Also- if you haven’t yet, you really should watch the video analyzing the photo that Scott Fischer took at the base of the Hillary Step as everyone was climbing. It shows the positions of all the climbers and the time of day. A very thorough analysis of everyone’s position clearly reveals that John Krakauer’s version of the final assault was basically a not-too-truthful, ever-changing, and self-aggrandizing story…at best! I can’t remember the KZfaq channel - but if you search “analysis of Scott Fisher photo”, it should come up. It certainly changed my conception of what happened up there! And thanks for your videos…always enjoy!!!

Ive recently discovered your channel, and have been binge watching, absolutely fascinating stuff.

I know, you don't want negative comments but I can't help it... I need to complain... no way around it... sorry... ... ... It was too short! The video was way too short! You are an amazing storyteller and I not only love to hear stories about Mount Everest but also about Chris McCandless. I could have listened to you for another 1,5 or 2 or 3 hours. ☺ And to make the video even better we also got a guest appearance from the kitty. 🥰 So, thank you very much for this great upload and greetings from Germany!

I think people frequently misunderstand Boukreev’s perspective about his role on Fisher’s team. You read the Climb and Above the Clouds, and it’s very clear he did not view himself as an “assistant hand holder” for the clients. He saw himself as responsible for carrying gear, fixing rope, and advising Scott on technical issues. He believed clients should be strong and self-sufficient. His decision to hike down ahead of the clients on May 10th makes perfect sense from this perspective. This decision didn’t bother me at all. Boukreev was never going to stand next to Pittman all day saying, “Great job Ms. Pittman. Would you like some hot tea Ms. Pittman. Can I lay my coat down for you to sit on Ms. Pittman.” Yeah right! Krakauer may have expected that from Boukreev, but that wasn’t reality. It also makes me so mad that ONLY clients from Krakauer’s team died. Not a single client on Boukreev’s team died, yet Krakauer blames Boukreev. Lets not forget Krakauer hauled ass down the mountain, ditched his colleagues, and zipped himself into his tent, never to reappear until the storm passed. He didnt provide a lick of assistance when the going got tough, whereas Boukreev risked his life multiple times. Blaming Boukreev in any way for this tragedy is flat out dishonest and unfair. It makes my blood boil just thinking that Krakauer had the gall to insult a man who did nothing wrong. If Krakauer was so worried about his team, maybe he should have stuck around to help them down. Rather than blaming a guide on a different team for not taking Krakauer’s responsibilities onto his shoulders. By far the most irresponsible person on this trip was Rob Hall. He violated so many rules and put all his clients in harms way. No disrespect to Hall following his passing. It’s easy to understand why he wanted to get to the summit, but Krakauer points his finger at the wrong guy.

Krakauer is a bit of avillain in my mind because he left Yasuka Namba by herself at a crucial point, which led to her death. Groom, who had been sticking with her handed her off to krakauer to go help someone else and she was descending fine, she just needed someone to descend with her and help her find the route. Groom would not have left Namba at that juncture if he didn't have the expectation that Namba would be descending with Krakauer to help. Krakauer left her by herself at a point where staying with her might have slowed him getting to camp by 15 or 20 minutes. Krakauer wasnt a guide but he wasn't a paying client either, his expenses were completely comped for him, and he was one of the strongest climbers on the mountain. He talks about helping to fix ropes at one point, which is certainly not something a pure client would be doing, sort of blurring the lines of his role. Nobody was asking him to be Superman and short rope her down but he could have saved namba's life if he had showed a tiny bit of humanity and helped her find the route. She was fully physically capable of getting down with that small amount of help but the psychological toll of being abandoned in those circumstances, in the dark and the storm, is what killed her. Also his book is full of factually questionable statements about the sequence of events that contradict photos taken, that only serve to shape a narrative to makes himself look better.

Good story teller! Keep it up.

Watched after the live but I absolutely love this!

