The Happiness Quotient

Jamie McGuinness, On Being a Sherpa and the David Sharp Story on Everest

June 01, 2021 Thom Pollard Episode 83
The Happiness Quotient
Jamie McGuinness, On Being a Sherpa and the David Sharp Story on Everest
Show Notes Transcript

Episode #83 is an amazing story of Mount Everest with six time summiter and the climber leader of our 2019 expedition to search for the body of Sandy Irvine, New Zealand's Jamie McGuinness. 

The original intent of my interview with Jamie was to talk about the expedition of ours in 2019, which has since become a National Geographic film called Lost on Everest and is the subject of a book by NY times bestselling author Mark Synnott called THE THIRD POLE, MYSTERY OBSESSION AND DEATH ON MOUNT EVEREST….which we did talk about.

However, in starting our interview I asked Jamie about what it was like working as a sherpa on expeditions back in the day. The Sherpa are incredibly strong, almost super human, adapted over centuries of living at high altitude to be stronger and faster at altitude...and Jamie joined their ranks….THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING. 

In explaining this, Jamie began telling me about the story of David Sharp, the English mountaineer who died near the summit of Mount Everest in 2006. His death caused controversy and debate because he was passed by a number of other climbers heading to and returning from the summit as he was dying, although a number of others tried to help him. Jamie knew David very well, and tells a full breakdown of one of the most tragic stories in recent history on Everest. 

In that story he also shares about the story of Lincoln Hall, an Australian climber, who during that same year that David Sharp lost his life, he was reported to have died….then, miraculously, survived. Jamie was on the front line of that story. 

He shares about it all here, on The Happiness Quotient.

Here’s my May 2nd, 2021 conversation with one of the strongest climbers from New Zealand since Sir Edmund Hillary….

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Thom Pollard:

This is the happiness quotient I hope you'll take a moment to subscribe to this podcast on Apple podcasts, leave me a review and rate the podcast. It's the best way other than having you my listeners share with friends and on social media for people to learn about us and spread the good vibes and inspiration. Also, stay tuned at the end of this episode where I'll be introducing my new podcast. Because it's there. The HQ isn't going away. We're merely adding to the inspiration to fold with this awesome new podcast. That happened Miss Jones I want to give you a quick update before I introduce you to our guests for today's episode, the one and only Jamie McGuinnis. Sixth time Everest climber from New Zealand who has been a Sherpa and he led our team on Everest in 2019. Today he's going to tell us about one of the most notorious and tragic stories in recent Everest history, the David Sharpe story on May 14 2021. In Episode 80, I interviewed my longtime friend of many mountain adventures, Andy Politz, Annie and I had another conversation upon his return from Everest were at age 6130 years since his first climb of the mountain, and he made his second ascent of the mountain, this time from the south. 30 years between successful summits and tagging at age 61 is no small feat. I spoke with a healthy happy and reflective Andy from his hotel in Katmandu, where he debriefed me on his successful climb. It was an amazing interview and moments before I made the episode go live, we had to pull the episode. for reasons I can't go into here. It's a very unfortunate thing that we're unable to share that interview at this time, as Andy's words are beyond inspirational. I'm leaving it there as a placeholder for episode number 82. And we are going to move right on to Episode 83 with Jamie McGinnis. I've agreed with Andy that upon his return to the states, which will be very soon, we'll do an episode together, where he's going to talk about his inspiring story, which has made a lasting impression on 1000s of high school students over the years, to whom he has given presentations and courses. Today, I bring you an amazing story of Mount Everest with six times submeter and the climbing leader of our 2019 expedition to search for the body of Sandy Ervin Jamie McGinnis. The original intent of this interview with Jamie was to talk about the expedition of ours in 2019, which has since become a National Geographic film called lost on Everest, and is the subject of a book by New York Times Best Selling Author Mark Sennett called the third pole mystery, obsession and death on Mount Everest, which we did talk about. But in starting our interview, I asked Jamie about what it was like working as a Sherpa, literally as a Sherpa on expeditions back in the day. And the Sherpa the actual culture the tribe of Sherpa who live in Nepal in the Khumbu region, are incredibly strong, almost superhuman, adapted over centuries of living at high altitude, and they become stronger and faster while working at altitude and therefore have become invaluable on Everest expeditions over the years. Jamie literally joined their ranks he worked as a Sherpa on several expeditions which is a superhuman feat. That's saying something and I even people who might want to or fancy doing the work of a Sherpa have no business even trying it. Jamie is really a unique individual one of the strongest people I've ever climbed with. In explaining what it was like to be a Sherpa. Jamie also began telling me about the story of David Sharpe, the English mountaineer, who died near the summit of Mount Everest in 2006. His death caused international controversy and debate because he was passed by a number of other climbers heading to, and who were returning from the summit as he was dying, although a number of others did try to help him. Jamie had worked with David in previous years and knew him very well. And he gives an incredibly full and detailed breakdown of one of the most tragic stories in recent history on Everest, and I think that you're truly going to enjoy that story. In it. He also shares about the story of Lincoln Hall, and Australian climber who during that same year, where David Sharpe lost his life, Lincoln Hall was reported to have died and then miraculously survived. Jamie was on the front line of that story, and he shares about that here as well. This is here on the happiness quotient. We have him Jamie McGinnis. Here's my May 2 2021 conversation with one of the strongest climbers from New Zealand since Sir Edmund Hillary. It would be really cool if you could tell me a little bit if we could roll the clock back on you. You have climbed Everest now six times, I believe. But you've climbed Everest six times. But you've been there multiple times, including in the role of Sherpa which is, believe me, man, that is that to me, you might as well climb Everest without oxygen in a T shirt. Before becoming a Sherpa and not be a real Sherpa because that is the hardest job on the planet. Damn dangerous too. I'd love it if you just kind of told me a little bit about that. And, and what that experience was like?

