It is rare that Everest is climbed solo. Even if a climber is alone on the mountain, there is a team at home that has given this person the support to do what he or she is doing.

Everest is climbed step by step and each person must take those steps on their own. Nobody can do this for you. However, it is the team that gives the individual the power to perform.

As I was approaching the summit of Everest on that beautiful day in 2008 I was alone. I was alone in my thoughts and I was alone in my movements. Yes there were other people around me, but essentially I was alone in my own small world. I was performing alone, but I was climbing off the “backs” of my team mates and they were climbing off my back. The team had been essential in my success as they helped to give me the mental and emotional strength to do what I was doing. Without the team I never would have been able to accomplish what I did.

I had another critically important team with me that day. Back home my wife and two children were waiting for news of my ascent, but they were with me every step of the way. Death is common on Everest and many climbers will just sit down and never get up again. There were times when I wanted to sit down and give up, there were times when my body faltered, there were times when my mind wandered. This is when my home team came into play. Thinking of them would snap me back into the moment and force my body and mind to perform.

Everest is not often climbed by teams anymore. It is climbed by groups of people loosely bound together by a common goal; the summit. However, they are not bonded to one another and there is no common vision in most cases. This can work out just fine when the sun is shining and life is good. But when the mountain throws a curve ball these groups fall apart.

It often becomes “every person for themselves” with a few Sherpa and guides trying to help whomever they can. You can see the results of this in many of the tragedies on Everest and other high mountains such as K2. Having a strong and tightly bound team does not guarantee safety, but you have a much larger operating zone. You can tolerate greater extremes and come out on the other side.

In times gone by when small independent climbing teams worked together there was a very strong team bond. This is what was referred to as the “brotherhood of the rope” (It is not that different from the mariner’s code where ships will divert their course to help another ship in distress regardless of time and financial cost). These climbers worked very closely together and supported one another. Today the common practice is to climb Everest with a group of strangers. These people do not have the same bond to one another and there is not the same level of commitment.

If a climber becomes sick or injured it is the responsibility of the guide to deal with. Climbers within teams often will not sacrifice their summit chance to assist a fellow team member and this is even more prominent when it is a stranger in distress. People die every year as others walk by. Often there is little that can be done, but in some cases this help can save a life.

Ultimately being part of a high performance team will make any activity easier, safer and more enjoyable.

True Patriot Live expedition update:I have so far raised $2300 for True Patriot Love towards my $10,000 goal. Please go to www.expeditionhimalayas.ca to learn more and go to http://www.canadahelps.org/GivingPages/GivingPage.aspx?gpID=19224 to donate to this worthy and patriotic cause.

It is an honour to announce my participation in the True Patriot Love "March to the Top" expedition this October. True Patriot Love www.truepatriotlovefoundation.com was created to honour and support members of the Canadian military and their families. The March to the Top expedition will pair 15 wounded and ill Canadian soldiers with 15 civilian business leaders. Each civilian will be paying for the total cost of their partner soldier to participate in the expedition, and raising awareness and funds for the much needed work funded by True Patriot Love. These men and women have risked it all and sacrificed their chances for a “normal” quality of life, all in an attempt to defend democracy and pursue world peace. It is the least we can do to support them in their hour of need.

This team of climbers will trek to Everest base camp and then embark on a summit attempt on Island Peak. Amputations, burns, gunshot wounds and post traumatic stress disorder that they have endured in battle will add to the grueling challenges that they will face on the mountain.

My role will be as the Captain of the civilian team. Based on my previous mountaineering experience and my team building skills, I will endeavour to assist in the formation of this team, and to do my best to help each team member to stand on the summit of Island Peak. I will be blogging daily while on the expedition and you can follow along right here on this blog.

Joining us will be a documentary team from the CBC who will be filming the expedition. The documentary will be aired on CBC in January of 2013. The goal is to raise awareness of the challenges our soldiers face when returning from combat and peace keeping missions around the world www.cbc.ca/marchtothetop.

Part of my mission for this expedition is to raise funds for True Patriot Love. Please go to www.expeditionhimalayas.ca or contact me directly to learn more about this expedition and to make a donation as part of my goal to raise $10,000.00.

Leadership plays a significant role in the overall team success for several reasons. Leaders, good ones at least, define the vision, mission, values, goals, roles, and expectations for the team. Referring to Tuckman’s stages of team development (Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing), these are all things that need to take place in the forming stage. This is the foundation from which all else will be built. Start with a shaky foundation and your team will crumble in the first storm.  Build a solid base and your team can withstand great force.

A leader’s job ultimately is to make the team successful. Leaders are coaches and mentors; they help keep teams on track, remove barriers and prepare the ground so the team can perform unhindered.

Conversely, leaders can also create a toxic environment that leads to total team destruction and failure. Sometimes this is due to incompetence and sometimes leaders simply use bad tactics because they think they are right.

In my soon to be released book, Learning In Thin Air (the same title as my keynote), I share stories of good and bad leaders and the impact they had on overall team success.

On one of my first real big Himalayan expeditions I was unable to get any of my long-time climbing partners to join me. I was forced to sign on with a professionally led trip. This trip brought together a group of highly-experienced strangers with a common goal, and then added a team leader. We would not be using Sherpa support and our leader was not a guide, but someone there to coach and mentor us, and to help us navigate our way through the complex world of 8,000m climbing. Our leader did not lay a foundation of trust and communication, but actually alienated all of us, drove a wedge between team members and destroyed trust. There was no plan, no vision and no sharing of information. This very long story ends in epic failure. Not a single team member made it to the summit and it had nothing to do with skill, experience, fitness or weather. It had everything to do with the toxic environment created by our team leader and the resulting total breakdown of team function.

At the time I placed the blame solely on our leader. But, in time, I realized that my own inaction had also played a part in our failure. I had done nothing to counteract what was happening within our team. I just sat back and played the part of the helpless victim.

I learned immensely from this experience and have applied this learning to all future expeditions and in business as well. In my next blog, I will share a success that grew from this leadership failure.

This is a sensitive topic but, in my opinion, I would have to say yes. You may have noticed that this has been a common thread through all of my blog postings. I have told many stories of how inexperience creates issues on Everest.

Inexperienced climbers have a very narrow working window. When situations crop up that are outside of this window they are at a loss as to what to do. They can experiment and try to figure it out. But is Everest really the place for experimentation? This often ends in disaster, or requires the assistance of others. In my opinion, relying on the assistance of others as a back-up plan amounts to recklessly endangering your life and the lives of others. Is it fair that one climber loses his or her life, becomes injured or misses a summit bid just to rescue an inexperienced climber who should not have been there in the first place? As I have stated many times, I feel that every person on Everest should be experienced enough that they can be self-reliant in all but the most extreme circumstances. Yes, people will always get into trouble for various reasons. But, if you are experienced, when you do need help, it is often as a last resort.

The next question is what counts as experience for Everest. Once again, I can only state my opinion.

Climbing Everest requires such a variety of skills that it is impossible to learn them all when you arrive at the mountain. There may be a few specialized things that are unique to Everest, but everything else must be well-practiced ahead of time. For instance, I had never used oxygen before I went to Everest and it took me about an hour to adjust to it. When I first put on the mask, I was expecting a miracle, but this was unrealistic. With this "miracle" in mind, I pushed harder than I should have and I paid the price quickly. Out of breath, I ripped the mask off my face and vomited in the snow. Lesson learned. Once I got the hang of it, I loved it.

The required skills on Everest stem from every facet of climbing; rock, ice, big mountain, and aid. Therefore, I feel that each climber should be proficient in each of these disciplines before embarking on a climb of Everest. You do not need to be able to climb at a 5.13 level and lead an A4 pitch, but you should be a technically skilled climber. (If you do not know what 5.13 and A4 refer to, then you should likely not be going to Everest.) Many people may think these standards too high, but this is what I believe.

The use of technical skills needs to be so automatic that you can do them in an exhausted, sleep-deprived, calorie-deprived, hypoxic, wind-blasted, white-out, frozen-to-the-core state. This is the reality of climbing Everest and all big mountains. If you are not up to the task, bad things can happen. I believe that you need to prepare for the worst possible conditions and if you can survive them you are good to go. We all hope for perfect sunny, windless days, and it is amazing when we get them, but it is not smart to count on them.

