High Lonely Places
By John Allen
Al Hanna went to Mt. Everest to become the oldest man ever to climb the world's highest mountain. But instead, he learned that some things are more important than setting records.
This is, perhaps, not the story On Wisconsin was hoping for.
When Al Hanna '52, LLB'55, MBA'57, aged seventy-one and ten months, set out to scale Mt. Everest, he seemed to be the sort of character that alumni magazines like. He aimed for the superlative - to be the oldest person to climb the world's highest mountain.
And he wasn't just some crackpot. He appeared to have a legitimate shot at the record. He'd tried three times previously, and on the last attempt came a mere three hundred vertical feet short of the summit. Hanna had already climbed some of the world's most challenging peaks, and in fact, topping Everest would complete not one but two records. He would also become the oldest person ever to climb all "seven summits" - the highest peak on each of the seven continents.
Al Hanna went to Mt. Everest to become the oldest man ever to climb the world's highest mountain. But instead, he learned that some things are more important than setting records.
This is, perhaps, not the story On Wisconsin was hoping for.
When Al Hanna '52, LLB'55, MBA'57, aged seventy-one and ten months, set out to scale Mt. Everest, he seemed to be the sort of character that alumni magazines like. He aimed for the superlative - to be the oldest person to climb the world's highest mountain.
And he wasn't just some crackpot. He appeared to have a legitimate shot at the record. He'd tried three times previously, and on the last attempt came a mere three hundred vertical feet short of the summit. Hanna had already climbed some of the world's most challenging peaks, and in fact, topping Everest would complete not one but two records. He would also become the oldest person ever to climb all "seven summits" - the highest peak on each of the seven continents.
Further, Hanna had a sense of dash and romance. Sounding like a modern-day Charles Lindbergh, he went, he says, in search of "high lonely places - into the silent, empty land, so pure and suffering." Stories previewing Hanna's climb appeared in TIME, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and even the Oconomowoc Focus. While it's exaggerating to say that Hanna-mania was sweeping the globe, certainly the mountaineering community was well prepared to see him achieve his records. And On Wisconsin was prepared to cheer him on.
But On Wisconsin was destined for disappointment.
The only thing that stood in the way of this story's triumphant conclusion, it turned out, was Albert C. Hanna.
But On Wisconsin was destined for disappointment.
The only thing that stood in the way of this story's triumphant conclusion, it turned out, was Albert C. Hanna.
"A combination of common sense and love of life turned me around," he says. Battling a bronchial infection and the effects of altitude, Hanna decided that seventy-one was too old for Everest after all. But if his age deprived him of the stamina of younger climbers, it gave him the wisdom to see that some things are more important than setting records: "When I got to 27,000 feet, I said, 'Guys, I can get up there, but I won't get down.' And I decided that God and I had a pact to get me down off the mountain with my fingers, hands, toes, and nose intact. So God sent me down, fingers and all."
At the last moment, in fine weather and with just over 2,000 vertical feet to go, Hanna called it quits. Common sense had won. Hanna would return with five-fingered hands, but no record. His drive for the superlative had failed.
At the last moment, in fine weather and with just over 2,000 vertical feet to go, Hanna called it quits. Common sense had won. Hanna would return with five-fingered hands, but no record. His drive for the superlative had failed.
The history of Mt. Everest is littered with characters who preferred the superlative to the sensible - though per-haps the man for whom the mountain is named isn't one of them. In 1841, Sir George Everest was the surveyor general of British India, and when he surveyed the mountains along the border between Nepal and Tibet, he became the first European to mark each peak on a map. As he had a mathematician's sense of romance, and as he thought these peaks were nothing special (at the time, the Andes were thought to be the world's highest), he called the tallest of them "Peak B." He hoped it would ultimately bear a local name - like Chomolungmo, which is what the Tibetans call it, or Sagarnatha, which is its name in Nepal.
But Sir George was overruled.
In 1852, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India came along and, after consulting their theodolites and sextants and abacuses, discovered that Peak B and its neighbors were really, really tall. So they honored their former boss by ignoring his wishes and hanging his name on Earth's highest summit. The National Geographic Society now lists Mt. Everest's official height as 29,035 feet and growing - according to geologists, the summit pushes upward four millimeters annually, meaning that it should reach 29,036 in seventy-six years or so.
