Customer Reviews

High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed

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1 star:		(6)

 

 

Base Camp on the North (Tibetan) side of Mt. Everest is situated on the vast flat moraine at the end of the Rongbuk Glacier. In our 1986 expedition, the British SAS camp lay a quarter-mile away. A half-mile across the valley was a California team. And that was it. There was a certain purity to the endeavor. As twilight fell, all the ghosts of Everest seemed to swirl around in the desolate emptiness of this barren plain.

What a difference today. Author Michael Kodas describes a lawless wild-West atmosphere more akin to a gold rush mining town rife with aggressive thieves and prostitutes, delusional amateur "climbers" anxious to buy fame and glory at any price, and--the main subject of this excellent book--the subculture of criminally incompetent hustlers ready to sell it to them.

The author tries not completely successfully to weave several related tales into a single whole: his own attempts to climb the mountain; the abandonment by his guide and death of a 69-year climber. And the numerous hustlers selling dreams they cannot deliver.

The book centers on George Dijmarescu and Gustavo Lisi and the low-budget expedition services they (separately) ran by advertising themselves as Everest summiters, and the holders of various official French and Italian guide qualifications. None of these claims were true (although Dijarescue did eventually summit the mountain). Their low prices depended on using safety ropes put up by others, cheap, defective oxygen systems, and even sleeping in tents placed high on the mountain by other expeditions for their own use. Their concern for their clients in desperate trouble always seemed to be that of leaving them to their fate, or expecting the Sherpa porters from other expeditions to rescue them. After abandoning his stricken 69-year old client near the summit, Lisi descended to his own tent to call his mother on a (borrowed) Satellite phone, assuring her he himself was all right. He made no attempt to rescue his client. Hours passed before he even began making inquiries as to his client's fate. Dijmarescu's explosive temper led to numerous beatings and threats of extreme violence against staff and clients.

"The fate of Everest in an age of greed" is the subheading of this well-researched work. It is depressing beyond words to learn how strongly many wealthy middle-aged men feel the need--the desperate need--to purchase their own Everest summit. The contrast of these dilatants to the real men who over 60 years (1920's-1980's) climbed the mountain "because it is there" could not be greater. And now the field has become even more clogged with the addition of the politically-correct riff-raff: the first one-legged climber, the first blind climber, the youngest climber (15), the oldest climber (71), along with the long list of "first" climbers from each nation. What ever happened to mountaineering for the glorious fun of it?

After reading this book, it's clear the armchair adventurers who have always dreamed of Everest should perhaps concentrate on more pedestrian, less-life-threatening pursuits - say, helicopter skiing, or extreme whitewater rafting; even high-altitude hang-gliding. Mountain climbing would appear, in this day and age, to be fit only for canny professionals. Tyros need not apply, on pain, literally, of death.

I heard the author of this book, Michael Kodas, being interviewed on National Public Radio, a lightning rod for me in deciding on literary works; if NPR thinks it's worthy of note, then I usually will read whatever book is being discussed. It helped that the author seemed well-informed, at pains to be fair to all concerned, even restrained in his answers; it intrigued me all the more. I can't recall the last time I bought a book, hardbound, right at publication. This was a worthy read.

I will never understand what it is that drives people to WANT to crawl up the face of a mountain, literally hanging in space, aware that they are courting frostbite, storms, failure, and death, from the capricious mountain they yearn to conquer. As it turns out, the mountain - Everest - is almost the least of their worries.

Michael Kodas, a journalist for the Hartford Courant, and several other Connecticut people collaborate with a successful climber of Everest to make an attempt at the summit of the one mountain every mountaineer hungers to put on their resume. None of them, apparently, are rank amateurs; the nominal leaders of the party have achieved the summit several times already. But what they are all totally unaware of is the level of humanity to which the base camps has stooped in the past twenty years.

The book chronicles two parallel climbs, on opposite sides of the mountain; Mr Kodas's party, and another party fully funded by a wealthy transplanted Bolivian doctor from the Washington, DC area. There is pure tragedy in the doctor's party; he has hired a guide whose credentials he trusts, who turns out to be the lowest sort of glory hound. Mr Kodas's party, not even starting out with all members on a level footing, descends into a bickering, acrimonious mess, with saboutage, missing equipment, and cruelty thrown into the mix.