Jamie McGuinness:

Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, how how this sort of I fell into this also. So it was an expedition to Troy, you, which is the sixth highest mountain. And there was a team there who had a lot of problems. We were there with a group that was fine. With an expedition, it was all going well. But they just ran into endless problems. And as it happens, it was David Sharpe on the team. Essentially, what they've done is to save money. They'd said to the tracking company, give us all the supplies at base camp, and we'll cook ourselves. And when they got there and realize that they had rice flour, and they didn't know what to do with it. I sorted out a cook from another expedition who would cook first for his expedition, then come over and do it. Anyway. As it happened, one of the team members died on the expedition that was very sad. I ended up carrying the body off with another climbing Sherpa. And when they said they were going to Everest the next year, I was like, oh, yeah, they were disorganized. And just you're nice people. But you know, the leader just didn't have it together. So I said, Okay, so how about I go as a climbing Sherpa, will that work? Because they didn't want a guided trip, you know, I was sort of guiding 1000 meter peaks. And they said, okay, and they booked very last minute, there were all sorts of issues. We ended up with one climbing Sherpa who was the bottom of the barrel basically. And myself. And but what was really interesting. So on the mountain, so climbing, carrying the loads is real. And this is where I'm so lucky, because actually, I felt fit enough strong enough, I could see that they were eating mountains of data that I needed to, you know, they could eat once or twice, twice a day, I needed to eat three or four times a day I needed snacks, but otherwise I could do it. But what I realized was these guys the the served as the boss, climbing Sherpas, if you will, a lot of them are really exceptional people, not just in terms of organization, they have that bad in terms of fitness and in terms of just joviality and just attitude getting things done. You know, it was I had a lot of fun. You know, and the hard work didn't seem too hard to me to be honest. You know, I just I pushed my body and I could, but there's one guy Tsering Dorji, who, you know the name because he's the he's the person who actually saw Sandy Irvine's body on the mountain. So I remember one time I was I was climbing towards north col and there was searing dodgy and so he's there heavy guy, he's he likes to joke and he's very forward in your face with a lot of things. And I looked at his load and his load was just small, you know, it looked like it was a few oxygen cylinders. And that was about it. And as it happened, I had a really big pack because I had some oxygen cylinders, a little bit of heavy stuff in there. But I had a lot of down gear. So you know, there was this huge pack. And I said to him swap. And he said, Okay, and I looked at his pack, and I'm like, What the hell have you got in here, and I did swap, I did carry it up. But his pack was was substantially heavier than mine. And what I found out later, he didn't tell me, he wouldn't tell me. But he had a bronze statue in there that he took to the top of Everest, put there that had a glass case over it. And it weighed, I don't know, 10 or 12 kilos or something like that. And he climbed Everest three times that season to get the record for the number of times in a season working for an Indian military team. And on the third time, lift the statue up on top of Everest, this Buster, I guess, this Buddha sort of vast, which was so so cool. But it was the whole experience was very enlightening for me, because the joking kidding around, the camaraderie you in the Western teams, people are friendly, but they're competing on a business level as well. And you're having friends really helps and that at the same time, there's that little bit, the climbing Sherpas know that they're going to be working with their friends next year on another expedition perhaps together. So among many of them in a in a sort of a group that you could say really know each other and trust each other. They really, they just help out. They're just really friendly and good. So it was a great experience to really, to work closely with them. And then later how this how this worked out was. So at that time, the climbing Sherpas basically Russel Bryce was the mayor of base camp, as you've kind of heard on the north side this was and they were like, and the climbing Sherpas were like, well, we need somebody to go and collect all the money. And then distributed among the climbing Sherpas, the additional work that's done on the mountain that's done on behalf of teams, rather than the individual expeditions, on behalf of all the teams like fixing the rope higher up. And it's a tricky job, because you can get accused of all sorts of things. So they looked at me and they pointed at me. And so it was my job to go around to each expedition leader and team and explained that they should be paying for this and to collect the money. And what I wanted to make sure of was every cent every, every rupee went to the right place. And so I always took along a couple of other people with me. And Joe, we just kept a clear account, just a handwritten account. But I could see that you're in that in that aspect, the trust of being able to show everything being able to speak clearly about it really mattered. And so this is why, to me, this is this trust aspect. This respect aspect is is so important. And it's something that we didn't start out with a lot of it. We had some of it with some of the people working with us, but some of the new crew and the outside crew. It was very hard to get that. And I just there was a lot going on. We were busy. We were having fun, but we were busy all the time. So it was harder to gel.

