I’m going back. Back to the Himalayas. Back to Ama Dablam. Back to try again.
Ama Dablam’s a mountain in Nepal’s northeastern Himalayan range. It’s astoundingly steep and known for its soaring summit at 22,349 feet.
Translated, Ama Dablam means “mother’s necklace” — defined by its symmetrical lower ridges that look like the arms of a mother (Ama) holding her child, with an icy cornice (the Dablam) that hangs in the middle, reminiscent of the traditional pendant worn by Sherpa women.
To get the peak, you have to navigate around and up through the Dablam. No easy task, but a beautiful reward… if you make it.
I left on October 22 and our expedition is scheduled to return shortly before Thanksgiving. This will be my second try at Ama Dablam. My first attempt was 19 years ago. My team and I were training for Everest and this peak was our big “practice” — but we never made it to the summit. We reached 20,000 feet and that was it.
The conditions shifted, severe storms rolled in, and everyone retreated to base camp. Everyone except me and teammate, Eric Alexander. Eric offered to stay with me because I was so fatigued that I couldn’t fathom making the descent. The technical traverses, slick rock, and steep faces had beat me up.
So, Eric and I pitched a tent on a ledge and tried to wait out the violence. This lasted seven full days before our team leader, Pasquale Vincent Scaturro (PV), called off the expedition. He knew we were running low on food and fuel, and he and some sherpas had hiked about 500 feet above us only to find the weather worsening. He radioed back that they couldn’t even stand up and we would have to find our way down… first by traversing to a rappel section, then traversing again to base camp. But the snow and winds were still driving so hard at the top of that rappel section that PV and I were forced to return to camp at 20,000 feet for one more night.
Meanwhile, Eric continued towards base camp and that’s when things turned terrible. He slipped on a rock and fell 150 feet. The team members there tossed him a rope and hoisted him up. They saw some blood and bruising but thankfully Eric’s pack saved his spine and his helmet saved his head, and he appeared in good shape. That was until he went into shock with pulmonary edema. Fluid was building in his lungs and the high altitude’s thin air was threatening his life.
His breathing became more and more labored and by the time PV and I reached everyone later that night, Eric had been placed in a Gamow bag designed to increase oxygen pressure. We spent the next three days taking hour-long turns pumping air into Eric’s Gamow bag until a sucker hole in the storm allowed a helicopter to swoop in, land, and airlift him to safety.
That was the last time I was on Ama Dablam and it was undoubtedly scary and chaotic. But our team used this opportunity to see a silver lining and knit it into something stronger. We got closer because of pitfall, and this helped us develop a deeper sense of trust, care, and communication — these were the intangibles that carried us to the summit of Everest a little less than a year later. Our failed attempt at Ama Dablam brought us experience, wisdom, and a drive to be better.
For this next attempt I have brought together a really strong team. Eric Alexander is coming back, along with mountain stud Timmy O’Neill, longtime friend Charley Mace, our newest member Joseph Hobby, and our lead sherpa Kami Tenzing. These guys know me, they’re mentally and physically fit, and we’re comfortable together on and off the mountains.
Still, Ama Dablam today remains a site of its own unfinished business and that’s why I want to close the chapter.
