1:01

Hi, this is Tom

1:01

from the happiness quotient.

1:04

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1:04

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1:22

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2:02

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2:19

hola

2:42

Welcome to Baker Street. Thank

2:42

you for stopping by on your

2:46

host, Thom Pollard. Pull up the

2:46

chair, kick your feet up, we're

2:51

going to tell some stories about

2:51

Mount Everest. My experiences on

2:56

Mount Everest just a little bit

2:56

about the commercialization of

3:00

Mount Everest. Have people gone

3:00

too far? Have we ruined the

3:05

spirit of adventure and

3:05

exploration by allowing too many

3:11

people on the mountain? Do you

3:11

think it's polluted? Do you

3:14

think there are too many dead

3:14

bodies up there? Should people

3:18

close the mountain should Nepal

3:18

and China close it not let

3:22

anybody go and let the mountain

3:22

rest. That's what Sir Edmund

3:26

Hillary said some years ago.

3:26

Give them out in a break. I'm

3:30

going to share a few of my

3:30

thoughts about that today. And

3:35

this is Episode 21, a milepost

3:35

one score in on Baker Street

3:42

with Thom Pollard. Thank you for

3:42

being here.

4:00

The music that were listening to

4:00

today I found on the Free Music

4:07

Archive and it's by the nod

4:07

Prasanna, okie zoek and Pompeii.

4:14

And believe it or not, they're

4:14

out of Melbourne, Australia.

4:19

Their website is BSR dot F m

4:19

black see records that's where

4:26

you can find them, if you will.

4:26

But I found this music on the

4:33

Free Music Archive song called

4:33

Blog and it's electronic North

4:41

Indian traditional type song

4:41

that is pretty darn close to

4:46

where Mount Everest is. Thank

4:46

you to that fantastic group of

4:53

artists. We're setting the vibe

4:53

for Mount Everest. As you know,

5:01

I've been to the mountain four

5:01

times. First time in 1999. I was

5:08

the high altitude cameraman for

5:08

an expedition to look for the

5:13

bodies of George Mallory and

5:13

Sandy Ervin. It was called the

5:18

Mallory and Ervin research

5:18

expedition. And I was hired by

5:22

Nova the PBS science series to

5:22

be the high altitude cameraman

5:28

on a CO production with Nova

5:28

with the BBC the British

5:33

Broadcasting Corporation. And

5:33

during that expedition, we found

5:39

the body of George Mallory at

5:39

27,000 plus feet 75 years after

5:47

his disappearance, his body had

5:47

remained up high in the death

5:51

zone frozen on the mountain for

5:51

75 years. Crazy thing is I gave

5:58

up my summit bid or my

5:58

opportunity to be on the summit

6:03

team to go and film more around

6:03

the body of George Mallory to

6:08

look for the camera we believed

6:08

he was carrying and thought to

6:14

myself, I'll be back in a year

6:14

or so to complete this

6:17

expedition. And once you know

6:17

it, it took me 15 years to get

6:22

back. I was there, the second

6:22

time in 2014 and I was there

6:29

filming another documentary with

6:29

a gentleman who had endeavored

6:34

to become the oldest American to

6:34

climb Mount Everest. In April at

6:39

the beginning. toward the

6:39

beginning of the expedition, a

6:42

huge surfac avalanche crashed

6:42

down into the Khumbu Icefall and

6:47

took the lives of 16 men in an

6:47

instant, Nepal and then China

6:52

afterwards closed the mountain.