Thom Pollard:

Yeah. Interesting. Wow. Very, very awesome story. And I could probably go in about 10 different directions right now. However, I would like to ask you ever so briefly, about David Sharpe, if you're comfortable talking about it, because he became you know, he became World News The next year, and you were at least in proximity as that took place can Can you are you willing to would you be interested in okay with that kind of explaining what happened there?

Jamie McGuinness:

David Sharpe. Oh, David Sharpe, this is this is a tale because it hit world headlines but you have to understand the real sort of David Sharpe, he was a teacher. He ended up working as a on some sort of government projects involved with AI basically, in the early days with missiles. He was smart, you know, he was articulate. He was very English in a lot of ways. He was sort of skinny, lean, thoughtful, respectful, not at all brash or anything like that. So I met him we climbed Charlie you together. That was the time when I mentioned about the Other expedition, the Irish one, the Northern Ireland, one that had problems. So David was with me, the Northern Ireland expedition was separate. And we got to the top of choice EU, and it was all looking good. And we just sat in the snow. And wow, just looked across at Everest, because you look from the top of joy you from the real top, you look straight across at Everest, and it's about the only thing that's higher than you because you're on the sixth highest mountain of the planet, even 7000 meter mountains, when you're up there just look like nothing anymore. They're just on the way up. They they're big, and then all of a sudden you look down, they're just they're not they're almost. So anyway, we climbed it. And then the next expedition he was involved with was this Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland expedition to Everest. He joined the expedition, basically, to make it work, your more financially, there were only three of them anyway. So we were on Expedition together there, I was working as the climbing Sherpa along with inquiry, and we moved all the oxygen everything up. It was an interesting summit window, because this was the sort of earliest days of explorers were with Tom and Tina running things. And they had a free weather forecast up on the website that you could access. And this was gold, because they were generating forecasts through whoever, up to about 10 days out. So you could see this weather window. So we watched this way the window, I looked at it. And the weather window looked fairly clear in the beginning, it was late in the season, everybody was itching to go. And basically, the closer the weather window got the worst the weather looked and kind of disappeared. But nobody had any more time left on the expedition basic on any of the expeditions. And so basically, everybody had to go anyway. So I carried the last load up to camp three and Cory had stolen some oxygen bottles and left for Kathmandu by that stage. So which was quite bizarre and not not usual for most of the climbing Sherpas, that sort of thing. But so, Richard and David Sharpe went to try to go to the summit of Everest, they were wearing the old style scarper plastic boots, not the not the new sort of meaIs that are fully insulated and that have really thick insulation. So they turned back, came back down, you know, there was carnage on the mountain. The weather got slightly better during the day. But if it had got slightly worse, there could have been 30 or 40. Dead. Instead, there were just a lot of emergencies. And, yeah, it was one of those days. In fact, it was one of those nights because we'll we'll roll back of it just for a little story. Sorry. So I'm carrying the last slide up. And I get up to the camp three, the highest camp at 1200 meters or so camp six, as we talk in, in 1920 terms, and there's no there's no place to put the tent. So I start digging out a tent platform. And it's a horrible place. It's steep, they're a little bit too steep, really for any sort of comfort. And so I'm trying to scrape stuff out and I've been there for an hour and I sort of get the tent up a little bit but it's a small tent, it's not looking great. And David and Richard turn up and they say okay, I'm out of here. And they say no, hang on, help us with the tent or you put up the tent so that we don't ruin our summit chances. So I spent another five hours hacking out the tent platform. And by this time so I've come up wearing a down suit. I had a powerbar or something like that in my pocket. I had a little one of those Nalgene half liter Arranmore 450 mil bottles. Yeah, yeah, the dinky little ones in my pocket. And that's all I had because I was just dropping a load up there. And then I was going to go back down to the next camp to low and camp. So night. Basically it was sort of 530 at night by the time I finished this. So I borrowed a mat from somebody and a thin foam mat and they had a sleeping bag each and they said all they needed to one sleeping bag in the small tent. So I went and slept outside at that night. But the wind was howling and I was in this sleeping bag that was just it wasn't quite big enough for me to put keep my boots on and and in the sleeping bag. So I had to take my boots off. So I slept outside that's I couldn't find I had a bottle of oxygen stashed somewhere else couldn't find it. So I slept outside without oxygen. And every 20 minutes, half an hour, I had to sort of hold my toes because the wind was pressing on the sleeping bag at