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 Athlete to Athlete Interview
 Greg Child with Peter Athans January 2000 The North Face athlete Greg Child uses his unique perspective to get to know the rest of our athlete team - who they are, what inspires them, and what lies ahead. I have known Mark Synnott for several years. We have climbed together on Baffin Island, on Great Sail Peak in 1998, and we went to Cameroon in Africa in 1999 to climb a volcanic tower in a the remote east of that country. Mark "Scrappy" Synnott (his nickname from his down-and-out days in Yosemite) has also written some funny and insightful articles for Climbing magazine, where he is a contributing editor. He's become one of the most active climbers on the alpine expedition scene, visiting exotic mountain areas like the Himalayas on a regular basis, and he does a lot of that exploration using North Face equipment. The exploratory side of climbing has taken him to remote places, from the arctic to the tropics. Mark also has a family: his wife Lauren is expecting their second child right now, and his young boy Wil is the apple of his eye. He was about to leave for an exploratory trip to a mountain range in China when international travel was shaken by the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. While America teeters on the uncertainty of war and adventurers like Mark try to assess where in the world is at risk to terrorism, he has temporarily set his sights closer to home. I spoke to him by phone at his home in Jackson, New Hampshire. Greg: So tell me about this place in Tibet you plan to visit... Peter: It's in the region called Kham, in far eastern Tibet. That's where the forebearers of the Sherpas originally migrated from, over passes in Tibet leading into the Khumbu region around Everest. The area isn't dominated by any huge peaks-Minya Konnka is the highest-but the place is mainly unexplored. Greg: And what is the peak there that you want to try? Peter: Mount Jambe Yang. It's a sacred peak to the Buddhists, named after the god of learning. It's about 5880 meters high. The area has been closed to foreigners for a long time, so to our knowledge the peak hasn't been climbed. And there are rumors of big wall climbing to be done here too…Pete slides a photo out of a folder of a stark, white pyramid of ice. It's certainly a classic shaped mountain, with smooth frozen faces all around it. Greg: Well, it's impossible not to talk about Everest when speaking to you, so let me begin by asking how many times you've climbed it? Peter: Six times. The first time was 1990, and I also climbed it in 1999. Greg: Do you hold the record for the most number of ascents? Peter: For a westerner, yes. Sherpas have been on top even more. Apa Sherpa, from Tame, has summited 10 times. The first time I did it was without oxygen, every time after that I used oxygen. Greg: Just how different was it between going to the top with bottled oxygen, and your oxygenless ascent? Peter: There was a huge difference. With oxygen it feels a lot warmer. The feet and the hands don't get so cold. And I was able to enjoy the experience a lot more with oxygen, too. Greg: I know that the lack of oxygen really effects the brain and the memory. Do you remember much about your oxygenless ascent? Peter: Oh yeah. The big difference between going with and without oxygen was that I didn't have to be so concerned about moving fast. The time I went without I tagged the summit, and only spent two minutes on top. It was early in the morning-7 AM. Greg: You had also tried the mountain quite a few times before your first successful trip, right? Peter: Yes, it was a huge relief when I finally did it, as it was my fourth try. I'd been on the north side, the west ridge and a couple times to the south side. It felt good to finally make it to the top of the world after so much effort. On Everest's south ridge, the climbing isn't very difficult, though for Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953 it was a great piece of climbing for the era. The great thing was being up there, experiencing the sunrise when I was on the south summit. I remember watching the red rays come across the dust in the air in Nepal, and the first light hitting Everest and that remarkable shadow projected onto Cho Oyu. It was really a nice moment. Greg: You have also guided a lot of people to the top of Everest. How many? Peter: A dozen to the very top. Greg: Obviously, guiding Everest has been proven to be a dangerous way to make a living. Have you had any scary episodes? Peter: I've had a few scary things happen, but never up high. I've always been really conservative on summit day. If I haven't felt that the timing has been good I have always turned people around. Greg: Much has been discussed about the safe time to turn clients around on Everest. What is your cut-off time? Peter: I know certain milestones along the way because I've been there so often. If I haven't reached those by a certain hour, or if the trail breaking hasn't gone well, or there are people with health or oxygen problems, I'll pull the plug. But the south summit is the point of no return, so its best to be turned around before then if things aren't going well. The difficult thing about the south summit is that clients see that they're really close to the main summit. It's hard to turn them back from there. Greg: It's incredible how many folks have climbed Everest in recent years... Peter: Yeah, in 1990 I was about number 230, and now over a thousand people have summited. Greg: In 1995 I was about number 600. What is the most number of people you've seen on top at once? Peter: I was up there when 32 people were on top. It was pretty amusing. But people got along very well. The people were pretty experienced, and things moved really well, unlike the circumstances of 1996, when people were hauling themselves up the ropes and weren't cognizant of the fact that there were people in front of and behind them. Greg: Would you guide Everest again? Peter: I would not. In 1996, even before the disasters struck I had decided that would be my last year of guiding Everest. I'd also had the disgruntling experience in 1995 of being taken to court for turning people around on the southeast ridge. I realized then that it's a rare client who'll do well on Everest, and a rare guide who'll guide well. Greg: Are you telling me that someone sued you for making a decision that probably saved their lives? Peter: They did sue us but they didn't win. They tried to construe the fact that we were selling tickets to the top of the world. We've always been clear that no one is selling tickets up Everest. The folks concerned were disappointed that they weren't able to tick off the summit, and they wanted to recoup the money they'd spent. After all