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Tom tell us about some of the things
you did before you lost your foot in 1979
?
I was born and raised in Britain, the
son of a British army officer. I started
playing the typical British sports such as
rugby, cricket and athletics. I had some
success at rugby, I played for my county
got a Welsh schoolboy trial. I also did
well in athletics, discus and javelin were
my events, I set a county record in the
discus for my age group.
I trained as a PE teacher through the
university of London. In 1971 after
graduating I worked as a teacher for a
year. I also trained as a diver to work in
the North Sea. In my time off from working
as a diver I would spend time with a
friend who ran an outdoor pursuits centre,
that was when I was introduced to the
world of backpacking, orienteering,
kayaking, sailing and caving. This was an
area I had very little experience in and I
found very fascinating. I liked it enough
that I stopped working as a diver and
began working professionally as an outdoor
pursuits instructor.
I found that with rock climbing I had
all the physical abilities I needed, but I
found the psychological and emotional
aspects very difficult. I'd be up on a
climb and have an amazing amount of
anxiety. I could have chosen to back away
from this fear or work to conquer it, I
decided on the latter.
I climbed for a couple of years,
without really deciding if I liked rock
climbing or not. I then made a total
commitment to it and came over to the
United States in order to reach my goal of
becoming a professional mountaineer.
After losing your foot how long did
it take you to realise you could pretty
well do the same things ?
After losing my foot I made the
decision to stay in the U.S. and do my
rehab. I wanted to find out what my
capabilities were as an amputee. I had
found that the outdoors activities I had
pursued had given me the most amount of
feedback about who I was as a person
emotionally, intellectually and
physically. So I returned to the outdoors
to try and find out how my capabilities
had changed.
At what point after that did you
realise climbing Everest could be an
obtainable goal ?
It wasn't for a long time. I started a
program at Idaho State University with the
alarming name of Co-Operative Wilderness
Handicapped Outdoor Group or the "Hogs" as
we later became known. The idea of the
group was to use a supportive peer group
and adventure recreation as a means of
building self-esteem in people with
disabilities. We also wanted to change the
mindset of able-bodied people in our
community concerning the capabilities of
people with disabilities. I worked with
this program for ten years then one day
the phone rang and a woman's voice on the
other end invited me to go on an Everest
expedition. At that time no disabled
person had attempted to climb Everest. I
was not sure at the time if this
expedition would be appropriate for me. I
found myself in a real predicament; on the
one hand I'd been preaching to disabled
people for ten years to challenge
themselves and then I had this invitation
and was saying whoa !
I went on my first Everest expedition
in 1989. A storm hit the mountain in which
five people perished and I was trapped at
21,000 feet for six days. Our team had
considered us all lost until I and several
other climbers spent 16 hours fighting our
way through waist deep snow from mid site
down to base camp. On getting back to the
base camp I realised that I had the
capability to climb Everest. The mountain
had thrown its worst at us and I managed
to get off the mountain in one piece, if I
had the physical strength and
psychological capability to do that then I
could conquer Everest.
The second time I attempted Everest was
with a friend Greg Childs in 1995. Greg
made the summit and I got within 1500
feet. Upon returning to base camp Greg
dropped a piece of stone in my hand with
the instructions to return it back to the
summit where he got it from. I accepted
the challenge and went back to
Everest.
I wanted some socially redeeming value
for the third expedition. I put this
expedition together with my wife Cindy and
Angela Hawse. We envisioned an expedition
that would have a disability component
featuring five severely disabled people
who would trek in to Everest's base camp
along with my wife and six year old
daughter. We also put together an
environmental component to retrieve as
much garbage as possible including air
cylinders from Everest, we ended up
removing a thousand pounds of garbage and
89 oxygen cylinders. We also had an
educational component which involved
transmitting to a company in Vancouver who
hosted a web site that was set up for
Grade 4 and upwards, this went out to
approx 750 schools in the US and
Canada.
Can you describe what it is like
being at the top of Mt. Everest ?
