#20 - Discovery of George Mallory, Commercialization of Everest, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

When George Mallory and Sandy Irvine disappeared on Mount Everest on June 8, 1924, the commercialization of the mountain was already under way. In the nearly 100 years, Everest has become an industry. With dozens of deaths on the mountain in the last five years, many feel that the mountain deserves a break. However, no matter how many die there, the dreamers will keep coming. In this captivating episode, Thom Pollard - with four expeditions over the course of 20 years under his belt, and a summit in 2016 - shares his insights about the good, the bad and the ugly of Everest. As a professional filmmaker and cameraman, he has seen Everest from all angles, including the discovery of George Mallory, 75 years after his disappearance, at 27,000 feet on the north side of Everest in 1999. 

Thom uses excerpts from Tales From the Top, a recruitment event for the Boston Museum of Science, in February of 2018. The panel discussion was led by Professor Peter Hansen, Professor of History and Director of International and Global Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His book, The Summits of Modern Man, Mountaineering After the Enlightenment, can be found at Harvard University Press at this linkn: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674047990

Music for the podcast was found on the Free Music Archive, performed by Vinod Prasanna, Okey Szoke & Pompey. Their label is Black Sea Records, found at https://www.bsr.fm/

For more information or to hire Thom for an Everest presentation, find him at www.eyesopenproductions.com   Click on Contact and send a brief email to be added to the mailing list. 

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Transcript

Thom Pollard: 1:09

Hi, this is Tom from the happiness quotient. Thank you for dropping by. You are one of my favorite listeners. Because if you're listening to this episode, you're hearing it before we changed our name to the happiness quotient. Just so you won't be surprised when you listen, you'll hear me talk about Baker Street with Thom Pollard. Believe me you are in the right place we've changed our name, but the excellence of the podcast just keeps getting better. Before we get to the episode if you haven't done so already, please subscribe wherever you're listening, and I hope you'll visit my Patreon page for exclusive content@patreon.com slash the happiness quotient and take a look at my YouTube page of the same name with there are many Everest and music related episodes adventure related podcast elements that can't be found here on the podcast itself. Thanks for being here. If you like what you hear be sure to leave me a review of rating and share it with someone you care about now on with the show hola Welcome to Baker Street. Thank you for stopping by on your host, Thom Pollard. Pull up the chair, kick your feet up, we're going to tell some stories about Mount Everest. My experiences on Mount Everest just a little bit about the commercialization of Mount Everest. Have people gone too far? Have we ruined the spirit of adventure and exploration by allowing too many people on the mountain? Do you think it's polluted? Do you think there are too many dead bodies up there? Should people close the mountain should Nepal and China close it not let anybody go and let the mountain rest. That's what Sir Edmund Hillary said some years ago. Give them out in a break. I'm going to share a few of my thoughts about that today. And this is Episode 21, a milepost one score in on Baker Street with Thom Pollard. Thank you for being here. The music that were listening to today I found on the Free Music Archive and it's by the nod Prasanna, okie zoek and Pompeii. And believe it or not, they're out of Melbourne, Australia. Their website is BSR dot F m black see records that's where you can find them, if you will. But I found this music on the Free Music Archive song called Blog and it's electronic North Indian traditional type song that is pretty darn close to where Mount Everest is. Thank you to that fantastic group of artists. We're setting the vibe for Mount Everest. As you know, I've been to the mountain four times. First time in 1999. I was the high altitude cameraman for an expedition to look for the bodies of George Mallory and Sandy Ervin. It was called the Mallory and Ervin research expedition. And I was hired by Nova the PBS science series to be the high altitude cameraman on a CO production with Nova with the BBC the British Broadcasting Corporation. And during that expedition, we found the body of George Mallory at 27,000 plus feet 75 years after his disappearance, his body had remained up high in the death zone frozen on the mountain for 75 years. Crazy thing is I gave up my summit bid or my opportunity to be on the summit team to go and film more around the body of George Mallory to look for the camera we believed he was carrying and thought to myself, I'll be back in a year or so to complete this expedition. And once you know it, it took me 15 years to get back. I was there, the second time in 2014 and I was there filming another documentary with a gentleman who had endeavored to become the oldest American to climb Mount Everest. In April at the beginning. toward the beginning of the expedition, a huge surfac avalanche crashed down into the Khumbu Icefall and took the lives of 16 men in an instant, Nepal and then China afterwards closed the mountain. So my dream was dashed. Finally got back there two years later, 2016, at which time I was filming a different documentary, I summited on May 22 2016, under a brilliant Full Moon alone with my climbing partner on the summit for 30 minutes that we reached at 240 in the morning, it was gorgeous, brilliant, full moon had the mountain to ourselves. So the overcrowding was certainly not a big deal on summit day. And then I just went back a few months ago with my buddy mark, Senate. He and I were there on a National Geographic expedition with our friend, renown oz Turk to produce a film, much of which I'm really not at liberty to talk about, believe it or not because of our contract with National Geographic, but a film, podcast and magazine article will result in our efforts and also Mark is writing a book about it pretty cool stuff indeed. What I want to share with you today are a few excerpts from a panel discussion that I took part in for the Boston Museum of Science. It was the 2018 Washburn challenge recruitment event. And it was led by a moderator Professor Peter Hanson. Peter Hanson is a professor of history at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, not too far from where I grew up. Peter wrote a book on the history of mountaineering. It's called the summit's of modern man mountaineering after the enlightenment, a really cool book, one of which he gifted to me and I keep it on my dresser in my room. And it's very, very enlightening to read that Haha, get it. Mountaineering after the enlightenment. Peter is an expert primarily on Well, one of the one of many things but but what we came together for this panel discussion was to discuss the commercialization of Mount Everest. And in it was not only myself on the panel, but Lhakpa Sherpa, the woman from Nepal, who has the most summits for a woman, anywhere, but she's Sherpa nine summits to this day of Mount Everest and Dr. Heather McDonald. Mountaineering guide, is now a psychologist but very talented mountaineer. My met in 1999, when she took part in guiding a group to Mount Everest, during which time I was climbing and filming there. So I'm going to share with you some interesting thoughts about my experience on Mount Everest and the commercialization. I'm gonna get started by Peter Hanson, opening the discussion for us.