Your program is excellent. I would have loved to be in the live cast. Keep up the great work. I learn more and more you have a passion for the mountain. You have a passion for the ability to climb it and for the people who also share your passion. I'm impressed

JUST missed. Hopefully I can catch next time. Great video!

Thank you Thom❤

Sorry I missed the live so I'm here with the replay crew. Years ago I taught undergraduates the story of the 1996 disaster as it is a really interesting 'decision making' case study. I'm cheering at the prospect of a Lincoln Hall video, thankyou Thom! Not sure if you are aware that Lincoln was on the 1984 legendary 'Sea to Summit' expedition that saw the first ever successful Australian ascent of Everest via a new route up the Norton Couloir. Lincoln was not feeling well enough to climb on summit day so stayed behind at high camp while two team mates went on to summit. Useful backstory as to why the 2006 climb held such importance to him some 22 years later.

Great video sir. I love the way you lay things out and educate at the same time. Thank you.

That story that you shared about Bradford Washburn and Bob Bates is eerily similar to two of the survivors in the book/movie Alive who had crashed in an airplane in the Andes. The two guys who went to look for help finally got over the Andes and got to a river where they saw a couple of ranchers on horseback on the other side of the river. They quickly scribbled a note that they were in a plane crash and that there were 15 or so survivors back at the plane wreckage. They tied the note to a rock and threw it across the river, near the ranchers who were on horseback. The ranchers read the note, got them to safety and the rest of the survivors back at the plane were then rescued by the Chilean military.

👍👍 That was a great stream ! Muggy on the Cape .

Thoroughly enjoy your podcasts!

great video, i read that book twice, and is super fascinating!

Thank you so much for your critique in the last few videos of the 1996 Everest disaster. Really great information.

Great content

👍 Cool live stream, very interesting listening. ✴️⚪🦅

After reading and listening to so many accounts of the 1996 climb, my favorite is the interview of Neal Beidleman who was one of the guides. He clearly states that after seeing that climbing ropes were not set, he found that Lopsang had instead been short roping Pittman up the mountain and was too exhausted to set the ropes that HE was carrying. This caused at least a two hour delay for everyone. Many people believe that this was the primary catalyst for the deaths that followed. If the ropes had been set as had been planned, then the climbers most likely avoid the storm. So people do blame Lopsang and Pittman for putting all the climbers at risk that day. This is the big mystery. Why did Lopsang abandon this critical task? Without the ropes being set, no one reaches the summit by the turn around deadline…no one including Pittman. I believe that these two made the decision on their own. Everything points in that direction.

Ahhh - I'm so sorry I missed this!

Rats! I missed this. I would have loved to have joined in. Thom, please put up a quick video telling us when the next one is. Or, maybe you did and I don't have my notifications set correctly 🤪🤪

You have a gift of story telling. When are you going to write a book on the history of Everest?

Makalu Gao is a lucky bum...he got saved coz he was with Scott Fisher & Sherpas did a quick triage & brought him down coz Scott was beyond saving....he also got airlifted thanks to Beck ...Has he thanked Scott's team & Beck Weathers for saving his life ??

Nice work

Your cat is soooo adorable!

The real bus is now a curated artifact on display at the Museum of the North in College, Alaska. The one in Healy is the prop used in the film. 🙂

It worries me that I immediately knew that Pete Schoening did not save Dudley Wolff. Dudley died in the 30's on Franz Weisner's K2 expedition.

