Safely back in Prescott surrounded by my pets, family and friends, the last 70 days of my life take on a surreal quality. Did I actually climb Mt. Everest or did I just imagine it? Everything seems so fantastic.

The Ester-C Everest Challenge was more than a climb, it was a pulling together of all the major threads of my life and combining it into a project that had four distinct parts.

The Environmental Restoration Project:

Fellow team member and colleague at Prescott College, Angela Hawse took charge of the Environmental Restoration Project whose goal was to retrieve 100 oxygen bottles and a ton of garbage from high camps on the mountain. Combustible materials would be incinerated in Namche Bazaar and tins, glass and plastic flown to Kathmandu for recycling. Our spent batteries and oxygen cylinders retrieved from the South Col would be shipped back to the states. In all, we retrieved 89 bottles of oxygen, in addition to the 59 that we brought to the mountain, and a thousand pounds of garbage from Camp II.

Although we tried to fund this project by contacting major US corporations, especially those involved in recycling, we received no interest. However, this was an important project and we financed this out of our own pockets. If you would like to support this endeavor we will send you an oxygen cylinder from the South Col that is signed by Angela Hawse, the project director and Tom Whittaker who made history by being the first disabled person to summit on Mt. Everest. We have 20 of these limited bottles available which we are selling for $350 each.

All Abilities Trek:

Cindy Whittaker took leadership of the All Abilities Trek that included five people with significant physical impairments. Ike Gayfield and Tom McCurdy are spinal cord injured, Kyle Packer and Carla Yustak both with cerebral palsy and Steve DeRoche is a double, below the knee amputee, who trekked on two Flex-Feet. The demographics of this group are: three participants are non ambulatory (traveling on horse, yak or by porter) there was one woman and one African-American. The disabled participants came from the US and Canada and were accompanied by wives and friends including the director of the CW HOG Program, Jeff Brandt (who was filming the project with a three chip digital video camera), Howard Kelly, a professional still photographer and Lizzie, my six year old daughter who is now a professional yak herder!

I'll never forget the thrill I felt when I saw her in Base Camp. Standing in a blizzard, I strained my eyes into the driving snow to catch the first glimpse of the All Abilities Trek as they arrived at base camp. Through the gloom, two snow encrusted yaks emerged. Right behind them a small figure, in an Ester-C Everest Challenge jacket, was making the strange guttural calls of a Tibetan yak herder. On seeing me, my six year old daughter disengaged herself from the south end of the yaks and hurled herself into my arms. Her arrival in base camp was a full ten minutes ahead of the rest of the All Abilities Trek, and so ended any concerns I may have had as to her ability to acclimatize to 17,500 ft.

Amazingly, all the participants that left Kathmandu to trek to base camp made it. The impact that they had on trekkers and on the mountaineers at base camp was profound. One mountaineer from another expedition has a son, who broke his neck in a collegiate wrestling match, and is now quadriplegic. He came to visit the HOGS and stood there with tears brimming in his eyes as he shared his resolve to make this journey a reality for his boy. Let us never forget that when we embrace a harder and higher standard that our actions do impact other people in positive ways.

Service Learning:

Prescott College purchased our permit and sent six students to embark on an educational adventure of a lifetime. Trekking into Everest base camp, at 17,500 feet, they accompanied the expedition team members and helped establish tent platforms and organize equipment into 45lb loads to transport up the mountain. They then climbed the non-technical peak Kala Patar, 18,500 feet.

After debriefing this phase in Gorak Shep two of the students, Nathan Barsetti and Alison Orton, left to join the All Abilities Trek. Kimberly Schembari, Trevor Wilson, Titiana Shostak-Kinker and Josh Lewis, assisted by Prescott College alumna Leah Lamb headed to Namche Bazaar and the start of their environmental and community service projects. They came to the Khumbu with alert minds, willing hands and humble hearts. Their intention was to be agents of positive change without injecting western ideas and methods of functioning. They came to "be changed by Nepal" rather than "to change Nepal".

The Climb:

There is no such thing as the perfect Mt.Everest expedition. But this came pretty close!

