Miracle on Mount Everest

Matt Lauer 'Today' anchor • Profile

"You can see the curvature of the earth," says Dan Mazur.  "You may be very far above the clouds. So you often see really amazing sun rises.  It is a very amazing place to be."

It’s one of the most tantalizing places on the planet—and one of the most dangerous.  At 29,000 feet, the top of the world is the summit of Mount Everest.  Climbers plan and train for years and often get only one shot.

Matt Lauer, NBC News: When you get there does it make you then say, “It’s worth the risk.”

Mazur: You know if things are going well, you really feel that it’s worth it.  But when some of these things start to go wrong—then it can become very stressful.

Every year, a few hundred of the fittest, toughest adventurers on earth attempt the climb. Every year, some die trying.  Each time there are fateful decisions with terrible consequences—grieving families back home, distraught colleagues at base camp and endless questions of “what if?”

But this story is different— all because of what happened when two climbers met and one had to make a life or death choice.

Lincoln Hall was one of Australia’s best-known mountaineers.  He’d been part of a 1984 expedition that put the first two Australians on the summit of Everest. He’d gotten close to the top himself that day but didn’t make it.  He kept climbing, wrote books on mountaineering, but only now, 22 years later, at age 50, was he getting another shot at the dream of a lifetime—and taking the risk of a lifetime.

Richard Harris was the man who invited Hall back to Everest.

Harris’s 15-year-old son Chris, a climbing prodigy, was attempting to become the youngest person in history to summit Everest. 

The Harrises asked Lincoln Hall to lend his expertise to what they were calling “Christopher’s Climb.”

Barbara Hall, Lincoln Hall’s wife: Well, truthfully I saw it as an opportunity for him to fulfill a dream that he had had for 22 years.

But Lincoln’s wife Barbara also knew the risks. Fewer than 3,000 people have actually made the summit of Everest.  About 200 have died trying.

Barbara Hall:  I did say that I didn’t actually want to hear from him when he was on the summit.  Because this is fairly common now, people take a satellite phone and ring from the summit.  But I only wanted to hear when he was back down, somewhere safe.

When Lincoln left for the Himalayas, Barbara stayed home in Australia with their two teenage sons.

Lauer: Was there anything unusual in the goodbye?  I mean, did you say anything to him other than, “I don’t want to hear from you on the summit?”    

Barbara Hall: I think we just all said that we wanted to see him again.  And, you know, please keep that in mind and not to take any risks, you know, it wasn’t worth it.

And Lincoln made a promise: to come back alive.

Gurinder Osan / AP Mount Everest seen from above Everest Base camp, Nepal, in a Monday.

Katmandu, Nepal was the starting point.  In mid-April, Hall and the Harrises joined up with a large commercial climbing expedition and drove to Everest base camp in Tibet—the staging area for the six week assault on the mountain.

At the same time, on the same route, a 45-year old American named Dan Mazur was leading a much smaller expedition of his own.  Mazur is one of America’s most successful high-altitude climbers.  He reached the summit of Everest in 1991.  Now he’s a professional guide. 

Lauer: You were guiding on this trip two climbers who’d never been to Everest before.

Mazur: Right.

Lauer: Were you worried about the risks in particular because of this trip? 

Mazur: Well, you know, I worry a lot and it’s kind of my job to worry. 

Though Mazur and Hall were on parallel courses, they never met.

Mazur: Well, you know there’s a lot of people on Everest.  So no, I had never heard of Lincoln Hall.

Climbing Everest takes weeks.  Mountaineers like Mazur and Hall gradually ascend to camps at ever higher altitudes, trying to adapt their bodies to avoid altitude sickness before making the final push to the summit.

A documentary filmmaker went along with Hall’s group. Hall gave expert commentary along the way.

Lincoln Hall, documentary footage: So this is actually our final acclimatization sortie up the mountain. And the next time we go up, after a good rest, will be the real thing, when we go to the summit.

Hall’s team began to climb above advanced base camp, about 22,000 feet. But there was trouble.

Richard Harris, father of the teenage climber Chris, developed a cough so severe he couldn’t keep food down.

Hall: He just gets these coughing fits and he’s lost breakfast today, breakfast yesterday, doesn’t leave him with much of an appetite.

Unable to eat, Richard Harris became too weak to carry on. He returned to base camp at 18,000 feet.   His son Chris, the teenager, pushed on with Hall and several others, climbing to a smaller camp at 23-thousand feet.  But then Chris fell ill.

Altitude sickness is unpredictable. Chris Harris, who’d climbed some of the tallest mountains in the world, simply couldn’t breathe the thin air on Everest.  The expedition doctor ordered him back to base camp.

Hall: Well unfortunately, Christopher’s had to abort the expedition early, he’s got to go down.

MORE ON THE MOUNTAIN Fact file Elevation: 8,850 meters, ranked highest peak on earth Location: Nepal and China (Tibet) First ascent: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in May 29, 1953 Name: The mountain was given its English name by Andrew Waugh, the British surveyor-general of India after his predecessor George Everest. In Nepal, it's called "Sagarmatha," or "Forehead of the Sky." Deadliest day: May 10, 1996 — a storm several climbers near the summit, killing eight. Temperature: In January, the coldest month, the summit temperature averages -36° C and can drop as low as -60° C (-76° F). In July, the warmest month, the average summit temperature is -19° C (-2° F). At no time of the year does the temperature on the summit rise above freezing. MSN Encarta, MtEverest.Net

The expedition they called “Christopher’s Climb” was over. Everest had dashed yet another set of hopes. 

But other climbers, like Dan Mazur, were still on track.

And so were three other members of Hall’s expedition, including Hall himself. He still had a chance to fulfill his dreams.

What no one could imagine was how quickly this push to the summit would turn deadly.

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