June 1, 2015
Ryan Waters - Everest Interview, May 2015
I've known Ryan Waters for six years now and I can honestly say that he luckiest unlucky person I know. It seems like every year I get a call from Ryan from some remote corner of the globe about one 'close call' or another. An avalanche on Manaslu, being on a hijacked plane in Russia, the list goes on and on. Actually, that's not totally true. Usually, I hear about some crazy situation on the news, then later find out that Ryan was somehow involved. His pragmatic demeanor rarely allows for hyperbole.
In one sense, these near-death encounters are just a part of Ryan's life. As the director of Mountain Professionals, he has led sixteen 8000 meter peak expeditions, including four expeditions to Mt. Everest, reaching the summit of both the Tibet and Nepal sides of the mountain. Still, when I woke up to check the news of a terrible Earthquake in Nepal and avalanche that had struck Everest Base Camp on April 25th, I was more than a little worried. Thankfully, Ryan called me an hour later on his satellite phone to let me know that he was OK. In normal Ryan fashion, he was brief, thoughtful and to the point.
The catastrophic avalanche that led up to the call and the events that followed are hard to fathom for most of us. Several weeks later, I asked Ryan to share his experiences and thoughts.
1. Tell me a little bit about you, Mountain Professionals and what you were doing on Everest/Lhotse this year.
Not sure what order but I consider myself a guide, mountaineer, adventurer, since they all blur into one sometimes. When I am guiding it is my main focus and my main source of income in a year is by leading expeditions. Mountain Professionals has always kept the small team philosophy of guiding even in the Himalayas, where we have a very high staff to client ratio and climb as a team, we do not adopt the current style of sending people out on mountains with a radio and possibly sherpas saying 'call us when you get to camp one'. So we had 3 clients on Everest and 1 client for Lhotse. All our people had climbed with our company in the past and were competent mountaineers to attempt this kind of peak in a guided situation, again unlike many clients you see on the mountain now. Even some supposed reputable guide services accepted clients who did not know how to put on a harness or crampons... it is both hilarious and scary to see a teams members and in some cases, climbing sherpas practicing basic skills in the icefall before the climb.
2. How many times have you climbed Mt. Everest? Other notable summits?
This was my fourth time leading an expedition to Everest. I have summited two times, once from Tibet and once from Nepal, the other time got a chest infection on our summit push, so chose to stay in high camp and let the rest of the staff go with the clients, and this time the outcome was determined by nature... so i feel lucky to have led 3 successful trips that reached the summit. Most of my "notable" summits would probably be other 8000 meter peaks of which i have summited five different ones and guided several of those multiple times to the summit.
3. Describe your 'process' for climbing/guiding Mt. Everest.
We always have this philosophy of trying to arrive in good style wherever we are climbing to. So we take a slow approach trek into arrive at base camp. etc. So when you get there people are feeling good. Same with higher camps. We stress to our team to practice hard skills at base camp such as clipping past transitions, so we look good and like a proper climbing team, we stay together on the way and take care of each other, so we arrive at high camp in good style, hopefully feeling good as well! I take a somewhat aggressive mindset on climbing these mountains with my team, meaning we are not waiting to see what other teams are going to do, if the conditions are right and it is safe, we go climb to camp one and get on with things. I like to get acclimated early and then wait for the best weather, and definitely not the first weather window on Everest because this is when everyone rushes to try and summit and quite frankly this is when the most accidents happen. You typically see the more long standing guide companies wait for the next window and things run smooth.
4. Did you notice any difference in the attitude of climbers/sherpas in Base Camp and/or on the mountain due to the previous years of 'bad luck'.
No not really, at least for my team our climbers and certainly our Sherpas were very eager to just climb the mountain as if it was just a normal year, which it was until the earthquake. I will say that after this accident I did see a marked change in the mindset of some guides and companies who start to wonder if things are worth it sometimes. Like clients and Sherpas, guide services have a lot of skin in the game, reputations, safety of team members, huge financial obligations, and equipment that gets smashed and broken, or even left at camp 2 because of getting cut off from the earlier loads we carried, due to the mountain closing.