6:52

So my dream was dashed. Finally

6:58

got back there two years later,

6:58

2016, at which time I was

7:01

filming a different documentary,

7:01

I summited on May 22 2016, under

7:09

a brilliant Full Moon alone with

7:09

my climbing partner on the

7:13

summit for 30 minutes that we

7:13

reached at 240 in the morning,

7:18

it was gorgeous, brilliant, full

7:18

moon had the mountain to

7:21

ourselves. So the overcrowding

7:21

was certainly not a big deal on

7:26

summit day. And then I just went

7:26

back a few months ago with my

7:29

buddy mark, Senate. He and I

7:29

were there on a National

7:32

Geographic expedition with our

7:32

friend, renown oz Turk to

7:37

produce a film, much of which

7:37

I'm really not at liberty to

7:41

talk about, believe it or not

7:41

because of our contract with

7:44

National Geographic, but a film,

7:44

podcast and magazine article

7:51

will result in our efforts and

7:51

also Mark is writing a book

7:55

about it pretty cool stuff indeed. What I want to share with you

8:12

today are a few excerpts from a

8:17

panel discussion that I took

8:17

part in for the Boston Museum of

8:22

Science. It was the 2018

8:22

Washburn challenge recruitment

8:27

event. And it was led by a

8:27

moderator Professor Peter

8:32

Hanson. Peter Hanson is a

8:32

professor of history at

8:37

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

8:37

in Massachusetts, not too far

8:41

from where I grew up. Peter

8:41

wrote a book on the history of

8:47

mountaineering. It's called the

8:47

summit's of modern man

8:51

mountaineering after the

8:51

enlightenment, a really cool

8:54

book, one of which he gifted to

8:54

me and I keep it on my dresser

9:00

in my room. And it's very, very

9:00

enlightening to read that Haha,

9:06

get it. Mountaineering after the

9:06

enlightenment. Peter is an

9:10

expert primarily on Well, one of

9:10

the one of many things but but

9:16

what we came together for this

9:16

panel discussion was to discuss

9:21

the commercialization of Mount

9:21

Everest. And in it was not only

9:27

myself on the panel, but Lhakpa

9:27

Sherpa, the woman from Nepal,

9:32

who has the most summits for a

9:32

woman, anywhere, but she's

9:37

Sherpa nine summits to this day

9:37

of Mount Everest and Dr. Heather

9:42

McDonald. Mountaineering guide,

9:42

is now a psychologist but very

9:49

talented mountaineer. My met in

9:49

1999, when she took part in

9:55

guiding a group to Mount

9:55

Everest, during which time I was

9:59

climbing and filming there. So

9:59

I'm going to share with you some

10:03

interesting thoughts about my

10:03

experience on Mount Everest and

10:07

the commercialization. I'm gonna

10:07

get started by Peter Hanson,

10:12

opening the discussion for us.

10:17

So this titles for the

10:17

top is a dialogue about Mount

10:21

Everest in recent years after a

10:21

fatal storm on Mount Everest in

10:25

1996, which was recounted in

10:25

many books and films and

10:28

commentary led to a kind of a

10:28

controversy about

10:32

commercialization.

10:32

Commercialization it was said

10:35

caused the tragedy in 1996, and

10:35

led to the downfall of

10:41

mountaineering after a golden

10:41

age that had preceded it. The

10:45

crowds of fee paying tourists

10:45

had replaced the real

10:48

mountaineers who used to go up

10:48

climbing on unclimbed routes and

10:53

the peak head was now had been

10:53

degraded. Now from my

10:59

perspective as a historian, this

10:59

is is a process of

11:03

commercialization that's gone on

11:03

for a much longer period of

11:05

time. And it's taken a wide

11:05

variety of forms. And although

11:09

we won't be talking about it

11:09

that much in today, if you look

11:12

back over this longer

11:12

perspective, from the naming and

11:16

mapping of the peak through to

11:16

the early expeditions, these

11:19

were part of its commercialization.

11:21

Peter got the

11:21

conversation started by asking

11:24

us to introduce ourselves and

11:24

our experience with Mount

11:27

Everest. And in the course of

11:27

our discussion that evening,

11:33

which took place at the Boston

11:33

Museum of Science in their

11:36

auditorium there, I shared that

11:36

while I was certainly part of

11:45

the engine that drove

11:45

commercialization as a

11:48

filmmaker, that I was indelibly

11:48

hooked by the power and

11:55

attraction of Mount Everest,

11:55

which, in my mind is one of the

11:59

great mountains is the greatest

11:59

mountain in the world. Well,

12:04

there's no doubt that with the

12:04

growth and popularity,

12:09

specifically Mount Everest that

12:09

the crowds has changed the game

12:15

a lot. And, and while that

12:15

growth has benefited many

12:22

greatly, you know a lot of the

12:22

families in in in Nepal, the

12:27

Sherpa in the Khumbu region have

12:27

benefited from excellent pay.