Apparently it has devolved into an every-man-for-himself mindset on Everest over the years. The climbers - who, just because they can afford to climb, doesn't mean they should - are the chief source of revenue for the Sherpas who are native to the area, and those poor people can perhaps be somewhat forgiven in taking what advantage they are offered by the advent of a lot of ill-prepared, difficult-to-deal-with Westerners, whose whole goal is summit. The stories of them routinely bypassing dying climbers who might, with intervention, be saved, chilled me to the bone. Theft of gear and saboutage of equipment are rampant. The most chilling story in the book was of a climber, having achieved the summit, rappelling down to one of the camps and looking behind him just in time to see that the rappel rope ends just below where he is, over a fearsome void; the rest, along with the anchors, has been stolen. His perilous primitive climb down the rest of the route gave me goose pimples.

Most of the book seesaws between the tale of the doctor, left to die by an unscrupulous guide, and the doctor's daughter's subsequent and dogged efforts to discredit the guide out of ever doing the same thing to someone else; and Mr Kodas's trials with the fractious and foreboding leader of his expedition. I really think I would have left far sooner than Mr Kodas; the leader sounds unhinged at best, and at worst downright criminal, threatening the lives of those in disagreement with him, not to mention throwing in some domestic abuse, as he assaults his wife in front of everybody. The Base Camps on Everest would appear to be very unpleasant places, no better than the Wild West of the 1880s; and Mr Kodas does a good job of demystifying Kathmandu as well, a place I had long held in my mind as full of peace, harmony, and followers of the Dalai Lama, and which instead appears to be little better than a grimy little border town on the frontier.

I do not read books very fast, but I zipped through this one; someone else commented that they had a hard time remembering who was who, but if you keep in mind what storyline you are following - aside from the very interesting side stories, of which there are many - it isn't hard; and this is a heckuva good read.

It might be tempting to dismiss Michael Kodas as a guy with an Ice Ax to grind, but don't. High Crimes thoughtfully examines two main events; the tragedy that befalls Nils Antezana, as well as the nastiness that plays out during Kodas' own expedition to Everest.

In the story of Dr. Antezana, I suspect that Kodas is trying not only to set the record straight, but also seek some sort of justice (my opinion, of course) for another needless death on the mountain. One cannot remain unmoved given the events that unfold.

Be prepared to take some notes, since the timeline got confusing (as noted in a previous review).

As a climber, I tend to shy away from these kinds of books. Often, they are too self-serving to really be informative, but Kodas is trying to capture and come to grips with what went wrong and why. In this way, High Crimes is comparable to Krakauer's, Into Thin Air. Both Kodas and Krakauer elevate the 'climbing book' genre to something deeply more affecting, and I just couldn't put it down.

High Crimes tells two narratives: (1) journalist Michael Kodas's Everest summit journey and (2) a separate, concurrent summit bid in which an elderly climber was led to this death by a sociopathic, inexperienced, freeloading guide. Kodas combines these two experiences to make his case that Everest is a modern day cesspit of greed, crime, and man-made disaster waiting to happen at every turn.

Kodas makes many valid claims about the conditions on Everest. Sickness isn't always caused by nature - now fistfights and STDs are prime reasons for visits to the medical tent. Climbers are pushing themselves with performance enhancing drugs, or cutting costs and equipment to the minimum and assuming other climbers will bail them out in a pinch. Theft is rampant, and unscrupulous businessmen sell unfit oxygen tanks, putting climbers in peril when they gamble their life on their tank in a final summit bid.

In Kodas's own experience, he ran across teammates willing to steal or lie to get ahead as well as a cheapskate guide who shirked responsibility and sponged off others. The weakest parts of the book arise in Kodas's descriptions of his own adventure, however. He airs a laundry list of gripes about every trifle of a disagreement on the team. The team engaged in back-and-forth spats via their blogs, and Kodas was clearly hurt that "their side" got published first, or more believably, in his opinion. He uses his book to set the record straight on every single detail, bogging down an otherwise gripping multi-faceted adventure story.

High Crimes is worth it for the story of Dr. Nils Antazana alone. Antazana, a skilled but older climber, fell prey to a con man of a "guide" who abandoned the doctor for dead and used his money and equipment for a personal summit bid. The story, which is told piecemeal throughout the entire text of High Crimes, reinforces the lawless frontier picture Kodas paints of the Everest base camp and man-eat-man world of the slopes.

