Everest has become quite a circus these days. No judgment from me, but seeing the relative chaos makes me think back to quiet days, simple times in the quietude and ephemerality of the mountain, and what's always drawn me there in the first place.
From the sounds of it, the 2025 pre-monsoon Everest season has come to an end with a classic disturbance brewing in the Bay of Bengal, nearly certain to dump hefty snow across the region. On the South Side, the Icefall Doctors announced they’ll close the Icefall on May 29, and in Tibet the Chinese officials will likely follow suit.
To be honest, I don’t pay much attention to Everest these days. I personally have no issue with the antics of the hill, and respect the accomplishments achieved each year, but just have little interest in speed records and noble gases, repeat ascents and, I guess, summits in general.
Bushwhacking, Everest style: Sid Pattison works his way across the Longland Traverse back toward the main climbing route and the 1933 Camp VI. The Northeast Ridge rises above with The Warts directly above Sid, and the First Step and Summit clearly visible in the distance.
For me, the beauty, the meaning, of Everest - of any mountain for that matter - has never been hidden in the summit snows. Purpose, meaning, the ethereal wisdom of the mountain experience is absent at the zenith, contained instead in the footsteps below, in the beyul. I’ve found myself never more deflated, disappointed, disenchanted than on that coveted tippy-top, never more inspired, intrigued, and enchanted when my footsteps take me in a new direction, into the deafening silence of a Himalayan sunset or the pensive, all-consuming focus of an 8000-meter bushwhack. They days and expeditions when I turned around shy of the top - or never had the summit as a concept in the first place - will always be my fondest on the mountain: the process of the climb, of the adventure, of the struggle and fear, laughter and solemnity, soft hues and biting winds, burning legs and shattered lungs, moments of discovery both internal and external, the intoxicating humility that comes with knowledge of one’s own minusculity…these, to me, are the moments that mattered, that always matter.
So, today, a little Real, Not AI on Everest, some moments from years past, decades past, moments I was fortunate enough to experience when the mountain was a little less crowded, the game a little less fraught, the goal somehow more defined in its ephemerality.
Everest Basecamp, March 1999.Sunset paints the north face of Mount Everest from a quiet Rongbuk Basecamp, Tibet.Rumbling over the Pang La, we dropped steeply on washboard dirt switchbacks into the Rongbuk Valley. Were we not in a 1980s Toyota Landcruiser, we could have been in the 1880s: little had changed in a century in this corner of Tibet. We made a brief stop at Rongbuk Monastery to say hello to Norbu, the abbot, before continuing to Basecamp. Silence prevailed: there was no one there, only us. Us, and the wind, and the mountain, looming high above, reminding us at all times where we were, who was the boss.Conrad Anker climbs the First Step on the Northeast Ridge of Mount Everest, Tibet, on May 18, 1999.Tap Richards climbs along the Northeast Ridge of Everest en route to the First Step at sunrise on May 17, 1999.May 17, 1999 on the Northeast Ridge was quiet: just our team of Dave Hahn, Conrad Anker, Tap Richards, Ang Pasang, Dawa Nuru, and I. A Ukrainian team had summitted on the 8th; one member, Vasili Kopytko, died on the descent, and we helped rescue the other two, Slava Terzyul and Vladimir Gorbach. Ropes were not fully in place, so we fixed as we went, isolated behind hoods and masks and - for me at least - fear. Fear of the Ridge, fear of the Mountain, fear of my own (in)ability. Beauty and terror, silence, pensivity. I decided to turn around at Mushroom Rock. Tap, Ang Pasang, and Dawa joined me, but Dave and Conrad continued on to the top.Brent Okita pauses for a break on the Northeast Ridge below the First Step while searching the mountain in April 2001. Visible just above Brent are the remains of an old camp used in 1960 and 1975.Brent Okita pauses for a rest below the First Step on the Northeast Ridge of Mount Everest, Tibet, on April 22, 2001. Brent and Jake Norton were searching for Percy Wyn Harris's ice ax, which he left in this area in 1933 after finding the ax of Andrew Irvine, who disappeared with George Mallory on June 8, 1924.These days, teams are just getting used to Basecamp by mid-April. In 2001, on April 22, Brent Okita and I were on the Northeast Ridge, poking around and finding