Retrieving mountaineer’s body ‘too risky’

Widow of climber Rob Hall who died on Everest worst tragedy says bringing body down is logistically impossible

Jan Arnold, widow of New Zealand climber Rob Hall, who died on Mount Everest in 1996, says it is too risky to retrieve his remains from the mountain.

Now almost a decade and a half on, a team of Nepalese Sherpas are planning a trip up Everest to clean up rubbish and bring back bodies of dead climbers.

Hall always said the ‘logistics of retrieving a body high on the mountain above 8,000m was virtually impossible’, said Arnold.

Despite this, the expedition set off from Nepal's capital Kathmandu at the weekend.
It is expected to reach Everest's South Col, just below 8,000m (26,200ft), by May 1st.

Arnold, who was pregnant at the time of her husband's death, says he died on the South Summit, at 8,700m, but since then his body has fallen 3,800m down the Kangshung face, towards Tibet.

"He didn't have a desire to have a grave on Mount Everest certainly, but he wouldn't want anyone to risk their lives to bring his remains down. The chance of anyone a) locating it and b) then being able to retrieve it would be crazy - a needle in a haystack, so I think it's unlikely. Rob didn't feel the risk to life was worth it, so in that way, that is why he would have preferred to stay", recalls Arnold.

Seven-times Everest climber Namgyal Sherpa, who is leading the expedition, said they would recover Rob Hall's body only if his family agreed and if no risk was involved.

According to Namgyal, the main challenge facing the expedition is that if Hall’s body has fallen onto Chinese territory, the team will not have permission to explore there and applying for permission will mean at least a 12-month setback. In the event that the body has fallen into a crevasse then it will be very difficult to retrieve him and the risk posed to his team will be too great.

The Sherpa expedition aims to clean debris from the mountain to preserve the environment and make the mountain safe. They will work above 8,000m (26,240ft), in what is known as the ‘death zone' because of the thin air and treacherous conditions. The team expects to bring back the bodies of at least two climbers, including American Scott Fischer, who died in 1996, and Swiss mountaineer Gianni Goltz, who died in 2008.

Rob Hall is 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.