by Ben Fogle
One of the most common questions I have been asked since I returned was, ‘Is it covered with litter?’ As the United Nations’ Patron of the Wilderness, one of my roles on the Everest expedition had been to report back on the state of the mountain. I wanted to see for myself, if indeed, Everest was the ‘world’s highest rubbish dump’ as it is so often described.
Between Lukla and the summit of Everest, I was astonished at how little litter I saw. The Nepalese have taken on a huge clean-up campaign in recent years, perhaps to improve their reputation, but also in response to tragic natural disasters. The 2015 earthquake wiped out the Nepalese base camp, not only with a terrible loss of life but also causing an environmental disaster after all the equipment from the climbers was abandoned.
The government implemented a number of requirements for climbers, including that each one bring down 8 kilos of litter, including their own, and incentivised sherpas with $2 per kilo of rubbish removed. They imposed ‘litter fines’ at Base Camp and tried to address the human faeces problem by encouraging mountaineers like myself to take poo bags up the mountain, as we had indeed done.
The results had been pretty spectacular. I see more rubbish on the rural lanes of Great Britain than I did on the whole mountain trail. When I wrote about my environmental findings in the Guardian newspaper, I received a letter a few weeks later.
Dear Ben Fogle, Tashi Dele and Namaste,
I read your article in the Guardian paper. After reading your article, I felt like I have won a million dollar lottery! It was such a joy after many depression news from Nepali news media that it says, litters everywhere in Khumbu region etc.
My name is Ang Dorjee Sherpa and the Chair person for the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) I have spent 18 years on Everest region for garbage management and clean up campaign.
I admit that we still have lots more work to do, for instance recycling the garbage, make frequent clean up campaign above Camp I on Everest and other mountains. Your article gave us more strength to make Everest region beautiful for our future generation.
As you said, the Everest region one of the cleanest, tidiest wilderness trails that you have encountered. The credit goes to all the people from Khumbu, school teachers, students, government employees who work in this area, many mountain climbers and trekkers who love the mountains and this place.
Thank You.
Best Regards
Ang Dorjee Sherpa
I loved that letter. The selfless pride and love of the mountains shines through and I felt honoured to have been able to make a difference and help tell the world.
Everest has been so many things to me. Fear. Loss. Sacrifice. Suffering. Beauty. Fulfilment. Ambition. Hope. Inspiration. Dreams. I hope my story will be a reminder to follow your hopes and your ambitions and dare to dream. Dream big.
I shall leave my final thoughts for another Ben. My dear friend, the writer Ben Okri.
Ben wrote me a poem to read on Everest, which I did. It is a powerful, questioning poem that, a little like my climb, is full of contradictions, but it seems to sum up the romanticism and the futility of climbing Mount Everest.
Everest by Ben Okri
Some visions
Draw us
To impossible places.
These are visions
That have lived
At the heart of our culture.
They pull us like ants
Up into their white clouds
At the edge of dream.
How many have perished
In the storm or snow?
Their trails are invisible.
Whiteness obliterates
The centuries.
Some visions
Demand only
Our snow-eaten feet
And our ice-broken hands.
Its white stony
Face disdains history.
Into the abyss of its pale mouth
Generations go,
Like sleepwalkers.
Sometimes a single storm blots out
Our elaborate designs.
A civilisation climbs its face
And with a breath is erased again.
But all dreams lead here.
From this lunar height
Everything seems clear:
We must either sit still
Or overcome ourselves.
We are the mountains
We need to climb;
We are our own impossible peak.
Everything that we seek
Is dissolved by fulfilment
And only the trackless path
Is worth travelling.
Some dreams draw us up
Not towards any particular eminence
But to something of which
This mountain is but a mysterious
Symbol, whose meaning eludes us
And ever drives us on, drives us
Up, with the blinding sun in our eyes.
It holds up a mirror
To our fevers and our delirium,
Our hopes and our need to conquer.
There we are shattered
And there we are made.
It is one of the forms of the divine,
Perplexing the riddle of distance.
Is it a call to heroism?
Or to oblivion?
For everyone who ascends
Descends
Into a polar space,
Where the far is near
And the near is farther
Than Valhalla.
Some visions
Draw us
To impossible places
Where breathing
Is a new language
In the wind
And where we can climb
Higher up into the flame of the days
The flower of the streets
The ritual of work
The initiation of sleep
And the simplicity of home.
Because one person did something
Vaguely unthinkable
Considerably impossible,
Because one person did,
Others can till their fields
Or leap to the moon
Dance in a ring of fire
Or walk the treadmill incarnations
Towards the centre of that vast
Invisible rose.