This was the first Everest expedition that I have conceptualized, fund raised and led and I found it an immensely complex, but satisfying process. It is true to say that in the last eight months I have learned more than in any similar period in my life. The expedition members were all personal friends that I had known from seven to twenty years. I had been on Everest with Jeff and Kellie Rhoads in 1989, also two of our Sherpa team, Shyam our Camp II cook and Lhakpa, a climbing Sherpa, who I summited with on this expedition, both were old friends from 1989.

All the team members were mountaineers. Together they brought more than a hundred years of experience to the expedition. In addition, our Sherpa had successfully summited more than twenty times. Ang Temba, our Sirdar, was extremely hard working and conscientious and had the respect of all the Sherpa and climbing members alike. Despite the real wealth of experience that existed, the thing that set our team apart from the others, was that we truly were a team. People genuinely cared for one another, and when one person hurt, we were all affected.

The Ester-C Everest Challenge embodied the best in mountaineering. We came to the mountain with the commitment to place the first disabled person on the roof of the world, and despite seemingly insurmountable odds, the weather, sickness, and circumstances that were stacked against us, we managed to endure. In addition, Jeff Rhoads, the CBS cameraman, was the first non-Sherpa in history to summit twice in one season and Tashi Tshering Sherpa summited twice and reached the South Summit on one occasion. This was not only a first, but brought his personal score of summit successes to seven; not bad for someone of 26 years old! This expedition was different than any other I had been on, because it had no paying members, all decisions were made in a democratic manner, and the enthusiasm for mountaineering and an excitement for being on Mt. Everest was foremost in everyone's mind. Everybody on the team that made a summit bid, either summited or reached the South Summit. This is no small achievement; at 28,750ft [8763m] the South Summit is five hundred feet higher t

We received regular weather forecasts, however this ended up being a mixed blessing. The tropical storm that was predicted to put large quantities of snow on the mountain on May 20 never materialized. This single forecast squeezed a large number of people into a small window of opportunity on May 19th. The congestion and confusion that ensued was the factor that led Angela, Gareth, and Tommy Heinrich to end their summit bid on the South Summit. It was also the factor that forced me to compress four days climbing into two and start my summit bid on the night of my second days travel from Base Camp. After rescuing a climber from another team that had fallen 200 feet I realized I was too cold and too fatigued to continue. As we now know, the storm never materialized and a ridge of high pressure bathed the mountain for eight days.

The final difference of this expedition was our receiving expert nutritional counseling from Jack Hagenaur, the nutritional scientist at Inter-Cal. After examining the last ten years of high altitude research, Jack formulated a regime of vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements, that we took to the hill. We used an electrolyte drink mix that not only replaced electrolytes, but through the inclusion of the Ester-C "body ready" vitamin C products, helped to fortify our immune systems, minimize physiological damage from free radicals, and speed up recovery rates. We used the meal supplements to boost our caloric intake and to ensure that we had a continually available source of calories while we were working on the hill.

I believe our expedition had "physically" the strongest team of members and Sherpa on the mountain this spring and that our collective results reflected this strength. I personally attribute a large part of this to Jack's nutritional research and the Ester-C

In addition to our climbing team we were supported in base camp by Steve Allen a solar engineer from Golden Genesis who, with Eric Howard, our communications specialist, created a system that functioned well the entire expedition, allowing us to e-mail, to phone, and send digital photographs via satellite to a world audience via the web. Also Doug White volunteered his services as base camp doctor. His energy, expertise and hard work were essential to the success of this venture. Howard Kelly, in addition to being a tremendous photographer was also a constant source of fun and positive energy.

Nothing about this expedition was easy, and for that I am eternally grateful. When it came to funding the project the BBC, who had commissioned three fifty minute documentaries and were proposing a budget of $1.7 million, pulled out on January the 8th.1998. It seemed to all sane observers that this was a bullet to the head. We were scheduled to fly to Kathmandu on March 15th and were now looking at a shortfall of $250,000. However we took the bullet and kept walking! We had the great good fortune to bring CBS on board through our previous relationship with Liza Finley (don't miss Public Eye with Bryant Gumble August 12th), and at the eleventh hour the Inter-Cal Corporation became our title sponsor. With our other sponsorships we still came up $50,000 shy of our original budget. However, by cutting our costs to the bone we went to the mountain and did not compromise on any of our projected objectives.

Media:

August 12th on the CBS channel "Public Eye with Bryant Gumble" will be showing a one hour documentary of the trek and climb. So mark it on your calendar and ask your friends to come over with pizza and beverage of choice and see what really happened!

Ingenuity Works Inc. of Canada and Mountain Visions of Boise, Idaho, covered the trek and climb on the web at: www.everestonline.com and www.mtnvisions.com respectively. In addition Ingenuity Works Inc. created an educational curriculum that tracked the expedition in real time. More than 600 schools in North America participated.

A Disability Reality Check:

At first glance you would think that funding for the first disabled ascent of Mt. Everest would not be a tough project. It was easy to see that this venture resonated with many potential sponsors, however, upon examination their interest waned. A friend of mine who is the head of PR and marketing for a large manufacturer told me in confidence that, despite being chosen by an independent panel for funding, their marketing team had deemed it advisable to withhold the grant because of "the lack of expediency in supporting a disability venture that involved personal risk".

Although only one potential sponsor was big enough to admit that this was happening, I believe many interested parties shied away, for the same reasons.

It is a truism that our society confuses taking responsibility "for people" and taking responsibility "from people". By assuming responsibility for people with disabilities they actually disempower us by limiting our options and controlling our status in society.

A journalist and long-time friend of mine told me today "you do so well, I can't relate to you as a disabled person". This was meant as a compliment, but if you substitute the words "woman" or "African American" for "disabled person" this same statement would be seen as either sexist or racist. To assume that a woman or African-American should shed their gender or ethnicity, as a reward for achievement, would be grossly insulting to her. However, this same person was paying me a compliment by discounting my disability.

In theory, people with disabilities are part of the diversity debate. It is seen as a compliment in our society to take away a persons disability when they perform at or above the societal norm. However, if we applied that same standard to ethnic minorities and women we would be looking down the double barrel of a discrimination suit.

To labor this point, let me quote from May 1998 Outside Magazine "Everest, The Really Hard Way"

"... a dispassionate observer might ask whether Tom Whittaker really belongs on the mountain. Does his disability effectively place him in the same class as the paying clients whose inability to handle conditions led to the tragic results in 1996? And is it possible that Whittaker could be irresponsibly burdening his companions?"

-Again if you were to ask these same questions based on a persons ethnicity or gender the editors at Outside Magazine would be barraged by complaints from their readership. It is my considered belief that Outside Magazine received not one query or complaint regarding these questions.

The magnificent thing about society is that it is always evolving and the consciousness of one generation is built on by the next. Change is not instantaneous; it is something that takes many generations. My belief is that if, as people with disabilities, we argue for our limitations that is what we will have; limitations. If, however, we refuse to be defined by society and define ourselves, based on the reality of the gifts we have and the people we want to become, we have the power to break the stereotype. The reward is increased self worth and being a fully functioning member of society. I fervently believe in the old adage that if you are not part of the solution, then you are very definitely part of the problem. It is my utmost hope that The Ester-C Everest Challenge, in some small way has helped to inch disability consciousness in a positive direction.

In Conclusion:

Our team members were constantly aware of the wellspring of positive energy, prayers and good wishes that were flowing in our direction. I am certain when all is said and done that this flow of energy had as much to do with the many successes of this project as did our focused efforts.

My sincere thanks to all those people that had the confidence to invest their positive thoughts, their products and their money in the Ester-C Everest Challenge.

June 30th 1998

Tom Whittaker
Expedition Leader

Contact information:

Ester-C Everest Challenge
1101 Paar Drive
Prescott AZ 8630
Phone: 520-771-8965
Fax:520-771-014
E-mail: everest1@primenet.com