The photo is of the Lhotse Face in a wind storm. It was extremely cold and the wind was fierce. Driving snow bit into any exposed skin. It became difficult to do anything. These were the conditions on my descent from Camp 3 after an acclimatization rotation. Because I had been in these situations many times before, it was well within my ability to handle. I actually thought it was fun and that it added excitement to an otherwise long slog of a climb. Others were not enjoying it so much. It took me about 1 hour to descend the face. Others took up to six hours. When I looked up the face from the bottom it was like a war zone. Climbers were hunkered down for protection, climbers were fumbling with gear, people were stumbling and making desperate moves on the ropes, and guides were working their butts off to get people down. Many, many climbers got frostbite that day. As I have said, Everest is not the place to learn how to deal with adverse situations.

My apprenticeship came over years of climbing. I have intentionally gone out in horrific conditions just to learn how I would react physically, mentally and emotionally. This way I learned my limitations. Anyone going to Everest should know their limitations and have a realistic understanding of what they need to know in order to be safe and successful on Everest. For me, this took about 20 years of climbing. Some can do it much faster, but this was my comfort zone.

The government of Nepal does not set the standards, and many guiding companies do not set standards either. So it is left up to each individual to decide if they have the experience and skills necessary for Everest. Everest is not just a ride at Disney in Florida. It is a big, bad and dangerous mountain. Play safe!

I am not a scientist and I can only share my observations, insights and experiences on this topic. Based on what I have seen in the mountains, I would have to say yes, climate change is having a negative impact on safety in the mountains. After all, most mountains are simply large piles of rock held together by ice. When this ice melts, the force of gravity takes over and the mountain starts to shed its “skin”.

This year on Everest was reported as a “crazy weather” year. Most years on Everest can be described as such, but this year seemed to be even crazier than usual. The winter of 2012 was a dry one for the Everest region and the mountain saw very little snow. The warm temperatures of spring arrived earlier than normal and as the first teams were arriving at base camp in early March they could tell this was going to be an odd year. Odd on Everest is usually not a good thing.

“Dry” is how it was described. There was a lack of snow at base camp and this caused concern for what the conditions would be like higher on the mountain. The temperatures were also much warmer than usual, and this was causing a rapid melting of what snow and ice there was.

The implications of this on Everest are many. For starters, climbers must negotiate their way through the Khumbu Ice Fall, a labyrinth of towering ice blocks, to make their way to Camp 1. This maze of broken ice is extremely unstable at the best of times and has claimed many a life. As this mass of snow and ice slides off Mt Everest, large blocks dislodge, tumble and crash. If a climber happens to be in the ice fall when one of these behemoth blocks of ice decides to fall over, the end result is unavoidably tragic.

The Khumbu Ice Fall is one of the scariest sections on Everest to climb and yet it is unavoidable when climbing from Nepal. Climbers will pass through this section of the mountain 6-12 times and the Sherpa climbers will pass through it almost daily as they transport loads to the upper camps on the mountain.

To safeguard passage through the ice fall, climbers depart base camp in the middle of the night when temperatures are at their coldest. The theory is that the freezing temperatures will help “bond” the blocks in place. As the sun warms the air later in the day, these bonds start to melt and the ice fall becomes very unstable and a veritable mouse-trap maze.

As the first Sherpa and climbers were making their way through the ice fall this season they noticed that this year was different. The ice fall had an even more unstable and menacing personality than normal. Ice block collapses were common, and the constant movement in the ice fall made the route ever-changing and treacherous. The Sherpas were scared; and when the Sherpas get scared, the climbers take notice. Discussions began about the viability of safely climbing Everest this season.

Although the snowfall had been low, avalanches were still a great threat. Avalanches in the mountains can come from two main sources. The first is an unstable buildup of snow on a moderately sloping face. When the bond between the snow layers breaks the avalanche roars down the mountain. The second source is from what is called hanging seracs. These are massive blocks of glacial ice that cling to the side of the mountain. At some point gravity always wins this tug of war and the blocks fall with devastating force. Once again, warm temperatures cause the foundations of these seracs to weaken and eventually to fail. The Ice Fall and Camp 1 are surrounded by huge, imposing walls covered with avalanche potential.

Traditionally, climbers have been most afraid of the West shoulder of Everest. They have slowly migrated Camp 1 away from this and closer to what was considered the relative safety of the steep face of Nuptse. This year, the odds were against the climbers and a massive avalanche roared off Nuptse and steamrolled into Camp 1 destroying tents and injuring several climbers.

