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Ben: All the expeditions are kind of leaving Kathmandu now-ish. Like this week is a busy week for me trying to meet everybody before they head out.

Paddy: I'm trying to like, make the comparison to maybe like the plot of Mighty Ducks Two, who are the underdogs and then who's the team that's all super slick,

Ben: I think it's more like the ski race in Better Off Dead.

Paddy: It's 100-percent pure.

Ben: yeah. What's the street value of this mountain? Um, you know, and that's actually an applicable question for Everest. What is the street value of Mount Everest? All of human nature, like the best and the worst of humanity is crammed onto a glacier for two months.

It's like the most stories per square inch of anywhere I can imagine in the world,

Paddy: MUSIC

PADDYO INTRO VO:

The year is 1993. I am nine years old and obsessed with a new TV show called SeaQuest. The plot of which is basically Star Trek but in the depths of the ocean. It stars Roy Scheider, ya know the dude from [00:01:00] Jaws who shoots the air tank and blows the shark up, as Captain Nathan Bridger. AND a talking dolphin named Darwin. I love the show so much I pledge to become a marine biologist and as such I convince my mom to bring me to the dolphin show at the zoo. After the routine, my mom talks to the handler to inquire about junior trainer programs I could potentially join. And, while neither is looking, I reach over the lip of the giant aquarium, place my hand on the water's surface, close my eyes, and- you guessed it - try to speak to the dolphins with my brain. Crickets. Apparently, porpoises are tight-lipped, even for dreamy-eyed lil kiddos.

-Sigh -

As I'm sure you've deduced, I did not become a telepathic marine biologist. I know, it's very sad. As often happens, an idea about where life is and where it should head, [00:02:00] zipped up into the air with a loud screech and, like a bottle rocket, popped without much ceremony.

The things, people, and places that grab ahold of our heart and actually do change the direction of our life fascinate me. What makes our life's firecrackers explode with such intensity we can't imagine never feeling their kaboom? Well, if you're journalist Ben Ayers, all it takes is the world's most famous mountain.

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Ben first visited Nepal in 1999 during a study abroad program in college. And the country and Mount Everest capativated him to such a depth, he has since split his time over the last 25 years between his home in Vermont and his home in Kathmandu, he founded two non-profits in Nepal, he's written countless stories on Everest and those who climb it, he's produced films about Nepal, like "Mothered By Mountains," which shines a spotlight on [00:03:00] Nepal's first female mountaineering instucutor and a Kathmandu punk rock icon.

Suffice to say, Nepal and Mount Everest and the unique stories not typically told about them have consumed Ben's life. And that is why �����ԹϺ��� is sending him to Everest Base Camp to cover this year's climbing season up close and personal. It's a huge assignment, and Ben hopes to not just report on the deluge of news generated on the world's most famous mountain. He also hopes to convey to the rest of us the magic of a place that literally changed the course of his life.

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Oh and just a quick sidenote: Kathmandu,where Ben lives and where our chat was recorded, is known for its bustling energy. I mean, there are around 44,000 people per square mile there. Which is to say, it's noisy, man. So you're gonna hear the sounds of the city [00:04:00] in the background from time to time. Ok, on with the show.

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It's time for burnt toast. What is your last humbling and or hilarious moment outside?

Ben: that's sort of a daily occurrence for me. Paddy, if you and I were ever to take any, spend, any time outside, , a recent one, you know, so I've been back in Nepal for a couple weeks. Before that I was in my home in Vermont. My other home. I'm a Mad River Glen skier, the legendary East Coast ski it, if you can ski area that

Paddy: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ben: Right. And I'm not a very good skier. so one of my last days skiing this season, uh,, my ski ended up so high up in a tree that I had to climb up and get it out of the tree.

Paddy: how did it pop off of your boot

Ben: I, well, I just, I just ate it, dude. And it was a steep trail in the woods

It just yeeted right up there. And I was with a friend of mine and I'm like, watch this.

Like, watch me go yardsale

Paddy: and then you hit to

Ben: then some climbing was involved. Yeah. [00:05:00] Yeah.

Paddy: All right, let's get into it.

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I wanna tell you a quick story a couple years ago, my wife and I were out in Vermont for, the wedding of our very dear pals.

And we went a few days early, , to stay. as you do at an adorable b and b, , eat cheese, see the sites, do the outdoor things. , and we went on a hike and when we got to the trailhead, it started to drizzle. So being the Coloradans that we are, we doned our like very slick rain jackets, you know, and we had our running vests and our little running, , shorts and our hokas.

We, we looked the part, right, and we started the hike with a woman presumably a local who was wearing a sun battered Red Sox hat an unbuttoned flannel. I think maybe like jeans and she was carrying an old, , Gatorade bottle filled with water and smoking a cigarette, and she frigging crushed us so badly up this steep trail.

Yes. So [00:06:00] that this is, yes. Thank you. This is my point. new Englanders take great pride in grittiness and the doing of hard things, especially if that hard thing involves some type of terrible condition, even if that terrible condition is self-inflicted, like hiking in jeans, jacket-less in the rain, while just absolutely ripping a heater crushing uphill.

Ben: It's a source of pride.

Paddy: Are you this type of New Englander?

Ben: I mean, yeah. Yeah, I guess so. I am definitely a minimalist, I'm definitely into the cotton dude hiking and cotton's the best.

Paddy: But is it also like , oh, this trail's not hard enough, so I'm gonna put a rock in my shoe. You know, like, are you that type of New Englander?

Ben: Uh, I mean, I'm not that type of athlete, like in the sense,

Paddy: Yeah,

Ben: in the sense that I think my life and my career, like, you know, the mountains have always been a huge part of who I am and getting out and getting after it. But I've never been one to train for the sake of training. So like, I don't put rocks in my pack because like, I want to be fitter or [00:07:00] I like want to crush the next guy from Colorado.

For me it's, it's about getting out and having adventures there's a lot of limitations we can place between ourselves and adventures I, I do appreciate that New England sense of , building up , your toughness and building up your ability to just be in a place with what you have instead of overthinking it,

Paddy: it's like the callous of self-sufficiency , and ruggedness , and not allowing a tough thing to talk you out of doing the thing. Is that you?

Ben: Yeah. Well, I think that's who I aspire to be. you know, A couple years ago I was going on this trip to this super remote part of western Nepal with a bunch of these local guys, and it was in the middle of the monsoons.

And we just, went to the end of this road head and started hiking over this, 17,000 foot pass. And we just end up in this field at dark, , and I'm like, well, you know, I mean, these guys are from here. Like, they're my guides and I was like, so great. Who brought the tents?

And they're like, huh? And I was like, all right, well, well, who brought the tarp? Right? And they were just like "meh?". And it [00:08:00] started to rain and we sat in this yak pasture all night. We just sat there. And talked all night in the rain, got up the next morning and kept walking, you know, and I was, I was melting down, you know, but, but life and Nepal, people here in Nepal, like, they live much closer to the bone.

And you find in that, that there's a lot of integrity. There's a lot of these things that we aspire to in the Western world, but we, do it in a way that has a pretty big safety net,

Paddy: You have access to the world's largest, most. Breathtaking mountains. You could probably go on an expedition any week that you wanted to. Do. You just go on like chill, mellow day hikes and like runs around your neighborhood? Or do you wear a harness, A summit suit and a beacon just went driving around?

Ben: well, so one of the cool things about Kathmandu as a city is a city of 4 million people. But, you know, if I leave my house at 6:00 AM on my mountain bike [00:09:00] by six 20, I'm in the wilderness. On single track, everywhere in Nepal, there's, sort of nature everywhere you can get to. So adventures here, like just going out to get milk is an adventure in Kathmandu. So like, and to me, I'm pretty like open about adventures. It doesn't just have to be like technical, hardcore pull-ups and climbing and flex, it's, it's just about exploring. I've got a bunch of old motorcycles and just hit the road man.

And you just go up these valleys, you just go explore different parts of the country and you can just get into the coolest places here with zero effort. And then, you know, if you want to climb something, it's easy and cheap to do. You know, for old folks like me now, like there's a lot of really cool lower altitude safe peaks you can just go dub around on and you're not too disappointed if you don't make it and you're psyched if you do,

You once said, after dumping a motorcycle, the longer I live in Nepal, the more I realize how dumb I am. Now as a person who feels like an [00:10:00] intelligent human, but who has a propensity for stupidity, I feel like I get that quote. But for our listeners who might not dip their toes into moron hood, what do you mean by that?

