Everest milestone evokes memories for Mainer

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TOPSHAM – While Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two men to scale Mount Everest, celebrated the 50th anniversary of his climb in Nepal a week ago Thursday, Ed Webster enjoyed the moment quietly at home in Topsham.

Like Hillary, Webster has felt the exhilaration of climbing the world’s highest peak. He also knows the price that’s paid for that sense of exhilaration.

Webster, 47, grew up in Lexington, Mass. As a boy, he was intrigued by tales of the Abominable Snowman in the Himalayas of Nepal and Tibet. When he was a junior high school student, his fascination led him to devour the accounts of mountaineering feats of Hillary’s expeditions on Mount Everest.

Following his call to climb, Webster became a professional mountaineering guide. He honed his skills on climbs throughout the United States, always holding onto his dream of tackling the ultimate climbing challenge, Mount Everest. When time allowed, he would practice for high-altitude climbs by scaling rock routes while wearing heavy mountaineering boots on cold winter days.

In February 1985, at age 29, he was on his way to the Himalayas. After Webster arrived in a Sherpa village called Namche Bazaar in Nepal, he explored the landscape.

“That day the Himalayan scenes I read about as boy came alive,” said Webster.

When the weather permitted, he and his climbing party set off for the summit.

Above base camp, Webster helped rig aluminum ladders on a vertical rock face. A few days later, at 22,500 feet, he gasped for breath after every seven footsteps while carrying a 50-pound pack through the icy snow to the campsite.

“I was completely wasted after one carry load to Camp 2. Would I ever be able to push myself and live and work at high altitude for more than a few days at a time?” Webster remembered asking himself.

The team’s goal was to reach Mount Everest’s summit via the west ridge route. They came up just short, failing to reach the summit by 800 feet.

Although his first Everest expedition failed, Webster was keen to return for another try. Roger Marshall, a renowned Canadian climber, in 1986 hired Webster as his photographer. Marshall’s intent was to be the second person to climb Everest alone. On this adventure in Tibet, while Marshall made his solo ascent up one face of the mountain, Webster climbed a new route to the summit of Mount Everest’s north peak, called Changtse, reaching an elevation of 24,879 feet.

After obtaining a permit to Mount Everest issued by the Chinese Ministry of Tourism, Robert Anderson asked Webster to join his 1988 expedition. Webster accepted Anderson’s invitation. The climbers realized the hazards: rock and ice fall, avalanches, hidden crevasses, frostbite, high-altitude illness, pulmonary edema and cerebral edema.

“Facing straight ahead into the unknown with a small team of friends was the only way that we wanted to climb Everest,” said Webster.

Anderson and Webster decided their expedition would climb with no bottled oxygen, no radios and no Sherpa support. In the winter of 1987 at a slide show, Webster spotted a possible new route up a 12,000-foot precipice on the mountain’s east face.

Anderson and Webster invited other world-class climbers to join their team. All refused. The expedition was deemed too dangerous.

Only Canadian Paul Teare and Englishman Steven Venables accepted the challenge of attempting this never-before-attempted route up Mount Everest. In support, Joe Blackburn, a photographer, Miriam Zieman, a medical student, and Norbu Tenzing Norgay, the son of Tenzing Norgay who had guided Hillary to the summit, also joined the team.

After months of list-making, packing and organizing, the team was ready. The 1988 Mount Everest expedition set off on the 35th anniversary of Hillary’s ascent.

When the team arrived in Kharta, Tibet, they hired 125 porters to haul 110 loads (2.5 tons) to base camp, a strenuous five-day hike through deep snow over an 18,000-foot pass.

In Moyun village en route to base camp, Norbu Tenzing Norgay discovered his father’s boyhood home and met several long-lost relatives for the first time.

“It was an amazing day,” said Webster.

After reaching base camp, Webster heard the thunderous sound of an avalanche. He rushed out of his tent to watch the cascade of snow hurtling down the two-mile-high vertical slope. When it hit the ground, clouds of snow and ice crystals exploded into the air. The fallout barely missed blasting their camp.

“Being injured or killed was a frightening, real possibility,” said Webster.

The team slowly ice-climbed 4,000 feet up the vertical Kangshung face before establishing their next campsite at 22,500 feet. Eight-thousand vertical feet ahead lay the summit of Mount Everest.

Above the campsite, Webster wandered into the base of a crevasse, searching for a way to continue upward. A hundred feet above him, he spotted a gigantic chunk of hard ice wedged into the crevasse, like a cork in a bottle. “It was an eerie place,” said Webster. “I remember [Anderson] said, ‘It’s like walking around in your tomb. We’re inside Mount Everest.”

Suddenly, the massive block of ice exploded into thousands of pieces. Webster ran, narrowly escaping death. Shortly after the debris settled, Webster secured the ice pitons into the surface and climbed upward out of the overhanging walls of the crevasse.

After several days of rest at base camp, the team climbed upward. Three days later they arrived at an elevation of 26,000 feet. There, Teare suffered an onset of potentially fatal cerebral edema. Voluntarily, he set out alone to descend 8,000 feet back to safety.

That morning the weather was clear but frigid, minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Venables, Webster and Anderson began their ascent to the summit. Gasping for air, Webster inhaled 10 breaths of oxygen-thin air for every three steps as he trudged up the steep slope in slow motion. Without the aid of a safety rope, he concentrated on keeping his balance, one calculated step at a time. Webster knew that if his foot slipped he’d fall 5,000 feet to his death.

Then, 300 vertical feet below the summit, at 28,750 feet, Webster collapsed in exhaustion. He turned around and headed down. At first, it was difficult to find the exact route he had ascended, as new snow had covered his steps.

Webster was relieved when he saw Anderson. At 27,000 feet, Webster and Anderson crawled into an abandoned tent. The next morning Webster saw Venables stumble toward him. Venables had reached the summit, where he had survived the night alone, curled up on a snow ledge.

Webster led his teammates down the mountain through a blinding blizzard. After he stumbled and nearly fell into a crevasse, he insisted that they climb back up to their camp and descend in the morning.

Venables and Anderson followed Webster’s lead. The next morning, they left camp.

On the steep descent, Webster searched for and found the wands that they had placed in the snow to mark their route. Then, Webster saw their fixed ropes.

“I was elated,” he said. “I hugged [Venables].”

At that moment, Webster knew they were going to make it down the mountain. After 17 hours of climbing and three days without food, Webster, trying to stave off hypothermia, fell into some deep, slushy snow 200 feet from base camp.

Venables untied his end of the climbing rope and ran for help. Teare bounded across the snow, then pulled Webster out of the hole. Anderson lagged behind, but soon stumbled into camp. The team was reunited.

“You only find out about the forces that motivate you to save your own life when you confront death,” said Webster.

Webster suffered severe frostbite on his hands. The tips of eight fingers had to be amputated. After a long recovery, Webster slowly gained the use of his fingers and relearned how to climb.

He later went on more Himalayan expeditions.

Webster now lives in Topsham with his wife and baby daughter. He teaches classes in geography and map and compass skills for grade school students at the Eartha Educational Alliance at Delorme Map Co. in Yarmouth. Webster’s book, “Snow in the Kingdom,” was just voted by Outside Magazine as one of the 10 best accounts of Mount Everest climbs.

“What makes life worthwhile is living out your childhood dreams,” said Webster. “I’m glad I climbed Mount Everest when I did.”