Personal information | |
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Born | England, United Kingdom | 17 August 1956
Climbing career | |
Major ascents | Mount Everest |
Ian Woodall (born 17 August 1956) is a British mountain climber who has climbed Mount Everest several times.
In 1996 Woodall was the leader of the controversial first South African Mount Everest expedition, during which one member of the party died. The expedition reached Camp IV – the last camp before the summit, and 923m below it – on 10 May, but were not directly involved in the disaster that unfolded that day. Following the tragedy the expedition returned to base camp and made a second attempt after a few days rest, achieving the summit on 28 May. Woodall reached the peak by 10 am, four other members of the expedition had done so by 11 am, but Bruce Herrod lagged behind and was the last to reach the peak; from there, at 5 pm, he spoke to the others by radio, but was never heard from again. [1] The expedition was sponsored by Johannesburg newspaper The Sunday Times , but its support of the expedition was later withdrawn.
In late May 1998 Woodall together with his climbing partner Cathy O'Dowd were again on Everest when they encountered Francys Arsentiev, half-conscious and unable to move independently. They called off their own attempt to reach the summit and tried to help her for more than one hour but because of her condition, the location, and the cold weather they were finally forced to abandon her and begin descending. Arsentiev later died on the mountain, with climbers who encountered her unable to help. [2]
In 2007 Woodall initiated and led an expedition, The Tao of Everest, with the purpose of burying the bodies of Arsentiev and also of Green Boots, who had died during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. Bad weather delayed the attempt, and on 23 May 2007, Woodall and Phuri Sherpa were only able to recover Arsentiev's body, and after a brief ceremony, drop her body off the North Face to join others in their mountain grave.[ citation needed ] Woodall and O'Dowd were married in 2001. They later separated, and Woodall now lives in the south east of England. [3]
American journalist Jon Krakauer, who was a member in New Zealander Rob Hall's commercial Everest expedition in 1996, was extremely critical of Woodall's personality and behaviour in his best-selling book Into Thin Air . His criticisms of Woodall include:
Jon Krakauer is an American writer and mountaineer. He is the author of bestselling non-fiction books—Into the Wild; Into Thin Air; Under the Banner of Heaven; and Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman—as well as numerous magazine articles. He was a member of an ill-fated expedition to summit Mount Everest in 1996, one of the deadliest disasters in the history of climbing Everest.
Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev was a Soviet and Kazakh mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those above 8,000 m (26,247 ft)—without supplemental oxygen. From 1989 through 1997, he made 18 successful ascents of peaks above 8,000 m.
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a 1997 bestselling nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details Krakauer's experience in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a storm. Krakauer's expedition was led by guide Rob Hall. Other groups were trying to summit on the same day, including one led by Scott Fischer, whose guiding agency, Mountain Madness, was perceived as a competitor to Hall's agency, Adventure Consultants.
Yasuko Namba was the second Japanese woman to climb the Seven Summits. Namba worked as a businesswoman for Federal Express in Japan, but her hobby of mountaineering took her all over the world. She first summited Kilimanjaro on New Year's Day in 1982, and summited Aconcagua exactly two years later. She reached the summit of Denali on July 1, 1985, and the summit of Mount Elbrus on August 1, 1992. After summiting Vinson Massif on December 29, 1993, and Carstensz Pyramid on November 12, 1994, Namba's final summit to reach was Mount Everest. She signed on with Rob Hall's guiding company, Adventure Consultants, and reached the summit in May 1996, but died during her descent in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster.
Robert Edwin Hall was a New Zealand mountaineer. He was the head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition during which he, a fellow guide, and two clients died. A best-selling account of the expedition was given in Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air and the expedition was dramatised in the 2015 film Everest. At the time of his death, Hall had just completed his fifth ascent to the summit of Everest, more at that time than any other non-Sherpa mountaineer.
The Western Cwm is a broad, flat, gently undulating glacial valley basin terminating at the foot of the Lhotse Face of Mount Everest. It was named by George Mallory when he saw it in 1921 as part of the British Reconnaissance Expedition that was the first to explore the upper sections of Everest, searching for routes for future summit attempts; A cwm is a valley fully enclosed by mountains, from the Welsh word for "valley".
Cathy O'Dowd is a South African rock climber, mountaineer, author and motivational speaker. She was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest from both the south and north sides on 25 May 1996 and 29 May 1999, respectively.