Unknown: 10:25

So this titles for the top is a dialogue about Mount Everest in recent years after a fatal storm on Mount Everest in 1996, which was recounted in many books and films and commentary led to a kind of a controversy about commercialization. Commercialization it was said caused the tragedy in 1996, and led to the downfall of mountaineering after a golden age that had preceded it. The crowds of fee paying tourists had replaced the real mountaineers who used to go up climbing on unclimbed routes and the peak head was now had been degraded. Now from my perspective as a historian, this is is a process of commercialization that's gone on for a much longer period of time. And it's taken a wide variety of forms. And although we won't be talking about it that much in today, if you look back over this longer perspective, from the naming and mapping of the peak through to the early expeditions, these were part of its commercialization.

Thom Pollard: 11:29

Peter got the conversation started by asking us to introduce ourselves and our experience with Mount Everest. And in the course of our discussion that evening, which took place at the Boston Museum of Science in their auditorium there, I shared that while I was certainly part of the engine that drove commercialization as a filmmaker, that I was indelibly hooked by the power and attraction of Mount Everest, which, in my mind is one of the great mountains is the greatest mountain in the world. Well, there's no doubt that with the growth and popularity, specifically Mount Everest that the crowds has changed the game a lot. And, and while that growth has benefited many greatly, you know a lot of the families in in in Nepal, the Sherpa in the Khumbu region have benefited from excellent pay. There's there's there's also a huge downside there's, you know, I think I'll say Westerner but I'd say as as the, you know, kind of a white western guy who goes there working as a film, person, a cameraman. We put a lot of trust and faith in that, because we can plunk down some money for strong men and women to carry our loads. That sometimes we forget the downside of that. And in 2014, in a mile away from my base camp 10, an avalanche fell of Surat fell off the west shoulder of Everest and took the lives of 16 men, most of them Sherpa. It showed just how far that we've gone to kind of choke that mountain not and I'm a guy who believes strongly in saying that commercialization isn't necessarily bad. But I but there, there's some regulations that need to be put into place. There's a lot of people who go to climb Mount Everest, with very little experience. The commercialization of Everest, just absolutely slapped me in the face in 2016 on my own summit day, when I went up and summited very early in the morning, and on my way down, I encountered three men in various stages of death, if you will. And there they ultimately died. And there was a New York Times cover big special section about them recently, I was quoted in those people who passed away, in essence, we're kind of victims of commercialization. They're very inexperienced, doesn't mean they don't have the rights to be there. Just because I climbed doesn't mean I have more of a right than them. But they were from the Asian continent had different kinds of incomes. And in order to make their pennies stretch, they hired an outfit that supplied them with inexperienced climbing guides, who didn't understand what going past the turnaround time meant. So so if somebody at 27,000 feet is going up, and you know that they've got five more hours to go, and they've only got this much oxygen left, and they're tired, and it looks like they're about to die, you turn around and if they say no, I'm not turning around, you yank your rope and you pull them down. I mean, it and and the inexperience of these guys, and it's not even to say that those men who guided them were bad, but because of that inexperience and the commercialization of Everest, those three men died that shouldn't have happened. And then down in base camp, there's this huge film production putting a TV series on trying to like ambulance Chase every time somebody had like frost nip on their finger. There was a helicopter evacuation and this guy pretending he was a big doctor and you know, it's it was nauseating, however nauseating as it was. I go inside, I close my tent, I start writing in my journal, I think I'm no different. I made I've been making my living off of going to the mountains and filming documentaries. I've capitalized just as much as anybody else off that mountain. I've never paid. I've always made money doing it so. So I see the downside of the commercialization. Hopefully, I think that ultimately people go in there consciously and understand that we can do positive things to the people bring education to the Khumbu region help the people help give options, you don't just have to be a climbing guide in order to make a good living. You don't have to go risk your life and ferry loads up to camp to on and off every day and you know, 10 times every season and risk your life just to make a good living. There's other ways to do it.