old camps, historic detritus from expeditions long past: 1933, 1960, 1975, and more. Utterly alone, in those days we could climb essentially when we wanted, where we wanted, no issues. There was not another soul for miles in any direction, Brent and I utterly alone, beyond happy. May 7, 2004, Dave Hahn and I were back on Everest, searching once more for signs of Andrew Irvine, of 1924, for answers to mysteries. We had little support, but decided to push high, early. Again, no one told where to go, or when, back then. On this day, we didn't have Camp VI established yet, so left Camp V early and carried some supplies to high camp, then pushed higher, into the Yellow Band, ambling around to check things out. I traversed wild benches and up sketchy gullies, enjoying the feeling of being proverbially out there, deliberately off route, wandering and wondering where Irvine may have gone 80 years prior...where Xu Jing may have walked 44 years earlier...where Chhiring Dorje's path took him 9 years before. Eventually it was time to go down: we'd had a big day to about 8450 meters on a protoype (and mainly non-functional) oxygen system, and we needed to get back to Advanced Basecamp some 6500 feet below. Altitude exhaustion is a funny thing (in a not-so-funny kind of way): it just hits you, makes you stop with a bonk of all bonks. At 8000 meters, with the sun about to duck behind Cho Oyu, Dave and I took a well-earned rest, twenty minutes of enjoying the sunset before continuing our descent. David Morton near our high point on Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld’s West Ridge route when we tried to repeat it in 2012 with Charley Mace and Brent Bishop.David Morton high on the West Ridge Headwall above Camp 2 on Mount Everest. Lhotse rises behind through the clouds.In Spring 2012, David Morton, Charley Mace, Brent Bishop, and I tried to climb the West Ridge, following the route and telling the story of Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld in 1963. We knew one truism going into the affair: We weren't Tom and Willi. We weren't as strong, as tough, as determined, as willing perhaps to hang it all out as much as they did. We also were alone, no support, just us and a big, intimidating route, bad conditions, and lots of climbing to be done. A North Face team of Conrad Anker and Cory Richards turned around early, not liking the conditions on the route, but we - for better or worse - soldiered on, caring more about the story than of swapping to the Southeast Ridge and another summit. Dave and I eventually pushed our route up to about 22,700 feet - close to but not quite at the West Ridge proper - on our last day before clouds slammed in and the world disappeared. We were beaten, but happy: we were alone, had pushed hard, and given it our best. Meanwhile, a conga line was shuffling up the Lhotse Face, hundreds of climbers walking unwittingly into chaos that would claim at least four lives in the days to come. Another search expedition, Spring 2019 on the Tibetan side of Everest. While the mountain as a whole was busy, it was blissfully quiet where Sid Pattison, Ken Sauls, and I went for a bit of off-roading. I felt there was still good reason to search the Northeast Ridge to the NNE of the Exit Cracks, through the two rock blobs known as The Warts, so there we went. It was not difficult terrain per se, but dubious, scary: windslab snow crusted atop broken limestone slabs, everything loose and waiting to collapse, impossible exposure below with no chance of self-arrest, of stopping. One slip and it would be game over. So we took our time, fixing a bit of rope, moving slowly, carefully, always cognizant of the rules of the game. We also laughed, a lot, not because anything was funny (it really wasn't), but instead laughter of joy, joy at being so close to the cow path and yet so utterly removed, untethered, wandering terrain that had seen but few if any boots, wild, wooly, untamed. Some brief moments of the wild, moments to be savored.
I spent the majority of today - as I am wont to do - spiraling down a rabbit hole of thought. I had intended to write, had hoped to write, a thoughtful Thursday Thought post on the idea of greatness; a concept that has been rattling my mind and haunting my thoughts for weeks now. […]
Interesting reading - like a ”behind the scene” in moviemaking. So much work and effort done beside the summiting - passion 💙🏔️🌀
Hi Jake, wonderful memories to relive, always a joy to read and be a part of the adventure through your words & vision- cheers Barb
"Silence is a true friend who never betrays." - Confucius