Once again, thanks for a wonderful discussion. Before I comment on heroes and villains (a great song by Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys) i need to express my gratitude for your understanding of the mountains, its danger and challenges and the unpredictable situations that can occur up there in the death zone. Your channel is a delight. Unfortunately, there are many KZfaqrs out there that take your stories and rehash them in awful videos and then post them. They may have hiked to Everest base camp (or maybe not,) but they have never seriously climbed. Their videos show they have little or no climbing experience or knowledge and they just rehash what they have read from newspaper reports and copied from other more experienced KZfaqrs, including you. I find these KZfaqrs' content hollow, unprincipled and dishonest and perhaps even pushing to the point of plagiarism. I had to get that off my chest. Kudos to you for your honest and in-depth reporting. The highest I climbed was to about 20,000 feet. I turned down a trip to Everest in the early 1980s before many of these expedition companies came to the forefront of climbing. I declined my invitation to Everest as I did not consider myself to be that good of a climber, although I began climbing in the Shawangunk's and Catskills in high school and then climbed in Canada, the Pacific Northwest, the Rockies. I wasn't confident in my climbing abilities above 20,000 feet, although I did know when to turn back. My decision may have also been due to being stuck on Denali (Mt. McKinley in those days) at high camp in a blizzard for five days. I could not imagine being hit with a storm that ferocious in the death zone. Having never been close to the death zone, I didn't think I was prepared for the task although I had climbed technically on rock and ice for about 15 years. But I was a part-time climber. (I preferred long backpacking adventures in the wilderness to climbing. I've never regretted my decision not to go to Nepal and climb the great mountain. However, looking back, I was much more experienced than many of the "tourist climbers" in the 1996 tragedy, which to me is quite telling of today's climbing industry. I find tourist climbing slightly unethical, as these companies are allowing so many people with little experience to climb the highest peaks. So now to heroes and villains. I agree, Krakauer's account is honest. I am appalled at all the Krakauer haters out there who are filled with only vitriol in their comments. Everyone commenting read the book but they forget that Krakauer was completely exhausted and in no shape at all to reason and think straight let alone go out and help rescue someone. He made it quite clear about his own dire situation in the book, and that he was incapable of doing anything but to stay in his tent. Yet, there are those who choose to continue to gloss over this fact as if it weren't important and still paint him as a villain. And Krakauer was not selfish in his climbing the way Pittman was. I still consider Pittman a villain because of her selfishness on summit day, which caused a delay in the rest of the teams start time. No fixed ropes!!!!! She obviously didn't care about the fate of others, only about the fame she was to gain by broadcasting from the summit. Now, why did Lopsang not plant the fixed ropes? That was his job. Did any secret agreements occur between Fischer, Lopsang and Pittman? Not fixing the ropes put everyone in danger by delaying the summit push by two hours. That being said, you are correct to point out that it was Fischer (may he RIP) who did not have the fortitude to make sure the ropes were fixed (unless he too didn't care about the others and also wanted the glory to be broadcast to the world via NBC.) Will we ever know the truth about the poor decision making that day during the summit push? Scott Fischer and Rob Hall were ultimately responsible for the successful return of their clients and guides and Sherpas and they failed miserably. So to me, they are also villains. And Scott Fischer should have laid down the law to Sandy Hill Pittman, but failed to do so. Turn-around times were completely ignored by the leaders, who both paid the consequential ultimate price. Krakauer is no hero but he wrote an honest and riveting assessment of what occurred during that fateful climb. On the other hand, Anatoli Boukreev was definitely a hero even if he didn't climb with O2. However, his book was not riveting in my opinion and seemed more like a defense of his actions. Still, he saved people's lives while risking his own and was an incredible climber. One of the best. but mortal like the rest of us. Further, climbing six of the other seven summits seems to be a prerequisite for climbing Everest in the death zone. The second highest of the seven summits is Acancagua at around 22,000 feet, not close to the death zone. It seems like anyone (even with little or no climbing experience) can sign up for the seven summits adventure series..... Are they truly prepared for the seventh and final summit? Who knows what goes on in the minds of mere mortals when they are in the death zone. It could all end up being mountain madness......

I too am sorry that I missed your live stream … among many other excellent points that you made, I think it is important that you point out that Krakauer didn’t make himself out as a hero at all. That he was a client in some distress and he has never held himself out as an historian or chronicler of the disaster, he was just writing his impressions of what happened from his own perspective. To chastise him for not knowing that person X was actually 25 metres ahead of person Y and not five metres behind is inappropriate and completely misses the whole thing about what he was doing not only in the climb but in the book.

