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Alive on Everest RealAudio WebCast Transcript
9:30-10:00pm EDT May 22, 1997
CB: Connie Blaszczyk, NOVA Online Boston reporter
HD: Dr. Howard Donner, High ALtitude physiologist (Base
Camp)
LC: Liesl Clark, NOVA Producer (Base Camp)
DB: David Breashears, climber, filmmaker
EV: Ed Viesturs, climber guiding David Carter
NOTE: Climbers have been undergoing physiological and
psychometric tests. The audio feed picks up towards the end
of
psychometric testing
with David Breashears on the summit of Everest.
_: Hello.
__CB: Hello. Hi, is that Base Camp?
__LC: Yes it is.
__LC: We're getting a distorted voice back.
__CB: Hi, is that Liesl?
Liesl: Yes, it is.
Connie: Hi, Liesl, this is Connie Blaszczyk here at NOVA in
Boston. I know we're joining you at a very exciting moment.
David Breashears is on the summit? Is that right?
Liesl: Yes, he is. He's just on the radio and we're actually
shooting our film right now. If you guys can stand by we're
just rolling. Stand by.
Connie: Will do. We're listening as they shoot footage on
the summit of Mount Everest—David Breashears is up
there right now.
Dr. Howard Donner: Copy that. Here we go, David. Which house
is smaller if Jim's house is half again as big as
Brian's?
David Breashears: Brian's house is smaller.
HD: That was one second.
Connie: What you're hearing right now is the voice of Dr.
Howard Donner who's at Base Camp and who's doing
physiological testing with David Breashears right now.
HD: Because he was working late, Jack left the dinner in his
microwave for Jim to heat up when he got home. Who was the
dinner for?
DV: For Jim.
__HD: Two seconds.
__HD: Who did the microwave belong to?
__DB: It belonged to Jack.
__HD: That was also two seconds.
__: ... (inaudible) I'm sorry. ... (inaudible).
__:HD If Jane runs six miles in 54 minutes, how long does it
take her to run one mile?
__:DB Nine minutes. If you said six miles—could you
repeat—I was clicking you again, but I think my
answer's right. You have to—when you pause between
questions like that, I call you up to see what you're up to.
Please repeat.
__:HD All right, David. Just so you know. We just hooked
into a live audio broadcast, so here we go. If Jane runs six
miles in 54 minutes, how long does it take her to run one
mile?
__DB: My first answer was correct. Nine.
__HD: If you see a picture with a diamond, a rectangle and a
circle and a circle is to the right of the rectangle and
directly above the diamond, is the rectangle right of the
diamond?
__CB: If you're just joining us, we are listening right now
to the testing with Dr. Howard Donner is doing from Base
Camp which is at 17,600 feet with David Breashears who is
currently at the summit right now.
__DB: (simultaneous conversation)— I was telling you
please record my first answer to your question because I
heard you correctly with six and fifty-four. Now, please go
through the triangle question. I haven't heard it yet.
__HD: Copy that David. Here goes. If you see a picture with
a diamond, a rectangle and a circle and the circle is to the
right of the rectangle and directly above the diamond, is
the rectangle right of the diamond?
DB: NO
__HD: That was one second. Above the rectangle?
__DB: NO.
__HD: Two seconds. Left of the circle?
__DB: Yes.
__HD: Also, two seconds. Excellent, David. That's it. That
was both memory for sentences and verbal cognizance. So, you
let us know what you're up for now, but we're done with the
psychometric testing and that is incredible that you're able
to do that on the summit. Over.
__DB: Okay. ... (inaudible) We'll call you regarding the
telephone call. Thank you.
__CB: Excuse me, Dr. Donner?
__HD: Hi, Connie.
__CB: Hi. What was that that David just said?
__HD: As you probably realize you caught us at an
extraordinary moment. We never expected that this live audio
broadcast would come at the very moment that Breashears
reached the summit. What we were doing up there is—we
call it psychometrics or neuro-psychiatric testing and we
were asking him some simple questions—some simple
verbal puzzles and some simple sentences that he had to
memorize and repeat to determine whether or not his brain
has been affected at the summit of Everest off of
oxygen.