You who climb
And you who sit beneath a tree
And you who at your desk
Await a vision, perhaps an annunciation;
You who scratch at your thoughts
Till your life bleeds
You frozen in fear, or blistered in rage
Singing on an empty stage
You in poverty or in wealth
Some vision draws us on
Which we must follow
Or not be born.
Everest will forever be a part of me.
I hope you too will follow your dreams. Climb your own Everest.
Don’t be slaves to conformity. Risk a little. Because without it, you can’t live, love or experience. The biggest risk is not taking a risk in the first place. If you take no risks you may avoid defeat, but you can also never really achieve.
Oh, and don’t forget to look Up.
Picture Section
The team’s first climb in Bolivia (Victoria, Kenton and me).
With Victoria at the summit of Illimani – the highest mountain in Bolivia (6,438 metres).
Ludo and Iona wave me off from Colombo airport in Sri Lanka. Leaving my family for this challenge was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
Trekking to Everest in holiday clothes. My bags had been sent somewhere other than Kathmandu.
Victoria and I take a tour with the Red Cross to see some of the good work they are doing in the region.
I invited my father-in-law, Jonathan Hunt, to join us on the trek to Base Camp. He offered me some spare pants – 10 days in the same underwear is not great for team bonding.
Prayer flags are everywhere on the trek to B
ase Camp. Getting chilly enough to borrow a jacket – my bags had still not turned up.
Mark Fisher, our cameraman, joined our team late in the day. Here are all five of us on the way to Base Camp (Victoria, Jonathan, me, Kenton and Mark).
Shorts and a jaunty hat – not the usual outfit for the trek to Base Camp.
Dwarfed by the immense and majestic landscape.
With our team of sherpas (Ang Phurba Sherpa, Siddhi Tamang, Jenjen Lama, me, Phree Chombi Sherpa and Pemba Sherpa). I loved spending time with these people – they love the mountain and showed us the way to treat her with respect. Without the sherpas, climbing Everest would be almost impossible for amateurs like me.
A common noise at Base Camp is the unnerving ‘BOOM’ of avalanches. The danger is real and constant.
Leaving Camp 2 on one of our pre-summit ‘rotations’ to the higher camps. Climbers acclimatise to the thinner air gradually before pushing on to the summit.
Kenton scales an ‘ice fin’ in the Khumbu Icefall.
Proper mountaineering at an ice wall between Camps 1 and 2. Walls like this test your physical and mental strength.
Crevasses on Everest can be hundreds of feet deep and more than twenty feet across. They must be treated with extreme caution.
‘Always look up,’ my grandmother used to say. With spectacular scenery and light like this, who wouldn’t?
Pitching camp to take a rest. Climbers often ‘hot bed’ – slipping into tents just vacated by previous climbers. Timing is all – sometimes you have to walk up and down outside the tent while the others finish their rest and pack up their gear ready for the next stage.
Sharing a tent at altitude with a teammate helps bring the team together. You can also keep an eye out for signs of altitude sickness.
The light on Everest really is amazing. It draws your eyes ever upwards.
The ladders of Everest are almost as famous as the mountain itself. These temporary bridges – sometimes up to four ladders all lashed taut together – are used to span the crevasses that cut across the icefall like lightning bolts.
One of the last pictures of me, Victoria and Kenton before Vic decided to stop her climb. Her decision was difficult and courageous.
Prayer flags adorn the mountain – they remind you of what a spiritual journey scaling Everest can be.
Oxygen tanks waiting to go up the mountain. Climbing Everest without oxygen is only for the very few. The rest of us couldn’t survive without it.
Another night at Camp 2 awaiting our next rotation up the mountain.
An intense climb to get to Camp 4.
In the death zone, you need a constant supply of oxygen to help you climb and breathe. Climbers have to limit their time up here as much as possible. The air at 7,600 metres and above is so thin that prolonged exposure to the conditions there can have serious consequences for your physical and mental health.
A storm raged while we were at Camp 4 before the summit attempt. We were sheltering in flimsy tents being attacked by wind that was the most violent and angry I have ever experienced. It was a very long night.
Clipped onto the vital rope line, and with my oxygen mask in place, I am ready to make my way up to the roof of the world.
A pause in the ascent. I wanted to experience a few steps without oxygen so that I could ‘feel’ the mountain and the raw challenge. Not long after my oxygen regulator failed and I was in real danger.
At the south summit, each step is a struggle. Even with oxygen the physical effort of putting one foot in front of the other is immense.
Tackling the Hillary Step, which in 2018 had been nearly completely covered in snow, so was more the ‘Hillary Slope’.