But Sir George was overruled.
In 1852, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India came along and, after consulting their theodolites and sextants and abacuses, discovered that Peak B and its neighbors were really, really tall. So they honored their former boss by ignoring his wishes and hanging his name on Earth's highest summit. The National Geographic Society now lists Mt. Everest's official height as 29,035 feet and growing - according to geologists, the summit pushes upward four millimeters annually, meaning that it should reach 29,036 in seventy-six years or so.
But it was back when Everest was only 29,034 feet - just a few years before Hanna was born - that a Briton named George Mallory first sparked widespread interest in setting climbing records there. Unlike Sir George, Mallory was a romantic, and when a reporter asked him why he wanted to risk his life climbing a freakishly big Asian hill, Mallory uttered the words that have been associated with Everest ever since:
"Because it is there."
He was in a fit of pique at the time, and would likely be disappointed to know that line will forever be tied to him. But the words have the ring of truth: the mountain is still there, and for that matter, so is Mallory. He made three attempts at the summit between 1921 and 1924, none successful. On the last, he and
partner Andrew Irvine disappeared.
"Because it is there."
He was in a fit of pique at the time, and would likely be disappointed to know that line will forever be tied to him. But the words have the ring of truth: the mountain is still there, and for that matter, so is Mallory. He made three attempts at the summit between 1921 and 1924, none successful. On the last, he and
partner Andrew Irvine disappeared.
Mallory's body turned up seventy-five years later, its mummified hands thrust outward as though failing to prevent a fall. The climbers who found his remains buried them under a pile of stones near where they'd been discovered.
Twenty-nine years and at least thirteen corpses followed Mallory before New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached Everest's peak in 1953. Since then, the mountain's history has been told in a laundry list of superlatives - first American to reach the summit: James Whittaker, 1963; first woman: Japan's Junko Tabei, 1975; first successful ascent without the aid of bottled oxygen: Italy's Reinhold Messner and Austria's Peter Habeler, 1978. First ascent in winter, first successful ascent by the north slope, fastest ascent, fastest descent, most climbers in a single party, first ascent by a blind skier - Everest enthusiasts keep close track of all such records.
It's no surprise, then, that "oldest climber to reach the peak" would be a coveted title. The current record holder is Sherman Bull. He stood on the summit in 2001, at the age of sixty-four, ending the reign of Toshio Yamamoto, who was sixty-three when he reached the top in 2000. Before him there was Lev Sarkisov, aged sixty years and 161 days in 1999. And before Sarkisov, there was Ramon Blanco, sixty years and 160 days in 1993.
Twenty-nine years and at least thirteen corpses followed Mallory before New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached Everest's peak in 1953. Since then, the mountain's history has been told in a laundry list of superlatives - first American to reach the summit: James Whittaker, 1963; first woman: Japan's Junko Tabei, 1975; first successful ascent without the aid of bottled oxygen: Italy's Reinhold Messner and Austria's Peter Habeler, 1978. First ascent in winter, first successful ascent by the north slope, fastest ascent, fastest descent, most climbers in a single party, first ascent by a blind skier - Everest enthusiasts keep close track of all such records.
It's no surprise, then, that "oldest climber to reach the peak" would be a coveted title. The current record holder is Sherman Bull. He stood on the summit in 2001, at the age of sixty-four, ending the reign of Toshio Yamamoto, who was sixty-three when he reached the top in 2000. Before him there was Lev Sarkisov, aged sixty years and 161 days in 1999. And before Sarkisov, there was Ramon Blanco, sixty years and 160 days in 1993.
The determination to set such records has led to a heavy death toll. At least one climber has died on Everest every year since 1978, and in the worst climbing season, 1996, fifteen were killed in a series of storms and accidents. This debacle inspired Jon Krakauer to write Into Thin Air, a best seller, but it didn't inspire much caution. In 1997, hundreds of climbers returned. Eighty-five reached the summit; nine more died trying. Currently, more than 120 corpses lie along the slopes of Everest. Climbing conditions are so strenuous that dead bodies are seldom brought down. Most of them, like Mallory, are left to mummify in the frigid air.