I can only speak to the western white male being one, but there's this thing about Western white men where we are overconfident in our abilities and in our place in the world. And, you know, I, generally have a fairly decent opinion of myself and in Nepal, I am just humbled.

Ben: All the time by people who are more capable, people who are more kind, people who are, more thoughtful or intelligent than I am. And you know, that film that you referred to where I dumped the bike? I mean, that was this whole thing where we were trying to climb a peak. And the original idea of that film is like Renan Ozturk and I, were gonna do a first ascent, we're gonna ride motorcycles to the first ascent of a peak, like super flex.

And the company that sponsored the film was like, Hey, could you bring along a woman? You know? And we were like, sure. And the women were like, this is dumb. [00:11:00] Like, why? Like, why would you even wanna ride a motorcycle? We have, you have to have a Jeep for all your camera gear. Like, what the hell's wrong with you? Right.

And that's the answer to your question right there is that moment of the like, dude, chill out. That's what Nepal teaches you. Time and time again. People here not having the same amount of resources and having to live an agrarian life that's very, very difficult and very risky.

And it's just not a big deal to them to do all the stuff we flex about. Whenever I think I'm being super awesome, like the experience you said you had in Vermont, like I have that all the time,

I've found great joy in life in doing things that I'm bad at 'cause you're always learning and that's the great gift of being in Nepal. And I, I've struggled to find that in America, to be honest with you.

Paddy: , is that what first attracted you to Nepal when you studied abroad there, when you were a senior at, Bates College?

Ben: Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred

Paddy: More so than the, terrain or, the landscape. It was like that kind of, um, , what aspirational ruggedness.

Ben: I mean, that's a way [00:12:00] to put it. Yeah , for me it was the porters, right? So like, when I came out, I was like kind of a young and aspiring mountaineering and climber and I, came to Nepal for the mountains, like classic story I came from for the mountains. I stayed for the people.

And when I first started trekking and like doing some climbing, some smaller peaks, like I couldn't believe at number one, like how badly the porters on expeditions at that time. This was like in the late nineties, how bad the porters were being treated. But on the other hand, I also couldn't believe how tough these dudes were.

Right. And a lot of my like aspiration, like my idolization of Conrad Anker of Alex Lowe, of these, icons of American mountaineering is that these were like the pinnacles of manhood when I grew up in that world of the outdoors, these were like. The manly men who like represented what you could do.

And then here I am in, in Nepal, and I, and there are these guys that have a t ump line and they're putting 250 pounds on their head and hiking for you know, 11, 12 days, like doing these incredibly rugged stuff, I, I remember on that first trip, [00:13:00] I just sat down on this rock with this porter, you know, he was just on this random trail and, and the dude was sewing his feet back together.

Ben: Like, literally his feet were so cracked that he was just taking a needle and thread and like snowing the cracks back together. , the porters were, they were so much. Tougher, but also so much more exploited. And I just couldn't figure that out. I ended up like working as a port, working the air quotes here.

Like, but I ended up going out and, carrying the porter stuff, or I would work with these commercial porters, bringing supplies out to remote villages, and I would just carry an extra bag of rice just to hang out with these guys just to understand what their lives were like. You know? And then of course, not a big surprise, but it was a surprise to me on a visceral level that of course, they're poets.

They're, passionate people. , they care about their families, they cared about me. We became friends they were artists. They were like , the most incredibly intellectual people.

Paddy: That perspective was just such a profound knowledge for me that I, just stayed. I just wanted to be around that. And [00:14:00] 25 years later, that's still what animates my life , is trying to understand so I can learn myself how to find some of that integrity and satisfaction,

I know that at 22, 23 years old, I had a lot of ideas about life and I had a lot of ideas about the direction of my own life. And the mountains for me served at as this great place of trying to, , assert those things while also investigating other.

Paddy: Avenues in your own life at this time, after going to Nepal for the first time. you decide that that's the place, right? So how has Nepal impacted your life? Where you thought it was going and then now where it has ended up? Like, was it like a hard left turn?