Peter Kittilsby Schoening was an American mountaineer. Schoening was one of two Americans to first successfully climb the Pakistani peak Gasherbrum I in 1958, along with Andrew Kauffman, and was one of the first to summit Mount Vinson in Antarctica in 1966.
Seaborn Beck Weathers is an American pathologist from Texas. He survived the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, which was covered in Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air (1997), its film adaptation Into Thin Air: Death on Everest (1997), and the films Everest (1998) and Everest (2015). His autobiographical book, titled Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest (2000) includes his ordeal, but also describes his life before and afterward, as he focused on saving his damaged relationships.
The Climb (1997), republished as The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest, is an account by Russian-Kazakhstani mountaineer Anatoli Boukreev of the 1996 Everest Disaster, during which eight climbers died on the mountain. The co-author, G. Weston DeWalt—who was not part of the expedition—provides accounts from other climbers and ties together the narrative of Boukreev's logbook.
Francys Arsentiev became the first woman from the United States to reach the summit of Mount Everest without the aid of bottled oxygen, on May 22, 1998. She then died during the descent.
Green Boots is the body of an unidentified climber that became a landmark on the main Northeast ridge route of Mount Everest. There exist several theories regarding the body's identity; the most popular one claims the body belongs to Tsewang Paljor, an Indian member of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police expedition (ITBP) who died as part of the 1996 climbing disaster on the mountain wearing green Koflach mountaineering boots. All expeditions from the north side encountered the body curled in the limestone alcove cave at 8,500 m (27,900 ft) until it was moved in 2014 – likely by the China Tibet Mountaineering Association, which manages the north side of Everest.
The 1996 Mount Everest disaster occurred on 10–11 May 1996 when eight climbers caught in a blizzard died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit. Over the entire season, 12 people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest season on Mount Everest at the time and the third deadliest after the 23 fatalities resulting from avalanches caused by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake and the 16 fatalities of the 2014 Mount Everest avalanche. The 1996 disaster received widespread publicity and raised questions about the commercialization of Everest.
Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa was a Nepalese Sherpa mountaineering guide, climber and porter, best known for his work as the climbing Sirdar for Scott Fischer's Mountain Madness expedition to Everest in Spring 1996, when a freak storm led to the deaths of eight climbers from several expeditions, considered one of the worst disasters in the history of Everest mountaineering. Notwithstanding controversy over his actions during that expedition, Lopsang was well-regarded in the mountaineering community, having summited Everest four times. Lopsang was killed in an avalanche in September 1996, while again on an expedition to climb Everest for what would have been a fifth ascent.
Into Thin Air: Death on Everest is a 1997 disaster television film based on Jon Krakauer's memoir Into Thin Air (1997). The film, directed by Robert Markowitz and written by Robert J. Avrech, tells the story of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. It was broadcast on ABC on November 9, 1997.
Sandra Hill is a socialite, mountaineer, author, and former fashion editor. She survived the 1996 Mount Everest disaster shortly after becoming the 34th woman to reach the Mount Everest summit and the second American woman to climb the Seven Summits.
Ang Dorje (Chhuldim) Sherpa is a Nepalese sherpa mountaineering guide, climber, and porter from Pangboche, Nepal, who has reached the summit of Mount Everest 23 times. He was the climbing Sirdar for Rob Hall's Adventure Consultants expedition to Everest in spring 1996, when a freak storm led to the deaths of eight climbers from several expeditions, considered one of the worst disasters in the history of Everest mountaineering.
Everest is a 2015 biographical survival adventure film directed and produced by Baltasar Kormákur and written by William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy. It stars an ensemble cast of Jason Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Michael Kelly, Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Martin Henderson and Emily Watson. It is based on the real events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster and focuses on the survival attempts of two expedition groups, one led by Rob Hall (Clarke) and the other by Scott Fischer (Gyllenhaal). Kormákur, Universal, Walden Media, Cross Creek and Working Title dedicated the film to the late British actress Natasha Richardson.
Andrew Michael Harris, commonly known by his nickname Andy Harris, was a New Zealand mountain guide who died in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. Harris was one of the guides for the Adventure Consultants' 1996 Everest expedition, led by Rob Hall. It was Harris' first attempt to summit Mount Everest, though he had extensive climbing experience in New Zealand.
The 1996 South African Everest expedition was a heavily publicised expedition by a UK-South African climbing team to summit Mount Everest.