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NEVEREST II New Insights: Inside Rob Hall's Adventure Consultants Expedition
By the end of the 1996 season - the deadliest in the history of Mount Everest - 13 climbers in all had perished. If it wasn’t the weather, and if it wasn't just the presence of journalists, what else fatally compromised Rob Hall's team, the Adventure Consultants?
Were they really on a winning wicket when things "suddenly" went south on summit day, or was something else insidiously eating at the team's ability to perform all along? If so, what was it? What was the actual psychology that drove a record number of strong, brave men – and a Japanese woman – to certain death?
On May 10 two big teams were locked in a deadly rivalry but exactly what was the psychology of this rivalry on the level of the ordinary client climber? This is the meat and potatoes of NEVEREST II.
How did three doctors, a publisher and a lawyer gel with two blue collar workers and a Japanese woman?
What was the impact of the merge on summit day, and of one [American] team ultimately "winning" the charge up the world's highest mountain?
Did the "losing" team also quickly lose morale, including the urgency to take care of their teammates?
Did losing a leader leave a lethal leadership vacuum in its wake, especially for a team that was used to following orders?
Two decades after the disaster, mystery, misperceptions and misrepresentations persist. New, bolder narratives have recently emerged pointing the finger at Krakauer and even Rob Hall. Do these new accusations hold water? Do they expose new and even more troubling questions? What new information is revealed about the client climbers?
In NEVEREST II freelance photojournalist and amateur climber Nick van der Leek probes deep inside the Everest '96 canon. The disturbing insights he gleans from research into the psychological fabric of client climbers and their behavior patterns reveals a new controversial context of indiscretions lurking just below the surface of the disaster.
In the end the essence of the question NEVEREST II answers is this: what were the Adventure Consultants climbers doing while their teammates were dying only a few meters away?
If Lou Kasischke cared so much about the truth [as much as we do] why did he wait 16 years to tell his story?
If climbing is answering a call to adventure and embarking on a well worn route to heroism, NEVEREST II demonstrates how climbing Everest is also a highway exposing the charlatan and the coward.
Were they really on a winning wicket when things "suddenly" went south on summit day, or was something else insidiously eating at the team's ability to perform all along? If so, what was it? What was the actual psychology that drove a record number of strong, brave men – and a Japanese woman – to certain death?
On May 10 two big teams were locked in a deadly rivalry but exactly what was the psychology of this rivalry on the level of the ordinary client climber? This is the meat and potatoes of NEVEREST II.
How did three doctors, a publisher and a lawyer gel with two blue collar workers and a Japanese woman?
What was the impact of the merge on summit day, and of one [American] team ultimately "winning" the charge up the world's highest mountain?
Did the "losing" team also quickly lose morale, including the urgency to take care of their teammates?
Did losing a leader leave a lethal leadership vacuum in its wake, especially for a team that was used to following orders?
Two decades after the disaster, mystery, misperceptions and misrepresentations persist. New, bolder narratives have recently emerged pointing the finger at Krakauer and even Rob Hall. Do these new accusations hold water? Do they expose new and even more troubling questions? What new information is revealed about the client climbers?
In NEVEREST II freelance photojournalist and amateur climber Nick van der Leek probes deep inside the Everest '96 canon. The disturbing insights he gleans from research into the psychological fabric of client climbers and their behavior patterns reveals a new controversial context of indiscretions lurking just below the surface of the disaster.
In the end the essence of the question NEVEREST II answers is this: what were the Adventure Consultants climbers doing while their teammates were dying only a few meters away?
If Lou Kasischke cared so much about the truth [as much as we do] why did he wait 16 years to tell his story?
If climbing is answering a call to adventure and embarking on a well worn route to heroism, NEVEREST II demonstrates how climbing Everest is also a highway exposing the charlatan and the coward.
179 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 17, 2016
57 people are currently reading
10 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 12, 2021
This is a hard book for me to review. The reason? I was hooked from the start and couldn't stop reading. For me and my short attention span, that usually earns the book an easy five stars. This book series looks at the 96 Everest disaster from a true-crime aspect and assigns different levels of blame to the various climbers. I've read numerous crime books by Van der Leek because I like the way he details the motivations of murderers. That's why I was surprised that I didn't agree with any of his conclusions in this book.
