Sunday, November 3, 1996 12:30 - 1:45 p.m., Max Bell Auditorium

The tragedies on Mount Everest earlier this year produced a flurry of coverage in the media. The deaths of several respected high altitude guides and their clients in one of the worst storms to hit the mountain in years, became a focus of public mourning and soul searching. Questions are being raised on the viability of extreme guiding, both from the guides' and the clients' perspectives.

A number of guides specializing in the rarefied air of the 8,000-meter peaks, north faces, and big walls are changing the way they qualify clients and promote their services. Clients are likewise re-examining how they prepare themselves for these ultimate challenges, as well as how they screen potential guiding services. Both are looking at more specific agreements which manage mutual expectations when the adventure turns into an epic for survival.

This seminar featured:

High-altitude guide Ed Viesturs from Seattle, a climber who has not only climbed nine of the 14 8,000-meter peaks, but has guided Everest three times, as well as high mountains in South America, Mexico, Alaska, Russia, New Zealand, and Nepal. Although he wasn't guiding at the time, Viesturs was on Everest this spring as one of the climbing leaders of the IMAX Filming Expedition.

Alex Lowe has guided both on high mountains and on big walls. He has successfully guided clients up Mount Everest twice, as well as the Atlantic Ocean Wall on El Capitan, and extreme rock and ice routes throughout North America.

Henry Hamlin is a 66-year-old client of high-altitude climbs, having attempted Broad Peak and Cho Oyu in the Himalaya as well as summiting on Aconcagua. His perspective is of one whose expectations have been met with varying degrees of success.

Barry Blanchard is a UIAGM guide whose guiding résumé includes the North Face of Eiger, new routes in the Himalaya, and extreme ice routes in the Canadian Rockies. Blanchard insists on hand-picking his extreme clients as carefully as they choose him.

David Breashears is a high-altitude climber and filmmaker who has personally guided and filmed a number of people to the world's highest peak, and was filming his IMAX project this spring on Everest when the tragedy took place. He subsequently became involved in the rescue effort.