my feet. And so there was no insulation there. So I was I was worried about losing my toes. And but the funny thing is, so the place I've chosen in the dark, more or less, and I hadn't been up there before. Or maybe I'd been up once. Anyway. The first expedition going to the summit set off, and Kerry cobbler who's a well known Swiss guide, looked over and said, Oh, wow, that's the first dead body. And I said, Actually, no, it's not. It's me. I'm alive. It's Jamie. And he knew who I was at that stage. And he just laughed and just was quite surprised. But worse than that was Richard and David Sharpe walked past. And they also said, Oh, man, that's a dead body. What can we do? And they didn't recognize that it was their climbing Sherpa in their sleeping bag. That's how messed up you are at altitude. Yeah. So anyway, I managed to get back down and find some oxygen warm my feet up, basically, because the oxygen really helps with the circulation. And I headed back down, they back down to the next camp. They tried to go for the summer, their boots weren't warm enough. And they had a little bit of frostbite on their fingers and their toes and their cheeks. They turned back. And so I met them and I went down to base camp with them to ABC, sorry, advanced base camp dealt with it. And then actually, I went all the way down to base camp as they then left the expedition Joe, left early. Well, not early, but just went back to Kathmandu returned to Kathmandu. And then I climbed back up. And then because Bandra the last guy on the northern island expedition didn't want to be seen guided as such the I wasn't the guide, I was the climbing Sherpa. We did go up to camp three together. It was hilarious, because he's such a funny guy. He's such a nice guy. We'd had some other crazy things happen in Basecamp. ended up marrying the woman which is quite surprising at Basecamp. flunky that flew that came around. We were we were sitting in the dining tent. And this, this group of three or four tourists came in and said, Wow, are you on on an Everest expedition? I'm like, yep, we are. Or I wasn't there. But they did, and invited them in. And then the end, they ended up staying up there for the night. And they showed the climbing Sherpas in another team weren't too happy about sort of the noise and everything that might have gone on. But he ended up marrying Lauren, which is quite amazing banjo. Anyway. We, he couldn't he, for some reason, he was struggling at altitude. And he just couldn't. And he was a strong guy, funny as hell. But he just couldn't get his couldn't quite get up to the camps with the stuff that he was carrying. So on. Basically, every time he'd gone to a camp, I had to claim his radio, I would climb down and then bring his stuff up the last 100 200 meters. And not my place to say it. But coming up to camp three, had called down radio down and said, Oh, can you come and help me that last bit, which is quite tough, actually, that last bit into camp three, the highest camp, and I sort of said, Ah, if you can't get up here, perhaps you shouldn't be going to Summit. It might be too dangerous, Bad. Bad climbing Sherpa discussion there. But he did get up to the camp. I did bring the last bit in. And when we went to the summit, we went separately. Because I was basically going as we were for ourselves in this case. And after a couple of hours, I looked looked back I didn't see any head torch. I kept going. I got to the summit. There was one of Russell Bryce's expedition on top and I took photos of them. And then I asked her Sufia, who's an Australian climber. And I asked her to take photos of me. And she said no, because she get frostbite on her hand. So handling the camera. I was like, oh, so I took a couple of selfies with the days of film. And what I never realized was I got those photos back and I had blood running down from my nose. Nobody had told me I had blood running down my face. I didn't taste it. And that's when I realized that I had claimed with oxygen. But when you're on there, or when you're on the summit, when you're looking around with oxygen, you're just going to see better, you're going to feel better. You're going to experience more of it. Anyway. So I went back really with Richard and with David to base camp, and then they took a Jeep out there Then I'd come up to climb with banjo. And what I'd missed out on was if I hadn't taken them back, actually, I could have been a climbing working climbing Sherpa from New Zealand, climbing Everest on the what's the 50th or 60th anniversary of Hillary's client. And instead, I missed that by a couple of days because I've taken them down I think life could have been a slightly different trajectory if I had exploited that. Not that I feel comfortable exploiting something like that. But it was pretty cool to be up there anyway. And climb as a work truly as a climbing Sherpa truly caring loads, truly working, you know, spending a lot of time talking with these guys understanding how it is. And, you know, for a lot of people, you know, it sounds like an impossible job. You know, that they can work so much harder than most foreigners, but they're genetically adapted. That's not all of it. But they're definitely genetically adapted to altitude, and have the physiology and also in being brought up have had just sort of less food, less surety of food, their bodies are better with energy and all sorts of things. And that's, that's basically their advantage. Let's get back to David Sharpe now, though. So that was David sharps. First time on Everest

