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'Ten Years Ago, We Were in the Dark Ages'
TIME talks to veteran mountaineer Eric Simonson on the benefits of technology
By DAFFYD RODERICK
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Eric Simonson led the party that found the remains of Everest pioneer George
Mallory in 1999. He is now leading another expedition for further evidence of
exploits of Mallory and climbing partner Sandy Irvine. He took time out to speak
to TIME's Daffyd Roderick. Edited excerpts:
TIME: Do you have a person on your team who is solely responsible for tech
matters?
SIMONSON: This year the team has brought a field technician, Riley Morton, to
the mountain to support the Internet broadcast of the search expedition. Riley
is a master at video editing and encoding and he, with support from Ken Wright
and Anya Zolotusky in Seattle, is responsible for downloading photos and video
from digital cameras in use on the mountain, editing that material, and
transmitting it back to Seattle via the team's satellite phones. Once on the
server, Ken and Anya upload the content to our website. In 1999, the team had to
do this themselves, and it proved to be very demanding to climb all day and then
labor long into the night sending content to Seattle. We learned that it is a
full-time job.
TIME: What kind of gear exists now for webcasting that you didn't have 10 years
ago?
SIMONSON: Ten years ago we were in the Dark Ages from a technology standpoint.
Webcasting was unheard of and multimedia meant you had more than one cassette
tape to listen to on your Walkman for the next three months. That's all changed.
Now we've got very powerful laptops to enable the processing of video content
right here at base camp, as well as the software to support that activity. We
also have a reliable and constant power supply; it seems like we could be
watching television while tumbling our undies in a clothes dryer and heating up
the hot tub, given all the environmentally friendly power we have. Of course, we
can thank windy Rongbuk base camp for some of that. Who needs a clothes dryer
when you could just stand outside for 60 seconds?
TIME: What's been the single biggest development in mountaineering in this tech
era?
SIMONSON: The biggest advancement has been in the realm of our satellite phone
communications. The ability to make voice calls, as well as have the bandwidth
to transmit a lot of data files, has only occurred in the last five years.
Initially that meant incredibly slow connections, and we easily ran up an hour
of time on the phone just to transmit one low-resolution photo. Now, that's
changed, and later this year we will try to connect two high-speed phones
together to attempt dual ISDN transmission of broadcast-quality video directly
from the mountain.
TIME: What brands of phones are favored by climbers?
SIMONSON: We've got satellite phones from Thrane & Thrane and from Nera. The
biggest variable with sat phones isn't so much the units themselves; it's the
integrity of the satellite service provider's network that makes all the
difference. For example, this year we've had a hell-of-a-time getting the
airtime so graciously provided by Honeywell and its trade partner, Stratos, to
work. Their Nera phone is perfectly operable and we have been easily making
voice calls, but it seems that Stratos' data network in the Indian Ocean region
(where we are operating) may have some glitches and we've been unable to
transmit data through that network. It's a bummer; it's made the photo and video
content on our website a little thin. The laptop of choice for us is the
Panasonic Toughbook. The way in which the case is designed is perfect for the
beating the unit can get from us.
TIME: How long will it before you can webcast live from the mountain?
SIMONSON: I think we can do that now. The issue isn't just whether you can send
the content live, the issue is the quality of the footage and whether you can
afford to send it. If we can get this dual ISDN thing to happen and can send at
128k, we're talking good broadcast quality. Everybody wants the content, but
nobody wants to pay for it. The biggest hurdle of all isn't technology; it's
good old-fashioned cash. The cost of sending this content via sat phones is
enormous. Most of us don't have $25,000-plus sitting around in our expedition
budgets to finance the kind of content we would want to send. The other problem,
which relates directly to this financing issue, is the time difference between
our location and the lucrative media markets. We can broadcast live but who
wants to get up at 4 a.m. on the West Coast of the U.S. to see what we're up to?
A few hardy souls, I'm sure, but not mainstream audiences. And without those
audiences, you come back to "Who is going to pay for this?" The unfortunate
demise of Mountainzone.com highlights the poor economic viability of producing
Internet broadcasts rich with this type of content. It doesn't generate enough
revenue to cover the cost of doing it.
TIME: Is making mountaineering an armchair sport a good or bad thing?
SIMONSON: It's bad, and it has already translated into a constantly declining
appreciation for the difficulty of the sport. This difficulty seems to get lost
in the translation of media coverage. It's not until people die on the mountains
that audiences wake up and realize how dangerous the sport is -- and even then
they want to start throwing blame around the table rather than accept the fact
that in this sport, people are going to die, period. The more the armchair
quarterbacks see this mountaineering content, the more they think they know
about it. Pretty soon they're asking ridiculous questions and expecting
ridiculous outcomes. All because the sport has become more common to them. For
example, after our discovery of the remains of George Mallory in 1999, an
incredible number of people wanted to know why we didn't bring the remains down
off the mountain and they condemned us for not doing so. That proves that these
people have absolutely no concept of the difficulty of even physically getting
to the place we found Mallory, let alone the precariousness of that location for
a climber merely trying to keep himself from hurtling into the abyss. I really
don't think people can appreciate what a Herculean task it was for that team to
gather up enough stones to bury Mallory without killing themselves in the
process. There is a reason all the climbers who die on Everest get left up
there: it is virtually impossible for humans to go up there and recover bodies.
If it was possible we'd do it.
TIME: Has technology made life better at all for you guys?
SIMONSON: Not only are satellite phones enabling us to send information, but we
can receive it as well. That means being able to access crucial weather
forecasting services. Another very important way that technology has aided
mountaineering is that it has allowed climbers to be human. Technology has made
my personal life so much better up here. I can call my wife, Erin, on the phone
and talk about what our daughter Audrey learned to do that day and we can say
goodnight to each other and I don't have to go three months without speaking to
her or hearing her voice. I remember my early expeditions on Everest in the
1980's and how my whole personal life went on hold for months at a time. What a
lousy way to live!
TIME: So what about a 'Survivor' series on Everest?
SIMONSON: It's a good thing they haven't tried to do such a show. After a long
expedition under very real, very trying hardships, we'd probably all
simultaneously vote each other out of the tent on the basis of body odor alone.
Or better still, commit mutiny on the program producers and vote them out of the
tent instead. Seriously though, you can't do 'Survivor' on Everest. Everest is
real danger and real adversity, not a bunch of artificially created hardships
meant to bring out the tensions in group dynamics. I don't think reality TV is
really ready for this reality. It's too real.
Related Sites
International Mountain Guides (2001 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition)
Alpine Ascents International
Ed Viesturs
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by Time Inc.
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