Connie: He sounds like he's in incredible shape. His answers
were very sharp.
__HD: Well, David Breashears, as are all of our climbers,
are animals. And, you know, most people get to the top of
Everest and don't even realize they're there. And Breashears
is able to not only get to the top of Everest but film
sequences for us, as well as answer questions, as well as,
you know, perform physiologic testing.
So, we're quite amazed. And Connie I want to tell you one
more time that this is just extraordinary. We never—we
never expected your broadcast to coincide with our climbers
getting to the summit, but David—we just found out is
still obviously on the summit and willing to talk to us
right now.
Let me just tell you that David is the co-producer of this
NOVA production that we're doing on high altitude ...
physiology and he has summited Everest an extraordinary four
times, which may not seem like that many times to some
listeners but this is unbelievable amount of times to have
been on top of this mountain, and he's spent twenty years
here making films around Everest, including an IMAX Film
last year and, as I said, he's co-producing this production,
and he's standing on the summit right now. So, we're going
to see if we can catch him. Are you with me, Connie?
Connie: Okay. Let's go back to him.
Howard: David, this is Howard. Can you copy this, over?
David: Copy. ... (inaudible).
Howard: David, tell us. I know you're on the summit. Tell us
where you're standing and what it looks like. Tell us what's
going on? Over.
David: I'm on the summit of Mount Everest, 29,028 feet and
with David Carter, Ed Viesturs, and Peter Athans. It's a
beautiful clear day. But it's very windy and cold..
Howard: Can you describe exactly what you're looking at and
what the scenery is like? What mountains are you looking at?
Over.
David: ... (inaudible)...it�s the heighest, greatest
mountain climbing. It's just the most incredible view
Howard: David, can you describe for us what your night was
like? I know you started climbing last night at 10:00
o'clock. What was it like? Over.
David: Well, it was so bright, it was so moonlit ...
(inaudible) I got windy and cold. We just climbed up without
head lamps. It was so—it was almost a full moon. It
was cold and windy. And we were warm when we were
climbing.
Howard: WGBH are you still with us?
Connie: Yes, Dr. Donner. We copy. Please continue, yes.
Howard: Okay. We'll continue you this with David. Is that
working for you?
Connie: Yes, we're having a bit of a problem understanding
him, but perhaps you can decipher later for us. I know that
his time is crucial up there, if we want to continue with
him.
Howard: I'll have a hard question for you and that is:
what's it like for you to be climbing back in the same area
that you were in last year? Is it bringing up any kinds of
emotion for you? Over.
David: Not really. All the bodies that were there last year
were covered, but unfortunately we did pass one body right
on the fixed rope. Knowing this we questioned my sanity and
why we climb this mountain again beacuse it is dangerous and
cold.
Howard: David. Thank you so much. We're going to come back
to you. I'm wondering is Ed Viesturs available to talk to
you? Over.
David: Yes. He's right here. And I've got to get moving
because I'm very cold at the moment.
Howard: David, thank you so much. And we're going to talk to
Ed Viesturs now and David, again, from everybody here.
Everybody's jumping up and down. And congratulations and
you're an animal! And we'll talk to you soon. Over.
David: Yes. I'm glad I did my duty to NOVA and to myself. I
feel very happy.
Howard: David, you're incredible! Congratulations and
everybody here is just wanting to hug you and kiss you and
... (inaudible) you. Over.
David: ... (inaudible).
Howard: All right. Connie—we're going to be talking
now to Ed Viesturs, who is a four times Everest summiter and
he has climbed Everest—
Connie: Hello, David—Dr. Donner that is. Are you still
there? It seems as if, perhaps, we have lost our connection
to Base Camp with Dr. Howard Donner. We have lost connection
with them we will try to reconnect with them in just a
minute.
In the meantime, we have on the line with us Dr. Tom
Hornbein, who's in Seattle. Dr. Hornbein climbed Mount
Everest in 1963 and he's a professor of Anesthesiology and
Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington in
Seattle. He's been working with NOVA over the last few
months on the documentary and the Web site that's following
these climbers.