12:35

There's there's there's also a

12:35

huge downside there's, you know,

12:40

I think I'll say Westerner but

12:40

I'd say as as the, you know,

12:43

kind of a white western guy who

12:43

goes there working as a film,

12:50

person, a cameraman. We put a

12:50

lot of trust and faith in that,

12:57

because we can plunk down some

12:57

money for strong men and women

13:03

to carry our loads. That

13:03

sometimes we forget the downside

13:09

of that. And in 2014, in a mile

13:09

away from my base camp 10, an

13:17

avalanche fell of Surat fell off

13:17

the west shoulder of Everest and

13:21

took the lives of 16 men, most

13:21

of them Sherpa. It showed just

13:28

how far that we've gone to kind

13:28

of choke that mountain not and

13:33

I'm a guy who believes strongly

13:33

in saying that commercialization

13:38

isn't necessarily bad. But I but

13:38

there, there's some regulations

13:43

that need to be put into place.

13:43

There's a lot of people who go

13:46

to climb Mount Everest, with

13:46

very little experience. The

13:50

commercialization of Everest,

13:50

just absolutely slapped me in

13:54

the face in 2016 on my own

13:54

summit day, when I went up and

14:03

summited very early in the

14:03

morning, and on my way down, I

14:07

encountered three men in various

14:07

stages of death, if you will.

14:15

And there they ultimately died.

14:15

And there was a New York Times

14:20

cover big special section about

14:20

them recently, I was quoted in

14:25

those people who passed away, in

14:25

essence, we're kind of victims

14:30

of commercialization. They're

14:30

very inexperienced, doesn't mean

14:34

they don't have the rights to be

14:34

there. Just because I climbed

14:37

doesn't mean I have more of a

14:37

right than them. But they were

14:41

from the Asian continent had

14:41

different kinds of incomes. And

15:23

in order to make their pennies

15:23

stretch, they hired an outfit

15:27

that supplied them with

15:27

inexperienced climbing guides,

15:32

who didn't understand what going

15:32

past the turnaround time meant.

15:37

So so if somebody at 27,000 feet

15:37

is going up, and you know that

15:43

they've got five more hours to

15:43

go, and they've only got this

15:46

much oxygen left, and they're

15:46

tired, and it looks like they're

15:49

about to die, you turn around

15:49

and if they say no, I'm not

15:53

turning around, you yank your

15:53

rope and you pull them down. I

15:57

mean, it and and the

15:57

inexperience of these guys, and

16:01

it's not even to say that those

16:01

men who guided them were bad,

16:05

but because of that inexperience

16:05

and the commercialization of

16:09

Everest, those three men died

16:09

that shouldn't have happened.

16:14

And then down in base camp,

16:14

there's this huge film

16:17

production putting a TV series

16:17

on trying to like ambulance

16:22

Chase every time somebody had

16:22

like frost nip on their finger.

16:26

There was a helicopter

16:26

evacuation and this guy

16:28

pretending he was a big doctor

16:28

and you know, it's it was

16:32

nauseating, however nauseating

16:32

as it was. I go inside, I close

16:39

my tent, I start writing in my

16:39

journal, I think I'm no

16:43

different. I made I've been

16:43

making my living off of going to

16:47

the mountains and filming

16:47

documentaries. I've capitalized

16:52

just as much as anybody else off

16:52

that mountain. I've never paid.

16:55

I've always made money doing it

16:55

so. So I see the downside of the

17:01

commercialization. Hopefully, I

17:01

think that ultimately people go

17:06

in there consciously and

17:06

understand that we can do

17:09

positive things to the people

17:09

bring education to the Khumbu

17:13

region help the people help give

17:13

options, you don't just have to

17:18

be a climbing guide in order to

17:18

make a good living. You don't

17:22

have to go risk your life and

17:22

ferry loads up to camp to on and

17:25

off every day and you know, 10

17:25

times every season and risk your

17:30

life just to make a good living.

