Mt. Everest is one of the world’s most remote spots. To get there from Kathmandu, you have to walk through the Himalayas for days to the remote town of Lukla. Or you can take a turbulent half-hour flight to Lukla, the most dangerous airport in the world. Once you land, it’s a seven- to twelve-day trek to Everest Base Camp at the foot of the great mountain. On Everest itself, the weather is unpredictable with high winds and surprise blizzards. You risk altitude sickness, frostbite, and exhaustion, and you can die from an avalanche or a fall.
You would think people would avoid this place, yet thousands have visited it. Thousands more yearn to go. It is so crowded that there are “traffic jams,” lines of climbers ascending or descending in single file. With no way to pass each other, if you are stuck too long in the “death zone,” you can run out of oxygen and simply collapse. Rescue missions are almost impossible, and those who do not make it will lie frozen in this wasteland forever.
Pinchus Shnier of Baltimore went to Mt. Everest. Here is his story.
The Trek
Pinchus set out for Everest in April 2018. From Dulles, he flew to Dubai and took a four-and-a-half-hour flight to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Then he flew into Lukla on a tiny propeller plane, the only type that can manage the thin air and the very short runway. From Lukla, he began the trek to Everest Base Camp, a vast “city” of colorful tents laid out on the gravelly earth. It is the staging area for climbers from all over the world. Here they climb up and down to intermediary camps to acclimate to the altitude. And they rest, waiting for a day when the weather is good enough to attempt the summit.
Pinchus’ goal on this first trip to Everest, in 2018, was just to see the mountain and trek to Everest Base Camp, a worthy and popular journey in itself. A trek, I learned, is simply a hike – as opposed to a “technical” climb, which involves using ropes, crampons, and other mountaineering gear to cross crevasses (cracks in a glacier), and ascend near-vertical walls of rock and ice.
This was not Pinchus’ first experience of mountain climbing. He had climbed in the Alps during his travels throughout Europe. To prepare for his trip to Everest Base Camp, he trained for a year, biking and hiking for miles. He also took a two-day mountaineering course while climbing in the Rockies. His next task was to decide whether to go by himself or with a company. “In order to climb the mountain itself, you have to go with a licensed expedition,” says Pinchus. “Although you can do Everest Base Camp by yourself, you still need a permit. I wanted to go with a group, though. Everyone gets some degree of altitude sickness, and you have to monitor and manage it. Every night, after a day of hiking, our Sherpas measured the blood oxygen level and heart rate of everyone in the group.”
After a lot of research, Pinchus signed up with Himalayan Wonders, a Nepalese tour operator. It cost him $1,300, which included the Sherpa guides and porters, the local flight, all permits, and accommodations along the way. Western companies offering the same package charge $5,000.
The Everest Base Camp trek is designed to allow the body to gradually acclimate to the altitude. “Each day we hiked for eight to ten hours, gradually gaining elevation. There were two resting days as well; one of them was Shabbos.” Altitude sickness most often starts at 8,000 feet. Lukla is situated at 9,400 feet, and Everest Base Camp is 17,600 feet. “I was hit with altitude sickness,” says Pinchus, “and got headaches and loss of appetite. I also had a stomach bug and was on antibiotics.”
Higher up, altitude sickness gets more severe and can progress to drunken behavior and hallucinating. That is when it is imperative to get the person down as quickly as possible. The area above 26,250 feet – about 2,800 feet from Everest’s 29,029-foot peak – is called the “death zone,” where there is not enough oxygen to sustain human life. Even the oxygen masks climbers wear are not always sufficient. This is where most of the 290 climbers who have died on the mountain over the past 60 years met their end, many of them on their way down from the peak.
Contributing to these deaths is the overcrowding on the mountain, which leads to the traffic jams. At $11,000 per permit to climb to the summit, the Nepalese government has an incentive to issue too many permits. In the past, they gave permits to people who did not have any mountaineering experience. After some recent tragedies, they are promising to implement a requirement for a person to have climbed another mountain in Nepal and other conditions.
A Mountain Seen from Afar
Pinchus hiked with aid of two trekking poles. The trail, which the group shared with mules and yaks, leads steadily upward over a mix of rocky terrain, mud, stone steps, and four swaying suspension foot bridges. In the Himalayan spring, the trail is adorned with pink rhododendrons against a spectacular backdrop of snow-covered peaks. It was on the trail that Pinchus first saw Everest from afar. “The first time I saw it, I was amazed,” says Pinchus. “It was beyond imaginable, seeing what Hashem created. It’s hard to explain the emotions.” At the point where Everest first comes into view, there is a statue. “I was surprised to see a Nepalese flag and an Israeli flag together,” he says. “A plaque in English and Hebrew explains that the flags signify the highest and lowest points on earth.”