Dr. Hornbein, thank you very much for joining us. Hello, do
we have Dr. Hornbein on the line? Okay. We hope that we have
Dr. Hornbein who is in Seattle. If you're just joining us,
we have had extraordinary—extraordinary moments here
listening to David Breashears, one of the lead members of
our expedition team who are on Everest and he has reached
the summit. He—even though it was hard to understand
him he sounds ecstatic, and he also was amazingly mentally
acute and did very well on the psychometric testing that
Howard Donner was doing with him.
We were going to go to Ed Viesturs, who is another very
experienced climber who, I guess, is also there on the
summit. So, the strong team members have made the summit,
and the timing is extraordinary that we were able to plan
this broadcast at that very moment. The winds are very high
there on the mountain, so it's crucial that they don't spend
too much time there. It's quite cold up there. We don't have
word quite yet as to the location of the other members of
the expedition but we hope to find out about that in just a
minute and I believe that we do have Everest now.
We're going back now to Base Camp with Dr. Howard Donner.
Stand by.
Dr. Donner, are you there?
Liesl: Hi, this is Liesl Clark, I'm handing it over to Dr.
Donner and we are just getting Ed Viesturs on the radio.
Stand by.
Connie: Thank you. Hi, Dr. Donner?
Howard: Hi, Connie.
Connie: Hi.
Howard: I'm sorry we lost you but I think we're back for
now. We have Ed Viesturs just coming up in one moment. How
much of Ed Viesturs did you get?
Connie: We didn't get anything. So, we just lost our
connection just as we were going to him.
Howard: All right. Ed currently is obtaining his own data,
including both a respiratory rate and something called
arterial-oxygen saturation which is a way that we can
measure the oxygen in his blood on the summit. Just quickly
... about Ed because he's almost ready to come back on. He's
been up Everest four times, this morning makes his fifth
summit. He's gone up there twice without oxygen and last
year he climbed it with Dave Breashears for the IMAX film
that's coming out in about a year. And in just probably 15
or 20 seconds we'll be on the radio with him talking to him
about what it's like to be on top of Everest for the fifth
time.
Connie: Incredible. Now, he was also guiding David Carter up
there, yes?
__HD: Yes, and David Carter is up there with him now and in
just a moment after we finish talking with Viesturs, we'll
hopefully be talking with Carter and find out what it's like
for him. So here we go, Connie. What's happening now is I
need to get some very important data from Ed. We will let
you listen in on this, but it's going to be a little bit of
static gathering for about one minute.
Connie: Okay. Great.
__HD: What's the status?
__LC: He's sitting in (inaudible) square right now?
__HD: Is Carter around.
__LC: Let me try to get him.
__HD: Okay. Connie, Carter—David Carter—I know,
David Carter is the person climbing with Ed and I'm going to
see if I can get him on the radio while Ed is obtaining his
physiologic data. So, here we go, we're going to call David
Carter right now. David Carter this is Base Camp do you
copy?
HD: Dave Carter this is Base Camp do you copy? Over?
Connie: We're hoping to hear from David Carter who is
currently on the summit.
__HD: Connie it sounds like we're getting some response. If
you'll be patient we'll see if this is David Carter or Ed
Viesturs getting back to us.
Connie: That's fine. If you're tuning in, please understand.
__HD: David Carter or Ed Viesturs do you copy? Over.
Connie: These climbers are under extreme conditions right
now.
__HD: Connie for the next minute it looks like it might be
you and I. Are there any—oh, there we go. We've got Ed
back, finally.
__HD: Ed, I copy. Your pulse-ox is 43 and 69 pulse. How long
have you been off oxygen, Ed? Over.
Ed Viesturs: Oh, about a half an hour.
__HD: Ed, you're climbing this trip with oxygen. I know
you've summited on Everest twice now without oxygen. What's
it feel like to be climbing on oxygen? Over.
Ed: Well, to tell you the truth, I guess it was a little
easier, but the fact that I have to carry the oxygen made it
a little bit more cumbersome. So personally I like climbing
better without. I feel more ... (inaudible) Even though I'm
workiong grossly harder, I like the fact that I'm not
carrying anything on my back.
__: I'm wondering, Ed. In terms of your well-being and your
ability to concentrate, what's the difference between
climbing on and off of oxygen? Over.