Meanwhile above Camp 2, the Lhotse face was firing rock and ice missiles at unsuspecting climbers. The Lhotse face has long been feared by climbers, but is usually stable from a rock fall and avalanche standpoint. This year the snow was not there to act as a bonding agent. As the jet stream parked its self over the mountain, ferocious winds began to dislodge rocks at frequent intervals. Anyone who ventured onto the face was playing Russian roulette and many climbers lost. Nobody was killed, but bones were broken and stitches were sewn.

The Yellow Band is an outcropping of rock just above Camp 3 and must be traversed on the way to Camp 4. Beyond that, there is another rock band that guards the way to the South Summit. Snow and ice are much easier to climb while wearing crampons than rock. Ascending these rock sections with crampons on is comparable to walking across a marble floor with metal golf spikes on. Your traction is limited at best. Due to the low snow these sections would be more difficult than usual.

All of these issues can be chalked up to climate change, and they were weighing heavily on the minds of the climbers. One expedition leader who was supporting a large group of over 100 climbers and Sherpa made the bold move to pull the plug and cancel the all his expeditions on Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse. This was an unheard of move and it shook the community. Some agreed and some did not, but ultimately the decision was made in the face of danger with an extreme concern for safety.

Additionally there is photographic evidence that shows the retreat of the great glaciers of Everest and mountains around the world. There is no doubt in my mind that the climate is changing and that it is having dangerous consequences in the mountains.

Absolutely, I would say there is. There is much more crowding on the Nepal side than the Tibet side, but both have crowding issues. The challenge is that, at least where Nepal is concerned, Everest brings in a huge amount of revenue for the country. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in Asia and the average per capita income is less than $500. Everest attracts climbers and trekkers to the country. As far as the climbers, go each person is required to pay $10,000 for their climbing permit. But the value of Everest to the country does not end there. Each climber then spends thousands of dollars on food, accommodation, transportation, porters, climbing Sherpas and a myriad of other things. Everest is immensely important to the economy of Nepal and I do not see limits to the number of climbers any time soon.

Based on this understanding, it is in Nepal’s best interest to sell as many permits as possible. The more people, the more money. The Ministry of Tourism is not really concerned with crowding issues, mountain logistics, or even the competency of the climbers. They leave this to the guiding companies and the various outfitters that run trips on the mountain.

In an open market economy I think there is very little that can be done to curb the number of people going to the mountain. Even if some guiding companies limit the number of climbers per team, and many do, there will always more guides who want into this very lucrative game.

As I have stated in previous postings, inexperienced climbers add to the congestion. Inexperienced climbers tend to move more slowly than experienced ones, and they slow down even more when a technical situation is encountered. Everest is a huge mountain and can accommodate a large number of people, but there are bottlenecks on the way to the summit. When one person in the line slows down, everyone behind them must slow down just, as happens in any traffic jam.

Something that many people may not know, and that adds greatly to the crowding issue on Everest is that there are at least as many, if not more, Sherpas than climbers on the mountain. The old days of the self-reliant climbing teams doing their share of the load carrying are long gone, at least on Everest. Each team employs dozens of Sherpa’s to help with the chores on the mountain. If teams were able to handle more of this themselves they would not require as many Sherpa’s and the overall number of people on the mountain would be significantly reduced.

The double-edged sword here is that working on the mountain is a very important employment opportunity for the people of the Everest region. Without it, many families would be worse off. It would also mean that many of the people climbing Everest today (and I may even be in this group) would not be able to be successful.

Ultimately I am not in a position to say what the right number of people on the mountain is. I have no idea on that. But I can say that those who are there need to be accountable for their personal role in the crowding. If people ensure that they have the required skills, experience and fitness before they go to the mountain, this would alleviate some of the traffic jam issues. Also, if individual climbers would take accountability to step out of the line and to even turn back when moving too slowly, this congestion would be reduced and lives might be spared.

One alternative to reducing the numbers climbing at any one time is to look at climbing in different seasons. Everest has been climbed in all four seasons, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each season. The winter is extremely cold and very few climbers have the ability to work in these conditions. The summer brings the monsoon with heavy snows and rain and this presents many safety issues. The fall climbing season is post-monsoon and usually presents deep snow conditions, avalanche hazards, and temperatures trending colder as the winter approaches. The spring season, the pre-monsoon season as it is called, has proven statistically to be the safest and the most successful and therefore this will attract the highest number of people.

