After around page 100 Rob Hall starts to display his combination of qualities that make him a good leader and guide. During the climb up he shows his skill of thinking ahead and keeping the team together. He also makes sure that no man gets left behind. His ability to use his knowledge of the mountain and his clients and fit a plan around it is shown in his strategy for the summit push, "From the beginning, Hall had planned that May 10 would be the summit day. "Of the the four times I've summited," he explained, "twice it was on the tenth of May. As the Sherpas would put it, the tenth is an 'auspicious' date for me." But there was also a more down-to-earth reason for selecting this date: the annual ebb and flow of the monsoon made it likely that the most favorable weather of the year would fall on or near May 10." Rob used his past experience to plan out the optimal time for assent in order to ensure the safety of his clients. He is constantly making key choices of when to rest when to acclimatize, and when to go back and help others. He is constantly respectful to the sherpas and the other climbing team for the most part except for those reckless south african climbers lead by Woodall. Hall is what many would consider a person of strong character and leadership. He knows how to look after everyone and keep the teams best interests in mind.
Mrs.K if you havent seen my comment 1 it is under graham vert or "nicolas cage's" blog
Great post Lucas, I absolutely agree with you. If I had to summit Everest, I would probably choose Rob Hall for my guide. His calm and compassionate attitude, paired with his climbing skill is his key to success. He boasted truthfully that he could get any reasonably fit client to the summit, and he kept his word, even if it cost him his life. Rob isn't like most other guides, or climbers for that matter. He has infinite respect and concern for the welfare of everybody who he climbs with, even the Sherpas. "They work incredibly hard for not very much money by western standards. I want you all to remember we would have absolutely no chance of getting to the summit of Everest without their help. I'm going to repeat that: Without the support of our Sherpas none of us has any chance of climbing the mountain"(Page 56). I wish there where more people like Rob Hall in the world. It seems that he is not only the most compassionate of the expedition, but also the wisest. Many of the choices he made were the right thing to do, and the wisest thing to do. If he hadn't made those decisions, even more people would have died. One example of this is Rob's acclimatization plan. Most guides want to rush up the mountain, make their climbers happy, and then rush down so they can start leading another expedition. But Rob wasn't about that at all. "Hall insisted, however, that after three trips above Base Camp, climbing 2,000 feet higher on the mountain each time, our bodies would adapt sufficiently to permit safe passage to the 29,028-fort summit"(Page 74). Rob's strategy to lay siege to the mountain instead of sprinting up it definitely turned out to be the most beneficial for the expedition. When disaster struck, and the members of other expeditions were incapacitated from lack of oxygen, Rob Hall's team were the only ones that were acclimatized enough to assist the Sherpas in bringing down injured climbers from the mountain. With all these good things said about Hall, it's easy to forget that he did have a bit of a bad side. He tended to be pushed to anger too quickly, when, according to Rob, climbers or other guides were doing things that were wrong. To be fair, most of the time he had a perfectly good reason to be angry. He was much more experienced then anyone on the mountain at the time, and he knew that some people were doing the things the wrong way without thinking about it. But if he had just suggested it to them nicely, instead of demanding that they stop what they were doing, the climber in question wouldn't start to act out defiantly. This is evident on the night before the summit push. The leader of the South African team wanted to go for the summit, the same day that Hall had already reserved it for his team. When Ian Woodall refused to back down, Rob was really pissed off. "I don't want to be anywhere near the summit when those punters are up there"(Page 147). Rob had every right to be mad. He knew that two teams would overcrowd the summit, leaving an open doorway for disaster to walk in. But yelling at the already stubborn Ian Woodall was not the wisest choice, and it came back to haunt Rob Hall later on in the climb.
ReplyDelete