Unknown: 17:05

Since you mentioned the filmmaking as making does making a film changed the experience or posting on social media, some of the opportunities that people have now to stay connected to the rest of the world. Has that changed the experience of climbing?

Thom Pollard: 17:22

Most? Totally, yeah, it has changed a lot, but kind of an interesting story that puts things into perspective. So in 99, I filmed the Mallory expedition and where I met Heather, who was guiding a trip in there. And so Mallory was discovered his body was discovered at about 27,000 feet, and it took place on May 1 of of 99. And the next morning, we were all down in advanced base camp, which is about 21,000 feet and we're having breakfast, and a friend of mine walked by our tent, and was big secret, don't ever don't anybody tell anybody a word about the discovery. We're gonna sneak out of Tibet and bring the news back home to the world. And this friend of mine walks by and he goes, Hey, guys, congratulations. And we're all pretend playing Tom, like what are you talking about? Well, I just heard a BBC radio report, interviewing Sir Edmund Hillary congratulating you on the discovery of George Mallory. We're like, Oh my god. So 24 hours later. It's world news. Now put that into perspective. George Mallory disappears with Sandy Ervin on June 8 1924. It took months for the news of his death, their death to reach home. So granted, 75 years is a long time. But how things have changed? You know, I mean, and it's all part of that, like, we're caught up in something that we have no control over. So does filmmaking change my experience 100% It's, it's the way I bring myself to it. It's my it's my in the discussion turned really wonderfully to discuss our deepest attraction to the mountain. In today's day and age, you can find out just about everything on the internet, you know, and look it up read books. For me personally, the, the one thing that I've come to understand about that mountain is that it's an immense center of energy. It unmistakably exudes these, these vibrations, that, for better or for worse, draws people toward it. It's a massive mountain. And when you see it for the first time, you become transformed. And for some people, that desire to stand on it, and be in that environment is overwhelming, and it never goes away. And because of that energy, what draws us toward it. There's there's there's a bigger thing happening here we enter I don't want to go too tangential here, but we all enter this realm for various reasons to kind of understand the the core of of our soul and what it is that we're on this planet for. And for me when I go to Everest, I look at all the people the experienced ones, the inexperienced ones, the guides, the Sherpa, but some are drawn there to die. Some are drawn there to live. Some are drawn there to tell stories. Some are drawn there to help Sherpa some are there to save lives. And that energy center is so powerful, and it's so overwhelming that regard less of the commercialization, for all the good things and all the bad things that it does, it will never end it is such a gigantic part of this planet, it is just going to like, like a magnet, watch. It's just going to suck you toward it and it will never let you go. And lastly, the panel discussion was open to the audience and it went on it probably could have gone all night. There were many, many hands raised. But a woman asked me what I thought the biggest downside was to the commercialization of Everest. Okay, yeah.

Unknown: 21:48

I was just curious what is in your mind the biggest downside to the commercialization? I used to think it was the trash, you know, compiling on the mountain. But if that's not really the one and is it mostly safety, are there other ecological or environmental, if you had to pick one thing,

Thom Pollard: 22:03

it's brought a lot of economic prosperity to the region Everest in particular. By far, the downside is is that there are more people low wage cooks, porters putting, being put into extremely dangerous situations who are losing their lives. And then when they die, they there's no insurance their families are left without any means to have an income. So to me that's it's it's more really on a personal level, garbage or, or over, you know, too much construction. That's we can fix that, you know what I mean? But but it's the loss of life and then families losing those people who brought in come in. Faster Peter Hansen is a professor of history and director of international and global studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and his book, which would be really worth while for any of those interested in this topic. It's called the summit's of modern man, mountaineering after the enlightenment. And one can find that book for sale at the Harvard University Press, which is hu p.harvard.edu. And I believe if you did a search in there, you'd be able to find it. The music we're listening to this wonderful northern Indian traditional music was found on the Free Music Archive, and it's by Vinod Sana and polki zoek and Pompeii three tracks on their album. Remain remember that we create our reality, with the thoughts that we empower. And if we keep them positive and coming from a loving place, and all are true to our innermost passions, and thoughts, then we can achieve much we will in turn attract positive kind people to us, and clear through some of the channels that are muddied by anger or negativity. So stay positive, keep positive, surround yourself with positive, empowering people. Remember that non judgement is the beginning of positivity in that starts with ourselves, not judging ourselves. So when you look in the mirror, there is an all knowing all powerful aspects of source that can accomplish truly anything. If you want to find out about me or have me come and do a presentation about my Mount Everest experiences to your school, college university business, or your sales event or an annual event, find me on eyes open productions.com and click in the upper right hand corner on the contact button. And fill that out. Let me know how I can reach you and I'll add you to my mailing list. Thank you for stopping by. It's an honor to have you listen, I will see you all real soon. If you're still here, thank you for visiting. I hope you'll take a moment to subscribe wherever you're listening. And I hope you will also visit my Patreon page for exclusive content@patreon.com slash the happiness quotient. And take a look at my YouTube page of the same name, where there are many Everest and music related episodes as well as adventure content and interview snippets that can't be found here on the podcast. Thank you for being here. I hope you'll share this leave me a review or rating and come back soon.