Over the past twenty years or so the culture surrounding the Everest climbing community has changed and it has not been for the better. The author tells his own tale of a failed summit bid in 2004 with a dysfunctional team from Connecticut. The book also tells the story of Nils Antezana, a doctor who perished on the mountain also during the 2004 climbing season. He bounces between these stories and other briefer tales that demonstrate the commercialization, greed and lawlessness that is now common on the mountain.

The book is certainly unique from prior books about Everest by concentrating on its' unsavory side. Dishonest outfitters, incompetent guides and rampant theft are not uncommon in the height of the climbing season when people and money are drawn to the mountain.

It turns out that Everest, although the world's tallest, is certainly not the most technically challenging climb. The path to the top is stocked with supplies from Sherpas, crevasses are bridged with aluminum ladders, and ropes are pre-installed for the climbers. Therefore, the mountain doesn't attract those climbers that simply want a challenging climb but those that mostly want recognition for reaching the top of the world. Rich clients hire guides to get them to the top rather than working their way up by training and gaining experience on lesser peaks. Others want to conquer Everest to hopefully launch their own motivational speaking careers.

The book is certainly interesting and the author does not pull any punches when describing the deeds of some of the unscrupulous guides and outfitters. However, I would have liked the author to address some of the other questions that persist, especially among the non-climber community. For example, the author never addresses the issue of the selfishness that it takes for someone to take such risks when they often have loved ones who depend on them back home. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, but an analysis of this moral dilemma would have greatly improved the book.

The other thing I didn't like about the book is that the main people in the story are presented in a very black and white manner. There are good guys and there are bad guys but the shades of gray, which invariably exist in real life, are poorly demonstrated. This is best represented in the story of Nils Antezana, a wealthy but foolish Bolivian-American doctor who has some mountaineering experience but is woefully unprepared for a mountain like Everest. He winds up hiring a guide who he knows from previous expeditions in South America named Gustavo Lisi. Lisi who has a very checkered past as a guide ultimately leaves his client on the mountain to perish. Antezana is presented as nothing other than a sympathetic character that has no blame in his own death. However, Antezana was so consumed by summit fever he continued to climb with Lisi even after having serious misgivings about the guide's behavior lower on the mountain. Questions should have also been raised about whether someone who is 69 years old and a relatively inexperienced climber should have been attempting Everest in the first place. Also, why didn't he hire a more reputable guiding service or at least do a background check on the man to whom he was entrusting his life? The author doesn't delve much into these and other issues, simply presenting Lisi as the bad guy, which he certainly is, and failing to assign any responsibility to Antezana who certainly should have shared in the blame for this tragedy.

This was an interesting read and I'm glad the author has brought the ugly underbelly of Everest more into the light. I would have liked a more critical analysis of the Antezana story and climbing culture in general.

I have attempted the summit of Everest twice. I was a member of the 2005 and 2006 Himex expeditions based on the north side. This is the most honest depiction of the north side of Mt Everest.

I can tell you that the Discovery Channel's series called "Everest Beyond the Limit" that chronicles our summit attempt in 2006 dares not tell the true story of what goes on in on the north side of Everest. Money, greed, egos, lack of integrity, the Chinese and more money is what prevents the Discovery Channel and others from telling the truth. The truth is in this book.

When I buy a non-fiction book, I am looking for accurate accounts of what happened. I want to know the truth regardless of a particular author's writing style. This book tells the story that so many are afraid to tell.
If you cannot handle the truth about the north side of Everest and of the many low-life guides and expedition leaders, then you are not ready for the real world. If you want the truth and a real life discription of the real Everest then buy the book.

Having been fascinated with Everest, and having read other books on the subject, I found this book intriguing. The details in the descriptions on the procedures leading up to, then getting to and climbing the mountain had me glued. I was drawn into the dramas of the interweaving stories and did not find the book fragmented, as one reviewer said. There seemed to be a lot of corroborating evidence for the author's interpretation and I also didn't think the perspective to be sour grapes, as another reviewer suggested. Further, I found the details, such as the descriptions of counterfeit oxygen equipment, informative. The book possibly could have been streamlined a bit, as there were a couple of repetative sections. However, in all, I was glued, read it straight through in a couple of days, and was sorry when it ended! Due to all the difficulties encountered, I was cured of any longing to go to Everest, but loved reading about it!

I had the pleasure of hearing Michael Kodas when he talked to a large group of people in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. His talk was excellent and he showed many pictures that he took during his climbs. He is an excellent photographer as well as author. I found that the book read like a novel and couldn't put it down. I felt the writing was excellent and had no problem following the two parallel stories. I am an armchair climber and have always been fascinated by Everest, having been introduced to it throgh Jon Krakauer's book, "Into Thin Air" and "Climb". I was horrified when I read what is going on and hope this book will help do something to clean up the crimes on Everest and other high peak mountains.

I'm a reasonably experienced mountaineer, and it wasn't too much of a stretch for the last decade or so for me to dream about an 8,000 meter peak (my fantasy: Shishipangma's middle peak -- above 8,000 meters but separated from the summit by a scary corniced ridge).

No more.

Michael Kodas has done a great service by showing us that high-altitude mountaineering in the Himalaya is now pure exploitation and violation, with every form of human ugliness rampant on all sides. Sherpas steal from clients. A climber stumbles down to camp 3 on the Chinese side of Everest to find his tent and all his belongings have been stolen. A guide brags about summitting Everest on his website the day after he left his client dead on the mountain. A climber descending Broad Peak finds all his fixed ropes stolen, a sort of attempted murder. A climber solicits money for charity and uses it all to pay for an Everest summit attempt. Climbers see the Chinese government open fire on fleeing refugees and keep mum so nothing will interfere with their climbing plans. Maybe most repugnantly, climbers make hypocritical nods to local religion as they go about desecrating the sacred mountains.

It's all about summitting. Selfishness appears to be the only mode for a Himalayan mountaineer. Kodas even portrays himself in a far from flattering light. As he clucks about cut-rate expeditions that exploit the fixed ropes and ladders set up at great expense by the full-service expensive guides, he blithely uses them himself on his own cut-rate expedition with no apparent guilt. Kodas describes in great detail the degredation of nearly everywhere he goes, but then he goes back to try for the summit again with minimal excuses, once again happily exploiting the better guide services' equipment and adding to the overuse.

None of this had to be (think Bhutan -- hooray for their no-mountaineering policy!).

Himalayan mountaineering did begin ignobly as an offshoot of colonial imperialism. But during the last decades of the 20th century, there was an all-too-brief golden age in which heroes like Reinhold Messner showed that the use of oxygen to reach those summits was cheating, and made the greatest achievements in the history of mountaineering. Now, it's a catastrophe, with no end in sight. Maybe it was inevitable, but I blame Dick Bass for this whole horrible mess: his Seven Summits gave all the rich guys the idea they could climb Everest, and it's trickled down from there. Without rich people on the mountain, only a few mountaineers would be there.

Mountaineering is different here in North America. I read this book at the beginning of a recent climbing trip to the Sierra Nevada in the Inyo National Forest. My experience was the utter opposite of what is portrayed in this book. The NF limits use of popular trails and camping areas (cost: $5 for the permit reservation), and I had two 14,000' peaks to myself. The mountains are pristine and beautiful. Theft is almost unheard of: no one is going to steal your pack or touch your rope. And on Denali, the biggest mountain I've climbed, climbers have to carry all of their expeditions' gear, and have to carry out everything with them, including human waste. No porters. No circus at basecamp. On that mountain, the stories every year are about climbers who heroically jettison their own summit bids to rescue fellow climbers.

I think I'll stick to North American summits, that may not have the elevation but do preserve the sacredness of high places. My mountaineering is about friendship, reverence, a light tread and self-reliance. There's no place for that in today's Himalaya. My feet won't trample those sacred places. Thanks, Mr. Kodas!

Michael Kodas has written a non-fiction that is better than most fiction. I could not put it down. As as avid reader of adventure non-fiction, this book is one of the best real life adventures I've read in a long time. Not only does he share his own life-threatening experience on top of the world's tallest mountain, but also shares heart-wrenching experiences of other's as well. Who would have thought there was so much mystery, crime and intrigue taking place at 28,000 feet? Unbelievable. A must read!