Were you like, I'm gonna go to Nepal and then I'm gonna come back and, you know, be a banker or something, you know? Or like,

Ben: There was a group reporters in Eastern Nepal that when I did my like independent study that I spent like three weeks with, that was when that hard turn happened. I couldn't get it [00:15:00] outta my mind. I couldn't, I. Reconcile what I was experiencing with what I had been taught about the way the world worked.

So I was, you know, this close to disappointing my parents and dropping outta college 'cause I couldn't let it go. I was a creative writing major. I. Right. So I was like wondering, can you make a living as a poet, not a good career path?

Paddy: I thought that too, for about two weeks , in college as an English literature major.

Ben: I'd like to make a living writing haiku.

Paddy: Yeah. Totally.

Ben: what's your rate per syllable?

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So when I came back, after graduation, you know, I saved up enough money for a one-way plane ticket and I came back and I started a nonprofit that was trying to help porters in the trekking climbing industry.

I just feel like the things I've done in Nepal to try to give back to this country is only trying to pay my debt.

It's taken me marrying someone of Nepali heritage to really actually understand. I. The depth with which relationships matter here.

And one of these [00:16:00] extraordinary about Nepals is people get pulled into that sometimes as a foreigner that can amplify your privilege. Nepal's been very generous to me and very forgiving of the times that I maybe, lost sight of it or that I sort of got lost in my own ideas, if that makes sense.

Like, it's real easy to want to be a savior here, especially when I was doing the humanitarian work and, you know, you think, you know, it's like, oh, I can raise money. I can like. Change this place when really my impetus for coming here was to be changed. And I'm always going back to that,

Paddy: Being a person who has lived there now in Nepal for 25 years. Can you describe the mountains that you now call home? The reason that these things have, beckoned you there, like for an average outdoorsy person, like how did the Himalaya feel compare to the Rockies, the White Mountains or the Cascades or something?

Ben: In Colorado you have the huge skies, right? And the clouds hang. Sort of above the horizon when you're driving down I 70, you've got [00:17:00] this big wide sky, and these culo nimbus clouds, this kind of gossiping on the horizon in Nepal.

Those are the peaks. The relief, the vertical scale of the mountains here is not something you can describe to anybody until you see it like it. There are times when you feel it's scary, like you feel like they're gonna fall on you. It's so beautiful. Even on the popular treks like Everest, like you, you get a feel for the architecture, the character of the communities that have grown up in these valleys.

And nepal's geography is so corrugated, it's so dense and hilly that different cultures and languages and religions are developing within. 10 miles of each other and you have this density of culture and practice and each of those is unique to that little tiny ecosystem. And you can feel that, you can see that in the way that the communities of the Everest region practice and engage with Buddhism.

When the, the way that the paintings look [00:18:00] inside the monasteries is different than it looks in the areas on the Tibetan Plateau. And everywhere you go in the Himalayas, you feel like you're a part of that place even when you're passing through. Like you go for the mountains, you go for the selfies and that like iconic picture of ama dablam.

But what really sticks with you is you start to wonder like, what would it be like If me and my, grandparents, and my grandparents', grandparents were of this environment, there's something almost sacred about it.

Paddy: Is it kind of like in, , Patagonia, they say that, you know, the wind is so prevalent that the mountains and the people are shaped by it. Do you think the vertical relief and just the, gargantuan nature of the mountains there and how the terrain creates these cultural ecosystems, do you think that is kind of similar?

Ben: Yeah. I love how you put that. It's very similar. I think the way that the cultures in Nepal are shaped, and again, this is sort of my pontification, people here may feel differently about it, but the way it occurs to [00:19:00] me is that the cultures of Nepal. Are shaped by the, geography.

And one of the reasons so relatable is that most of the cultures in Nepal are also travelers. places in the Alpine, you can't grow enough food to survive. So you trade, the Sherpa community in the Khumbu Valley under Mount Everest, you know, they were traders.

They would go down and they'd pick up fabric and rice and oranges, and they would bring them over through the Himalayas and trade them in Tibet for salt. , there are fellow travelers. They understand the importance of being nice to a stranger. That's the fabric of that country as well.

It's not just the geography, it's that, that geography compels a certain, , worldliness. Whereas you would, maybe, would assume it would. inspire a certain, , pastoralism or a certain inwardness. It's actually quite the opposite.

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Paddy: Have you ever had a desire to climb Everest or have you been like, I wanna talk about the thing. I don't want to do that thing. like, I am a skier. I moved to Colorado because I love skiing. I have [00:20:00] zero desire to do what Cody Townsend or Elyse Saugstad do on skis Zero. It's like I, if I get five feet of air, that's too much air. I'm not trying to do a 50 footer, like, get outta here,

Ben: Yeah. Man. Growing up, growing ups, awesome. Um, yeah, it's, it's good for like self preservation,

Paddy: ibuprofen ice packs. Thank you.

Ben: totally. I had a chance, . To climb Everest. I think it was 2019 on the north side. I was working with a good friend of mine, Renan Ozturk, and my father wasn't well at the time, so I didn't go, but there was a moment there. I had always said to myself, that's not for me. Like I've climbed a bunch of smaller peaks, like I've suffered enough to understand that what drives you to get to the summit of Everest has to be something very deep within yourself or your opinion of yourself to push beyond your comfort level and your safety level [00:21:00] to get to an abstract goal and then get home alive.

So I always felt that like, yeah, no, Everest isn't for me. But then I had this chance and I was. Really fired up about it, you know, because I'm cur curious as hell, you know, like, what is it like? But you know, that was six years ago, I think now that desire has been quelled a bit more, again, going back to this knowledge that, especially like if I had a chance to climb on the south side, you know, the thing that concerns me personally is on the south side to a great extent.

It's so crowded that you not necessarily always able to make your own decisions about your own safety. And I don't think I'm strong enough of a climber to put myself willingly into that situation at those altitudes. That being said, I'm gonna go up there this trip, and I'm gonna try to talk my way into camp two.

And I'm probably gonna get up there and be like, I want to keep going because I'm a human. You know?

One of the things that's really fascinating about Everest [00:22:00] is that I. The way Everest appears to the people on the mountain, and the way Everest appears to armchair mountaineers off the mountain are very, very different things.

And

Paddy: Explain that.

Ben: It's the most iconic mountain in the world.

So everybody has an opinion about, and it means something to everybody. Everyone has a story about it in their mind, and it's important to them that that story is maintained. So they have an opinion, oh, Everest is a garbage heap.

Uh oh, Everest is too crowded. Or, oh, Everest is like so amazing, and Everest is a place that I want to go and climb, or they're nerds about the history of it. But everybody has some sort of sacred idea about what that mountain should represent and how it should be managed, and they're very vocal about that.

PADDY VO:

More from Ben Ayers on the physical pursuit and the emotional meaning of Everest after the break.

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Paddy: away from Everest [00:23:00] in everyday Nepal life, what's the public's impression of Everest and those who climb it do they feel how a lot of the rest of the world feels, which is , it's the most iconic mountain in the universe?

Or do they feel like, it's the tourist attraction. It's the blarney stone. Like I am sick of seeing people come here for this.

Ben: Oh, no. I mean,

Paddy: It's a source of great pride for the country. Everest is so iconic. And Nepali people, you know, as a whole, I'm generalizing, but Nepali people as a whole are very proud of their country and they're very proud of Everest. They're very proud of the Nepali climbers that set records and that make a name for the country, it's a real source of pride and it should be, it's a good symbol for the people in the place.

, I think this is changing a bit in the last five, 10 years, but primarily the story. That we hear in the states of Everest is through the lens of, , the Western experience.

Paddy: And Everest has come under a lot of [00:24:00] criticism and scrutiny over the last few years. Like the viral photos of the insane lines at the Hillary step from 2019.

The trash, the discarded gear, the critique that summiting Everest has less to do with a mountaineering goal and more to do with ego. It's become kind of synonymous, , with, , privilege rich folks doing very dangerous things at the expense of other folks who are not privileged rich folks. Do you think those criticisms are valid, and do those criticisms at the same time take away from the actual achievement of climbing Everest?

Ben: Yeah, I mean, as a journalist I tend to be more kind of agnostic about that. I try to actually withhold like an opinion of like what's right or wrong on Everest. There's an idealized world where you take a resource like Mount Everest and you manage it well. I think you can look at the way that the Alps are managed.

