rob, and Rob tried to talk him into going up. He\u2019d done the same with Doug Hansen [who died on the descent], and Doug had said no, and then Rob talked him into going up. If Rob hadn\u2019t done that, I don\u2019t think the catastrophe would have happened. And then Rob didn\u2019t turn Doug around at one or two. Doug summited at four p.m. That cascaded. Doug collapsed on the ridge, so Andy Harris had to stay with him, which left Mike Groom as the only guide below with clients. Mike had been escorting Yasuko Namba, the smallest member of our team, but at the Balcony [the high promontory that defines the beginning of Everest\u2019s Southeast Ridge] he ran into Beck Weathers, blind, and had to short-rope him down. Mike\u2019s one of the heroes. Three feet of rope, Beck\u2019s blind, Beck\u2019s a big guy. If he hadn\u2019t had to do that, Yasuko would\u2019ve been fine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n