Everest, says Hanna, is "harsh, hostile, hazardous, and uncompromising. It's also unforgiving. You don't make but one mistake."
His fatal mistake nearly came in 1993, on his first attempt. While crossing an ice bridge, he fell through a hole and would likely have tumbled to his death in a crevasse, had he not caught hold of the bridge with his ice axe. He eventually turned back, allowing that youngster Blanco to set the age record.
But crevasses are merely one of many challenges facing those who climb the world's highest mountain. For starters, there's the financial burden.
Everest, says Hanna, is "harsh, hostile, hazardous, and uncompromising. It's also unforgiving. You don't make but one mistake."
His fatal mistake nearly came in 1993, on his first attempt. While crossing an ice bridge, he fell through a hole and would likely have tumbled to his death in a crevasse, had he not caught hold of the bridge with his ice axe. He eventually turned back, allowing that youngster Blanco to set the age record.
But crevasses are merely one of many challenges facing those who climb the world's highest mountain. For starters, there's the financial burden.
An expedition typically costs between $50,000 and $70,000. Alpine Ascents, the company that Hanna has traveled with, charges $65,000, which doesn't include airfare or such necessities as an ice axe, crampons, carabiners, vapor barrier socks, or any of the other fifty-three items of clothing and equipment specifically mentioned on the company's recommended gear list.
After the financial drain of outfitting, there's the threat of physical exhaustion. Climbing Everest isn't merely a walk straight up a 29,035-foot hill. "Really," says Hanna, "you climb the mountain three times to make one shot at the summit."
The reason for all these ups and downs is oxygen. At Everest's peak, the air pressure is approximately one-third of that at sea level, five and a half miles below. Climbers typically spend nearly two months on the slopes of Everest, acclimating to the thinner air, before they're ready to spend just a few minutes on the peak. The cumulative strain takes a heavy toll.
"As the weeks go by, you begin to lose your appetite," says Hanna. "It's an altitude thing. Food begins to taste just awful. Sometimes you gag when you try to eat." Hanna normally weighs 140 pounds. At the end of each of his trips to Everest, he was down to 125 or less.
After the financial drain of outfitting, there's the threat of physical exhaustion. Climbing Everest isn't merely a walk straight up a 29,035-foot hill. "Really," says Hanna, "you climb the mountain three times to make one shot at the summit."
The reason for all these ups and downs is oxygen. At Everest's peak, the air pressure is approximately one-third of that at sea level, five and a half miles below. Climbers typically spend nearly two months on the slopes of Everest, acclimating to the thinner air, before they're ready to spend just a few minutes on the peak. The cumulative strain takes a heavy toll.
"As the weeks go by, you begin to lose your appetite," says Hanna. "It's an altitude thing. Food begins to taste just awful. Sometimes you gag when you try to eat." Hanna normally weighs 140 pounds. At the end of each of his trips to Everest, he was down to 125 or less.
Most climbers, including Hanna, prefer to attack Everest from the south or Nepalese side - Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's route. Base Camp there is at 17,600 feet, already higher than any mountain in the lower forty-eight United States. At the beginning of each climbing season, a team of Sherpas appointed by the Nepalese government establishes the route from Base Camp to the summit. The Sherpas' job is to find the safest path and put in place the ropes and temporary bridges that later climbers will depend upon. The route they choose connects four advanced camps - way stations as the climbers put themselves through the slow process of acclimating.
The passage from Base Camp to Camp I is 1,400 vertical feet, says Hanna, "about a four-hour climb for Sherpas, and about eight hours for an old man like me." This stretch of the mountain is known as the Khumbu Ice Fall, a glaciated pass that takes climbers over crevasses and under hanging blocks of ice called séracs.
"There are hundreds of crevasses," says Hanna, "some only six feet across, others twenty to thirty feet. Those first climbers place ladders across them, and when we come forward, we walk upright over the ladders. The séracs sometimes break off and fall on you, so there's danger from ice above and injury below. It's scary as hell."
