On the West Ridge of Everest in 1983 attempting the second ascent. I had the great honor of talking to Tom Hornbien about his first ascent and very proud to have called Gil Roberts a close friend. Gil was the expedition doctor on the 1963 American Everest Expedition. Gil was our on call doctor at Mount Reba ski area for many years. I pro patrolled there in the early eighties. The ski area is fifty four miles away from any medical treatment so we'd do a lot of fast aid on the hill and in our patrol room. Gil was our steadfast guide when the stuff hit the fan. Gil met our 83 expedition at Namche Bazaar. Gil asked me to spell my name. I couldn't do it. I was a basket case after six weeks above 21,000'.
Wow, Wow. Spectacular images.
If I am not wrong West Ridge is considered to be one of the most challenging routes to the summit. Were you successful in your attempt?
Thanks for the compliments!. No, we did not make the summit. Wind stopped us, destroyed Camp 4 at 24,500'. A Japanese climber was killed on South Col attempt on the same day as our summit bid.
Summit team was Todd Bibler and Ang Psering Sherpa. Camp 5, our last camp at 27,500' was one tent at the top of the Hornbein Couloir.
I did two carries from Camp 4 to Camp 5 in support of the summit team. (No supplemental oxygen). During the night at Camp 4 the wind picked up into a roar. I packed and put everything on including my crampons. I jammed my ice axe and and kicked my crampons through the floor of the tent. In the pre-dawn darkness my tent shredded to pieces and blew out over the north face. I crawled over to the flattened tent with our Sherpas inside. They had a stove going somehow trying to warm frostbitten fingers. I radioed to advance base camp that we were not having fun anymore. I could not get Todd on the radio. Fellow team mate Alex, who carried to the Hornbein too, was coughing and in distress. At about this time all the tents failed and we were desperate. Lucky for us daylight arrived. We started to crawl down the west shoulder as Chaz Macquarie (first ascent of the north face of Mount Deborah and his wife Anne (first woman ascent of Ama Dablam) fought their way toward us. When Chaz was blown around his jammed to the hilt ice axe they turned back.
If any one was going to make it down from the top of the Honrbein it was Todd (first ascent of the Moonflower Buttress on Mount Hunter), but this was a day to give up one of your nine lives. Chaz was waiting for us at 23,000' and it was here that I found out that Todd was okay and on his way down.
Yes, the west ridge is one of the challenging routes on Everest. Several second ascent attempts were made by strong teams. The second ascent was finally made thirty years after the first.
Easily one of the more frightening times in my climbing life.
I remember reading "Into Thin Air" and wondering what it would be like to be there. Thanks for sharing your incredible photos and the powerful narrative.
I think I like these images as they put me right there.
Here's what's been peculiar to me though, and not sure anyone else is experiencing this. On my primary home computer, with a calibrated monitor, the images all have a distinct green tint. It doesn't happen on my tablet, laptop, or on my iPhone either. Every other image on this board has good color - at least to the best level of the person posting. So I'm not sure what's happening here... If it's my equipment or the image. Anyone else getting weird color?
Very nice shots and enjoy the story. Yep, mine too think maybe it is the Kodak profile with Firefox as my monitor is calibrated with Xrite i1 and no other photos are greenish. IE shows it correct on same computer.
Don
I'm going to send these over to the Photo Critique forum (unless that's breaking a Forum rule) to see about greenish color that you see. FYI the scanner profile was written specifically for Kodachrome at Evercolor. My guess is John Wawrzonek wrote the profile. The profile works wonders with color balance quite a bit but does have a hard time with cyan/greens, especially in highlights or white objects. And these two photos have highlights.
I did work to come to grips with the color cross over problems with the Kodachrome and came to what I feel works. That's not to say that an improvement can be made. That said I think there's sure to be some helpful suggestions/insights at Critique.
Mine shows photos green, also Firefox. Despite this, the scenes are incredible and your story amazing for those of us never more than about half that altitude. My hat is off to you, sir.