Ed: I think as far as my mental acuity, for me, I think it's
about the same. But when I am guiding I want to be using
oxygen and that's why I used oxygen this time. But I feel
whether climbing or not, that I do have a lot of my mental
acuity I don't feel out of it, and so I don't know if
there's a big difference.
__: All right. Hey, Ed. How was it for you today? What's it
feel like to be on the summit for the remarkable fifth time?
Over.
Ed: It's great to be up here one more time—for the
fifth time. Believe it or not, I think it's more satisfying
to complete this—
__Ed: And we really got a break in the weather today. Right
now the wind has died, it's beautiful, so it's great to be
up for the fifth time alongside David Breashears again. But
again, it's quite a sight. Very satisfied.
__HD: You broke up a little bit at the end, but we got that
the weather is improving that the wind is dying. People here
are incredibly proud of you, even though it's your fifth
time and congratulations. We're going to check back in now
with live audio, so if you could just stand by, Ed. And
thank you so much for talking to us. Connie, WGBH, are you
still with us? Over.
Connie: We certainly are, Dr. Donner, and it is incredibly
exciting. Are we going to go to David Carter do you
think.
__HD: We are going to try to talk to David Carter and as you
can tell, it's hit and miss and if we can find him we'll get
him on with you.
Connie: Dr. Donner, can you please—if you can
reinstate a few of the things that Ed Viesturs was telling
us, because he was breaking up quite a bit. What was he
saying the conditions are like up there and—
Howard: What he said was that it was a remarkable night
climbing and that the weather was pretty good and when they
first got up there this morning I know from David that the
winds were 30 to 40 knots on the summit.
However, Ed said that the winds have been dying while
they've been up there but nonetheless, they are beginning to
get very cold. I know the temperatures this morning were 35
below zero and the sun is just coming up here, and so the
air is extremely cold and here we go now with Carter, it
sounds like on the radio. So, Connie if you'll be patient
for a moment we'll see if we can get him on.
Connie: Great.
LC: David, I copy. You're going to call us in 45 minutes to
a half hour.
HD: Connie we're just talking with David Breashears and
we're determining what his plan is. It sounds like he's
moving off the summit and we're going to be still trying to
get ahold of Dave Carter who should still be on the summit.
Connie, we just got word that both Dave Carter and Ed
Viesturs are heading off the summit. Apparently they're both
getting very cold, so they're moving down.
We're going to try to see if there are any climbers that we
can talk with and again I'm going to ask you to be patient
for about 15 seconds while we see if there's anyone that's
able to still talk. I guess the temperature extremes up
there are prohibiting them from just hanging out and talking
with us. So, please stand by.
Connie: Okay. We will do that. We are here at NOVA in
Boston. Go ahead, please.
__HD: Connie, it sounds like that's it. They're moving off
the summit. They're all really cold and really tired. They
made an incredibly fast ascent this morning. It's very
typical for climbers to get to the summit of Everest
anywhere from about 11:00 o'clock in the morning anywhere up
to as happened last year—maybe 4:00 o'clock in the
afternoon. These guys were on the summit at what time? They
were on the summit at 6:50, which is actually—I'm sure
that it's been done before but I've actually never heard of
a summit at 6:50 on this mountain.
So, they're very tired, they moved very quickly. It's very
cold because the sun is still very low. So, they're just
moving off the summit for now.
Connie: Dr. Donner do we have any sense of where Pete Athans
is, another member of the expedition?
Howard: Where's Peter Athens, Liesl?
Liesl: We've been trying to reach him and—we've been
trying to reach him and we believe that he too is on the
summit but I think they're all making a hasty retreat at
this point to try to get out of the winds and get down to
the South summit where we can conduct some more pyschometric
tests.
Connie: Dr. Donner, let me ask—
HD: Did you get that, Connie.
Connie: Let me ask you, given the fact that they got up
there so incredibly early and their responses in the
psychometric testing—how do you evaluate just at this
point how they're doing?