Each night, the group stopped at one of the Himalayan villages that dot the area, staying in “tea houses,” hostel-like accommodations. They lack proper bathrooms, heating, and hot showers, though some of the villages have internet access. Pinchus brought along many protein and energy bars, tuna bags, and lots of carbs. “Eating was not a problem,” says Pinchus. “You anyway lose your appetite from altitude sickness.”
Pinchus made it to Everest Base Camp, as did his whole group, although two people had to be evacuated by helicopter due to severe altitude sickness. But this was not the end of his trip. He was going to another mountain, called Island Peak.
“Our group descended from Everest Base Camp, and a teammate and I split from group. We met our Sherpa guide, Tenzing, in the closest village to the base camp of Island Peak. For another $1,000, he would take us all the way to the top. Tenzing had summited Everest three times. But he lost family and friends in a big avalanche in 2014, in which 16 Sherpas were killed, and hasn’t climbed it since. I felt safe with him.”
Who Are the Sherpas?
The Sherpas, who figure so prominently in the Everest story, are an ethnic group that lives in the area. Without them, expeditions to Mt. Everest would not be possible. “The Sherpas have amazing stamina,” says Pinchus. “Their bodies use oxygen much more efficiently than ours. Every climber goes up with a Sherpa. They are devoted to their clients and have often risked their own lives to save them. It is a matter of honor for them. They are the real heroes of Everest.”
Aside from accompanying climbers up the mountain, Sherpa teams go up every April and May, before the Westerners arrive for the climbing season, to fix the ropes along the route and place metal ladders over the crevasses. They set up Everest Base Camp with tents, kitchen and dining tents, and internet access, and they carry tents, ropes, food, and fuel on their backs to camps higher on the mountain.
No doubt the large salaries are a major motivation for Sherpas, who have few other opportunities for employment. An experienced Sherpa makes about $5,000 during the two-month climbing season. If they go all the way to the summit, they get a bonus of around $1,500 from the climber. This is in a country where the average income is $700 per year.
Like an Island in the Sky
“We got to Island Peak’s base camp, at 16,690 feet,” says Pinchus. “We rested for six or seven hours, then started out at around 10 p.m. Most ascents begin during the night, using strong headlamps to light the way. You want to reach summit in early morning, because bad weather comes later in the day, when you should be heading down.
“We were going to try to make the summit in 10 hours. I was carrying 30 pounds on my back. I wore crampons and boots. I was dressed in layers as the temperature can vary greatly. In May, it was in the 70s and even 80s by day but got very cold at night.
“We started up; the first part was boulders. I felt good. My teammate was not so well. As we got higher, he felt worse. Seven or eight hours into the climb – we were only 1,500 feet from the summit – he started hallucinating. We had to get him down. I was very disappointed, of course, at missing the huge achievement of making the summit. But I learned that an even bigger achievement is knowing that you have to go back down. You make a conscious decision to not risk your life. This taught me an important lesson for future climbs.
“Tenzing and I helped him get down the mountain. A few hundred feet from base camp, I heard a huge noise. It was an avalanche at a nearby mountain. It was amazingly beautiful but also treacherous. If we had been in its path, we would not have survived. Baruch Hashem, I did not encounter any danger to myself during the trip. We made it to base camp, where we spent the night. Then it was off to the airport. I spent Shavuos with Chabad in Kathmandu before flying home.”
A Long Road to Everest
For Pinchus, the road to Everest began long before getting on the plane. He always loved nature and the out-of-doors, and when he was a young teen, he was fascinated by an article about the highest mountain in the world in a Yiddish-language children’s magazine. His interest in the mighty mountain lay dormant for many years.
Pinchus grew up with his mother and sister in a Boro Park chasidishe community. At age 15, he left home for the Nitra Yeshiva at Mt. Kisco. He then spent three years in yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael, two of them at the Mir in Rav “Leizer Yudel” (Eliezer Yehuda) Finkel’s shiur for chasidishe boys. Today, Rav Finkel is Rosh Yeshiva.
