Call it Everest, the hard way.
Come March 7, two Mainers will take their first steps leading to the 29,035-foot peak of the world’s highest mountain.
Bill Yeo of Durham and John Bagnulo of New Vineyard intend to not only climb what Tibetans call the Mother Goddess of the Universe, they intend to climb it without using oxygen.
They’ll spend weeks acclimating to the thin air found at such heights, getting their bodies adjusted and tuned for an assault on the summit.
They also intend to make the climb on their own, without the assistance of Sherpa porters or Himalayan mountain guides.
And they’ll do it all from the less-traveled north side, staging at a base camp in China, then making their way up Tibet’s largest rock pile in stages of 1,000 feet or so at a time.
While Yeo and Bagnulo readily admit climbing Everest is a long-held dream, it’s no pipe dream.
Both Yeo, 40, and Bagnulo, 35, are experienced mountaineers.
Bagnulo, a former University of Maine at Farmington nutrition and exercise physiology professor, has, like Yeo, “gone vertical” on such mountains as Aconcagau, the 22,831-foot peak in the Andes that is the Western Hemisphere’s highest land mass. In 2001, he attempted, then halted, an ascent on Lhotse, a 27,890-foot Himalayan mountain.
Yeo, an experienced mountain guide, specializes in skiing and bicycles for L.L. Bean at its flagship store in Freeport. His experience includes climbs in Africa and South America as well as North American peaks such as 14,410-foot-high Mount Rainier and four ascents of Mount McKinley, the continent’s highest peak at 20,320 feet.
The two climbers will spend the better part of two days simply getting to the Himalayan region. They’ll fly from Portland to Tokyo, on to Bangkok and then to Katmandu.
From there they’ll join up with some friends for the nine-day-in, nine-day-out Makalu Trek to tone their bodies and help with acclimating to the thin air.
The Makalu Valley, Yeo noted, is listed as “one of those 100 places you need to see before you die.”
Once they finish the trek, they’ll part company with the friends, load up a truck with gear and travel from Katmandu to the Chinese border. Just getting there could be an adventure. The roads are precarious and suffer frequent landslides.
After reaching the border, they’ll have to unload their truck then reload the gear into a Chinese Land Rover, a vehicle approved by that government for use on mountain roads by foreigners.
There, they’ll drive to the base camp on the Tibetan side of Everest. At 17,000 feet in height, the road is one of the world’s highest.
Bagnulo said he is excited to be climbing from the northern, Tibetan side of the mountain. “There’ll be less people, and it’s a fraction of the cost to climb from China,” he said. Some say the north side presents a harder, more technical climb, as well. “There’s a lot of rock and not nearly as much snow,” Bagnulo said.
Yeo said the men will likely spend a week at that base camp organizing their gear, meeting other climbers, getting weather reports and acclimating.
Once they’re settled in there, they’ll start to portage more than 500 pounds of food plus another 300 or so pounds of their gear up the mountain, first to an advanced base camp, then in stages to the point where they’ll be near enough to the summit to attempt the final push. They’ll stay at each camp level for several days, again to adjust to the air.
Bagnulo said he and Yeo decided to do it that way in part because it’s more of a challenge. Just man against mountain “is really the way I feel (Everest) should be climbed.”
The actual assault on Everest won’t happen until near the end of April, or perhaps even in early May.
“We’ll have plenty of time to read,” noted Yeo, who has a lengthy lists of books he hopes to enjoy on the mountain.
Seeking sponsors
Yeo, who says he and Bagnulo are actively seeking sponsors to help finance the expedition, notes the cost for an Everest climb is nearly as high as the peak itself.
He and Bagnulo have to pay $7,000 each just for permits from China to make the climb. With airfare and other expenses factored in, they’ll easily shell out $15,000 or more. And that doesn’t count the loss of income while they’re away from their jobs. Trips up the more popular Nepalese side of Everest, done with Sherpas, oxygen and other common types of support, range to $60,000 and more.
L.L.Bean has been helpful in outfitting them with gear – they’ll be housed in Bean mountain tents, for example – and they’ve rounded up some other sponsors as well. In addition, they’re selling Everest expedition hats and Maine to Everest T-shirts as fundraisers and looking for help in other ways, too.
And Yeo has already set his post-Everest sights on a slide show and lecture tour about the adventure. He’s an accomplished photographer who earlier showed his images of a Baffin Island ski traverse, among other trips.
Why do it? “I like to expose myself to new places and experience new things,” said Yeo, adding, “I like being outside.”
He particularly enjoys the culture of mountaineers, that elite group that has an affinity for all things vertical and a love for “rock talk.”
Bagnulo said he thrives on adventure and stressed that, in as much as the climb will be dangerous, it’s far more dangerous to live without risk. That kind of life “kills your spirit – your soul,” he said.
Mountain studies
The trip won’t be all fun, though.
Yeo will be taking soil samples about every 1,000 feet on the mountain as part of study he’s conducting as an environmental studies student at the University of Southern Maine.
He wants to know particularly if the heavy metals – lead, mercury and others – spewed from industrial smokestacks in China are having an effect on Everest.
Bagnulo will conduct field work on natural food supplements and how they might help high-altitude climbers.
Yeo said that while he and Bagnulo intend to climb Everest without using oxygen, they’ll be required as part of their climbing permits to haul along at least five canisters, at an added cost of $2,500. If they can’t make the climb without oxygen, then they’ll use it in a last ditch effort to stand on top of the world.
Not that that’s everything.
“I’m not a big summit guy,” said Yeo, “I just love to get there.” In the end, “If I don’t make it, hey, I gave it a go.”
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