Opinions are like buttholes and just as I support Van der Leek having his, I have my own. At the end of the first book, which was critical of Krakauer, he alluded to Kasichke, another climber's perspective that would debunk Krakauer's version of events. That turned out to be click-bait. This second book can be summed up this way: Christianity bad. Loving your wife-bad. I don't care if you criticize other people's beliefs--that's free speech. But when you repeat the same thing over and over (and over and over and over) and sarcastically mock others' beliefs, I start to think maybe this is a you-problem. I wanted to ask Van der Leek where on the doll the Christian hurt him. Same with mocking the man's marriage. Me thinks he doth protest too much. Could it possibly be a bitter bachelor, envious of others' happiness?
Van der Leek portrays Kasichke as a loner, miserable on the mountain, and a slow and very poor climber. Then in the second part of the book, when things go sideways, he skewers the guy for not helping to rescue others in the middle of a blizzard. The main problem I have is this: Whether Kasichke is a whiny incompetent or not, he at least had the sense to turn around. Too many other climbers lacked this sense. Also, a slow, poor mountaineer should NOT be out in the middle of a blizzard. trying to rescue people. That's just creating more victims who need to be rescued. A pint can't be expected to hold a quart. If it's holding a pint, it's doing all that it can. Could he have done something, though? Yes, I think so. He could have made tea for those freezing climbers who were rescued. He could have been securing the tents and gathering sleeping bags and O2 bottles. That's a fair criticism. Van der Leek said all he did was pray and think about Sandy. He could have gathered O2 and sleeping bags while praying and thinking of his wife.
But the point of the book where my jaw hit the floor was this: "He's [Kasichke] more worried about his wife and what she thinks than people -his own teammates- who are literally dying forty minutes from his position!" If this was a lone statement, I'd agree with it. It's not. It's a drumbeat. Van der Leek's position is that every climber on Everest should be more concerned with people he met less than six weeks ago than a spouse they vowed to love, honor, and cherish so long as they both shall live.
Not only is it absurd, the facts don't bear it out. Weathers and Kasichke, who were thinking about their families, managed to get off the mountain. If Rob Hall had been more concerned about his wife and unborn child than a man's deadly and unrealistic dream to reach the summit, he'd likely still be alive. Same with Fischer. If Fischer had let someone else take Kruse down, maybe he wouldn't have gotten sick and died. Second, the teammates didn't rescue Weathers; Weathers rescued himself, spurred on by thoughts of his wife and family.
Van der Leek says, "if you can't climb without being a dick, if you're not able to at least consider the lives of [others] in your team shouldn't climb." Again, if that's all he said, on the subject I'd agree. My take is this: If the only thing you care about is the people on the mountain, and not loved ones off the mountain, you are a dick and shouldn't be climbing.
Despite all this, I will continue the series. Like I said at the beginning, I'm very interested in the story.
Opinions are like buttholes and just as I support Van der Leek having his, I have my own. At the end of the first book, which was critical of Krakauer, he alluded to Kasichke, another climber's perspective that would debunk Krakauer's version of events. That turned out to be click-bait. This second book can be summed up this way: Christianity bad. Loving your wife-bad. I don't care if you criticize other people's beliefs--that's free speech. But when you repeat the same thing over and over (and over and over and over) and sarcastically mock others' beliefs, I start to think maybe this is a you-problem. I wanted to ask Van der Leek where on the doll the Christian hurt him. Same with mocking the man's marriage. Me thinks he doth protest too much. Could it possibly be a bitter bachelor, envious of others' happiness?
Van der Leek portrays Kasichke as a loner, miserable on the mountain, and a slow and very poor climber. Then in the second part of the book, when things go sideways, he skewers the guy for not helping to rescue others in the middle of a blizzard. The main problem I have is this: Whether Kasichke is a whiny incompetent or not, he at least had the sense to turn around. Too many other climbers lacked this sense. Also, a slow, poor mountaineer should NOT be out in the middle of a blizzard. trying to rescue people. That's just creating more victims who need to be rescued. A pint can't be expected to hold a quart. If it's holding a pint, it's doing all that it can. Could he have done something, though? Yes, I think so. He could have made tea for those freezing climbers who were rescued. He could have been securing the tents and gathering sleeping bags and O2 bottles. That's a fair criticism. Van der Leek said all he did was pray and think about Sandy. He could have gathered O2 and sleeping bags while praying and thinking of his wife.
