Base Camp CONFIDENTIAL (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine April 2001

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True EVEREST
Base Camp CONFIDENTIAL (Cont.)

The 1990s saw the biggest increase in the number of commercially guided trips. No longer did you have to be an experienced mountaineer with dozens of Himalayan peaks on your résumé. All you needed to get a spot on a team was a pulse—and $64,000. The unexpected consequence was a simultaneous increase in high-altitude rubberneckers yearning to mingle with Everest's glamorous new media darlings.

JEFF RHOADS, American climber and cinematographer who in 1998 became the first non-Sherpa to summit twice in one season: You get a lot of random people just walking through camp, and the climbers get a little bummed. Climbers don't want to have anything to do with the trekkers; they're afraid they're going to get sick. A couple years ago, two guys came walking into Base Camp carrying bikes. Their plan was to bike to Everest. So these dudes were like, "God, we don't have any food, could you give us a cup of tea?" And you know what? We were doing our own thing right then. We said, like, "No, we can't. See you guys later."

NEAL BEIDLEMAN: I've seen some really bizarre trekkers who don't have a friggin' clue. You know the type: The world travelers, the hippies of past years reincarnated. They come cruising in, and they don't have much gear, and they're all happy, and they've got drums or tambourines or whatever, and poof, they get themselves to Base Camp and get ill. They go, "Oh, my God, it's really fucking cold up here," and you've got to help them out.

GÖÖRAN KROPP: There was a man who was trying to put his son's umbilical cord up on the summit of Everest. I think that was quite amazing. He had been there four times before to try to carry that silly cord up there. And then there was a Russian guy in leopard-skin tights flying a parapente over the Base Camp with his wife hanging below him on a rope, lower down, sometimes hitting the rocks. That was also crazy.

PETER HILLARY, son of Edmund and veteran Himalayan climber: We established the Royal Khumbu Angling Association and Men's Fellowship—a pseudo fishing club at 17,500 feet. It was a lot of fun. We had fixed lines going out to frozen pools on the glacier. I remember trekkers coming up and they'd say, "What on earth are these ropes for?" And I'd just say, "Fishing lines. Ah, you should have been here this morning. The fish were biting. They were absolutely delicious. We had them for breakfast." I'm pretty sure the poor trekkers thought we must be suffering from cerebral edema. We told them there was a specific species that lived on the glacier—the chisel-headed salmon. The chisel-shaped head allowed them to swim through the ice. Ah, yes, the Royal Khumbu Angling Association. Royal in the Nepalese sense, of course. We even had certificates.

NEAL BEIDLEMAN: Even though this is at 17,500 feet and it's in the middle of Nepal, Everest Base Camp is a thriving economic place now. You can get whatever you want, in exchange for money. People know the value of a dollar. You can buy Cokes and beers. You can buy equipment. Crampons. You could pretty much outfit yourself right there.

ED VIESTURS: Boy, the noises are unforgettable. You hear everything: coughing, hawking up a loogey, vomiting. And you've got noisy generators going all day. People yelling into the radios to talk to somebody up on the mountain. They figure if they yell, it will transmit better. Yak bells coming and going as other teams arrive. Satellite phones ringing. And in the morning, at about two or three, you'll hear another team tromping past your tent, heading up into the Icefall. You hear this whole entourage—you know, the crampons crunching through the ice and gravel—filing by your tent while you're snuggling in your bed thinking, "Ah, I'm kinda glad that's not me today." But, man, you're also thinking, "I hope whoever is out there is going to have a good day—and that they make it back down to Base Camp."

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