17:30

There's other ways to do it.

17:34

Since you mentioned the

17:34

filmmaking as making does making

17:38

a film changed the experience or

17:38

posting on social media, some of

17:43

the opportunities that people

17:43

have now to stay connected to

17:46

the rest of the world. Has that

17:46

changed the experience of

17:50

climbing?

17:51

Most? Totally,

17:51

yeah, it has changed a lot, but

17:55

kind of an interesting story

17:55

that puts things into

17:57

perspective. So in 99, I filmed

17:57

the Mallory expedition and where

18:02

I met Heather, who was guiding a

18:02

trip in there. And so Mallory

18:07

was discovered his body was

18:07

discovered at about 27,000 feet,

18:11

and it took place on May 1 of of

18:11

99. And the next morning, we

18:17

were all down in advanced base

18:17

camp, which is about 21,000 feet

18:21

and we're having breakfast, and

18:21

a friend of mine walked by our

18:27

tent, and was big secret, don't

18:27

ever don't anybody tell anybody

18:33

a word about the discovery.

18:33

We're gonna sneak out of Tibet

18:38

and bring the news back home to

18:38

the world. And this friend of

18:41

mine walks by and he goes, Hey,

18:41

guys, congratulations. And we're

18:44

all pretend playing Tom, like

18:44

what are you talking about?

18:46

Well, I just heard a BBC radio

18:46

report, interviewing Sir Edmund

18:51

Hillary congratulating you on

18:51

the discovery of George Mallory.

18:55

We're like, Oh my god. So 24

18:55

hours later. It's world news.

19:00

Now put that into perspective.

19:00

George Mallory disappears with

19:04

Sandy Ervin on June 8 1924. It

19:04

took months for the news of his

19:10

death, their death to reach

19:10

home. So granted, 75 years is a

19:15

long time. But how things have

19:15

changed? You know, I mean, and

19:20

it's all part of that, like,

19:20

we're caught up in something

19:24

that we have no control over. So

19:24

does filmmaking change my

19:29

experience 100% It's, it's the

19:29

way I bring myself to it. It's

19:32

my it's my in the discussion

19:32

turned really wonderfully to

19:39

discuss our deepest attraction

19:39

to the mountain. In today's day

19:46

and age, you can find out just

19:46

about everything on the

19:50

internet, you know, and look it

19:50

up read books. For me

19:55

personally, the, the one thing

19:55

that I've come to understand

20:01

about that mountain is that it's

20:01

an immense center of energy. It

20:09

unmistakably exudes these, these

20:09

vibrations, that, for better or

20:19

for worse, draws people toward

20:19

it. It's a massive mountain. And

20:25

when you see it for the first

20:25

time, you become transformed.

20:30

And for some people, that desire

20:30

to stand on it, and be in that

20:39

environment is overwhelming, and

20:39

it never goes away. And because

20:46

of that energy, what draws us

20:46

toward it. There's there's

20:52

there's a bigger thing happening

20:52

here we enter I don't want to go

20:57

too tangential here, but we all

20:57

enter this realm for various

21:01

reasons to kind of understand

21:01

the the core of of our soul and

21:07

what it is that we're on this

21:07

planet for. And for me when I go

21:12

to Everest, I look at all the

21:12

people the experienced ones, the

21:15

inexperienced ones, the guides,

21:15

the Sherpa, but some are drawn

21:20

there to die. Some are drawn

21:20

there to live. Some are drawn

21:24

there to tell stories. Some are

21:24

drawn there to help Sherpa some

21:28

are there to save lives. And

21:28

that energy center is so

21:33

powerful, and it's so

21:33

overwhelming that regard less of

21:38

the commercialization, for all

21:38

the good things and all the bad

21:42

things that it does, it will

21:42

never end it is such a gigantic

21:46

part of this planet, it is just

21:46

going to like, like a magnet,

21:50

watch. It's just going to suck

21:50

you toward it and it will never

21:54

let you go. And lastly, the

21:54

panel discussion was open to the

22:00

audience and it went on it

22:00

probably could have gone all

22:02

night. There were many, many

22:02

hands raised. But a woman asked

22:07

me what I thought the biggest

22:07

downside was to the

22:13

commercialization of Everest.