There is never going to be a perfect solution to the crowds on Everest and I do not see limitations or qualifications being required by Nepal. It is up to everyone involved to be personally accountable for their role in the crowding and to take steps to reduce the impact this is having on safety on the mountain.

As we all know this was a deadly season on Everest with 11 people losing their lives. I think it is time we re-think our approach to climbing the tallest and one of the most dangerous mountains on the planet. It is not my place to tell others what to do, but perhaps my insights, gained over 25 years of climbing, can help to save a life in the future.

So, the question: Can Everest be guided safely? The simple answer in my opinion is no. Guiding implies a professional leading the way and helping a novice climber accomplish what they otherwise could not. Above 7,000m and, especially, above 8,000m a guide’s capacity to assist is greatly reduced. According to the standards set by many worldwide guiding associations, guides can no longer meet the requirements of their jobs at these altitudes.

Another question is: Can Everest be professionally led safely? To this I would say yes. A professionally-led expedition provides a leader to help organize the expedition and to be available for counsel on decisions, but the individual climbers need to be self-sufficient on the mountain. They need to be competent at all the skills required and must be able to do them without assistance.Therefore, I believe that guiding companies that offer such expeditions to inexperienced climbers are putting people’s safety on the line.

When I was on Everest in 2008, I was walking behind a climber in the ice-fall. This climber was connected to the fixed line, as were we all. Every 50m or so there is an anchor and the tether connecting the climber to the fixed line must be moved over the anchor and clipped to the other side. This is accomplished with what is called a lobster claw and is quite straightforward. The climber ahead of me had a guide walking right beside him. Every time the climber reached an anchor point the climber would raise his hands above his head and the guide would transfer his lobster claws for him. I could not believe my eyes. Did this climber actually have so little experience they could not be relied upon to transfer their lobster claws safely? I shuttered to think what might happen higher up on the mountain when things got complicated or if some type of an emergency situation cropped up.

I doubt that this climber made it very high, but it was wrong of that guide to take him on the mountain in the first place, and wrong for that climber to even think he should be there to begin with. As I heard Pat Morrow say just the other day (Pat is the second climber in the world to climb the 7 summits), “People pluck this dream of climbing Everest off a shelf and they have absolutely no understanding of what it entails”. As a society, we have become accustomed to buying whatever we want and being told that anything is possible if we just want it badly enough. We have lost sight of reality.

I feel that climbers should earn their right to go to Everest. They should pay their dues on mountain after mountain, building up the requisite skills. After learning on several 5,000m, 6,000m and 7,000m peaks, they can try a smaller 8,000m peak. If by that point they feel they are up to the challenge of Everest, go for it. But, buying their way onto a trip of this magnitude and relying disproportionately on others to execute tactical decision-making and satisfy the physical requirements, puts them and others at grave risk.

Can you climb Everest without oxygen?

The answer to this question is yes, but not for most people. Everest was first climbed without bottled oxygen on May 8, 1978 by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler. Up until that point, scientists thought it would be guaranteed death to go to those heights without supplemental oxygen. And it would be for most of us. The ability to climb to the summit of Mt Everest without bottled oxygen is mostly genetic. Obviously you need to be supremely fit, but you also need to have the genetic ability to do so. Without this, it does not matter how fit you are, you will not make it and you stand a strong change in dying in the process. This is not something you can test for in a doctor’s office; there is no blood test or MRI that will tell you and lineage alone does not guarantee it. The only way to know is to learn by experience.

The best strategy if you want to attempt this is to climb to higher and higher summits over a period of years. Not only will you gain the technical expertise required, but you will also learn how your body responds to the thin air. Similar to muscle memory, your body learns every time you go to altitude and it can make the adjustments slightly easier the next time. However, even this is not a sure-fire way to know. And even if you have never had any altitude issues before, it could crop up at any time without warning notice. Many highly experienced and strong climbers have died from altitude related illness when they had never experienced issues in the past.

Even the Sherpas need bottled oxygen. They are stronger than the average westerner and their bodies have adapted to living at altitude over the centuries, but they are not immune to altitude-related illness. A Sherpa climber will die from altitude almost every year, and this is partially because they work very hard and carry such heavy loads while on the mountain. Above 8,000m almost everyone, including the Sherpas, are wearing an oxygen mask and carrying oxygen in their packs.