You can look at the way that Denali is managed as examples of ways you can climb mountains [00:25:00] without having a massive environmental footprint or without putting the people climbing those mountains at great risk. There's a world where that could happen, that isn't the world here. That's just not how it works.

And is that good or bad? I don't know. It just is what it is. Nepal is not necessarily known for its management or timeliness. You know, on the other hand, I look at Mount Washington in New Hampshire, , where I grew up, and it's not very different from Everest. The number of people that go up to Mount Washington in the winter unprepared, it's one of the most deadly mountains in the world, and it's just over 5,000 feet tall.

It's the same story, but there isn't the same pushback on a mountain that we don't manage properly. Or like if we put up a gate on the bottom of Mount Washington and said, you have to have this prior experience, you have to have all this. There'd be a lot of pushback about limiting access to a natural resource the issues in Nepal are the same.

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Paddy: this is the first time since 2014 that outside has had someone at base camp. And the last [00:26:00] time, before that was Krakauer in 1997, which is during one of the worst Everest disasters of all time.

And his coverage of that became into thin air. It became legendary. You were in Nepal during another, disaster that greatly affected Everest, the 2015 earthquake. all this is to say the assignment that you are going on is not an easy assignment. It is in fact rather huge. and I'm certain emotionally taxing as well as physically taxing, considering it's just not guaranteed safety.

Do you have any concerns? Is it 50 50? Excitement and nervousness?

Ben: yeah, for sure. The thing that I'm nervous about is, I've been up to base camp enough times that I know that everybody gets sick. You know, you get the Khumbu cough, you have a head cold, you're like laid up for days. And that's a, that's a hard condition to report in,

Some of the trepidation too is like, covering this beat is hard because you, you know, I lost two friends last year on the mountain.

You know, [00:27:00] Nepali guys that I've known since they were kids. And I'm gonna be there when that happens and that's not gonna be easy for me. And it's important to cover that. It's important to be there. It's important to stand witness to that. I mean, that's, that's for me, like personally, one of the things that I want to change about Everest coverage is that like, I want the names of the people who pass away on the mountains to be published.

I want their story to be known. 'cause right now they're, they're disposable. And I don't feel that, that's just, I don't feel that That's right. And I don't feel that it's necessarily gonna be possible to do that unless you're there. I'm just nervous about, like wading into that, you know, I was in the Everest region during the earthquake, you know, and that was a very traumatic time for me.

And like, I gotta go back to that 10 years later. This sort of, , concentration of the good and the bad and the hard parts and the triumphant parts of life and death and humanity just packed into one [00:28:00] place

Paddy: Yeah.

Ben: And it's takes a lot of effort to do that, to live in that.

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Paddy: So what have you done to prepare physically? Because this is no slouch of a day hike to get to base camp, right? It takes 11 days to get there. cause it's a 40 mile hike.

Your total vert gain is over 8,000, but it's over 8,000 and you end up at 18,000

Ben: Correct?

Paddy: So like, have you been doing pull-ups with a straw in your mouth or just holding your breath a lot? Or what? What have you been doing?

Ben: Uh, I've been hydrating. Um, I mean, I was, I was back country skiing a lot in Vermont, you know,

Paddy: Yeah, yeah,

Ben: average, average fitness. Um, you're laughing, I'm, I'm being honest.

Paddy: I've been getting a lot of creamies, uh, in Vermont

Ben: a lot of cr but drinking, a lot of craft beer.

No, I mean, the sad truth of it, Paddy is I came out of Vermont pretty fit, [00:29:00] but Kathmandu right now is the most polluted city in the world. So if I go out and go on a run right now, I am like going backwards. I'm smoking four packs of cigarettes sitting here talking to you, and so you know, I'll be, I'll be doing regular exercises and stretching and that kind of stuff, but. The thing about that trek, is you need to be reasonably fit. You need to be in good hiking shape, but on your way up the days are actually quite short distance wise because of that altitude gain. You don't have to be like, you know, winning the king of the mountain on Strava to do this trip.

Paddy: What's the countdown?

Ben: I'm gonna head up on the 25th. The goal is , to be positioned when the weather window for the summits open. All the expeditions are kind of leaving Kathmandu now-ish. Like this week is a busy week for me trying to meet everybody before they head out. They'll do some acclimatization climbs on smaller peaks in the region, and then they do their rotations up on the mountain. But the real action's happening later in the season.

Paddy: I'm trying to like, make the comparison to maybe like ball [00:30:00] sports here. Is there like the underdogs and then the team that everybody is like, ooh, they're like the best, I'm thinking of like the plot of Mighty Ducks Two who are the ducks, and then who's the team that's all super slick,

Ben: I think it's more like the ski race in better off dead.

Paddy: I love this. I love, thank you.

Ben: because it's,

Paddy: it's,

100-percent pure.

Ben: yeah. What's the street value of this mountain? And that's actually an applicable question for Everest. What is the street value of Mount Everest? Mount Everest is this totem to the human ego. It is the tallest place on earth. It is one of the only superlatives left in our world. And so it's less of a team sport. It's becomes an individual sport. Amongst the paying clients, it kind of becomes a little bit more of a free for all. You see less of the brotherhood of the rope on Mount Everest than you see on other mountains where you're depending on one another to get to the top on Everest. The numbers there, the way it, the, it's been [00:31:00] commercialized, it's almost a competition and a lot of what the guiding companies are trying to figure out is traffic control.

How do we get to the top and not get stuck in a line? Right? And so like who are the bad news bears? The People that you're rooting for are the local workers or the Sherpas or the logistics companies that are making everybody's dreams come true.

Me personally, and I think a lot of the world, like you're rooting for these young guys who, are from, one of the poorest countries on the planet.

They have very few options to feed their families, and they're ambitious, and they're going up to make their name on the mountain. They're going up to like earn an honest living. In a really dangerous situation that also comes with a measure of glory, and that's who I think you're rooting for at the end of the day, or at least that's who I root for.

Paddy: So does base camp feel kind of like. Excuse the term, but like broey, is it like ego central? Is it just buzzing with like the mountaineer [00:32:00] version of a one steak sauce meathead culture?

Ben: From a 30,000 foot view, that's what you find. But the thing that I find fascinating about Everest and like that never wears out is then once you zoom in and you actually meet those people, they're all like nice people. The thing about Everest is everyone there is passionate.

Everyone there has a dream that they're willing to risk their life for. So that's really inspiring. But also then like taken at volume, it can be a little bit overwhelming.

It's so multicultural, it's so international that it isn't maybe as broey as you would imagine, like Camp four at Yosemite to be, not, not that it necessarily is, right?

But you're thinking of Camp four at Yosemite, it's like a lot of flexing,

Paddy: I'm wondering if that kind of sense of posturing is amplified because it's Everest, because it is very much life or death right there. Does it feel bigger? Does it feel kind of, heavier?

Ben: For people like me who aren't climbing, it does, it feels like the Hunger Game's up there. Like you're, you're like, who's, who's not gonna come back this season?

Paddy: oh God, [00:33:00] that's so scary.

Ben: you're wondering that,

Paddy: Is that so weird and emotional to walk around?

Ben: it is a little bit, but on the other hand, it's like you get a little bit numb to it, you know, in the sense that like, every year you lose people on the mountain, like, you know, and, and sometimes it's for preventable causes. Sometimes it's just exhaustion and cardiac arrest, right? Like, but like, it's a super intense situation up there.

Within the climbing community, you know, you do have your elite climbers that are. guiding or setting records, or are the Sherpa climbers that have climbed the mountain dozens of times, they have like a certain aura around them. Like they're the cool kids and they're super impressive people.

And those people tend to be the ones you want to talk to because they've thought about it. They've come to terms with that way of being in the world. And there is then a lot of the, like paying clients, uh, people on that are just scraped together an expedition or, [00:34:00] you know, your stereotypical hedge fund manager that wants a plaque on his wall, like, and then those people, it can be kind of a mixed bag, right?

And you could get some people who are just like, so ego forward. You can't figure it out. You have other people that are just like, so inspiring, you know, like, you know, people who just have absolutely nothing and they're, just. Chasing a dream, what I find fascinating about Everest is like all of human nature, like the best and the worst of humanity is crammed onto a glacier for two months.