22:13

Okay, yeah.

22:17

I was just curious what

22:17

is in your mind the biggest

22:20

downside to the

22:20

commercialization? I used to

22:22

think it was the trash, you

22:22

know, compiling on the mountain.

22:25

But if that's not really the one

22:25

and is it mostly safety, are

22:28

there other ecological or

22:28

environmental, if you had to

22:31

pick one thing,

22:33

it's brought a lot

22:33

of economic prosperity to the

22:35

region Everest in particular. By

22:35

far, the downside is is that

22:41

there are more people low wage

22:41

cooks, porters putting, being

22:47

put into extremely dangerous

22:47

situations who are losing their

22:50

lives. And then when they die,

22:50

they there's no insurance their

22:55

families are left without any

22:55

means to have an income. So to

23:01

me that's it's it's more really

23:01

on a personal level, garbage or,

23:05

or over, you know, too much

23:05

construction. That's we can fix

23:08

that, you know what I mean? But

23:08

but it's the loss of life and

23:11

then families losing those

23:11

people who brought in come in.

23:25

Faster Peter Hansen is a

23:25

professor of history and

23:28

director of international and

23:28

global studies at Worcester

23:33

Polytechnic Institute, and his

23:33

book, which would be really

23:38

worth while for any of those

23:38

interested in this topic. It's

23:43

called the summit's of modern

23:43

man, mountaineering after the

23:48

enlightenment. And one can find

23:48

that book for sale at the

23:55

Harvard University Press, which

23:55

is hu p.harvard.edu. And I

24:02

believe if you did a search in

24:02

there, you'd be able to find it.

24:16

The music we're listening to

24:16

this wonderful northern Indian

24:22

traditional music was found on

24:22

the Free Music Archive, and it's

24:26

by Vinod Sana and polki zoek and

24:26

Pompeii three tracks on their

24:34

album. Remain remember that we

24:34

create our reality, with the

24:43

thoughts that we empower. And if

24:43

we keep them positive and coming

24:48

from a loving place, and all are

24:48

true to our innermost passions,

24:54

and thoughts, then we can

24:54

achieve much we will in turn

25:00

attract positive kind people to

25:00

us, and clear through some of

25:08

the channels that are muddied by

25:08

anger or negativity. So stay

25:13

positive, keep positive,

25:13

surround yourself with positive,

25:17

empowering people. Remember that

25:17

non judgement is the beginning

25:23

of positivity in that starts

25:23

with ourselves, not judging

25:28

ourselves. So when you look in

25:28

the mirror, there is an all

25:32

knowing all powerful aspects of

25:32

source that can accomplish truly

25:37

anything. If you want to find

25:37

out about me or have me come and

25:43

do a presentation about my Mount

25:43

Everest experiences to your

25:47

school, college university

25:47

business, or your sales event or

25:53

an annual event, find me on eyes

25:53

open productions.com and click

25:59

in the upper right hand corner

25:59

on the contact button. And fill

26:03

that out. Let me know how I can

26:03

reach you and I'll add you to my

26:07

mailing list. Thank you for

26:07

stopping by. It's an honor to

26:11

have you listen, I will see you

26:11

all real soon.

26:52

If you're still here, thank you

26:52

for visiting. I hope you'll take

26:55

a moment to subscribe wherever

26:55

you're listening. And I hope you

26:59

will also visit my Patreon page

26:59

for exclusive

27:01

[email protected] slash the

27:01

happiness quotient. And take a

27:06

look at my YouTube page of the

27:06

same name, where there are many

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Everest and music related

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episodes as well as adventure

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content and interview snippets

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that can't be found here on the

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podcast. Thank you for being

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here. I hope you'll share this

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leave me a review or rating and

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come back soon.