Mesmerized.

There’s no other way to put it. The scene unfolding before me was captivating, subtle hues of warming a jagged Himalayan sea, blues morphing, glimmers of amber and crimson flashing on distant ridges, shadows etching an impossible landscape.

It was still frigid here, sunlight not yet penetrating the frigid shadows of the West Ridge Headwall. It was ten, maybe fifteen below, hard to gauge, hard to withstand, finger bones tingling with hints of screaming barfies, the world around me frozen in hyperborean silence.

Dave was coming up, almost to me. I knew I should probably get going, keep climbing, as there was much ahead, much to do. But, I couldn’t, didn’t want to, the show was too beautiful. So I waited, crouched uncomfortably at some 23,000 feet, watching shadows dance across a transforming world. Dave arrived, puffing hard, and joined me, wordlessly, nothing needing to be said, explained: we both knew why we were here, and this was it.

In actuality, we were here, high on Everest, to try to climb to the summit via the West Ridge - a route only climbed a few times in half a century - and make a film about the 1963 first ascensionists. But, we also both knew the real reason we were here, the real reason we had both spent innumerable days in the high peaks, months of our lives on Everest and elsewhere, years guiding and climbing and adventuring, was not, was never, about summits and deliverables, but about beauty: the beauty of pushing against and through one’s own limitations. The beauty of shared experience over days, weeks, months on a mountain; of camaraderie and teamwork; of immersion in a journey bigger than any of us, and a landscape that dwarfs and humbles even the most stalwart ego.

And, yes, the beauty of sitting in cold isolation watching the magic of sunrise.

Maybe I’m old-school (or just old), but I’ve been both bothered and befuddled by the growing trend of shortening Everest expeditions, of reducing them to all-out sprints across the globe and up the hill. I first encountered the phenomenon in 2019 when Roxanne Vogel made a sub-2 week ascent (guided by the amazing Lydia Bradey). I was impressed on the one hand, but also a bit…depressed, for lack of a better term. Fast forward to now, and that time seems downright slow: on May 19, 2025, Andrew Ushakov went from his home in New York City to the summit (guided by Tejan Gurung) in under four days (with the help of pre-acclimatization with hypoxic tents and lots of oxygen). Two days later, four British climbers reached the summit with Lukas Furtenbach’s company - theoretically with the help of controversial xenon gas - in six days from London.

Impressive? Yes. A step forward? I’m not so sure.

Mind you, I’m not against climbing fast: I believe one of the most amazing ascents of the mountain ever was the 43-hour round trip climb of the “Super Direct” (Super or Japanese Couloir to the Hornbein Couloir) by Erhard Loretan and Jean Troillet in 1986. While their climb was insanely fast, it was the culmination of a 7-week expedition and but a part of decades of expeditions across the globe. (And, the route they were climbing plus their chosen style dictated speed.)

I’m also not overly concerned with the increasing commodification, the incessant dumbing down, of Mount Everest. This process has been going on for decades, and given the amounts of money involved, will continue long into the future.

Rather, what irks me is what this trend tells us about the larger world. I’ve always believed Everest to be a hyper-dramatic microcosm of the good and bad, beauty and horror, glory and travesty of humanity. What we see played out on its slopes year after year - good and bad and indifferent - is a mere reflection of the good, bad, and indifference in our society, the forces that drive and influence all our lives.

And, that’s where the problem resides: We want instant. We want the summit, now. We want it all, we want it immediately, we want it with a minimum of time and effort and challenge and suffering. We want, I dare say, the token of success without the process, without the experience, without the beauty inherent in the whole.

I’ll step off my soapbox for a moment to note that I’m not condemning any of these climbers or their choices: they have a right to climb in their chosen fashion. That said, I can’t help but believe their experience of Everest was cheapened by that choice. The summit was reached, the box checked, but what of the sunrise across the peaks? The tent-bound hours spent laughing with old friends and making new ones? The commonality discovered over a cup of chiya in the mess tent or a tea house? The vibrant interactions on trail days to and from the mountain?

The sublimity of the whole versus the simplicity of the part.

As a sophomore in high school, we read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Archive.org) in English class. While not at all about mountaineering, author Robert Pirsig delves well and accurately into this aspect of climbing:

To the untrained eye, selfish or ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical.… Both kinds of climber place one foot in front of the other. Both breathe in and out at the same rate. Both stop when tired. Both go forward when rested. But what a difference! The ego-climber is like an instrument that’s out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or late. He’s likely to miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of his step says he’s tired. He rests at odd times. He looks up the trail trying to see what’s ahead even when he knows what’s ahead because he just looked a second before. He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about something else. He’s here but he’s not here. He rejects the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be further up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then it will be ‘there.’ What he’s looking for, what he wants is all around him. But he doesn’t want that because it is all around him. Every step is an effort, both physically and spiritually because he imagines his goal to be external and distant.
- Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (Archive.org)

That is not, of course, to devalue the top, the summit, the end goal - it is still essential, but only a part of the larger enterprise. Pirsig continues:

You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow.

But of course, without the top you can’t have any sides...
- Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (Archive.org)