this was old school real turn of the
century adventure it was everything that
exploration and adventure is and can be
and and those elements that we’ve lost
along the way we wanted an anti Everest
and we really got an anti Everest
Myanmar the northern tip of Myanmar
Burma there was sort of a geographic
question mark up there what is the
highest point in Southeast Asia and
there were three options
kakapo Razi gamlang Razi and then an
unnamed peak our initial goal was to try
to go to measure these points and figure
out what in fact was the highest
I think this expedition surprised all of
us it was much more complex right from
the beginning than we had anticipated
immediately we had to cut half of our
gear and after the first day of walking
which was a 16 mile day with 5,000 feet
of vertical gain we had to cut our gear
again because we realized there was no
way that we were gonna get enough
Porter’s to carry even the gear that we
had
still I thought getting to Basecamp that
I would be very comfortable because this
is something that I’m comfortable with
I’ve been in this environment before you
know now it’s kind of like up when we go
up we rested one day in base camp before
starting to climb and again there’s no
trail we don’t know what we’re going and
it was up and down and sharp and scary
and horrifying and 6,000 feet of
vertical gain from base camp it started
to occur to us that maybe we didn’t have
everything that we needed that we had
been a little bit hasty with our gear
cuts and I started to wonder at that
point if we had enough clothing to
withstand the wind that we were going to
potentially encounter up higher and to
be fair we didn’t
as we got up to camp three we realized
that the terrain ahead of us was just a
little bit too complex and too dangerous
for five of us to be climbing together
we needed to cut the team now it wasn’t
to say that that Hillary and Emily
couldn’t have climbed it it was just to
expedite and try to get to the summit
and try to measure this mountain we had
to look at who had the most experience
on that kind of terrain and we you know
left as as mark or Nam myself the ridge
that we were trying to climb it was you
know sort of akin to the edge of a very
poorly made saw you’re gonna have to
preserve some energy because you have to
essentially wreak Lyme the whole Ridge
in Reverse and I got to a point where I
felt very concerned that we were putting
too much up and down too much sort of
complex convoluted terrain in between us
and safety
we don’t have sleeping bags at this
point we don’t have a tent we have a
stove but not enough fuel and I’m scared
about that mark started leading the next
pitch so he goes down and around this
corner and that was these huge kind of
rock teeth sticking up and and then he
came back you know 15 20 minutes later
and said you know this is it it’s over
it’s too complex with what we have to
keep going the summit you could see it
you could I mean it was right there and
it was hard it was heartbreaking it’s
just heartbreaking
I’m proud that we put in as much effort
as we did and I’m proud of the decision
that we made to turn around you’re
pushing that envelope you’re pushing
that edge and and failures I mean I
think failure is just a piece of all of
this the the major take away from an
expedition like this is that exploration
is not dead that’s really just gonna
push us to discover more and more and
more about our planet and hopefully
inspire us to care about our planet as a
human family I mean that’s putting
exploration in sort of a context of
something that is important and relevant
and needs to continue
you
century adventure it was everything that
exploration and adventure is and can be
and and those elements that we’ve lost
along the way we wanted an anti Everest
and we really got an anti Everest
Myanmar the northern tip of Myanmar
Burma there was sort of a geographic
question mark up there what is the
highest point in Southeast Asia and
there were three options
kakapo Razi gamlang Razi and then an
unnamed peak our initial goal was to try
to go to measure these points and figure
out what in fact was the highest
I think this expedition surprised all of
us it was much more complex right from
the beginning than we had anticipated
immediately we had to cut half of our
gear and after the first day of walking
which was a 16 mile day with 5,000 feet
of vertical gain we had to cut our gear
again because we realized there was no
way that we were gonna get enough
Porter’s to carry even the gear that we
had
still I thought getting to Basecamp that
I would be very comfortable because this
is something that I’m comfortable with
I’ve been in this environment before you
know now it’s kind of like up when we go
up we rested one day in base camp before
starting to climb and again there’s no
trail we don’t know what we’re going and
it was up and down and sharp and scary
and horrifying and 6,000 feet of
vertical gain from base camp it started
to occur to us that maybe we didn’t have
everything that we needed that we had
been a little bit hasty with our gear
cuts and I started to wonder at that
point if we had enough clothing to
withstand the wind that we were going to
potentially encounter up higher and to
be fair we didn’t
as we got up to camp three we realized
that the terrain ahead of us was just a
little bit too complex and too dangerous
for five of us to be climbing together
we needed to cut the team now it wasn’t
to say that that Hillary and Emily
couldn’t have climbed it it was just to
expedite and try to get to the summit
and try to measure this mountain we had
to look at who had the most experience
on that kind of terrain and we you know
left as as mark or Nam myself the ridge
that we were trying to climb it was you
know sort of akin to the edge of a very
poorly made saw you’re gonna have to
preserve some energy because you have to
essentially wreak Lyme the whole Ridge
in Reverse and I got to a point where I
felt very concerned that we were putting
too much up and down too much sort of
complex convoluted terrain in between us
and safety
we don’t have sleeping bags at this
point we don’t have a tent we have a
stove but not enough fuel and I’m scared
about that mark started leading the next
pitch so he goes down and around this
corner and that was these huge kind of
rock teeth sticking up and and then he
came back you know 15 20 minutes later
and said you know this is it it’s over
it’s too complex with what we have to
keep going the summit you could see it
you could I mean it was right there and
it was hard it was heartbreaking it’s
just heartbreaking
I’m proud that we put in as much effort
as we did and I’m proud of the decision
that we made to turn around you’re
pushing that envelope you’re pushing
that edge and and failures I mean I
think failure is just a piece of all of
this the the major take away from an
expedition like this is that exploration
is not dead that’s really just gonna
push us to discover more and more and
more about our planet and hopefully
inspire us to care about our planet as a
human family I mean that’s putting
exploration in sort of a context of
something that is important and relevant
and needs to continue
you
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