5. How was your team's climb progressing prior to the Earthquake?
Very well, we had just gone to sleep in camp one and returned to base camp feeling great and excited to get one of our two acclimatization rotations completed. Our Sherpas were going back on one more carry to finish stocking camp 2 and we had all our tents for the entire mountain up in C2. So things were looking great. Most importantly our team members were thankfully feeling strong and healthy.
6. Where were you when the Earthquake/Avalanche occurred. Can you describe what happened?
Just as we were entering our dining dome at lunch time, already used to hearing the normal avalanches come of the surrounding mountains, we felt a very large rumble under foot that continued for an extended time. Right away we looked at each other and said â??earthquakeâ?, and we ran outside to the center of our camp. That is when the massive avalanche came off of Pumori's east side and exploded at the valley floor. We had just enough time to run over to our gear storage tent and all huddled inside awaiting whatever air blast was heading our way. I told the group, â??its just going to be air and snow so get low and hold on, it will be ok.â?
7. What was your first reaction? Second?
It was just a few minutes before we started to hear from shouts and word of mouth that base camp was in terrible trouble down there. We as a team all checked in with each other and decided ok we are fine, lets stay close and look out for any aftershocks or slides. Then I ran to my tent and put on mountain clothing and my boots so that I could move better on the snow and rock in case there was help needed. I grabbed our two first aid kits and headed down to see if there was a need for help. Just below our neighboring camp I started to see the chaos and patients. There were injured people all around. Some walking around in shock, some sitting wrapped in broken tents with injuries, and some less fortunate.
8. Describe the scene after the avalanche and the role you played in triage, etc.
I spent the rest of the day alongside many very dedicated volunteers treating one patient after another. There are of course specific patients who stick out in my mind. The first person I helped, was an older Sherpa, probably cook staff for an expedition. I could see into a very deep gash in the top of his head immediately. He was wrapped in a broken tent, cold and wet and with one shoe on. Myself and another climber did the best we could to stabilize his injuries which included a badly broken arm at the mid wrist and arrange for a makeshift stretcher out of poles, backpacks and duffle bags. A band of Sherpas carried him off toward the bottom of camp. I stand up and pull off my latex gloves and the next person in need is there wrapped in another broken tent 10 feet awayâ?¦ and it goes on and on. Helping to reset a compound arm fracture, the guy with two broken legs and a broken arm that was stuck above his head, and most remarkably a climbing Sherpa who had been "blacklisted" meaning he was expected to die. Other life threatening injuries that could be treated just kept coming in. This guy had serious internal injuries, turned on his side with lots of fluids of all kinds coming out of his mouth, was non responsive and thankfully Willie Benegas had put an airway in his mouth while he languished in the dead bodies tent. This guy was a goner, but lots of people rallied and yelled we all said "come on this guy is one of your brothers don't give up" and a band of Sherpas carried him the 40 minutes down to the doctors. He made it through the night and was evacuated by hell the next day... incredible.
As I thought things were winding down, I decided to make the long walk back up to our base camp and be with my team, and then I see a girl walking at me on the trail, blood on her chin, her front teeth had been knocked out and she was just now walking down to the HRA area, and then when I get to my camp we get another climbing Sherpa coming in with a dislocated shoulder and broken arm late at night that we treated and kept in our kitchen tent until the morning.
9. What were the next several days like?
A mixture of very mellow, sad, and confusion on what to do next. By this time our team had pretty much agreed we were finished for the year so we decided that since we kept hearing lower villages and Kathmandu were in dire straits, we figured since we have all our supplies and tents, lets just stay up here in base camp for a few days to stay out of the way. Then we packed up and did a slow trek out.
10. What was the reaction of your sherpa team after hearing news of the destruction in KTM?
Disbelief. Once they checked on their family members, which was hard because for days there were no phones in Kathmandu. Then they relaxed, and more of our guys were directly concerned with their home villages, Thame was badly damaged and we had two staff from there.
11. What was the experience like for the people 'trapped' at Camp 1 and Camp 2.
Well I can't speak from experience of being there, but from talking to lots of them it seems that sitting in a white out hearing big avalanches come down on both sides of your position would be very stressful. You would just have to sit there and hope for the best because there is no place to go.
12. Describe hiking back down to Lukla. How was the trail? Villages? What was the mood of the locales? Were many trying to get back to KTM?
Thankfully, after the first earthquake, a lot of the Khumbu valley area villages were not too bad. You would see the occasional wall of rocks or house that had fallen, the Thenboche monastery was pretty badly damaged, which I am surprised I have not hear more people in the climbing world talk about because it is such a prominent fixture on the trek. I guess because so many people flew in helis may have something to do with it. It was very surreal to be trekking in the first week of may in the khumbu and have no people... it was like a the trek must have been 30 years ago. The locales seemed to be going on with business as usual, the sherpas seem very pragmatic to me, it is like ok, we are building a teahouse here, so lets keep working on the wall, and we have yaks that have to get taken out... so get on with normal life.
13. How much time did you spend in KTM? What was that experience like?
About 4 days in Kdu, It was fairly normal to be honest, of course the buildings that had fallen is the worst part, besides the injuries and deaths to say the least, but that was all kind of past by then, some shops were still not open.
14. This wasn't your first close call. Can you describe any other near death moments for you?
Over the years the stories and experiences kind of add up and blur into one another. I have had my share of dangerous situations, some from Pakistan like on K2 some very close calls, a huge avalanche on Gasherbrm II that we got involved in a big rescue of climbers, I was on a hijacked airplane in Russia one time, getting stalked by 2 polar bears on the Arctic Ocean, getting very bad altitude illness, unfortunately the list goes on and on and each one is like a story in itself.
15. Many people want to help. Can you recommend any charities?
I would recommend they look into the dZi foundation. This is a long standing non profit helps underserved areas of Nepal in all aspects of health and education initiatives. dzi.org
Image: Everest Base Camp remnants with the Khumbu Ice Fall in the background. Photo Credit: Ryan Waters.
In one sense, these near-death encounters are just a part of Ryan's life. As the director of Mountain Professionals, he has led sixteen 8000 meter peak expeditions, including four expeditions to Mt. Everest, reaching the summit of both the Tibet and Nepal sides of the mountain. Still, when I woke up to check the news of a terrible Earthquake in Nepal and avalanche that had struck Everest Base Camp on April 25th, I was more than a little worried. Thankfully, Ryan called me an hour later on his satellite phone to let me know that he was OK. In normal Ryan fashion, he was brief, thoughtful and to the point.
The catastrophic avalanche that led up to the call and the events that followed are hard to fathom for most of us. Several weeks later, I asked Ryan to share his experiences and thoughts.
1. Tell me a little bit about you, Mountain Professionals and what you were doing on Everest/Lhotse this year.
Not sure what order but I consider myself a guide, mountaineer, adventurer, since they all blur into one sometimes. When I am guiding it is my main focus and my main source of income in a year is by leading expeditions. Mountain Professionals has always kept the small team philosophy of guiding even in the Himalayas, where we have a very high staff to client ratio and climb as a team, we do not adopt the current style of sending people out on mountains with a radio and possibly sherpas saying 'call us when you get to camp one'. So we had 3 clients on Everest and 1 client for Lhotse. All our people had climbed with our company in the past and were competent mountaineers to attempt this kind of peak in a guided situation, again unlike many clients you see on the mountain now. Even some supposed reputable guide services accepted clients who did not know how to put on a harness or crampons... it is both hilarious and scary to see a teams members and in some cases, climbing sherpas practicing basic skills in the icefall before the climb.
2. How many times have you climbed Mt. Everest? Other notable summits?
This was my fourth time leading an expedition to Everest. I have summited two times, once from Tibet and once from Nepal, the other time got a chest infection on our summit push, so chose to stay in high camp and let the rest of the staff go with the clients, and this time the outcome was determined by nature... so i feel lucky to have led 3 successful trips that reached the summit. Most of my "notable" summits would probably be other 8000 meter peaks of which i have summited five different ones and guided several of those multiple times to the summit.
3. Describe your 'process' for climbing/guiding Mt. Everest.
We always have this philosophy of trying to arrive in good style wherever we are climbing to. So we take a slow approach trek into arrive at base camp. etc. So when you get there people are feeling good. Same with higher camps. We stress to our team to practice hard skills at base camp such as clipping past transitions, so we look good and like a proper climbing team, we stay together on the way and take care of each other, so we arrive at high camp in good style, hopefully feeling good as well! I take a somewhat aggressive mindset on climbing these mountains with my team, meaning we are not waiting to see what other teams are going to do, if the conditions are right and it is safe, we go climb to camp one and get on with things. I like to get acclimated early and then wait for the best weather, and definitely not the first weather window on Everest because this is when everyone rushes to try and summit and quite frankly this is when the most accidents happen. You typically see the more long standing guide companies wait for the next window and things run smooth.
4. Did you notice any difference in the attitude of climbers/sherpas in Base Camp and/or on the mountain due to the previous years of 'bad luck'.
No not really, at least for my team our climbers and certainly our Sherpas were very eager to just climb the mountain as if it was just a normal year, which it was until the earthquake. I will say that after this accident I did see a marked change in the mindset of some guides and companies who start to wonder if things are worth it sometimes. Like clients and Sherpas, guide services have a lot of skin in the game, reputations, safety of team members, huge financial obligations, and equipment that gets smashed and broken, or even left at camp 2 because of getting cut off from the earlier loads we carried, due to the mountain closing.
5. How was your team's climb progressing prior to the Earthquake?
Very well, we had just gone to sleep in camp one and returned to base camp feeling great and excited to get one of our two acclimatization rotations completed. Our Sherpas were going back on one more carry to finish stocking camp 2 and we had all our tents for the entire mountain up in C2. So things were looking great. Most importantly our team members were thankfully feeling strong and healthy.
6. Where were you when the Earthquake/Avalanche occurred. Can you describe what happened?
Just as we were entering our dining dome at lunch time, already used to hearing the normal avalanches come of the surrounding mountains, we felt a very large rumble under foot that continued for an extended time. Right away we looked at each other and said â??earthquakeâ?, and we ran outside to the center of our camp. That is when the massive avalanche came off of Pumori's east side and exploded at the valley floor. We had just enough time to run over to our gear storage tent and all huddled inside awaiting whatever air blast was heading our way. I told the group, â??its just going to be air and snow so get low and hold on, it will be ok.â?
7. What was your first reaction? Second?
It was just a few minutes before we started to hear from shouts and word of mouth that base camp was in terrible trouble down there. We as a team all checked in with each other and decided ok we are fine, lets stay close and look out for any aftershocks or slides. Then I ran to my tent and put on mountain clothing and my boots so that I could move better on the snow and rock in case there was help needed. I grabbed our two first aid kits and headed down to see if there was a need for help. Just below our neighboring camp I started to see the chaos and patients. There were injured people all around. Some walking around in shock, some sitting wrapped in broken tents with injuries, and some less fortunate.
8. Describe the scene after the avalanche and the role you played in triage, etc.
I spent the rest of the day alongside many very dedicated volunteers treating one patient after another. There are of course specific patients who stick out in my mind. The first person I helped, was an older Sherpa, probably cook staff for an expedition. I could see into a very deep gash in the top of his head immediately. He was wrapped in a broken tent, cold and wet and with one shoe on. Myself and another climber did the best we could to stabilize his injuries which included a badly broken arm at the mid wrist and arrange for a makeshift stretcher out of poles, backpacks and duffle bags. A band of Sherpas carried him off toward the bottom of camp. I stand up and pull off my latex gloves and the next person in need is there wrapped in another broken tent 10 feet awayâ?¦ and it goes on and on. Helping to reset a compound arm fracture, the guy with two broken legs and a broken arm that was stuck above his head, and most remarkably a climbing Sherpa who had been "blacklisted" meaning he was expected to die. Other life threatening injuries that could be treated just kept coming in. This guy had serious internal injuries, turned on his side with lots of fluids of all kinds coming out of his mouth, was non responsive and thankfully Willie Benegas had put an airway in his mouth while he languished in the dead bodies tent. This guy was a goner, but lots of people rallied and yelled we all said "come on this guy is one of your brothers don't give up" and a band of Sherpas carried him the 40 minutes down to the doctors. He made it through the night and was evacuated by hell the next day... incredible.
As I thought things were winding down, I decided to make the long walk back up to our base camp and be with my team, and then I see a girl walking at me on the trail, blood on her chin, her front teeth had been knocked out and she was just now walking down to the HRA area, and then when I get to my camp we get another climbing Sherpa coming in with a dislocated shoulder and broken arm late at night that we treated and kept in our kitchen tent until the morning.
9. What were the next several days like?
A mixture of very mellow, sad, and confusion on what to do next. By this time our team had pretty much agreed we were finished for the year so we decided that since we kept hearing lower villages and Kathmandu were in dire straits, we figured since we have all our supplies and tents, lets just stay up here in base camp for a few days to stay out of the way. Then we packed up and did a slow trek out.
10. What was the reaction of your sherpa team after hearing news of the destruction in KTM?
Disbelief. Once they checked on their family members, which was hard because for days there were no phones in Kathmandu. Then they relaxed, and more of our guys were directly concerned with their home villages, Thame was badly damaged and we had two staff from there.
11. What was the experience like for the people 'trapped' at Camp 1 and Camp 2.
Well I can't speak from experience of being there, but from talking to lots of them it seems that sitting in a white out hearing big avalanches come down on both sides of your position would be very stressful. You would just have to sit there and hope for the best because there is no place to go.
12. Describe hiking back down to Lukla. How was the trail? Villages? What was the mood of the locales? Were many trying to get back to KTM?
Thankfully, after the first earthquake, a lot of the Khumbu valley area villages were not too bad. You would see the occasional wall of rocks or house that had fallen, the Thenboche monastery was pretty badly damaged, which I am surprised I have not hear more people in the climbing world talk about because it is such a prominent fixture on the trek. I guess because so many people flew in helis may have something to do with it. It was very surreal to be trekking in the first week of may in the khumbu and have no people... it was like a the trek must have been 30 years ago. The locales seemed to be going on with business as usual, the sherpas seem very pragmatic to me, it is like ok, we are building a teahouse here, so lets keep working on the wall, and we have yaks that have to get taken out... so get on with normal life.
13. How much time did you spend in KTM? What was that experience like?
About 4 days in Kdu, It was fairly normal to be honest, of course the buildings that had fallen is the worst part, besides the injuries and deaths to say the least, but that was all kind of past by then, some shops were still not open.
14. This wasn't your first close call. Can you describe any other near death moments for you?
Over the years the stories and experiences kind of add up and blur into one another. I have had my share of dangerous situations, some from Pakistan like on K2 some very close calls, a huge avalanche on Gasherbrm II that we got involved in a big rescue of climbers, I was on a hijacked airplane in Russia one time, getting stalked by 2 polar bears on the Arctic Ocean, getting very bad altitude illness, unfortunately the list goes on and on and each one is like a story in itself.
15. Many people want to help. Can you recommend any charities?
I would recommend they look into the dZi foundation. This is a long standing non profit helps underserved areas of Nepal in all aspects of health and education initiatives. dzi.org
Image: Everest Base Camp remnants with the Khumbu Ice Fall in the background. Photo Credit: Ryan Waters.