Pinchus is no longer chasidish. As a child of divorce in a chasidische cheder, he says, “I always felt different.” He doesn’t blame the community he grew up in. “There are some bad memories, but there were also good things. When I was 10 or 11, I had a rebbe who was very strict but very warm. Every morning we would learn mussar – about middos, adam lechaveiro, mixed in stories. It was a great way to start the day.
Some things were not always handled in the best way in his community, says Pinchus, “But, I’ve traveled all over the world, 25 different countries, and I’ve seen and lived in Jewish communities of all types. I’ve seen that there is good and bad all over. You just have to find the good in everyone. And the warmth and chesed that goes on in the chasidishe community I have yet to find somewhere else.
“A big thing in my life was getting very close to the Skulener Rebbe. I was a ben bayis. I spent a lot of time talking to him about personal issues. He rarely attended bar mitzvas, but he came to mine. “Today, I do not follow all of his ways, but there is no question he was a holy person. You could see the kedusha shining from his face. I was with him in the ICU in Hopkins the night before he passed away.”
By that time, Pinchus was cut off from that part of his life, but when the Skulener was dying in Johns Hopkins Hospital, a grandson remembered Pinchus and called him. “I rushed back from Virginia,” says Pinchus. “About 30 or 40 people were there in ICU. They were singing – the Skulener Rebbe was famous for composing songs – and it was a crazy scene: like Purim and Yom Kippur at the same time. The next day, the Rebbe was niftar. I went to the funeral in Boro Park. Weeks later, it hit me.”
Pinchus’ young adult years have been difficult. After leaving yeshiva, he lived in Israel for a year with his mom, who had remarried and moved there. Ten years ago, he came to Baltimore. “That’s when it went downhill for me mentally,” says Pinchus. “I went into a lot of pain. I had depression and anxiety. I had a rough childhood. Then there were all the changes over the years, leaving the community I grew up with, and figuring out who I am. For some reason, I remembered my interest in Mt. Everest and started looking into going to Everest Base Camp in 2015. But I injured my foot and couldn’t go. I was devastated.”
As it turned out, that was a bracha. It was in 2015 that the horrific 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal killed more than 9,000 and injured over 23,000. It also triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest that killed at least 21 on the mountain and at Everest Base Camp in the deadliest day of the mountain’s history.
Mt. Rainier
Two months after getting home from Everest Base Camp, in July, 2018, Pinchus climbed Mt. Rainier in Washington State with RMI Expeditions. While Mt. Rainier, at 14,500 feet, is far lower than Everest, it is considered a very difficult “technical” mountain, requiring mountaineering skills. Pinchus did the two-day trip using harnesses and crampons to navigate the ice and snow-filled crevasses.
“The first day was basic training,” says Pinchus. “The next day, we did a steep climb to 10,000 feet. We rested and waited for 10 p.m., when we would try to get to the summit by early morning. A few people turned back. Our guide pointed out that it is one thing to get to the top, but you have to have the energy to come back down. I made it to the top. It was amazing. Near the summit, it was a scene of pure white snow far into the distance. The only other thing you could see was peaks of other mountains. I talked to G-d. It was an unbelievable spiritual experience.”
Everest 2019: Crisis at Camp 1
After his experiences at Everest Base Camp and Mt. Rainier, Pinchus wanted to take Everest to next level. He didn’t have the money for a summit climb, which can cost from $40,000 to $100,000. The permit fee alone is $11,000. But, Pinchus decided, he could try to make it to Camp 3. At 24,000 feet, Camp 3 is the third of four intermediary camps that lead to the summit.
April 2019 found Pinchus back in Nepal. He did another trek to Everest Base Camp, where he rested and met other climbers. “People wait for a few weeks in Base Camp until a weather window opens. The day after I got there, there was a cyclone in India and they thought it might be coming to Nepal. Some people were at Camp 3, where there were crazy winds. They made it down. At Base Camp, we got a half-foot of snow. I managed to get a call through to my sister to tell her that I was okay.” A few days later we got word that we could go.
“They have very sophisticated forecasters for Everest. From mid-May to the end of the month is when people attempt the summit. This year, there was bad weather, with only three days suitable for summiting and 400 people trying to get up. The crowding contributed to the deaths of 11 people that year. I had developed a bond with one of them, Robin Fisher, who was on our expedition. I was devastated to learn of his death.
“We started out at night to climb the Khumbu Icefall, the head of a glacier. This is a very intense 2,000-feet climb straight up the ice walls. We used crampons and harnesses and were connected with ropes. The dangerous parts of the icefall have fixed ropes. There are also narrow metal ladders across crevasses. It took me 12 hours to reach the top.
“I got to Camp 1 late in the day, dead tired. I ran out of water. It’s important to stay hydrated. The Sherpas use kerosene to melt snow for water. I fell asleep in the freezing temperature. Suddenly, a storm kicked in during the night. I was in the tent. I was warm in my down suit inside a down sleeping bag, but I had a severe headache. And I’m thinking about how you don’t want to stay in Camp 1 too long. It’s like a valley, surrounded by mountains: open to disaster and vulnerable to avalanches.
“The tent was shaking in the 100 mph winds. I heard huge sounds. Was it an avalanche? I was helpless. There are no rescue operations. For the first time, I was afraid for my life. I was praying to Hashem; I said Shema a million times.
“Finally, morning came. Our tent was covered with snow. I was feeling sick and was a bit nervous about proceeding upward, but I did make it to Camp 2. Then I, along with two others and two Sherpas, decided to head back down. We made it safely to Base Camp. Then it was back to the airport and home.
“I still have a dream to get to the summit, to be the first frum person to do it, but that night in the tent definitely got me to think more about it. I want to go back. But if I can’t, I’m happy with what I did. “Climbing on Mt. Everest was a huge achievement for me, physically and mentally,” says Pinchus. I don’t regret it for a moment.”
Why?
Why? That is the obvious question, the one everyone asks. Why risk your life to climb a mountain?
I ask Pinchus about the risk. He says, “Of course, there is risk involved in climbing any mountain. I knew the risk, but I definitely prepared responsibly: training extensively, going with a professional company, etc. I even wrote a will. There are ways of doing risky things responsibly. It’s a fine line. You can’t prepare for an avalanche, of course. But most people who climb Everest survive. It’s not even the most dangerous mountain in the world. The point is that if you have dreams, risk shouldn’t stop you. You could die just driving in a car.”
But a deeper answer is reflected, perhaps, in a line Pinchus quotes from Edmund Hillary: “It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” New Zealander Hillary and the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first people to reach Everest’s summit in 1953.
“Climbing Mt. Everest helped me overcome a lot of issues in my life,” says Pinchus. “It helped me cope when I was struggling with depression and anxiety. Everest had always been a dream of mine. Finally, I told myself, I’m going to stop dreaming and I’m going to do it. It years of prepping, which were a great distraction.
“For me it was a spiritual thing, too. I feel connected to Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. He talks a lot about going out in nature and simply talking to G-d. When I went through things in the past, I would take long walks at night, screaming to G-d, ‘Why me?’ I have had my ups and downs with Yiddishkeit over the years, but I can’t escape the spiritual in me. It always pulls me back. I find it very therapeutic to talk to Hashem. Up on that huge mountain, you see that you are nothing. In one second, you are gone. But, as much as it’s dangerous, it is very powerful. People ask me why I went or what I got out of it, and it’s hard to explain in words. You have to experience it for yourself. It helped me to find myself spiritually. When you see what G-d created out there, you feel like you can connect with Hashem in a personal way.”
Pinchus has gone to Uman every Rosh Hashanah for 13 years, ever since he was 18. Besides the personality and teachings of Reb Nachman, he finds that just going to Uman, seeing people from all walks of life, from non-religious to Chasidim to Sefardi, is inspiring. “The happiness and spirituality you see in Uman is amazing,” says Pinchus. “It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing or what you’re going through. Every year, more and more people are coming. We’re all going through something in life. People are so lost these days. I think what’s attracting them to Uman is trying to find what true Judaism is. There is something to levush, but it’s the inside that counts, the soul that counts. That’s what attracted me to Reb Nachman, and that’s what I learned through his teachings.”
Live Your Dream
“For me, mountain climbing, and especially climbing Mt. Everest, helped me cope with what I was going through. Having done it, I hope I can inspire other people to achieve things in life. No matter how crazy your background, no matter what mental health challenges you’ve gone through, you can live your dream. The worst thing you can do is sit and ruminate. You’ve got to fight and be a fighter. And know that you’re not alone. Many others are struggling, and there is help out there. I’ve been at rock bottom, and I was able to achieve this big dream and continue and connect myself to spirituality. You can, too. You don’t have to climb Mt. Everest, but get out of your little box. Go somewhere. See something – whether the local park or a national park. There are so many beautiful things in Hashem’s world,”
To contact Pinchus Shnier, please email him at pinhusshnier@gmail.com.