Thom Pollard:

2004. Yeah, oh, well, yeah, I

Jamie McGuinness:

need to pull up my lists. And then he went back again. And then the third time, basically. I guess it's the third time anyway, I remember. I contacted him, Oh, actually, I sat with him in Sam's bar. Now, I don't know how this came about. But I said to him, that he had had bad experiences on both of those expeditions. And I said, I said to him, point blank, join our expedition paid, whatever, you're going to pay Asian tracking or, which was something like $10,000, the time we were charging 20,000 to climb. I said, just pay them. The only constraint is when we go for the summit, we've got to have everything in place. We've got to have all the oxygen ready. We've got to have the climbing Sherpas with us. We've got to have this backup if something goes wrong. And he said, Wow, that's a an a generous offer. And said that, I just won't do that. Because of those constraints. You know, they're good constraints, I understand. But he wanted to climb Everest without oxygen, you know, additional bottled oxygen, and realize that God needed some freedom rather than having that full setup that full backup. So he was with his expedition, he came over we had dinner in Basecamp. Yeah, he came over for lunch, dinner, just chats. It's It's social, it's fun and Basecamp. He spent a bit of time at our camp. I always I said a few times to him, you know, just take a radio from us. Yeah, one of our radios that I'd set up to work on the frequency so that we'd be in contact. And that's my last and regret with David was that he didn't take a radio if I'd pushed him a little bit harder, maybe he would have. But so, David Sharpe, he went for the summit. We weren't there. We were at Advanced base camp. There were a few other teams around. But he was climbing essentially by himself. He wanted to climb in a pure style, without oxygen. But the issue when you're climbing without oxygen without bottled oxygen is what do you do in an emergency. So what quite a few of the climbers now do is have a climbing Sherpa walking behind who carries the oxygen for you just in case he carried a bottle of oxygen himself and regulator and mask and that adds five kilos or so 1012 pounds. And so he didn't summit until perhaps 4pm. It's not truly known whether he summited I think he did. There was the first Bhutanese climber who we talked with a bit but they came back and something happened on the way back between them or they split. The couldn't keep up something. But anyway, David just stopped there. You know, in, in some of our other discussions with talked a bit about the history of Everest about how Doug Scott who's very English, slipped out a night on on Everest to bivouacked when he got caught out. And I'd say today the geo from my experience on the mountains, the thing that you wanted the most was some sort of sleeping pad, or sitting pad to sleep on. And then if the weather was okay, you're you're probably pretty tough. We discussed it If, and but it would be survivable. But and so he had this in his mind that Yo, you could do this. And so when he was so late, he must have gotten to where green boots was, you know, in the dark basically and decided that was the place with the, you know, with a little bit of shelter where he could sort of shelter for the night. But I don't think he had a pad to sit on. He might have he might not have. But whatever it was, it was such a savagely cold night. It was a really cold, slightly windy night too. Even a bit more than a gentle breeze on Everest, Joe when the when, when the air temperatures minus 30 or 40. It just cuts through everything. Now, that night, that he's they're lying. They're sitting there basically sitting hunched over, a number of expeditions went past, most famously, Russell Bryce's team, with Mark Engels, who's an Australian climber who was an amputee. He'd lost both legs, or climbing accident and Mount Cook. Quite a famous one in New Zealand. And, you know, with Mark fetter and some of the guides, and so there's a little bit of video of him there. The other team that went past was the Turkish team. And there was a big Turkish team basically, I don't know if that'd be the first Turks to summit, but it was a big team, they really wanted to do it. They weren't experienced on the 1000 meter mountains up there. Anyway, so I had dinner with the Turkish team afterwards. And they just walked past and they just said to him, don't don't sit down for too long. Keep going Keep going. They thought he was moving up. And to me that seemed genuine when I spoke with them. Things were a lot more roundabout in Russell's scam about this. I'm not saying Russell did anything wrong, but you know, it's, it's, it's tricky when you're up there. Anyway. So David Sharpe somehow just stayed there didn't get the help until later, the next day. You know, when these when these climbers were coming back down from the summit. And we were going up now. And I met Darwin, who works for Aaron tricks who was working with the Turkish team. He