By the time you get to summit you have
been climbing the previous day for about
six hours. You arrive at 26,000 feet in a
small cramped tent in one of the most
windy spots you can imagine. You are at
the same altitude as commercial passenger
planes travel in this little wind blown
tent trying to get some rest and
recouperation. You feel so sick that
forcing food inside your body makes you
want to vomit. After about 4 hours of that
then it is time to leave the tent and head
out in to the Himilayan night to climb the
mountain. Some eight hours later you have
climbed the 3000 feet between 26,000 feet
and 29,000 feet and you are standing on
the summit of Mt Everest. By this time
your body has put out so much energy you
feel like you have aged about ten years
and you just don't feel like leaping
around too much. You basically sit down
and become aware that this is the
turnaround point and you are only at
halfway. Ironically most people perish on
the mountain on the descent. Although you
do feel satisfaction you don't let that
become too overwhelming.
The area on top of the mountain is only
about the size of a mini-van, it rounds
out to a fairly small area. It does not
drop off precipitously, it rolls fairly
gently down on most sides. On one side the
first edge is the Kang Chung face which is
more than two vertical miles straight
down. In the opposite direction on the
south west face there is about a vertical
mile of sheer drop.
You can look out over the Tibetan
plateau and the see the mountains that
have looked very imposing on the way up,
but from the summit of Everest they look
like hills. You cannot see any man-made
creation from the top of Everest, you
really get the feeling you are on the
highest point on Earth.
So after you conquer Everest what do
you follow something like that up with
?
Everest was always part of something
bigger to me. Between 800 and 900 people
have also conquered Everest. Only 60
people have climbed the seven summits,
which is the highest peak on each of the
seven continents. To prove myself worthy
of this goal I had to prove myself on the
hardest of all the seven. This silenced
the skeptics who thought it could not be
done and proved to any sponsors that I am
serious about my goal. The next highest of
the seven is almost a mile less than
Everest.
According to the Guinness book of
World Records you are in training with
NASA to be an astronaut, can you tell us
about that ?
Unfortunately, it is a rather fictous
account. I'm not sure where they got their
information from. I was involved with NASA
on a project where I actually became an
aquanaut and went down and lived in a
submersible habitat which NASA uses for
training and experiments. NASA has never
indicated to me that they wanted me to
become an astronaut. I think NASA is very
nervous about having a person with a
disability go in to space, they have the
same take on disability as the rest of the
able-bodied world.
You have worn Flex Foot symes on all
your climbs, how has this product held up
?
I contacted Flex Foot on the
recommendation of my prosthetist and they
have proven to be an incredible support to
my goals. The foot itself worked
exceptionally and I have never had
encountered any problems with it.. The
only trouble I had was with the Vibram
sole that is glued on to the bottom of the
foot, this enabled me to fix a crampon
directly to the foot and therefore keep
the weight to a minimum. I did have some
problems keeping the Vibram sole on the
foot, but other than that no problems at
all.
You appeared on the Arete awards on
ESPN a few months back. What are your
views on award shows like that ? Are they
needed or do you feel they are
condescending in any way?
I don't know if they are needed, but
they certainly don't do any harm to
disabled people. I think they tend to tie
in to an emotion that creates feelings of
admiration towards people with
disabilities of which the general societal
mindset is of pity. I think whenever you
can turn pity in to admiration you have
done a lot to win the war. I believe many
people try and change societies attitudes
very quickly through activism, I believe
activism and legislation can only get us
so far. Without the yoke of understanding
and the white of empathy you have an empty
sterile egg shell created by activism and
political action. We don't live in an add
water and mix world. The best way to make
change is to appeal to people's better
nature through education. We need to
patient and compassionate and hopefully we
will be treated in the same way.
What do you have planned for the
future ?
Up until December 1999 I was working at
Prescott College here in Arizona. I am now
pursuing my goal of running a foundation
called the Windhorse Legacy which produces
educational content for people with
disabilities on the web. I am looking a
being an adventure film maker. I am also
contracting out to be a motivational
speaker and working on conquering the
remaining continental summits including
Kilimanjaro this June.
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