The standard system on Everest is Poisk which is a Russian system that combines a lightweight aluminum and Kevlar oxygen bottle, a flow regulator and a mask. This system has not really changed or been improved in decades. There are a few other systems out there and one of the biggest changes in recent years is a new British mask called the “Top Out”. It uses the Poisk bottle and regulator, but adds in a more efficient mask design that delivers a greater percentage of usable oxygen to the lungs.

Most climbers will have five 4-litre oxygen bottles that they will use from Camp 3 and up. Running at full flow, the tank will last about 6 hours. Running at minimum flow, it can last 12-14 hours. Most people will run it at around mid-flow and this will allow them to climb efficiently and to not run out of oxygen.

Using oxygen does not make it feel like you are at sea level, but the general consensus is that it makes it feel like you are about 3000-feet lower in altitude. One of the dangers of using oxygen on Everest and other 8000m peaks is that it allows you to push beyond what your body could do without the oxygen. If your system fails, your regulator freezes or you run out of oxygen, all of which has happened on Everest, you are in big trouble. Instantly, your body acts as if it has been propelled 3000-feet higher and things go bad very quickly. If this happens to you, you will be extremely lucky to survive.

When I was climbing Everest there was only one person (that I am aware of) to summit without the use of supplemental oxygen. I spoke to him at the top of the Hillary Step. I was going down from the summit and he was going up. We had a quick chat and he seemed to be doing well. His lips were a little blue, but most people’s are at that height. He was a very experienced climber and had climbed other 8,000m peaks successfully without oxygen. I continued down and he continued up. When I woke the next morning at Camp 4 and stepped outside my tent, I saw him laying dead and wrapped in a tarp.

Somewhere on the descent he had run into trouble. After reaching the summit his body had started to shut down, as often happens. He had no resources left to combat the rapid deterioration of his body and he collapsed. I was not there so I do not know exactly what happened, but I heard that some Sherpa’s did put him on oxygen, but by that point it was too late and he died of heart failure.

Based on my personal experience, I do not think that I could ever climb Everest without the use of supplemental oxygen and I will never try. Some people feel this is cheating and an unfair and un-pure way to climb. But that is a whole different topic.

Going to Everest does seem a little crazy to some people. And, since I’ve gone there, I guess that would place me ... and many others I know ... in that category too. To me, crazy is not really the right word, as that implies reckless abandonment. I see climbing Everest as a calculated risk. Our lives are full of risk and we are better for it. The key is to take a smart risk.

I can only speculate as to why others go to Everest, and I will do so based on people I have spoken with. But I can also share my personal motivations for going.

I am a very goal motivated person. Without an immediate goal to focus on, it is all too easy for me to lose my drive and to flounder. My mind dulls and my body weakens. With a goal, I have the passion and drive to meet each day head on. My focus sharpens. I pay attention to my fitness. The benefits spill into my overall health and my life in general.

In everything I do, I want to be good. Don’t we all? In a study around what creates “drive”, Dan Pink found that the opportunity for “Mastery” is critical for having a motivated and fulfilling fife. Mastery is simply the desire to get better at something. For me this “something” is climbing.

I was a climber from a very young age and, as I grew, I began to test myself on bigger and bigger challenges. I started with local rock and ice climbs and then moved further afield to find bigger and more challenging climb’s in the US, Mexico and South America. I then moved onto mountaineering in what seemed to me as a natural progression. Looking for bigger and bigger challenges I finally set my sights on Everest.

Now that I am done climbing the 7 summits (the highest point on each of the 7 continents) I am still not done. Climbing was not just part of a check list or a “bucket list” for me. It is a way of life and it feeds me every day. I intend to continue to climb as long as I can, expecting that my objectives will change as time marches on.

I also see climbing as a way to explore new worlds and people. Climbing has taken me to places few people will ever go and I have had experiences that have made me a better person. Life is short and I believe that everyone should make the most of their life. I have chosen to do that via climbing.

So, if this is why I go, I can only assume that there are others like me out there. There are others for whom climbing Everest is just part of a check list. They are “peak baggers”, not climbers. Climbing is not the only activity to draw attention this way, but it is one of the more powerful magnets. These people often enter into the game for a short while and then move on. This is a reasonable proposition as this is how we learn if this is the right thing for us. They key is to enter at a place relative to your experience level. Starting with Everest is just not a smart move.

