Human Error and a Mountain’s Fury is a bad combination

When you decide to take on the extremely dangerous journey of climbing Mount Everest, you need to take every precaution to be as safe as possible. Perhaps the most important precaution is to stick to your designated plan or listen to your professional guide. No matter what the weather conditions may have been, human error, including lapses of judgment and simple physical mistakes were the cause of eight people dying up on the summit on that fateful day of May 10th 1996.
Of the various mistakes made on the Summit, the most obvious mistake would be that the guides, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, did not make their clients turn around at the designated time. The last client reached the summit at 4:00 P.M.; this was two hours after the latest turn around time Hall had preached about the month prior. Fischer had passed a few of his clients on his way down the mountain after 3:40 P.M. and still allowed them to continue to climb the summit. Hall waited at the top of the summit for Doug Hansen far past the turn around time to make sure he made it to the top. Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air, stated that Doug Hansen…” had been talked into returning this year by Hall, who felt sorry that Hansen had been denied the summit and had significantly discounted Hansen’s fee to entice him to give it another try.” (72) Rob Hall’s guilt regarding Hansen’s previous attempt and failure of the summit could account for his lapse of judgment. Not sticking to the turn around time was not the only mistake to happen on the mountain. There were several climbers, both experienced and beginner, that ignored their limitations. For instance client Beck Weathers had eye surgery years prior to his trip to Mount Everest, and early in the climb he discovered that the low barometric pressure caused his eyesight to fail, a side effect of the surgery. However, Beck stated, “I didn’t want to bail out prematurely.” (198) So he pushed forward and continued the climb. It wasn’t until 27,600 feet on the Balcony that Beck finally informed Rob Hall of his failing eyesight as well as the laceration on both corneas caused by ice crystals. Client Yasuko Namba would not listen to guide, Mike Groom. At one point Groom was trying to remove her oxygen mask. She was out of gas and the mask was suffocating her, but every time he removed her mask, she insisted on putting it back on. Pushing passed their limitations and not following the instruction of their guide is something that would contribute to the demise of these inexperienced climbers. On the other hand, the guides pushed their limits beyond their capabilities as well. Scott Fischer, head guide of Mountain Madness, was extremely exhausted from the physical and mental strain of the weeks preceding the climb to the summit. He also hid from everyone that he had a gastrointestinal parasite and would often experience bouts of acute physical distress, especially when he was stressed. Fischer hid these warning signs and disguised his fatigue from his clients; therefore it didn’t occur to any of them that he might be in trouble. Sherpas are highly regarded as elite mountaineers and experts in their local terrain. They are hired for their knowledge and experience of climbing Everest, however they also made grave errors that contributed to the tragedy on May 10th 1996. There were two Sherpas at Camp Four who had not accompanied the summit party and were waiting to help in case of an emergency. These two Sherpas used poor judgment and had been cooking inside their tent, which was poorly ventilated, and as a result they suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. Due to not following their training, these two Sherpas were unable to help when Hutchison tried to organize a rescue team. There was also Rob Hall’s climbing sirdar, Ang Dorje. The morning of the ascent, he refused to fix the ropes for the other climbers, which caused climbers to have to wait for the traffic to die down before continuing their climb wasting valuable time. Ang Dorje had been asked to work with Lopsang, the climbing sirdar from Mountain Madness, again and as previously before Lopsang appeared to be “acting squirrelly.” Krakauer had stated “Ang Dorje had been working well beyond the call of duty for six long weeks. Now, apparently, he was tired of doing more than his share.” (184) Lopsang acting in an unpredicted manner also added to the human error atop Mount Everest that day. Lopsang had exhausted himself the day before the summit climb by carrying a satellite phone for one of the clients, in addition to the rest of his load. Lopsang also decided to short-rope client Sandy Hill Pittman, carrying her up the cliffs and steep slopes of the mountain. Even for a strong member of any group, this substantially compounded his fatigue and prevented him from assuming his customary role in the lead, establishing the route for the other climbers and helping clients during the descent. Lopsang was extremely devoted to Scott Fischer and understood how important it was for him to get every climber to the summit. He stated, “Scott wants all members to go to summit, and I am thinking Sandy will be weakest member, I am thinking she will be slow, so I take her first.” (178) Perhaps this was the reasoning for his uncharacteristic behavior. The horrible timing of the storm in 1996 took many of the climbers in the Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness expeditions by surprise. However, if all the expedition groups would have stuck to their predetermined plans and all the emergency protocols, it is safe to say that the climbers would have had a better chance of surviving the blizzard on top of Mount Everest in May 1996.