__HD: Well, you know, at this point the information is
coming in faster than I can process it, but based on what I
heard they're doing remarkably well. I mean, they're
standing on the highest spot on earth, they have their
oxygen masks off, and I don't think it takes a specialist in
psychometric testing to determine that David and Ed both,
you know, sounded very intact and very lucid and I was quite
surprised actually, but again we have a lot of data and we
need to process this probably at a later point.
Connie: Right. I understand that David Breashears was
actually sick earlier today. Did you have word on that?
__HD: Yes. You know, I don't have much more information than
you do. He mentioned that for whatever reason on his way up
to the summit, he felt quite ill and actually threw up a few
times which is really incapacitating when you're climbing to
have to stop and get sick. So, he was quite—I think he
had quite a hard climb and quite a hard night, but whether
that's the effect of just exhaustion or the efffect of some
malnutrition or dehydration or whether it's an altitude
effect. At this point I really don't know. Or, of course,
being in Nepal, as you might imagine—people get sick
sometimes just from some of the bugs that can get into the
water or the food up here.
Connie: Dr. Donner can you please tell us, do you have any
sense of what was—at what point did they make that
decision to head for the summit and what the conditions were
like at that point so that they decided to do that?
__HD: Well, it's an amazing thing. Oftentimes, people don't
realize that when people head for the summit on this
mountain, they leave very, very early in the evening
relatively speaking. Often climbers leave at 10:00 or 11:00
p.m. at night to make the summit the next day at 12:00
noon.
Well, the truth is that last night around 10:00 o'clock or
so the climbers were really vacillating about whether to
make the summit attempt, and their main reason for that was
that this year there are an extraordinary amount of people
on the mountain. I can't tell you how many. Maybe
between—somewhere between 25 and 45 or 50 people
attempting the summit, and again that's unverified.
The problem on Everest is that there are incredible
bottlenecks that can occur going up to the summit and coming
down from the summit, and there's some real
problems—potential problems getting strung out on the
mountain waiting for groups of people to either move up or
down through some of these bottleneck areas. Well, if you're
standing just basically twiddling your thumbs and you're at
28,000 feet and you're standing in one spot for 30 or 40
minutes waiting for a group of people to go up or down a
fixed rope, that's not good at all.
And the climbers were very, very concerned that they might
be putting themselves into a very dangerous position by
climbing with these hordes of people and I have to say that
most of the climbers that we're talking about are not as
experienced as the climbers on our team who can move very
quickly. And so there was some real problems trying to
decide whether this was going to be smart or not, and I
think at the last minute they decided that they would just
blast for the summit very early in the morning knowing that
they are very strong, and their strategy paid off. They just
left extremely early—about 10:00 or 11:00 o'clock last
night. They moved very quickly and they were able to beat
the hordes up to the summit.
Now, I have to say that they're not completely out of the
woods yet. They're still standing on top of the highest spot
on earth, and you know everyone congratulates them and
everybody's happy and elated and they're not jumping into a
hot tub now. They have to get off the mountain and they're
going to be spending the rest of the day moving down the
mountain through very terrain, and bypassing lots of other
climbers that are coming up over very narrow ridges where
there are lots of potential hazards.
And to make matters worse, you know, I'm going to be
torturing them with psychometric or neuropsychiatric
testing, meaning we're going to continue testing their
brains and continue testing their cardiovascular system or
some other kinds of physiologic data.
So, they're really being pressed right now. They're tired,
they're spent and they're going to just be moving down the
mountain best they can and probably meeting hordes of people
coming up and at 40 or 50 minutes intervals we'll be
torturing them with our tests, Connie.
Connie: Dr. Donner, can you please tell us what will be the
most crucial parts of their descent down and approximately
when will that be taking place, not really knowing what pace
they're moving, but of the time frame if we can make one
here?
__HD: Well, it typically takes climbers about—a normal
climber they average about 10 to 12 hours to get from Camp
IV, which is their high camp up to the summit. The descent
is typically much faster. The real technical parts of the
descent are towards the top where the ridge is extremely
narrow and they have to move down a small technical section
called the Hillary Step. That is an area where there are
usually ropes that are fixed and you're dependent on
climbing or rapelling down a fixed rope. They're worried
that there would be climbers coming up and they would be
essentially stuck on top of the Hillary Step waiting.