was the sort of lead climbing Sherpa if you like for them. And the brother of the boss of Aaron tricks, and I met him on the snow slope going up between North Cole and Cam camp to you know, that big long snow slope that that's featureless almost just with a rope, and we sat down in the snow and he cried. He just he cried. He said he had tried to help David Sharpe, Yo everybody knew about there was something up with David. There wasn't a lot of communication going on. But he said to him and one of the climbing Sherpas from Russell's team, which I think was perv atashi had spent at least half an hour with him, trying to help them stand up. He was slurring, he couldn't speak. And that was said that he could see I don't know how he knew it was sort of frostbite unless it was blackening. But the blackening was halfway up his forearms. And he couldn't really move his legs, his legs wouldn't support his weight. And to get any further down, you know, that's what was needed if he could just stand up, but he just couldn't stand up. And he was in tears as he relayed this to me because he knew he was leaving him to, you know, to die. What is amazing, and I've discussed this with David also earlier, sadly, you have much earlier was the people sort of when they're dying of cold, you can come alive again, like Beck weathers did in 1996 on Everest, yo suddenly sort of woke up and realize this was his last chance. And somehow this energy came back in. And I think this is what happened with David Sharpe as well was not the energy but just the life because he should have died later that night, early morning when it was cold as hell. And I think your body you're just your heart rate just dropped so low. All the blood stops going to the extremities, that's where the Frostbite comes from. And you're almost in a hibernation until you kind of die. And anyway, so I guess the real controversy with David Sharpe was the fact that and it's spread around the world like wildfire that had been left for dead. And, you know, oh, it's heartbreaking in many ways, you know, people could have helped him and it you know, it might have turned out differently if he was helped instead intensively at when people went past him it sort of one two in the morning, three, and then yeah, two in the morning. And it might have also been impossible to rescue him. Whatever it is David with disgust, he didn't want to endanger Rescuers at all. A lot of people think like this, at least until the shit hits the fan anyway. But yeah, we'd had that discussion. And he really he didn't. And I know that also from what he said to to be a Sentinel to be a body there to sort of remind people that they should take care of themselves up there also on the way down. I'm not sure that he would have minded that role too much, although I couldn't quite see his mother. And family didn't want that at all. You know, and yeah, but the controversy was, so he was left for dead then. Lincoln Hall, who. That's a curious story, as well as we'll just give a little bit of background there. Lincoln halls climbing with an Australian geographic team of four climbers. And one of them's aiming to be the youngest to climb the Simon, the father. And basically, early on in the expedition, the son who's 15 years old, we could see the father was a pushy sort of driving sort. Unlike with Jordan Romero, who became the youngest American, his father was, well, he was a good guy, and gentle and philosophical. But so this was, this kid was being pushed. And so at Advanced base camp to 6400 meters, 21,000 feet, he walks out of camp to go to North col gets up, I don't know, 150 meters and faints. And so they pick them up, they help them, they get them down to advanced base camp, sorry. And the doctor looks them over, they go to base camp, comes back up, Doctor, the Russian doctor looks him over carefully says, well, he couldn't see anything wrong. You didn't know what it was? Yeah, what did they want to do? Well, they want to try again. So the kid gets to the same spot, and faints. And exactly the same spot and you explain that. That's the time when you give up, you know, he shouldn't have been there in the first place. Anyway, the point is Lincoln Hall now is on this expedition that had for four or five members. And he's the only one left all the others have to go back. Yeah. So Lincoln has a lot of support. And Lincoln Hall, you might remember, was part of the white Limbo team that climbed straight up the north face, the Australian team that climbed straight up, which was such a cool expedition, a crazy expedition, Tim McCarthy, Snape, they, I forget, they lost their boots or something or their boots got wet, they had to climb in ski boots, touring ski boots, as well. And Lincoln was in support. Lincoln didn't summit with them. So this was chart, many, many years later. This was Lincoln's chance to Summit. He went up. And his team was being supported by Alex EPROM of Seven Summits. Who's an interesting guy, very Russian, very practical, very straight. And I really I get on