Scrutiny

The lure and the danger of mountain climbing have always fascinated those of us who mostly keep both feet on the ground. In November, I reviewed Ed Viesturs's history of the conquest of K2, which included his brush with death during his own successful climb in 1992. Viesturs emphasized the climber's responsibility to assess the risk throughout his climb, turning back when the risk becomes unreasonable. The climber should never consider a prudent decision to abort the climb as a "failure."

In the current issue of Sierra, the bimonthly publication of the Sierra Club, Emmett Berg asks whether modern commercial sponsorship of climbs and the technical ease of filming those climbs are making it more difficult for climbers to call it quits in the face of highly risky mountain conditions.

The article describes last year's failed first ascent of the east face of China's Mt. Edgar. The climb, by two well-known, experienced Colorado climbers, was sponsored by a film company, and was intended to be shown as one episode on a National Geographic Channel climbing series. The company provided a photographer who was to accompany them during the lower portions of the climb.

The Mt. Edgar climb wasn't really the ideal climb to make Berg's point. Once the danger of avalanches, caused in part by unusually warm temperatures, became apparent, the climbers abandoned the climb and their equipment after establishing an advance camp about 8,000 feet below the summit. They retreated to their base camp, hoping to return when conditions improved. After waiting at base camp for three weeks, with no improvement in conditions, they gave up and decided to return home. But they made the fateful decision to climb back first to the advance camp and retrieve about $10,000 worth of equipment.

Conditions were even worse during this second climb. An avalanche swept both climbers and their photographer -- a young man shooting his last film before beginning a Ph.D. program in chemistry at the University of Washington -- to their deaths.

The climbers had made the proper decision in aborting their climb, and the attempt to recover their gear seemed reasonable, according to other climbers. But Berg suggests that the expectations of sponsors and the knowledge that they are being filmed throughout the climb does put constant pressure on climbers to present the right image, to succeed, to earn their funding.

Our world today is preoccupied with reality shows, with insatiable voyeurism into every aspect of the lives of others. No matter how used we become to being on camera, I suspect, the camera is never wholly absent from our thoughts. Lawyers increasingly not only have to satisfy the judge, the jury, and their own clients -- but, when cameras are permitted in courtrooms, also have to be concerned with how they appear before the eyes of their TV audiences.

A lawyer risks only his reputation and his client's case when his decisions are affected by the camera's eye. A climber -- hoping to satisfy his sponsor's desire for a good show -- risks his own life and that of his companions when the camera prejudices his sound judgment.

That may not have been the case with the climbers on Mt. Edgar. But it is a risk worth noting. Not all climbers have Ed Viesturs's strength of character when the time comes to make the decision to quit, especially when that decision won't be one that best amuses the television audience -- or their own sponsors.