So, fortunately, one of the climbers has brought another
rope and they're hoping that if it's really bottlenecked,
they'll be able to rapel down around the climbers coming up.
So in other words there will be a rope with climbers coming
up and another rope that they'll put up with climbers going
down.
Typically, to answer your question in a round about way, it
usually takes them about five hours to get from the summit
back to their high camp which is Camp IV which is on a place
called the South Col which is at 26,000 feet. And keep in
mind not only are they cold but they haven't eaten anything
and probably won't until they get back to their high
camp.
Connie: When do you expect to see them at Base Camp at
17,600 feet?
Howard: Well, that's going to depend on their energy.
They'll probably spend tonight at Camp IV and then tomorrow
they'll probably go down to Camp II and just bypass Camp
III, and they're going to continue filming for this NOVA
project and then the day after that they'll finally come
back down to Base Camp at 17,600.
So, to summarize, tonight they'll be at Camp IV, tomorrow
night they'll be at Camp II and the night after that, back
at Base Camp where we are at 17,600.
Connie: Dr. Donner this has been great, but before we sign
off, we just want to get a sense if you know where the rest
of the party is, the people that we didn't hear about?
__HD: Well, we talked with Ed Viesturs and we talked with
Dave Breashears and we know that David Carter is with Ed
Viesturs heading down. David Carter is an incredible person
and a great climber. He's not in the same league with these
other guys who are some of the finest climbers in North
America certainly. This was Carter's first summit on
Everest, although he attempted it last year—I'm sorry
in 1991. And I know that he was incredibly fatigued. He was
making great time with these world class climbers and just
didn't have the breath left to talk to us.
So, he's with Ed and he stays (?)— Pete Athans, Liesl
Clark told you about and is there anybody else that you're
interested in? Dave Carter and Daka (?) the other two
climbers we know—and Tashi, Tensi and our own Sherpa,
Jangbu, we know made it to the summit and we know that all
of them are safe. Unfortunately, we just couldn't establish
a communication link with them at the summit.
Connie: I thought it was interesting that Ed Viesturs
commented that the oxygen that he's using for the first time
to get to the summit was rather cumbersome for him. How much
does it actually weigh, what he's carrying?
__HD: With the regulator and the tank, I believe it's about
15 pounds total. I don't want you to quote me on that one,
although I know I'm being quoted as I speak, but they're
fairly—they're fairly lightweight. But yet any little
amount of weight in your backpack as you're approaching the
summit is really an incredible burden and oftentimes they
don't just carry one bottle but they carry two to three
bottles at a time.
And oftentimes, guides will carry an extra bottle for their
clients if they are guiding. Well, you know, there can be
quite a bit of weight in extra oxygen. The thing about
Viesturs that's different you need to understand is that he
is extraordinary. I mean, he is no ordinary human. And when
he stands on the summit and says, "Yeah. You know, I think I
prefer climbing without oxygen," I think that that's an
incredible rarity and I think he's one of the few climbers
on earth, at least that I've come in contact with, that feel
as comfortable off of oxygen as on oxygen, so that is not
the norm.
He has some amazing ability to grab oxygen and that would be
a very ... (inaudible) discussion as to how he's able to do
it.
Connie: It is incredible the performance of all of these
people. Is the oxygen going to help keep them warm, that
supplemental oxygen?
__HD: Good question. Absolutely. And it's an interesting
thing but talking with people on and off of oxygen or
talking with climbers at high altitude in general, they will
always tell you that they have a feeling of inner chill and
cold and that they get cold much more readily than they
would on a similar peak in similar temperatures at lower
altitudes.
So, yes breathing oxygen does help keep the inner fires
burning, as you will, and keeps climbers much warmer.
Connie: Dr. Donner, we're going to let you get back to the
business at hand and to continuing the filming there at Base
Camp. Thank you so much for your expertise. This has been an
extraordinary moment for all of us here. And obviously we
give many thanks to all of the climbers and congratulate
them and wish them the best of luck getting down the
mountain and for our listeners you can continue to follow
the progress of the climbers on-line at www.pbs.org/nova.
This is Connie Blaszczyk signing off for NOVA Boston and
thank you for joining us.
END OF EVENT
(back to audio)
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