Ian Woodall is a prick. They were asked to lend their radios to one of the teams that we are talking about, and Ian refused. I saw a video of an interview with Cathy O'Dowell shortly after this tragedy. She was trying to justify why they wouldn't help. She didn't come across very well.

Hi Simba!!

Next time you are Live, can you please write where in the states you are, so I can find out what time it will be in Finland? It's to many time zones in USA.

I honestly dont feel anyone was villain like but maybe were just too comfortable with the way they were and how they were dealing with each situation. I also feel there were those that even though they were pushing themselves to the edge, still did or attempted to do heroic acts. All the while, not realizing how each action were to effect their situation, or the next person's situation. On top of that the storm was just the icing on the cake which sadly sealed the fate of many of those involved. So, human error mainly to blame and the weather just intensified the severity of the human errors. ❤

me encantan tus videos

Ultimately it’s always human error. Attempts to avoid it are the whole point of the endeavor.

Where can we see the photo you mentioned with the bowed rope that seemed to predict the storm?

Some guy on yur live chat stole my name. LOL Great video

Krakauer was critical of the wrong people. Where was his criticism of Hall?

Love watching you but every 5 min its a commercial ugh

Disagree, if you tell a false story, that is villainess. Doesn't matter if it's to make a better story, he made others look bad and criticized when he had no right to. That made others look bad without acknowledging that he himself is what he went there to criticize. And did not acknowledge those with much more experience than him he should have learned from, not made fun of. That's villainess.

Maybe telling a blind guy to wait alone for hours at 8400 m does not make Rob Hall a villain, but it surely does make him criminally negligent.

People just like to judge other people on social media and act like they are experts on any subject. I’ll obviously it was a combination of both. Some mistakes from humans and of course a giant storm like that play a key roll and what happened on the mountain that day.

2:10 weather prediction and radar must be better now. I used to get caught in blizzards driving. Now you see the radar on your phone. ? 😊🇨🇦🍁

I’m surprised so many people think that human error is the number one cause but I think it’s probably just a different thought process. I went with weather being the number one cause. My reasoning is, if that ONE and only variable was taken out of the equation I’m not sure if we would be talking about this being as big of an event as it was. More oxygen, maybe it would have helped a couple people but would it have completely changed the outcome for all involved? Probably not. The Sandy Pittman stuff, could that have been resolved if she hadn’t been on the mountain, maybe for some people but probably not everyone. I feel like weather was the biggest variable and if it had not been in the equation, the whole day would have been completely different for every climber. Don’t get me wrong there were SO SO SO many human errors and mistakes but I don’t think any single one of those would have totally changed the outcome. Just offering a different perspective.

I believe on the high altitude peaks th expedition leader should be down at a lower camp telling the guide to go up or down. Clearer brains can make better decisions.

Also Scott already came down on Anatoli, so why would he not do what Scott asked of him, after Scott already was on him for not helping client luxuries and told him to go down for that reason?

With all due respect, it’s time to bury this rehashed information re Everest! How long can you smoke the same cigar?

Am I correct in saying that Boukreev was still alive and Hall and Fisher were dead when Krakauer wrote Into thin Air? That would probably influence how I criticized people when I was writing. I don't know enough about climbing to offer a valid opinion but the buck stops with the team leaders in my humble opinion. Krakauer may have felt bad about blasting people who were still on the mountain when he wrote and that left Boukreev in his cross-hairs. It's still a brilliant book. I do know a little about safety and I'll say this - in any organization the person responsible for finances and the person responsible for safety should never be the same.

Hahahahaha😂😂😂😂😂😅

I always heard that Rob Hall and Doug Hansen were lovers, and that they had a pact that they’d either live or die together