Paddy: Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: And, and some of them aren't coming back, and some of them are going to have the defining experience of their life, and some of them are just in between that. But everything you wanna learn about life and death and human nature and the way the world works and the way that people work together from like capitalist exploitation to incredible rescues and compassion and kindness, it's all there. It's like the most stories per square inch of anywhere [00:35:00] I can imagine in the world,

Paddy: That's so good. Ben. Ben, you're good with words?

Ben: Hey, that's how I got this job, Paddy

Paddy: Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: It's the coolest place and I, feel so lucky , as a journalist, I mean, what a cool assignment.

Yeah. It's gonna be hard, but like, as you've stated, I'm from New England. I'm into that stuff. Like, uh,

PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE

Paddy: when it comes to this assignment and your commitment and just love affair with Nepal,

Ben: Mm.

Paddy: what do you hope to give the audience?

What do you hope to do for them?

Ben: I hope that we can change the way people see Mount Everest and they see it as it is, which is this human thing. Because one of the things that the climbing industry has done is they've made it so almost anyone can make a attempt at climbing Mount Everest and I want to try to do that with words. I. I want to try to make it so that people can get the benefit that I've received from spending a life in the orbit of that mountain and her sisters across the [00:36:00] range. I want to try to get away from the idea that Everest is a garbage dump and that Everest is a traffic jam.

I want people to see it for the power that it has to instruct us, on how to live more fulfilled lives, on how to chase our dreams, how to take risks, and when to take risks and when not to take risks.

It's that pursuit of, that passion has given me everything meaningful in my life. It's given me my family, it's given me, , my occupation and it's given me a great sense of meaning and satisfaction and wonder in my life.

And that's what that community and what these mountains have provided for me,

All that stuff is there, and I, hope that we can shift the function that that mountain has in our culture.

it's the least I can do for this place

MUSIC IN THE CLEAR FOR A BEAT

Paddy: so it's now time for the final ramble. One piece of gear that you cannot live without,

Ben: I can't live without my lucky, Skida neck warmer that has snow leopards on it. I saw a [00:37:00] snow leopard wearing that, and I've pretty much worn it every day ever since.

Paddy: Best outdoor snack.

Ben: You can get these little sesame bars in the Asian grocery stores. It's like sesame seeds and like jaggery or molasses all crammed together. Super high energy, super high sugar, super cheap. That's my jam.

Paddy: What is your hottest outdoor hot take?

Ben: You don't need all the gear, just get after it..

Paddy: the most Vermont, new England answer ever. Go out

Ben: it's the truth.

Paddy: go out there, in a pair of old Converse smoking a Marbree Red no T-shirt. Just go

Ben: just get after it, man. Because you're gonna, yeah. 'cause you're gonna have fun anyway. Like the point is just getting out,

Paddy: uh, I love it,

Music In the Clear For A Beat

OUTRO VO:

Veteran international journalist Ben Ayers is heading up DISPATCHES FROM EVEREST for �����ԹϺ���. Ben is reporting on the 2025 Everest season, writing features, interviews, and travelogues, and shooting video from mid-April [00:38:00] through the end of May. DISPATCHES FROM EVEREST will have coverage spanning climber prep in Kathmandu, accounts from the trail to Base Camp, and on-site Everest updates. �����ԹϺ��� will be showcasing Ben's written and video work on �����ԹϺ��� Online throughout the entire project and will have a weekly newsletter to help you stay updated.

You can check out Ben's films, latest work, and life updates on his website, Jet Butterflies Dot Com, or on Instagram at Jet Butterflies.

Hey, dear audience memebers, do you dig this show, do you have an idea for a guest, want to send us a cookie recipe? Well, you can. Email us guest nominations and your thoughts to �����ԹϺ��� Podcast At �����ԹϺ��� Inc Dot Com. Afterall, this show is made for the enjoyment of earholes .

The �����ԹϺ��� Podcast is hosted and produced by me, Paddy O'Connell. But you can call me PaddyO. Storytelling support and [00:39:00] Cuddly but Contrarian Care Bear provided by Micah Abrams. Music and Sound Design by Robbie Carver. And booking and research by Maren Larsen.

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