JENKINS: Well let me ask all of you something here: if weather's good, if you have a system in place that's operating, if you've got—as you, Ed, point out a lot—the cohesiveness of a team, it seems guiding on Everest works. But what if things break down somewhere along the way? And, being a climber myself, I know how easily this can happen. The weather can move in quickly, somebody can suddenly trip on a crampon strap…you have any number of incidences that are just common in mountaineering. What if they happen up high? Is it really possible for guides to rescue in the death zone, above 8,000 meters? Anybody can jump in here.

VIESTURS: I think that it is possible. Guy and I know it can be done, we've done it before. But this is with a cohesive team-where you have a team that can communicate, whether its radio or verbally. And where the guides and the leaders have the training and the experience and the strength at those altitudes to start not only initiating something like a rescue, but also to perform it.

Where you trickle down to the expeditions or the services where maybe they've thrown together a team of guides, and they've not been to those altitudes, when something goes wrong up there, those people are barely able to do what they're supposed to do for themselves, let alone initiating a rescue. So it comes to the point where it's up to the experience—and the strength as well—of whoever is leading these trips when something goes wrong up high, because it gets more difficult to think about what to do, and then also to perform.

When you have these commercially-guided, loose organization-type trips when people are kind of just up there on their own, quite often sadly, it's the Sherpa that have been assigned to be the quote-un-quote "guides." There's no one else other than the Sherpa from that team to watch over the people who are climbing, even though they think they don't need assistance when trouble comes, the Sherpa then have to take the brunt of the responsibility. And quite often, they don't have the training or the knowledge to do that. But quite often as well, they perform heroically but get very little recognition for that.

HAHN: I agree. I think that a huge burden of rescues these days goes on the Serpas, and the mainstream media—stuff that I was seeing after getting off the mountain this year talked about this team rescuing that team, but we all know that the people doing the real rescue work, the work people doing the work are the Sherpas. And yeah, the scariest situation—as Ed was pointing out there—is the lone Sherpa on a team where the western climbers have cut corners all the way and it comes down to that Sherpa working all by himself up there with somebody who has pushed a little too far.

And yeah, you hate to see that burden come on that guy who is a farmer the rest of the year and is trying to support a family. One of the reasons I'd choose to guide on the south side rather than the north side, is that having tried to drag people down the upper north ridge and having tried to drag people down the upper south side, you can drag somebody easier on the south side!

You get to the south summit, and you can haul somebody down-and that's verrry difficult. I'm not saying it can't be done-we've had some success with rushing people off the northeast ridge—but I think you can get rid of altitude a lot quicker on the south side, and once you hit the south summit with the balcony, I think that makes a big difference. But yeah, I feel pretty strongly that Everest can be guided. Just as the Matterhorn can be guided. But there will always be accidents, there will always be deaths. It's dangerous.Everest can be guided, but not easily, not casually, and there are always going to be hazards to it.

JENKINS: Neil, I'd like you to say something here if you would, because you were intimately involved in the '96 tragedy as a rescuer. And I think what I'm hearing, it seems to me that if you can affect a rescue on a mountain then there's some legitimacy to guiding it. If you can't ever affect a rescue in a mountaineering situation, then the question of guiding comes up, because that's when the shit hits the fan. Neil, give me your perspective here.

BIEDLEMAN: Well, in our situation as you know, and these guys...Dave, I don't think you were there but certainly Ed and Guy were there…we had more than just a single person that got in trouble. It was more problematic for the whole group, so the focus wasn't at least during the summit bit, trying to get just one person off the mountain, it was the rescue of the expedition in a lot ways.

I was able to help some people down from the south summit actually a little bit above there as well, to the south summit, but I wasn't put in the position where I had to grab somebody who was absolutely motionless and incapable of doing anything and get them the entire way down myself.

Once I was able to get some people stood up or dragging a little bit, and then moving, they were able to help themselves slightly. But it was just myself at that time pretty much, doing that. And I think if you can catch the people early then you can certainly do a tremendous amount to help them and get their motivation and their confidence going so they know that they can proceed and that they don't give up.

Later in our expedition, as people we're not able to get off the mountain up higher and things became more dire, then you're more in a situation where you're talking about where you have to evacuate or rescue somebody who is completely incapable of doing anything, and that becomes much, much harder for us.

COTTER: As he alluded to earlier on, we affected a rescue in 1995 of a practically unconscious person from the south summit. And essentially it is almost easier, as Dave says, on the south side to drag someone down when you're south summit or below.

It's possibly something prospective clients should ask guides, rather than how many times they've been to the summit, is "how high have you dragged somebody off the mountain from before?" (Laughing)

It's only when things go wrong that you see what you're paying for on the expedition. The response that people have, the way that the guides and the Sherpas as a team deal with an issue, is what defines the difference between one team and another, quite often.

And to rely just on Sherpas-and especially in the situation that's been discussed, of one sherpa, often with two or three clients—when things go wrong it puts a lot of the onus on them to have to do the rescue. But traditionally, Sherpas aren't trained in rescue techniques and also from the point of view that often the Sherpas are reticent to have anything to do with sick people or dying people. Their natural tendency for a lot of them is to run away as quickly as possible and that's partly a cultural thing—and that's changing over time—but that's one of the things that you do see when things start to go very wrong, is that often they don't want to be there at all. That's where that western leadership working with Sherpas often does make for better rescues, and you've actually got the combination of skills to put things back together. You can only see that side, (of the strength of the team) when things do go wrong and when people are prepared.