Larry Rigsby said it was the toughest decision he and his fellow mountaineers ever had to make – to continue their attempt on Mount Everest after the deaths of two Sherpas or scuttle a lifetime of dreams and three years of endless preparation for their one shot at the world’s highest peak.
In the end, the part-time Coloradan and his teammates – like so many other climbers before them – vowed to push ahead, eventually putting their leader, Lakewood attorney Doug Tumminello, on top of the 29,035-foot mountain last week.
“Our general feeling was if the (other) Sherpas called (off) the climb, we would have called the climb. I think we would have really respected their decision,” said Rigsby, who turned back short of the summit because of altitude-induced health problems and was recuperating last week on the Alabama Gulf Coast.
In what has been the second-deadliest season on Everest, many mountaineers, including the likes of Sir Edmund Hillary, are asking whether the price is too much and if climbers are losing sight of what’s important in light of their singular quest for the summit.
“Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of the mountain,” Hillary, 87, told the New Zealand Press Association in the wake of news that some 40 climbers continued past a Briton struggling and subsequently dying high on the mountain.
Mountaineers concede that the lure of Everest can be insatiable, and under perfect conditions the climb is not particularly difficult, with the most-dangerous sections protected by anchored ropes set by the Sherpas and climbed using ratchet-like mechanical ascenders.
This year, a record was set for the oldest climber to reach the summit, a Sherpa climbed the mountain for an unprecedented 16th time, and even a former Polish Playboy playmate reached the top.
But conditions rarely are perfect above 8,000 meters (the mythical “death zone” above 25,000 feet), and climbers – who pay as much as $75,000 for a guided expedition to Everest – often make bad decisions high on the mountain, their judgment about the fast-moving weather, their stamina and their abilities clouded by summit fever and lack of oxygen.
“It’s a huge commitment in money, and it’s a huge commitment in time,” said Aspen’s Steve Marolt, who turned around short of the summit in 2003 and plans to return next year. “When you’ve expended the kind of energy and resources to get there, most people do put blinders on.”
Still, he said it “sickens” him to hear of climbers intent on reaching the summit who marched past solo climber David Sharp after he collapsed above 28,000 feet on May 15.
“How could you possibly walk past another human being who needed your help and not give it to them? That’s pathetic, in my opinion,” Marolt said.
He acknowledged that at such extreme elevations and in technical-climbing areas, helping another person down can be impossible and potentially can put rescuers at risk of their own lives, but said he couldn’t understand continuing ascents without offering any help.
“There are certainly situations where you’re not going to stick your neck out for somebody,” Marolt said. “But if it happens where somebody is on their way up, that’s pretty pathetic.”
Although scores of climbers have reached the summit of Everest this month, it has been a particularly deadly season on the mountain. The 10 fatalities as of last week rival only the disastrous 1996 season in which a dozen died, chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s best seller, “Into Thin Air.”
Certainly danger has been an integral part of mountaineering since its earliest days, and about 200 people have perished on Everest alone.
Before his death of natural causes in 2004, Golden’s Barry Corbet, a member of the first American team to reach the summit in 1963, recalled losing his good friend, Jake Breitenbach, in an ice fall early in that expedition and somehow pressing on.
“It was a significant, sobering event,” he told The Denver Post in 2003, describing his gut-wrenching remorse. “But it was an accepted part of mountaineering.”
Rigsby, a physician who owns a home in Leadville, said Team No Limits was equally devastated by the deaths April 21 of Lhakpa Tseri Sherpa, 32, and Dawa Temba Sherpa, 22, when a block of ice known as a serac fell on them in the notorious Khumbu Ice Fall, the most dangerous section of the mountain, just above base camp.
In his subsequent soul-searching, Rigsby – who later visited the tight-knit families of the fallen Sherpas – questioned whether it was worth continuing.
“I’m going to tell you that after the deaths of the Sherpas, my answer was no. In fact, I even debated whether to climb after that because it really upset me,” he said. “But we could see (that) the Sherpas, they want to climb that mountain, too. They came around, and it was pretty obvious that they were ready to get back in the game and climb.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
