Weblog & Podcasts

Hello all,

I just realised that I never posted the full list of our 2006 7summits.com/7summits-club.com Everest summiteers, so, though a bit late, here they are, 22 people, on 3 different dates:

1.Vladimir Lande May 15
2.Nima Wangde Sherpa May 15

1.Arkadiy Ryzhenko May 21
2.Igor Svergun May 21
3.Sergey Kofanov May 21
4.Kirk Wheatley May 21 (finished 7 Summits)
5.Noel Richmond Hanna May 21
6.Lorenzo Gariano May 21
7.Slate Stern May 21
8.Henrik Andre Olsen May 21 (finished 7 Summits)
9.Mingma Sherpa May 21
10. Furba Kushang Sherpa May 21
11. Passang Ghyejen Sherpa May 21
12. Mingma Gelu Sherpa May 21
13. Renjin Sherpa May 21
14. Pasang Sherpa May 21
15. Jangbu Sherpa May 21
16. Nima Sherpa May 21

1.Lincoln Hall May 25
2.Lakcha Sherpa May 25
3.Dawa Tenzing SherpaMay 25
4.Dorjee Sherpa May 25

I did not get a reaction to my latest email to Mounteverest.net about what really happened and their mistakes in the oxygen calculations. Frankly, their story does not make much sense, I might post a story about the correct use and calculations of oxygen one of these days. In the meantime, the number of anonymous threats have gone down, thanks very much for many of you who have posted or emailed kind words after reading through the slanderous 'reporting'.

National Geographic Adventure will come with a reasonable objective story in their September issue, which should be on sale soon. It contains some of my images, including a 2 page spread. But the best thing is that it gives some credit to Pemba and the other Sherpas, people that have been grossly neglected by all media, especially when covering Lincoln's rescue. There are some factual mistakes in their version of Pemba's story. You will notice those when you have followed all the reports from Alex and me and other teams. I pointed them out to Nat Geo, but they said they did not want to change anything last minute and in the basis most is correct.

Take care, keep climbing and be safe,

Best regards, Harry

Hi all, this morning I found the following email from MountEverest.net in my inbox:

Following is the first draft of my story; my vision of the truth so to speak.. I will continue with Lincoln's part tomorrow as the generator is off and it is almost 0400 here and I do need some sleep after running down to ABC within 4 hours, Forgive spelling and typing mistakes, as far as I know the facts are true.
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Hi everybody,

many of you have already read or listened to reports about the things that happened on Everest the past few days. To avoid confusion, mis-translation, mis-interpretation, speculation etc I would like to give my own first-hand account of what happened the past week on Everest.

Just as a reminder, some basics:

Thomas contacted me to see if I could set up and guide a small expedition that could help him, a disabled climber, to climb Everest. His disability was: since a removal of a braintumor, he had noticed that his vision was deteriorating, whenever he got into a low pressure environment, whether it being a mountain (high altitude) or a test environment. Due to several reasons I accepted this challenge and agreed with my colleague, partner and friend Alex Abramov to give up my co-leadership of our joint expedition (we each have 15 clients in this expedition).

Instead I would lead a small expedition, consisting of Thomas, 2 personally selected Sherpa friends Pemba & Pasang and 2 climbing cameramen Milan Collin & Kevin Augello, who would be documenting the climb and everything surrounding it.

We started a dedicated
site, www.SightOnEverest.com , so we could post updates, but also give attention to a very special charity, Cureblindness.org. We want to raise awareness and funds for them, nothing of the donated money would go to our climb or documentary, we financed those ourselves.

We did not know in advance how far Thomas' sight would deteriorate and therefore would not speak of a 'blind climber', something that some media found easy to communicate. The only blind climber that summited Everest (and the 7summits) is Erik Weihenmayer, a great man and a formidable accomplishment. We also agreed that we would see how far the combination of Thomas' experience, visual problems, and mental and physical strength would bring him during the 2 months on Everest, one step at a time.

Lincoln Hall was part of another sub-team, to
get Christopher Harris (15 years) to the top, together with his father Richard and filmmaker Michael Dillon. Lincoln had already climbed (but not summited) Everest in 1984.

Our (the
7summits.com/7summits-club.com expedition) first team summited the 21st, the day we (team B) left for the higher regions of the mountain.

This is what happened from day to day: