Brett responded to our questions by phone from his home in Los Angeles, Calif. in December 2006.
How has Everest changed you? Since this isn't your first time on the mountain, was it any different than before?
It was a little different this time, a little more of the same, but a little different because I was there longer and I got higher and felt like I was a lot more prepared.
Do you feel like the mountain changed how you look at the world?
Definitely. It was a little disheartening to see how people's summit bids are more important than anybody else's life.
Also, just how corrupt the Chinese and Tibetans are. I didn't get that at all on the south side when I was trekking and climbing in Nepal. There are just no rules and no laws and no accountability in Tibet. As long as you've got the money you can get away with just about anything you want. What can you enforce at 20,000 feet and above anyway? It's pretty hard to enforce certain things.
I think the Westerners up there have a higher code of ethics. I noticed some of the other country teams, they'll just step right over ya and keep on walking. Obviously, there's a lot of Westerners that step right over you, too, so …
It's expensive to go there, you really put your life on hold, and you make a tremendous amount of sacrifices. But a lot of these people are making sacrifices for their own monetary gain. They want to be a motivational speaker, they want to write a book, or they want to be famous. Their intentions aren't always the best — they definitely have ulterior motives. So a lot of these people are really reluctant not to summit — they want to go there and summit.
So what a lot of people are saying, and I think it's to justify their possible actions, "Hey, if we find somebody, we can't rescue them up that high."
I don't think that's the way it should be. I think everybody should try to get people down. If they make it a little stricter on trying to get to the top as far as the mountains you've climbed and the qualifications you have, then there's going to be a lot less people dying at the top.
Beck Weathers was left for dead twice. He's missing a hand, several fingers and a nose, but he's still alive.
How do you feel about your decision to turn around? A lot of people are very proud of you for that.
That's very kind of them to say that. I keep hearing, "You had a really cool head about it, you made the right decision." I don't feel like I really made a decision. I had no choice. I could not go on any further.
I think in retrospect if I would have tried to take my pack off and drank a little water, ate a bit and cranked my oxygen up to four liters, I think I could have gone on. But at that point I was so sick and so dead tired, I didn't have any alternative but to turn around. It wasn't a reasoning thought process because, quite frankly, if I could have gone any higher, I would have.
I don't have a death wish. I don't envision myself being like Gerard where if I'm told to turn back I keep going. No. I gave Russell my word. He said, "OK. If I turn you guys around, everyone agrees they'll turn around," and everybody agreed. It's on film, it's on audio and everyone said, "OK, yeah," because they knew it endangered other people's lives. So to get up there and not turn around, you're putting other people's lives at stake.
To me, mountain climbing should be a real team effort and you should be looking after your buddy. I could have gone on a higher flow of oxygen; I could have jacked my oxygen up above four liters and basically what I would have done is cut into somebody else's oxygen supply and also burned up the emergency stores.
There's a lot of ways I could have got up. I could have had my Sherpa carry my stuff like a lot of other people. But in the team effort, that's where I'm proud of myself. I hung in there for the team and it cost me the summit, where those other guys, they could care less. They're going to go to the top and that's it.
When you get back home, how do you feel? Is there a letdown? Are you elated? It seems like such an intense experience.
It's an incredibly intense experience. It hits you from I'd say the big three factors — it hits you emotionally, physically and mentally. I felt like I was in a coma for about two months. I didn't really come out of a fog until around September.
I couldn't even remember my neighbors' names when I got back. I live on a small street with about nine houses and a lot of them, I couldn't even remember their names.
For me to be less than 10 percent body fat and 192 pounds and to lose 30 pounds of muscle mass in that short amount of time, it just devastated my body. I was just in a fog. I was literally just bumping into things for a couple of months when I got back.
Emotionally, how that messes with you is you're so disappointed. When you first turn around up there it's disappointing and you have a good cry, but there's a huge relief, a huge weight off your shoulders.
And when you finally get home it's so good to be home. But then, with pain having such a short memory, you have a lot of sleepless nights about coulda, shoulda, woulda — if I only would have done that, if I only could have done that.
I was totally sincere when I said I never want to go back because I just know genetically I can't do it. And then, when you get back, you get caught up in the hype. Mogens is asking me to go back, everyone's asking me to go back. Then the Discovery thing comes out and everyone says, "Brett, this is great, third time's a charm, it took Ed Viesturs [that many times] to do it, Eric Simonson, Phil Ershler, George Dunn. It took Russell seven times, Pete Athans six times, all these famous climbers."
And I start going, "You’re right, I'll go back, I can do this. I'll be smarter, I'll carry less weight, I'll go down to Base Camp and get more oxygen into my body. I'll even go to New Tingre, I'll go as low as I can and I'll revitalize myself."
But then you start thinking, "Did I really have fun? Is that fun?" It's a hell of an adventure and the thing that drives me is the adventure and the history of it and the curiosity of all that.
But being there twice and just enduring two months of pure misery and getting, like, two or three hours sleep a night. I was taking a truckload of Ambien. I was thinking I should approach Ambien as a sponsor if I ever want to go back because it's the only way I made it through. I was taking 5-20 mg. just to get three and a half hours of sleep a night. It's ridiculous — I was killing myself.
So, anyway, you get caught up in the hype and you go, "Wait a minute, I hated it up there." I mean, I loved the guys, we had a great time, and the production crew really made the time go fast — they were great and that helps. But you say, "Oh man, I don't want to do that anymore. I really just want to go scuba diving in Thailand."
My next goal is to surf all the famous surf spots around the world — go on my own little surf safari around the world. Surf Hawaii and Fiji and Indonesia and Australia and whatnot, and I'm going to do that.
Are you planning other new adventures?
My daughter and I are going river rafting down the Grand Canyon this summer. We've already booked that trip.
I’m assuming that means you're not going back to Everest?
I have no immediate plans to go back. A couple of these guys, I know some of the real famous climbers, and they've all said, "You know, Brett, some of these guys, it took them 10 years between the time they first tried and when they finally summited." So they said, "Give yourself a couple years off."
You really have to have a burning desire to be there, you have to really want to get to the top just to be at ABC and beyond. You've got to really, really, really envision yourself up there on the hill. I can't even envision myself getting on the plane to go over there right now. I'm just going to put it on hold and see how I feel in a couple years.
Anything else you'd like to add?
I think people don't realize just how much of a hero I think Ed is, the cameraman for my team — he saved Mogens. If he hadn't been there, Mogens would have been in a world of hurt. He went up with Mogens, turned around, stuck with him (back to Camp 3), then went back up and made it (to Camp 4).