The passage from Base Camp to Camp I is 1,400 vertical feet, says Hanna, "about a four-hour climb for Sherpas, and about eight hours for an old man like me." This stretch of the mountain is known as the Khumbu Ice Fall, a glaciated pass that takes climbers over crevasses and under hanging blocks of ice called séracs.
"There are hundreds of crevasses," says Hanna, "some only six feet across, others twenty to thirty feet. Those first climbers place ladders across them, and when we come forward, we walk upright over the ladders. The séracs sometimes break off and fall on you, so there's danger from ice above and injury below. It's scary as hell."
Nevertheless, climbers like Hanna make the trek over the Khumbu Ice Fall several times. First, they climb halfway to Camp I, to 18,500 feet, before returning to Base Camp. After a few days of acclimating, they return and go all the way to Camp I, where they spend a night, then descend again for several days in Base Camp. On the next trip up, the goal is to spend another night at Camp I, then proceed on to Camp II, a six- to eight-hour journey that Hanna describes as "remarkably safe" compared to the ice fall, "though nothing on the mountain is completely safe." Again, climbers make multiple trips up and down, spending nights at different camps to acclimate and build their lung capacity. Then, when they feel ready, they must cross the most dangerous part of the mountain, the Lhotse Face, to reach Camp III. This is a sheer climb up 2,000 feet of blue ice.
"A lot of deaths come on the Lhotse Face," says Hanna. "It's so precarious, so icy, that if you don't clip in to the fixed rope correctly, and if you slip, you're a goner. There's nothing to stop you - it's just a long chute down."
In 1995, on his second attempt at Everest, Hanna saw a young Sherpa lose his grip on the Lhotse Face. "He took the crash and went straight down 2,000 feet," says Hanna. "And then he did not move again."
"A lot of deaths come on the Lhotse Face," says Hanna. "It's so precarious, so icy, that if you don't clip in to the fixed rope correctly, and if you slip, you're a goner. There's nothing to stop you - it's just a long chute down."
In 1995, on his second attempt at Everest, Hanna saw a young Sherpa lose his grip on the Lhotse Face. "He took the crash and went straight down 2,000 feet," says Hanna. "And then he did not move again."
This stretch takes another six to eight hours, and again climbers make the crossing several times, descending to lower camps and even Base Camp as they slowly acclimate to the reduced oxygen at Camp III, 23,000 feet above sea level. From there it's another 3,000 feet to Camp IV, the entrance to what climbers call the "death zone."
"Above 26,000 feet, there isn't much atmosphere, not much air or moisture, and your whole body suffers," says Hanna. "Climbing in the death zone takes everything you've got."
Although crevasses, avalanches, and sudden snowstorms are common on Everest's lower slopes, above Camp IV, the major dangers are the cold (temperatures can fall to forty degrees below zero), the wind (which gusts up to 125 miles per hour), and the inescapable thin air. Climbers face an increased risk of hypothermia, frostbite, fatigue, nausea, double vision, and hallucinations. In the oxygen-sparse air of the death zone, climbers may also suffer cerebral edema (a swelling of the brain) or pulmonary edema (in which the lungs fill with fluid). Both can be fatal.
"Above 26,000 feet, there isn't much atmosphere, not much air or moisture, and your whole body suffers," says Hanna. "Climbing in the death zone takes everything you've got."
Although crevasses, avalanches, and sudden snowstorms are common on Everest's lower slopes, above Camp IV, the major dangers are the cold (temperatures can fall to forty degrees below zero), the wind (which gusts up to 125 miles per hour), and the inescapable thin air. Climbers face an increased risk of hypothermia, frostbite, fatigue, nausea, double vision, and hallucinations. In the oxygen-sparse air of the death zone, climbers may also suffer cerebral edema (a swelling of the brain) or pulmonary edema (in which the lungs fill with fluid). Both can be fatal.
But edema isn't a common danger in Stevens Point and Mosinee, Wisconsin, where Hanna grew up. Nor is falling into a crevasse or being crushed by an avalanche. In fact, nothing in his background seems to have prepared him for the challenges of the death zone. Though an Eagle Scout when young and a soldier immediately after college, Hanna didn't make a single foray into mountain climbing until he was fifty-eight years old.
"I felt dull, like I was retreating into a deep cave of existence," he says, "and I knew I had to do something different." When he took a mountaineering course in Alaska, he found his calling. "I loved the challenge, I loved the risk, and I loved the new kinds of people I was meeting," he says. "It was a delightful experience - just the kind of risk that a businessman wanted to take."
Hanna has always sought out risk. He runs his own mortgage banking firm, MidNorth Financial Services, in Chicago, but when he entered that field in the late 1950s, he didn't know a thing about it. He had recently returned from service in Korea, with no business experience. "I wasn't loading rifles anymore," he says, "I was moving papers," performing office work. When fellow law school grad Richard Downing '56 asked him if he wanted to get into real estate finance, he jumped at the chance. "I don't think I knew the difference between a two-by-four and a joist at that point," he says.
"I felt dull, like I was retreating into a deep cave of existence," he says, "and I knew I had to do something different." When he took a mountaineering course in Alaska, he found his calling. "I loved the challenge, I loved the risk, and I loved the new kinds of people I was meeting," he says. "It was a delightful experience - just the kind of risk that a businessman wanted to take."
Hanna has always sought out risk. He runs his own mortgage banking firm, MidNorth Financial Services, in Chicago, but when he entered that field in the late 1950s, he didn't know a thing about it. He had recently returned from service in Korea, with no business experience. "I wasn't loading rifles anymore," he says, "I was moving papers," performing office work. When fellow law school grad Richard Downing '56 asked him if he wanted to get into real estate finance, he jumped at the chance. "I don't think I knew the difference between a two-by-four and a joist at that point," he says.
"I sure do now."
During the following decades, he fostered a successful business and earned enough money to finance not only a hobby as expensive as mountaineering, but another pricey pastime as well: litigation. If there's one group of people who might be happy to see Hanna spend more time on the side of a mountain, it's the attorneys for the city of Chicago - he's currently battling them in four separate lawsuits. The only thing that gets Hanna more exercised than Everest is Chicago's zoning laws, which he feels shut African-Americans and Latinos out of certain areas at the behest of wealthy neighborhood organizations. To date, he's spent more than $1.5 million trying to combat such ordinances.
"I'm accusing the city of racial cleansing of our high-cost lakefront areas," Hanna says. "I understand what the city is doing. I understand their morally and intellectually corrupted legislative process, and I'm challenging that. I'm a little ACLU."
Hanna has had a measure of success in the courtroom. In 2001, one of his suits overturned zoning ordinances that would have prevented the construction of affordable new housing in his Lincoln Park neighborhood. The city is appealing, but meanwhile, Hanna is pressing on with other claims.
During the following decades, he fostered a successful business and earned enough money to finance not only a hobby as expensive as mountaineering, but another pricey pastime as well: litigation. If there's one group of people who might be happy to see Hanna spend more time on the side of a mountain, it's the attorneys for the city of Chicago - he's currently battling them in four separate lawsuits. The only thing that gets Hanna more exercised than Everest is Chicago's zoning laws, which he feels shut African-Americans and Latinos out of certain areas at the behest of wealthy neighborhood organizations. To date, he's spent more than $1.5 million trying to combat such ordinances.
"I'm accusing the city of racial cleansing of our high-cost lakefront areas," Hanna says. "I understand what the city is doing. I understand their morally and intellectually corrupted legislative process, and I'm challenging that. I'm a little ACLU."
Hanna has had a measure of success in the courtroom. In 2001, one of his suits overturned zoning ordinances that would have prevented the construction of affordable new housing in his Lincoln Park neighborhood. The city is appealing, but meanwhile, Hanna is pressing on with other claims.
"I've always accepted challenges, and I've always loved risk," he says. And that's what drove him to pursue Everest. Two years after he finished his mountaineering course, he returned to Alaska, this time to climb Mt. McKinley. While he was there, another climber told him about the seven summits, and Hanna saw his goal before him. "I thought, God, that's a challenge, that's a threat," he says.
Fewer than seventy climbers have successfully completed all seven summits, and none of them were even close to Hanna's age, but he has set a fast pace. Between 1990 and 2002, he traveled on more than twenty climbing expeditions, knocking off McKinley (20,320 feet) in 1991, South America's Mt. Aconcagua (22,840) in 1992, and Australia's Mt. Kosciusco (7,130) in 1994. In 1995, he topped Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,340) and Antarctica's Vinson Massif (16,067), and in 1999 added Europe's Mt. Elbrus (18,481). For good measure, he threw in Indonesia's Carstensz Pyramid, which at 16,023 feet is the tallest peak in Oceania.
Only Everest eluded Hanna. His first attempt, in 1993, was more educational than satisfying.
Fewer than seventy climbers have successfully completed all seven summits, and none of them were even close to Hanna's age, but he has set a fast pace. Between 1990 and 2002, he traveled on more than twenty climbing expeditions, knocking off McKinley (20,320 feet) in 1991, South America's Mt. Aconcagua (22,840) in 1992, and Australia's Mt. Kosciusco (7,130) in 1994. In 1995, he topped Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,340) and Antarctica's Vinson Massif (16,067), and in 1999 added Europe's Mt. Elbrus (18,481). For good measure, he threw in Indonesia's Carstensz Pyramid, which at 16,023 feet is the tallest peak in Oceania.
Only Everest eluded Hanna. His first attempt, in 1993, was more educational than satisfying.
"At the time, I simply didn't have the experience, the knowledge, or the understanding to try Everest," he says. So when he returned home, he set a brutal training regimen for himself. Since Chicago has no mountains - or really any serious hills - he based his workouts on repetition. Four days a week, when he went to his office on the corner of Wacker and Wells, he took along a backpack loaded with thirty pounds of weights. During breaks, he'd walk ten times up and down the same flights of stairs, climbing from the first floor to the fourth and back down. Five nights a week, he'd load a pack with sixty pounds of weights, and at 2:00 a.m., he'd walk a couple of blocks to Lincoln Park and then climb and reclimb the same modest hill for three hours. At home, he'd spend an hour a day lifting weights.
"One thing I wanted to do was build up my strength and get used to carrying the weight," he says. "My other goal was to deal with the boredom - to close down my mind and stop thinking about things. The fun part, if there was anything fun, was talking to the night people - the street people, the crazies, the drunks. Occasionally, I'd have a good conversation. They were all curious about what I was doing. Sometimes they were threatening at the beginning, but once they found out what I was doing, they were all intrigued."
His spouse, Chris, was supportive as well, though perhaps less patient. "For the last year, I was so tired, I'd fall asleep anywhere," he says. "My wife gave up taking me to the opera - she said it was just an expensive nap."
"One thing I wanted to do was build up my strength and get used to carrying the weight," he says. "My other goal was to deal with the boredom - to close down my mind and stop thinking about things. The fun part, if there was anything fun, was talking to the night people - the street people, the crazies, the drunks. Occasionally, I'd have a good conversation. They were all curious about what I was doing. Sometimes they were threatening at the beginning, but once they found out what I was doing, they were all intrigued."
His spouse, Chris, was supportive as well, though perhaps less patient. "For the last year, I was so tired, I'd fall asleep anywhere," he says. "My wife gave up taking me to the opera - she said it was just an expensive nap."
By the time Hanna made his second attempt at Everest, in 1995, he was better prepared for the strain. He and the team he was climbing with reached 28,000 feet, but heavy snow forced them all to turn back. When Hanna returned again in 2000, he made it even higher, reaching Everest's lower, south summit at 28,710 feet. But well into the death zone, he was beginning to tire. "Death was waiting for a candidate," he says, "and I didn't want that candidate to be me."
He decided to turn back, go back into training, and make one more attempt. Since he was nearing seventy, he suspected that the next try would be his last.
He decided to turn back, go back into training, and make one more attempt. Since he was nearing seventy, he suspected that the next try would be his last.
On March 27, 2002, Al Hanna left Chicago to make that last assault on Everest. He had joined another Alpine Ascents expedition, and this one included another record setter, Jeff Mathy, who at twenty-three was working to become the youngest person ever to scale the seven summits. In all, the team had six paying climbers and five professional guides, including Vernon Tejas, Hanna's private guide.
The Nepal Hanna and his companions arrived in was not the same as the country he'd left two years earlier. Since the summer of 2001, a series of crises have emanated from the capital, Katmandu. First, a bizarre royal family feud turned bloody when the crown prince murdered the king, queen, and several others before killing himself. Then peace talks broke down between the government and Maoist rebels; in the ensuing fighting, nearly three thousand people died. Since November, Katmandu has been under a state of emergency.
Yet Alpine Ascents - and sixteen other expeditions - came to Nepal for the sake of Everest. Hanna arrived in Katmandu on March 29, and during the next week, he and his companions traveled overland, first to Namche Bazaar, where they picked up eleven Sherpa porters. From there, they had to ascend more than a mile just to reach Base Camp.
The Nepal Hanna and his companions arrived in was not the same as the country he'd left two years earlier. Since the summer of 2001, a series of crises have emanated from the capital, Katmandu. First, a bizarre royal family feud turned bloody when the crown prince murdered the king, queen, and several others before killing himself. Then peace talks broke down between the government and Maoist rebels; in the ensuing fighting, nearly three thousand people died. Since November, Katmandu has been under a state of emergency.
Yet Alpine Ascents - and sixteen other expeditions - came to Nepal for the sake of Everest. Hanna arrived in Katmandu on March 29, and during the next week, he and his companions traveled overland, first to Namche Bazaar, where they picked up eleven Sherpa porters. From there, they had to ascend more than a mile just to reach Base Camp.
By the middle of April, the Alpine Ascents team was ready to begin its climb. Though all the usual dangers were present, the weather didn't seem particularly bad, and it wasn't until they began to cross the Khumbu Ice Fall that the trouble started. According to Eric Simonson, a climber with another expedition, the Sherpas who had prepared the route had done a poor job. "There are numerous loose anchors," he wrote for the Internet site EverestNews.com, "many pickets driven in only part way, loose ladders and ropes, and generally shoddy work."
On April 23, the Maoist rebels cut off telephone contact between the Everest region and the outside world, which was inconvenient. Much worse news came on April 30. As Hanna and the Alpine Ascents team were proceeding up and down in their yo-yo path toward the summit, word came that a British journalist named Peter Legate, climbing with an expedition from Hungary, had lost his hold on the Lhotse Face. He fell 600 feet to his death, becoming the first casualty of 2002.
In mid-May, Mathy began to suffer from severe stomach and bronchial infections. As the Alpine Ascents crew continued, climbing and descending, he returned to Base Camp to receive intravenous treatment. He tried to rejoin the team on May 20, but decided that his illness was too much and gave up.
On April 23, the Maoist rebels cut off telephone contact between the Everest region and the outside world, which was inconvenient. Much worse news came on April 30. As Hanna and the Alpine Ascents team were proceeding up and down in their yo-yo path toward the summit, word came that a British journalist named Peter Legate, climbing with an expedition from Hungary, had lost his hold on the Lhotse Face. He fell 600 feet to his death, becoming the first casualty of 2002.
In mid-May, Mathy began to suffer from severe stomach and bronchial infections. As the Alpine Ascents crew continued, climbing and descending, he returned to Base Camp to receive intravenous treatment. He tried to rejoin the team on May 20, but decided that his illness was too much and gave up.
Now one member short, Alpine Ascents made their way toward the peak, and on May 23, they finally reached Camp IV and the death zone. There they would spend the night before pushing on to the summit. Outside, the snow was eighteen inches deep and soft - not treacherous for climbing, but tiring to walk through. Hanna, like Mathy, was now suffering from a bronchial infection, straining his lungs when they needed all the capacity they could get.
"I had chest congestion," says Hanna. "I had a cough, which is common at high altitudes, and this chest congestion was beating me down."
The next morning, May 24, Hanna got up with the rest of the climbers to make the final assault - a twenty-two-hour round trip. But as he climbed the first thousand feet above Camp IV, he could see that he was falling behind the rest of the team. He could barely breathe, even with bottled air, and physical exhaustion had weakened his knees and joints. As Hanna tried to focus on each struggling step, his judgment told him, he says, that another day of climbing would have left him "in a crevasse, lonely and dead." He began to wonder if he should turn back. His companions expressed disappointment, but Hanna says they didn't push him to go on.
"I had chest congestion," says Hanna. "I had a cough, which is common at high altitudes, and this chest congestion was beating me down."
The next morning, May 24, Hanna got up with the rest of the climbers to make the final assault - a twenty-two-hour round trip. But as he climbed the first thousand feet above Camp IV, he could see that he was falling behind the rest of the team. He could barely breathe, even with bottled air, and physical exhaustion had weakened his knees and joints. As Hanna tried to focus on each struggling step, his judgment told him, he says, that another day of climbing would have left him "in a crevasse, lonely and dead." He began to wonder if he should turn back. His companions expressed disappointment, but Hanna says they didn't push him to go on.
"The rules of the mountain are that you don't convince anybody to do anything," he says. "We expect everyone - even the old ones - to exercise good judgment. There's just too much risk, not only to the person who might get hurt or die, but to those who would have to stay behind to help him. How do you carry a 140-pound body like mine down a mountain? You can't. You've just got a real major problem."
So, 2,035 feet short of the highest summit on earth, Hanna decided to give up his last chance.
Between 10:30 and 11:18 on the morning of May 25, the four remaining climbers, five guides, and eight of the Sherpas from the Alpine Ascents group summited the mountain. Hanna, back at Camp IV, waited for them to return for the descent.
So, 2,035 feet short of the highest summit on earth, Hanna decided to give up his last chance.
Between 10:30 and 11:18 on the morning of May 25, the four remaining climbers, five guides, and eight of the Sherpas from the Alpine Ascents group summited the mountain. Hanna, back at Camp IV, waited for them to return for the descent.
On June 3, Hanna came home to Chicago, to his stairs and his street people and his lawsuits. He had lost more than a tenth of his body weight during his fifty-five days on Mt. Everest, and the first order of business was getting a few pounds back on his frame. "I'm eating a lot of cake and ice cream," he says. "It's my favorite."
His quest for Everest has, in four attempts, cost him more than a quarter of a million dollars. There won't be a fifth. The seven summits are off the agenda. In fact, Hanna may not climb another mountain.
"I don't know," he says. "Seventy-two-year-old legs weren't made for mountain climbing."
But if Hanna is deeply disappointed, it doesn't show. His 2000 climb to the south summit made him the oldest person ever to reach that height, he notes, "for whatever that's worth." But he seems less concerned with records than with the pleasure of facing the challenge.
His quest for Everest has, in four attempts, cost him more than a quarter of a million dollars. There won't be a fifth. The seven summits are off the agenda. In fact, Hanna may not climb another mountain.
"I don't know," he says. "Seventy-two-year-old legs weren't made for mountain climbing."
But if Hanna is deeply disappointed, it doesn't show. His 2000 climb to the south summit made him the oldest person ever to reach that height, he notes, "for whatever that's worth." But he seems less concerned with records than with the pleasure of facing the challenge.
"Having again tried and having returned safely leaves me a stronger person," he says. "The climb was a physical, mental, and emotional strain, but it renewed my strength of character and spirituality and was a personally rewarding effort."
The major media have gone. Having covered Hanna on the way up, they disappeared when he failed to reach the top. This is, perhaps, not the ending they were hoping for. Neither is it the story Hanna had wanted. But if common sense, a love of life, and a renewed strength of character is the disappointment he's destined for, it's one he'll take.
Thanks to weeks of diligent research, John Allen, associate editor at On Wisconsin Magazine, now knows the difference between a crevasse and a crevice.
The major media have gone. Having covered Hanna on the way up, they disappeared when he failed to reach the top. This is, perhaps, not the ending they were hoping for. Neither is it the story Hanna had wanted. But if common sense, a love of life, and a renewed strength of character is the disappointment he's destined for, it's one he'll take.
Thanks to weeks of diligent research, John Allen, associate editor at On Wisconsin Magazine, now knows the difference between a crevasse and a crevice.
