54 Candles Expedition

Sanitation

By Allen Sherpa

Ten men – most from the White Mountains of Arizona – will launch an assault on the summit of Mount Hood, Oregon’s highest mountain, in the early morning hours of Friday the 13^th of April, 2001. Allen Sherpa was invited to participate, but declined. With this letter, he’s staying in close contact with the climbing party.

Last week, I shared a story about the successful summit attempt of one of your climbing partners on Pico de Orizaba, North America’s third highest mountain. I was awestruck as he related some of the stories from that expedition. He had to climb glaciers, ice walls, rock cliffs, cross rivers, and breath the ash from a massive eruption of an adjacent volcano. His description of events made the Vertical Limit movie seem tame.

I soon learned, however, it wasn’t all glamour and glory. Think about this. They’re going to spend nearly two weeks on a mountain. They’re going to be carrying everything – food, tents, axes, cooking utensils, and clothes – on their backs. They’re going to carry all of this stuff to nearly four vertical miles above sea level. If they forget something, there are no convenience stores along the way.

Next revelation – this stuff has “mass”. It weighs something. The more they carry, the heavier. At altitude, they had roughly half the oxygen they had at sea level. They don’t want to be carrying heavy loads. (I’ve got the good sense to not want to do this even when I’m at sea level).

The point is that climbers go to great lengths to reduce weight. Every ounce carried contributes to fatigue and reduces their summit chances. Some climbers go to incredible extremes in this area. Some cut off the handles of their tooth brushes. Some don’t even bring tooth brushes. Some that bring books to kill the monotony of weathering a long storm in a tent actually tear the pages from the book as they read them to reduce weight.

Now think about this. As a rule, mountain climbers don’t pack wondering which outfit to wear to the summit and which to wear to dinner. Multiple suitcases are not an option. They’re lean and mean in the clothing department.

For a twelve day climb, the Pico de Orizaba climbers where instructed to bring: three pairs of socks and one pair of long underwear. This is not a joke. It’s really what happened. Your climbing buddy said it really starting becoming obvious that it wasn’t a joke on about day three of the expedition.

The Orizaba climbers were delighted when on day seven, one of the guides strolled into camp and announced . . . “I have good news and bad news. The good news is today, everyone gets to change underwear. The bad news is, Dan you change with Bill. Tom you change with Justin.”

Apparently, this is pretty much how it went. No razors. No soap. No clean clothes. Then after about nine days, it was time to go from “Camp III” to “high camp” in preparation for the ultimate summit push. The guides conducted a military style inspection of all equipment. Anything and everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary for the summit bid was removed. No tooth brushes. No cleaning devices of any kind. The amount of toilet paper was reduced to the bare minimum. No longer were individual climbers afforded the luxury of having individual rolls. The guy with the roll was now a true V.I.P.

This sounds like the whole trip was gruesomely unpleasant, however, your pal, the eternal optimist, pointed out the brighter side of things. First of all, the obvious – lighter loads to carry. But further, he pointed out that there were safety issues. He said that if someone were to fall from the mountain, there would be absolutely no problems finding that person – especially from the down-wind direction.

Another benefit from expedition hygiene was that the wind that continually battered the climbers at high altitude became a welcomed friend rather than a bitter enemy. Without the wind, the climbers may have been forced to raise their voices higher when conversing. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to overcome the increased distances between them that would become necessary as a result of their more odiferous natures. The climbers also welcomed the harsh cold. Noses became less attune to the “airs” as temperatures fell.

I’m telling you all this to try and let you know what you’re getting into on this Mount Hood thing. This is the real world of mountain climbing. You rock monkeys may think it’s all glamour and glory, but it’s not. I sure hope you know what you’re getting yourselves into. And you know what? I’m thinking about joining up with you. There’s not much time left. Maybe I will go to the summit of Mount Hood. Well, I guess that’s another story.