The final push to the summit. Despite every kind of problem – meteorological, physical and manmade – the top of the world was in our sights.
The summit!
The highest selfie you can take.
One of the proudest moments of my life: Ludo and Iona’s favourite toys enjoy the view.
The view from the top.
Kenton told me that I should save 25–30 per cent of my strength and energy for the descent. After the euphoria of summiting, the descent is even more dangerous than the ascent.
The trip down is hazardous, so keeping your focus is vital.
Back at Base Camp for a final group picture (me, Kenton and Mark). We did it!
Home with Marina and my wonderful children. In the end, you do what you do to show your children what is possible, to inspire them to push themselves as far as they can go.
My daughter’s diary entry. I may have ‘smelt of rotten cheese,’ but at least I was home.
Our Charities
My schoolfriend, Haya Bint Al Hussein, daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan, created a global movement in memory of her father, Anything is Possible, through which she hoped to inspire people across the world to pursue their dreams and ambitions.
Victoria and I were also keen to work with the British and International Red Cross who had been so vital following the earthquake that devastated Nepal in 2015.
I have long admired the work of the Red Cross and it had been a sobering reminder to see their red and white vehicles in my own London neighbourhood in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. It was a reminder of the life-changing work they do at home and abroad.
Shortly after our first training expedition in Nepal, Victoria and I spent a couple of days with Red Cross Nepal, seeing first hand some of the work they are still doing across the country. We visited a prosthetic centre that worked with men, women and children who had lost limbs in the earthquake and who have been given new artificial limbs.
We met Red Cross volunteers who had lost loved ones in the disaster but who still selflessly and tirelessly work within their communities to ensure their fellow countrymen are prepared in the eventuality of another natural disaster.
It was during the field trip that we witnessed some of the micro-financing work that gives those who lost everything in the disaster the chance to earn an income and a livelihood again.
We also visited a blood bank which was building up a huge reserve of blood in case of another disaster. As a small gesture, I decided to leave a bag of my own blood. I sat in an old chair while a nurse put a tourniquet around my arm and inserted a needle into my vein.
I sat there and watched my blood fill a bag. A wave of dizziness swept over me. I have never been very good with blood, especially my own. Sweat trickled down my brow and my vision started to narrow.
That little bag of blood was the smallest of gestures, but I like to think I left a little of myself for the beautiful Nepalese people. I am honoured to become the first ever ambassador of the British Red Cross.
Finally, through my work with the United Nations as their Patron of the Wilderness, I hoped to use our climb to record the human impact on the mountain. I had heard so many tales of the litter on Everest and I wanted to see it for myself. I wanted to understand the human impact on the precious mountain range and report back to the United Nations on how the mountaineering community can improve their etiquette and minimise their impact on the landscape.
Our work with the Red Cross, Anything is Possible and the United Nations Environment Programme gave me so much motivation during that long climb. Where there was darkness, they were the light.
instagram.com/anythingispossible.world
instagram.com/UNEnvironment
instagram.com/BritishRedCross
Index
The page numbers in this index relate to the printed version of this book; they do not match the pages of your ebook. You can use your ebook reader’s search tool to find a specific word or passage.
BF indicates Ben Fogle.
VP indicates Victoria Pendleton.
acclimatisation 24, 25, 33, 55, 61, 70, 72, 78, 82, 83, 124, 128, 169, 226, 235
adventure:
BF pursuit of 13, 15, 17, 44, 46, 47, 104, 159, 231
definition of 46
adversity, e
xperiencing 183–202
Airship and Balloon Company 103
Al Hussein, Haya Bint 156, 251
Alone in the Wild (TV series) 58
Alps 19, 23
altitude 41, 54, 60, 61, 63, 112, 114, 128, 181, 201, 204, 223, 236
age and 63, 92–3, 94
air pressure at 172
altitude-induced sleep apnoea 126–7, 128–9, 130
altitude sickness 20, 101, 126, 129–31, 140, 155, 156–8, 168, 235
appetite loss at 55, 88, 91
brain and 219, 226–7, 235
emotions and 7, 91–2, 219
suffering and 145–6
Andes 19, 23, 24–8, 101, 102–3, 147
Ang Dorjee, Sherpa 244–5
Ang Thindu, Sherpa 86, 170, 191, 197, 198, 221
Antarctica 7, 10, 53, 62, 106, 176
Anything is Possible 156, 251, 253
Arctic Circle 170
Asian rhino 59
Atlantic Ocean, BF rows across 7, 9, 16–17, 32, 106, 120, 144, 152, 185, 234
