Rob Hall

Rob Hall (January 14 1961 - May 11, 1996), New Zealander, was a mountaineer best known for being head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition in which he, a fellow guide, and two clients perished. A best-selling account of the expedition was given in Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air". At the time of his death, Hall had ascended Everest more times than any other non-Sherpa mountaineer.

Hall met his future wife, Jan Arnold, during his Everest summit attempt in 1990. Hall asked Arnold for a date on a climb to Mt. McKinley and later, the two married. In 1993, Rob Hall summited along with Arnold. In the catastrophic 1996 season, Arnold would have accompanied Hall on his Everest expedition, but she was pregnant. Two months after Hall died on the descent from Everest she gave birth to Sarah, their daughter.

Mountaineering

In 1988, Rob Hall met Gary Ball, who would become his climbing partner and close friend. As with most other mountain climbers, Hall and Gary Ball sought corporate sponsorships to fund their expeditions. The partners decided to climb the Seven Summits, but upped the ante by summiting all seven in seven months. Starting with Everest in May, they climbed the last mountain, Antarctica's Vinson Massif, on December 12, 1990, hours before the deadline. After this success, they realized that, in order to retain their sponsorship, each successive climb would have to be more risky and spectacular. Eventually, they would have an accident. Hall and Ball decided to quit professional climbing and form a high-altitude guiding business.

Their company, Adventure Consultants, was incorporated in 1992, and quickly became a premier expedition guiding company. That year, they successfully guided six clients to the top of Everest. In October 1993, Ball died of cerebral edema, leaving Hall to run Adventure Consultants on his own. By 1996, Hall had successfully guided thirty-nine climbers up to the top of Everest. Although the price of a guided summit attempt - $65,000 USD - was considerably more expensive than those offered by other expeditions, Hall's reputation for reliability and safety attracted clients from all over the world. Rob Hall was well known in the mountaineering world as the "mountain goat" or the "show".

1996 Everest Disaster

::"See main article 1996 Everest Disaster".

Adventure Consultants' 1996 Everest expedition consisted of eight clients and three guides (Hall, Mike Groom and Andy Harris). Among the clients was Jon Krakauer, a journalist on assignment from "Outside" magazine. Hall had brokered a deal with "Outside" for advertising space in exchange for a story about the growing popularity of commercial expeditions to Everest.

Shortly after midnight on May 10, 1996, the Adventure Consultants expedition began a summit attempt from Camp IV, atop the South Col. They were joined by climbers from Scott Fischer's Mountain Madness company, as well as expeditions sponsored by the governments of Taiwan and India.

The expeditions quickly encountered delays. Upon reaching the Hillary Step, the climbers discovered that no fixed line had been placed, and they were forced to wait for an hour while the guides installed the ropes (Rob nonetheless "fixed most of the mountain in 1996") [http://www.mounteverest.net/expguide/ropes.htm] . Because some 33 climbers were attempting the summit on the same day, and Hall and Fischer had asked their climbers to stay within 150 m of each other, there were bottlenecks at the single fixed line at the Hillary Step. Many of the climbers had not yet reached the summit by 2:00 pm, the last safe time to turn around in order to reach Camp IV before nightfall.

Hall's Sirdar, Ang Dorje Sherpa, and other climbing Sherpas waited at the summit for the clients. Near 3:00 pm, they began their descent. On the way down, Ang Dorje encountered client Doug Hansen above the Hillary Step, and ordered him to descend. Hansen refused [PBS Frontline, "Storm Over Everest", aired May 13, 2008] . When Hall arrived at the scene, he sent the Sherpas down to assist the other clients, and stated that he would remain to help Hansen, who had run out of supplementary oxygen.

At 5:00 pm, a blizzard struck the Southwest Face of Everest, diminishing visibility and obliterating the trail back to Camp IV. Shortly afterwards, Hall radioed for help, saying that Hansen had fallen unconscious but was still alive. Adventure Consultants guide Andy Harris began climbing to the Hillary Step at 5:30 pm with supplementary oxygen and water.

On May 11, at 4:43am, Hall radioed down and said that he was on the South Summit. He reported he not breathing bottled oxygen, because his regulator was too choked with ice. By 9:00 am, Hall had fixed his oxygen mask, but indicated that his frostbitten hands and feet were making it difficult to traverse the fixed ropes. Later in the afternoon, he radioed to Base Camp, asking them to call his wife, Jan Arnold, on the satellite phone. During this last communication, he reassured her that he was reasonably comfortable and told her, "Sleep well my sweetheart. Please don't worry too much." Shortly thereafter, he died, and his body was found on May 23 by mountaineers from the IMAX expedition.

Media Treatment of Disaster

Jon Krakauer subsequently published an article and a book on the disaster, in which he alleged that the delays caused by the fixed ropes, as well as the guides' decision not to enforce the 2:00 pm turnaround time, were responsible for the deaths. He also speculated that Hall and Harris would likely have survived if they had abandoned client Doug Hansen when the storm struck. Other climbers on the mountain that day, such as Lene Gammelgaard and Anatoli Boukreev, took issue with Krakauer's characterization in books of their own, arguing that high-altitude climbing is an inherently dangerous sport.

"", a TV movie on the 1996 Everest disaster, starred Nathaniel Parker as Rob Hall. A theatrical movie is also planned, but Hall has not as yet been cast for this film.

The Neil Finn song "The Climber" was inspired by Rob Hall's tragedy ( [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Krc1Y8OXDos video] ).

There is also a documentary film "Remnants of Everest: the 1996 tragedy"

List of major climbs

* 1990 - Seven Summits (Bass list)
* 1992 - K2 (Scott Fischer, Ed Viesturs, and Charlie Mace helped Hall save his partner Gary Ball from edema)
* 1992 - Mount Everest
* 1993 - Dhaulagiri (uncertain if summited or not - Hall's partner Gary Ball died on mountain)
* 1993 - Mount Everest
* 1994 - Mount Everest
* 1994 - Lhotse
* 1994 - Cho Oyu
* 1994 - Makalu
* 1995 - Cho Oyu
* 1996 - Mount Everest (Died on descent)

References

External links

* [http://www.steponline.com/everest/rob_hall.asp Rob Hall Biography]
* [http://www.everesthistory.com/climbers/robhall.htm Rob Hall Biography]
* [http://7summits.com/info/stats2/index2.php?_=d&familyname=Hall Rob Hall Biography at 7summits.com]
* [http://www.adventure.co.nz/ Adventure Consultants]