Ultimately, I think we all need some form of passion in our lives. Climbing is mine. What is yours?

So why is Mount Everest so dangerous?

Eight thousand metres is a special line in the climbing world referred to as “the death zone”. While this is a very dramatic term, it means exactly what it says. If you go above 8,000m for too long, you will die, guaranteed. And just how long is too long? It can be anywhere between one to four days at the most. There are only 14 mountains in the world that rise into the death zone and Everest happens to be the tallest at 8,850m.

One reason altitudes above 8,000m are so dangerous is that the human body can no longer regenerate cells above this line. In addition, cells are dying at an accelerated rate. This is caused by a combination of oxygen deprivation and pressure changes, and by the way our body reacts to these changes. As our cells die and are not replaced, our body enters a “triage” state. It starts shutting down less important bodily functions by reducing oxygen and blood flow to the muscles, brain and extremities. This becomes a rapid chain reaction of events that, in turn, lead to a quick downward slide toward heart failure.

But, at altitude, other things are happening to your body as well. Your body is accustomed to operating in a pretty narrow range of atmospheric pressures. Once you go above around 4,000 metres your body loses its equilibrium. Due to the lower atmospheric pressure, fluids begin to leak from your cells, veins and capillaries. These fluids can pool in your lungs (pulmonary oedema) or in and on your brain (cerebral oedema). Both can quickly cause death if not treated, and the only real treatment is rapid descent to lower elevations where your body can re-gain its equilibrium.

If you are near the summit of Mount Everest and cerebral or pulmonary oedema sets in, you are in big trouble. It is unlikely you will be able to descend fast enough to alleviate the symptoms. The more it sets in, the more you become mentally and physically incapacitated, reducing your ability to descend even more. Affected climbers will stumble and fall off the route. They will make poor decisions. They will start to hallucinate and some will become combative to those who try to help them. It is a very frightening situation to be in.

Pure, simple exhaustion is also blamed for many deaths on Everest and the other big mountains of the world. By the time climbers start their summit bid they have usually been on the mountain for at least six weeks. They have not slept well for much of that time and they have lost a considerable amount of weight and muscle mass. They have likely not eaten much for days, and have burned tens of thousands of calories. They are far from the picture of top fitness, and now they must push their bodies harder than they have ever pushed. While the goal of reaching the summit is a very strong motivator, once it has been achieved, many climbers are unable to continue. Eighty percent of all climbers who die on Everest do so after reaching the summit. They die on the way down. They simply run out of gas, sit down, close their eyes and never get up again.

I have not even begun to discuss hypothermia, hypoxia, avalanches, snow and wind storms, extreme temperatures, rock and ice fall and the myriad of other potential dangers on Everest. The fact is that Everest is a bloody dangerous place and needs to be respected for the power it holds.

As a climber and a team and leadership specialist I want to take some time to discuss the recent tragic events on Mount Everest. You may have heard in the news about the deaths on Everest over the last few days. Everest is a dangerous place and deaths are part of every climbing season. However, this year there have been 11 deaths and the season is not even over. This is considerably higher than most years. When I summitted in 2008 there was only one death. So what makes this year different than other years? What is it that causes climbers to die on Everest? There are no simple or complete answers to these questions, but there are several factors that play into them. Over the next few blog postings I will reflect on and explore this tragedy based on my 25 years of climbing experience and, particularly, on my personal experience on Mount Everest.

As with everything in life some of the factors that are leading to climbers' deaths on Everest are outside their circles of influence. But many are not. I will touch on both in my blog.

I see three main factors that lie within our circle of influence that are causing issues on Everest: 

1. overcrowding,
2. inexperienced climbers, and
3. lack of team work.

Outside of our circle of influence is a big one: climate change.

Some of the topics I will discuss include:

• Why is Mount Everest so dangerous?
• Why are so many people going to Everest in spite of this danger?
• Is there an overcrowding issue on Everest?
• How is climate change impacting safety on Everest?
• Is inexperience playing a role in the deaths on the mountain?
• What role does leadership play in success, failure and death on Everest?
• How to be a great leader.
• What role does team work play in success, failure and death on Everest?
• How to build a high performance team.
• How can one prepare for a climb of Everest?
• What is a smart risk?