But the point of the book where my jaw hit the floor was this: "He's [Kasichke] more worried about his wife and what she thinks than people -his own teammates- who are literally dying forty minutes from his position!" If this was a lone statement, I'd agree with it. It's not. It's a drumbeat. Van der Leek's position is that every climber on Everest should be more concerned with people he met less than six weeks ago than a spouse they vowed to love, honor, and cherish so long as they both shall live.
Not only is it absurd, the facts don't bear it out. Weathers and Kasichke, who were thinking about their families, managed to get off the mountain. If Rob Hall had been more concerned about his wife and unborn child than a man's deadly and unrealistic dream to reach the summit, he'd likely still be alive. Same with Fischer. If Fischer had let someone else take Kruse down, maybe he wouldn't have gotten sick and died. Second, the teammates didn't rescue Weathers; Weathers rescued himself, spurred on by thoughts of his wife and family.
Van der Leek says, "if you can't climb without being a dick, if you're not able to at least consider the lives of [others] in your team shouldn't climb." Again, if that's all he said, on the subject I'd agree. My take is this: If the only thing you care about is the people on the mountain, and not loved ones off the mountain, you are a dick and shouldn't be climbing.
Despite all this, I will continue the series. Like I said at the beginning, I'm very interested in the story.
March 16, 2016
Just bad writing
This was hard to read, not only because of all the mispelled words and bad grammar, but because of the very personal attacks on the climbers. The vehement hatred of one man, because of his Christianity, only tells us about the author of this book, not the story of the climb.
This was hard to read, not only because of all the mispelled words and bad grammar, but because of the very personal attacks on the climbers. The vehement hatred of one man, because of his Christianity, only tells us about the author of this book, not the story of the climb.
October 2, 2019
I was not impressed with this book. I think I kept reading thinking that somewhere we would get to the "new insights" or that salacious piece of gossip that always seemed to be implied. It just wasn't there. I had already read Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" and Anatoli Boukreev's "The Climb" about the 1996 Everest season, both of which I really enjoyed. Van der Leek is particularly critical of Krakauer which I think is unwarranted. I did not find Krakauer's book to be critical of Boukreev as implied by van der Leek. I found Into Thin Air to be a fascinating account of what happened and Krakauer seemed to be genuinely surprised and somewhat depressed by the impact of high altitude on man's ability to think and function - to the point of people just ignoring the plight of others and becoming all about survival of oneself. I don't think that those of us who weren't there, including van der Leek, can sit back and make judgements about what the climbers did or didn't do because of the extreme conditions encountered. Additionally, the book was very poorly edited with many mistakes.
December 17, 2024
Self Righteous
It's Too Bad the Author Wasn't There Every one Would have Survived! If You Haven't Summited or Been in the Death Zone in a Blizzard n Wind Chill Factor of Minus 100 Degrees You Don't Have Any Idea What Condition They were In n If They Attempted to Help the Loss of Life Could Have Been Higher! Be Wary When Questioning Someone's Courage! Saving a Reptile n Someone Comatose on Everest in a Blizzard! Come On!!
It's Too Bad the Author Wasn't There Every one Would have Survived! If You Haven't Summited or Been in the Death Zone in a Blizzard n Wind Chill Factor of Minus 100 Degrees You Don't Have Any Idea What Condition They were In n If They Attempted to Help the Loss of Life Could Have Been Higher! Be Wary When Questioning Someone's Courage! Saving a Reptile n Someone Comatose on Everest in a Blizzard! Come On!!
March 12, 2022
Garbage conjecture and pie in the eye fantasy stories.
He's just making it up as he goes along, thrashing old stories out and opening old wounds for families and climbers alike. Not professionally prepared, not completely knowledgeable... Full of conjecture. Don't waste your time with this one. Use it for toilet paper cat the next pandemic.
He's just making it up as he goes along, thrashing old stories out and opening old wounds for families and climbers alike. Not professionally prepared, not completely knowledgeable... Full of conjecture. Don't waste your time with this one. Use it for toilet paper cat the next pandemic.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews