Rob Hall

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Rob Hall (1961 - May 11, 1996), New Zealander, was a mountaineer best known for being head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition in which he, a fellow guide, and two clients perished. A best-selling account of the expedition was given in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. At the time of his death, Hall had ascended Everest more times than any other non-Sherpa mountaineer.

Hall met his future wife, Jan Arnold, during his Everest summit attempt in 1990. Hall asked Arnold for a date on a climb to Mt. McKinley and later, the two married. In 1993, Rob Hall summited along with Arnold. In the catastrophic 1996 season, Arnold would have accompanied Hall on his Everest expedition, but she was pregnant. Two months after Hall died on the descent from Everest she gave birth to Sarah, their daughter.

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[edit] Mountaineering

In 1988, Rob Hall met Gary Ball, who would become his climbing partner and close friend. As with most other mountain climbers, Hall used corporate sponsorships to fund his expeditions. Hall and Ball decided to do the Seven Summits, but upped the ante by summiting all seven in seven months. Starting with Everest in May, they successfully climbed the last mountain, Vinson Massif, on December 12, 1990, hours before the deadline. Despite the success, they realized each successive climb would have to be more risky and spectacular; eventually, they would have an accident and/or lose corporate sponsorship. Faced with this inevitable problem, they decided to quit climbing and pursue a career in high-altitude guiding: a safer, less risky endeavor.

Formed in 1992, their company, Adventure Consultants, was a huge hit. In the first year alone, they successfully guided six clients to the top of Everest. In October 1993, Ball died of cerebral edema, leaving Hall to run Adventure Consultants on his own. By 1996, Hall had successfully guided thirty-nine climbers up to the top of Everest and established Adventure Consultants as perhaps the premier guiding expedition company. Although his price - $65,000 USD - was much higher than other expeditions, he had no trouble filling up spots, due to his legendary reputation of reliability and safety.

[edit] 1996 Everest Disaster

Adventure Consultants' 1996 Everest expedition consisted of eight clients and three guides (Hall, Mike Groom and Andy Harris). Among the clients was Jon Krakauer, a journalist on assignment from Outside magazine. Hall brokered a very favorable deal with Outside, charging only $10,000 cash, with the rest going to advertisement space. On May 10, 1996, Adventure Consultants was up at Camp IV, atop the South Col, ready to make the ill-fated summit push. However, there were a few major problems: no fixed line had been strung on Hillary Step, causing an hour delay, and thirty-three climbers were also attempting the summit on the same day, causing bottlenecks at the Hillary Step. Quite a few of the climbers ascended after 2pm, considered to be the maximum turnaround time (to reach Camp IV before dark). Ang Dorjee Sherpa, Rob's Sirdar, waited on the summit for Rob and clients, when he arrived around 20 minutes later, Norbu Sherpa, Ang Dorjee and Rob Hall all descended together. On the way down, they ran into Doug Hansen above the Hillary Step. Ang Dorjee told Doug to descend, but Doug did not respond to him. When Rob arrived at the scene, he sent Norbu and Ang Dorjee down to help the other clients, and stated he would help Doug. Rob rejected Ang Dorjee's suggestion that the Sherpas stay with Doug, and Rob descended. That is the last time Rob was seen alive. Around 5pm, the infamous blizzard struck, killing visibility, stranding twelve people on the South Col and four people in the upper mountain — Rob Hall among the four.

Hall was among the eight climbers killed that day. He insisted on having client Doug Hansen summit and disregarded the turnaround time. The year before, Hall turned Hansen around 350 feet below the summit; Hall may have felt sorry for turning him around. Hall repeatedly called Hansen up and significantly discounted his rate to convince Hansen to come back. As reported later by Jon Krakauer (and seen by Lopsang Jangbu), Hall waited for Hansen and helped the weary client to the top. Both of them finally reached the summit at 4pm, well after the 2pm turnaround time.

At this point, Hansen ran out of bottled oxygen and floundered. Half an hour later, Hall radioed that he desperately needed oxygen to help Hansen up; Hall could not drag Hansen down the Hillary Step. Andy Harris, one of his guides, was severely hypoxic himself and kept erroneously reporting that all of the oxygen bottles at the South Summit were empty. At 5:30pm, Harris realized that there was oxygen, and climbed up to assist both Hall and Hansen. With two full bottles of oxygen, the client and two guides began descending.

On May 11, at 4:43am, Hall radioed down and said that he was on the South Summit; neither Harris nor Hansen were with him by this time. However, he was not breathing oxygen, because his rig was too choked with ice. At 9am, he was breathing oxygen, but for reasons unknown, he did not leave the South Summit. He indicated that he had frostbitten hands and was having trouble with the fixed ropes. After one last conversation with his wife, Jan Arnold, in which he told her, "Sleep well my sweetheart. Please don't worry too much." Hall died, and his body was found on May 23 by mountaineers on an IMAX expedition that ascended the next week after the weather cleared.

Harris and Hansen were never seen again and their bodies were never recovered. Yasuko Namba, another member of Hall's team, died further down the mountain after having spent the night of May 10th huddled in the open on the South Col with ten other climbers. Scott Fischer, leader of another guide company, Mountain Madness, also perished on the mountain that day.

Into Thin Air: Death on Everest, a TV movie on the 1996 Everest disaster, starred Nathaniel Parker as Rob Hall. A theatrical movie is also planned, but Hall has not as yet been cast for this film.

[edit] List of major climbs

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[edit] External links

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