well with Alex, he's, he's good. That year, I had my radio tune so that I could listen into every expedition and would just scan all the frequencies with noted them all down at Basecamp. And I realized that Lincoln was in trouble. So we listened in on this the whole day, basically. And I went to chat with Alex and there was a lot happening in his camp. And so the climbing Sherpas were speaking a mixture of Napoleon Sherpur. I don't speak Sherpa. My Nepal is limited, but they use pretty limited languages language themselves, and so I could understand everything they were saying, and a few words crept out. And as Oh, and we had a team up there, we were actually, I was running two expeditions. One was Scott Williams, who had 12 clients, and then I was running the Everest Peace Project. And so we had Scott was up there. This was why I was watching everything so carefully. And Scotland, the team were coming down, and our climate are well, yeah, that's even another story. We can't go there. The climate fell dead right in front of them. Anyway. So I'm listening in on all this. And at about 7pm That night, the climbing Sherpas are saying, okay, tell this to our wives when we don't get back. And I just jumped in. I thought about it. And I just jumped in and I said, Well, what's his condition? They said, he's a sack of potatoes basically. I said, Well, you shine and I shine a torch in his eyes. They said nothing happened. I don't know whether they were looking for flickering or pupil dilation. I mean, I hadn't told him that. My Nepali wasn't to their ability, but they said nothing happened. And I said, You guys have to go. So it was actually me that told them to keep going down. Yeah, to to abandon Lincoln Hall, it was either going to be three people dead, or one person did as far as I could see. And I went and I saw I gave this without Alex being there. We've been at his camp, we've discussed all sorts of problems during the day. I went back over to Alex's camp, and he said, Yeah, that's the way it had to be. And he put an announcement out that Lincoln Hall was dead immediately. That's the rationing and it's like, yeah, and, and as far as we were concerned, he was dead, and then feel cramped and climbing with Dan Missoura as a guide. They had oxygen problems. Phil was actually climbing without oxygen. Dan had one bottle I think, or something like this. They've they've ran into Lincoln Hall. And he just, he sort of sat up and he had didn't have his gloves on. He had his down suit open in the sun. I think it was even might have been in sun. But he just said, I bet you're surprised to see me here. And they were. And so that was a great excuse for them to basically to help him or at least spread the word and turn around from their summit attempt, which was from a logistical point of view looking pretty dodgy. I guess I've said a bit much detail actually, I'm not sure Dan, I'll be too happy with that description. But that's what was happening. And but the problem was they had toy radios as well, and couldn't radio down to advance Basecamp. So the message was relayed through in the end at some climbing Sherpas anyway. And so Lincoln Hall was so then Alex had 13 Climbing Sherpas climbing up to the highest camp to clear it bring down and then they were diverted, well had to climb higher some of them and pick up Lincoln Hall and bring him down. And so Lincoln lived and David Sharpe died in the same sort of circumstances, you're basically being left for dead. And the big big difference was with David Sharpe, it was a frigid, freezing icy cold night. And with Lincoln Hall. It's never warm up there. But it wasn't too bad. Yeah, it might have been just a little bit below zero Celsius might have been minus five minus 10. But it was still completely still. And that's where you're if you have a bit of energy in your body and a little bit of oxygen to that'll help you burn that energy, while you're breathing, keep you warm, you're not pushing your body too much you can survive. And so that was the real controversy of the season was was Lincoln Hall surviving. But the crazy thing was, of course, Lincoln had been declared dead. And a friend of mine, Duncan Chesil spoke, tried to speak with the family to tell them that actually he wasn't dead. And they had a family member protecting them. Who wouldn't let Duncan speak with them. And then the end, Duncan just said, What do you need? And they said, We need a fat he'd said, We need a photo. So I took a photo of Lincoln in the tent. It's smiling, actually, with his hands bandaged, and sent that it was low quality, but sent that and that Fido got out and basically went around the world. And that was the thing that eventually proved that to the family that he really was alive. But definitely, Lincoln was a smart cookie, interesting, interested person. And that experience somehow dulled his brain a bit. Yeah. That that was the reality of it. And very sadly, later, he died of a disease I can't pronounce, but basically from experience clearing out asbestos from

Thom Pollard:

local school. Mesothelioma. Yeah.

Jamie McGuinness:

Yes. Yeah, exactly. So that's David Sharpe and Lincoln Hall and the contrasts and there are a few more Tales From that day on Everest as well. But as you can see, I mean, it's an experience up there sometimes a crazy, crazy experience and we kind of had that too.

Thom Pollard:

I'll be sharing another part of my interview with Jamie here on the HQ in a week. And then also more about the Mallory and Irvin mystery in my new podcast, which I want to tell you about now it's called because it's there. Here's the teaser. The true definition of adventure is an endeavor you embark upon when you don't know the outcome. In the spirit of long lost Everest pioneer George Mallory, who was told that no human being could ever climb Mount Everest. we tip our caps here to the people who dared to go where few others dared. Mallory was once asked, Why climb Everest? He's famously credited to have answered because it's there. We all have an Everest whether on land, sea, air space, or quite simply the mind. In because it's there will be meeting with some of the world's most intrepid explorers, and adventurers, scientists, biologists, oceanographers, like Don Walsh, who in 1960 co piloted the bath of Scaff Triest to the bottom of the Mariana Trench 35,994 feet below the sea. We'll share a rare interview with Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to ever set foot upon the summit of Everest, will also meet modern day explorers like climber filmmaker, social media influencer, Renato noster will investigate mysteries such as the disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Ervin, who in 1924 disappeared high upon the slopes of Everest, last seen at over 28,000 feet going for the top there disappearance continues to captivate armchair mountaineers, and would be sleuths almost 100 years later. What these men and women all share is a belief in oneself. The refusal to accept the common idea that something is impossible, because it's there will amaze you educate, entertain, and inspire listeners to stretch the limits of their imagination and begin to see what's possible. If you ever thought about what it would be like to sail around the world and an ancient styled ship made of reeds, swim the English Channel search for never before discovered species climb Mount Everest balloon around the globe. Well, because it's their will share important and unique contributions to exploration, science, literature, adventure and human endeavor throughout history and into the future. I'm your host explore adventure and filmmaker Thom Pollard. I've been all around this great big world. And I look forward to sharing this exciting podcast with you because it's there thank you to the woods brothers and their management for the use of their song happiness Jones for our theme song here on the HQ and to their publicist Kevin Calabro for helping make it all happen. I'm wondering if there's a would brothers song that would fit for because it's there. Or maybe it hasn't been written yet. Oh, perhaps we will share some inspiration back in that direction, since we derive so much from that amazing song, and their incredible talents Thank you wood brothers. If you'd like a free downloadable PDF of the happiness quotient, a course and happiness, visit me at patreon.com/the happiness quotient. And for more information about me to inquire about personal coaching or public speaking in person or virtually, please visit eyes open productions.com Or write me any time at Tom dot Dharma dot Pollard at Gmail. Remember that which we most want to find can often be discovered in the place where we least want to look and the deeper and deeper Are the well the brighter the light we will discover don't curse the dark cloud the rain inside may very well turn your garden green Thank you for visiting the happiness quotient I will see you all real soon

The Wood Brothers:

I don't know where Barrow in the storm to rock my boat. I was stuck in my throat when I was happy sighs I was singing it and next thing I'm thinking I might as well change mine to happiness John's happiness Happy Happiness Happy Happy, happy happiness we got it happy happy happy