Thu, Feb 12 2009 - Mt. Everest - Dan Mallory presentation (View Original Event Details)
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The Mallorys’ climb, is the first time a family of five has attempted to summit together. Laura is now the youngest Canadian and youngest woman, and Alan the second-youngest Canadian man, to reach the top of Everest. The Mallorys’ live in the Barrie area,north of Toronto. TOC members were given reserved front row seating for Dan’s 2 hour slide show presentation on his adventures to Mt. Everest. and spoke at length to him afterwards. Here is his story. In late March and early April, 2008, Dan & Barbara both age 56, Adam age 25, Alan age 23 and Laura age 20 flew from Toronto to Kathmandu, Nepal. After some last minute provisioning in Kathmandu, they flew to Lukla (2,850 meters/9400 feet) where they started their trek to base camp (5,300 meters/17,400 ft). Over the next two weeks they hiked along trails cut into the sides of the mountains where a misplaced step or a nudge from a yak would lead to a deadly fall. Along the way, they stayed in teahouses, visited several monasteries and enjoyed spectacular snow capped mountain vistas. After reaching base camp, Barbara tore her Achilles tendon on an acclimatization climb and had to return to Canada. The rest of the family spent the next month alternating between climbing to and from camps 1, 2, 3 & 4 and resting in base camp in preparation for their summit push. The ascent from base camp to Camp I (5,800 meters/19,000 feet) was through the infamous Khumbu icefall which is essentially a glacier waterfall. The ice moves about 4 feet per day and with apartment sized ice blocks on the move, there was always the risk of falling ice. During the acclimatization process, they passed through this icefall 6 times. En route to Camp II (6,000 meters/19,700 feet) they crossed the “flattish” Western Cwm. They had to climb around or walk on ladders tied together over seemingly bottomless crevasses. On sunny days, this area was like an oven and any exposed skin was quickly burnt. Camp III (7,200 meters/23,600 feet) was on the head wall of the Lhotse face - a steep, shiny wall of ice. Their tents were lashed down. They had wear crampons when moving around outside their tents. In 2005, a climber neglected to do this, slipped and fell off the mountain to his death. Camp IV was the highest camp located on the South Col at 8,000 meters/26,200 feet. It is known as the Death Zone because it lacks sufficient oxygen to sustain life for long. It was windy and cold and they spent only a few hours resting in a tent there before beginning their summit attempt in the wee hours of the morning. On summit day, the four of them prepared their gear and oxygen cylinders ready to depart in the dark in a frigid strong wind for the 12 hour climb to the summit followed by the 6-8 hour descent (more dangerous descending) back to Camp IV. Laura had health problems and returned to Camp IV early in the climb. Dan, Adam and Alan pushed on across and up very technical steep snow, ice and rock faces. After ascending the high rocky Hillary Step, they were on the top of the world (8,848meters/29,029feet). Laura rested in Camp IV that day and the next day she and her Sherpa reached the summit. Other Everest statistics: • Everest has been attempted 11,000 times • 3,000 attempts have been successful (reached the summit) • Success rate is 29% • 207 climbers have died on Everest • Fatality rate is 2.05% • 54 of the summiteers died • Summit to Fatality rate is 1.82%
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