that, I decided I didn't want to work in that sort of environment. But I'm still happy to guide in the Tetons in the summer, or guide treks. Greg: Tell me about some of the other parts of the Himalaya you've been to. Peter: When I worked on the second camera unit for the film Seven Years in Tibet, with David Breashears, we traveled all over Tibet. It was the ultimate car camping trip, in this huge Chinese truck. We visited the backside of the Shishapangma Range, the far east and Mount Kailas, then circled back through the lesser-known ranges. We didn't climb there, we were filming. Greg: How many 8000-meter peaks have you climbed. Peter: Everest, Annapurna, and Cho Oyu. The route on Annapurna was a new route, up the south ridge. For me that was a groundbreaking trip. It was 1984, my first time up a big peak. My companions included Mark Udall, our congressman in Colorado. The route was on the other side of the mountain to the famous, original route by the French done in the 1950s, and it was near the also-famous south face, first climbed by the British in 1970. The south ridge is really long. It climbs over the top of Glacier Dome, and it's a very long snow plod. Greg: Back to Everest, I was glad to have climbed the north ridge which has a very safe, easy approach. But you've been up through the Khumbu icefall many times to get to the south ridge. Is the icefall as bad as it looks? It looks like a nightmare. Peter: It is bad, and I tell you, it's bad because it's so arbitrary about when things collapse. It's the most dangerous part of the mountain. We like to kid ourselves that by climbing it early in the morning when it's cold and frozen it'll be safe, and it is true that the big collapse happen in the afternoon, but there is nothing to stop it falling apart at any time. I've been through it over 200 times and it still freaks me out though I've become somewhat inured to it. Greg: Any close calls in the icefall? Peter: In 1991 a big serac fell off from Everest and hit the area we were in, creating a lot of movement. I'd just stepped off a chain of five ladders all tied together spanning a huge crevasse, and one of the Sherpas was coming across behind me. All of a sudden a river of ice flooded the chasm underneath him, it took the ladder-bridge away from under his feet, and left him hanging from the safety rope while ice was filling up this huge crevasse. At the same time, the movement put pressure on the rope he was dangling from. Eventually the rope was stretched so much it snapped and he dropped into the crevasse just as the ice avalanche stopped moving! He was OK, but it was harrowing. Greg: Have you ever gotten slammed by altitude sickness? Peter: I've only had some headaches, but I've always done pretty well. Greg: How about training? What do you do? Peter: Aerobic activities like running, bicycling, swimming. I do some triathlons. When I'm travelling on business I'll use a weight room or a treadmill... Greg: What is the coolest place you've ever been? Peter: Some of the best places I've seen may not even be in the Himalaya. In Irian Jaya, when I went to climb Carstenz Pyramid, I felt like I'd taken a step even further back in time from the medieval lifestyles I'd seen in Tibet. I felt I'd entered the stone age. I recall being amazed at the basic lifestyle of the Dani natives, the way they'd get to a campsite in the middle of the jungle, pull out their knives, chop down some vines and whip up a shelter. Even though it was pouring rain in the jungle, they could make shelter, fire and get food cooking in a matter of minutes. Their hardiness and their good nature really amazed me. It's the same with the Sherpas. They are always good-natured even in very tough situations. Greg: I recall when you and I shared a tent together on the North Face dealer event when we climbed Mount Baker in the Cascade Range of Washington, seeing that you were reading a fairly heavy-duty book about Buddhism. Do you think a lot about eastern religion? Peter: It's given me a lot of inroads to understanding the Sherpas, who I've spent so much time with. And being able to understand the meaning of the artwork and ceremonies in the monasteries has really added to being there. I also think that by understanding something of Buddhism when I'm in Asia, it helps my climbing too. It allows me to focus not so much on the outcome of the climb-such as, the summit-because climbing mountains doesn't have to be an outcome-driven sport. The process of doing it is just as important as the summit. Buddhism also teaches a lot about patience being strength. In the mountains, raw drive is essential, but patience is needed too. Greg: Yeah, you gotta have patience in the Himalaya. I remember sitting around in my tent through plenty of two-week storms. Can you speak Nepalese or Tibetan? Peter: I speak a little Nepalese and I'm taking some classes in Tibetan. Greg: Tell me about the recent scientific expedition to Everest you were on. This was also a documentary on NBC, right? Peter: Yes, it was a film that recently was on TV. The object of the trip was to put a global positioning system on the summit, that could run synchronously with other GPS units we put on the south col, on an 18,000-foot peak called Kala Patar, and in base camp. These units communicated with satellites passing overhead to give exact longitude and latitude, and also altitude. Greg: And from this you came up with a new height for Everest? Peter: Yes. It was 29,035 feet above sea level. About two meters higher than the current measurement. We also put probes in for NASA that will measure maximum temperature and atmospheric pressure. These things are the size of a matchbox and they'll be examined when more climbers pick them up in the future. The device that measures windspeed will measure it by noise. We left one on the south summit. It'll pick up some huge jet stream winds this winter. Greg: You were at Everest during the terrible disaster in 1996 which claimed so many lives. What do you feel about that episode now? Peter: It was a surreal experience. I'd worked with Scott Fischer and Rob Hall before, they were friends. We were a lot like each other, in that we all guided for a living. My team was two days behind their groups, and we held back a little to let their people go first. What was strange was that these groups disregarded some of the protocol we'd all agreed upon during our years of figuring out how to climb and guide Everest. They abandoned all the rules. I think ultimately what went wrong was that the groups became spread out, and people got into a situation where strong decisions had to be made, and no one was there to make them. Greg: It seems like you've made pretty good decisions on your climbs. Thanks for chatting. |
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