The teams had scheduled to summit the mountain on 10, May 1996. Perfect weather in the calendar to summit the beast. But this was not on. You cannot have loads of people trying to summit, especially when there are multiple bottle necks (narrow climb paths) along the way and there are strict time limits imposed to return to the base camp. But the leaders of each team could not agree to stagger the days. They knew the risks involved but still decided to press on for 10th May. Such is the competition in business and disregard for other teams. Eventually, Rob Hall (Adventure Consultants) and Scott Fischer (Mountain Madness) decided to combine their resources and team together to get some synergy going. However, combining teams at the eleventh hour …show more content…
There were two big mistakes made. First, two hours is such a narrow window and there was absolutely no slack left in case something happens. Second, sending just two guides was risky. Having a three man team could have helped in case there were unknown events along the way. When one of the sherpas fell ill along the way (had to abandon), it was left to Neil Beidleman (a guide) to go fix the ropes at Hillary step. This resulted in time delays of upto 2 hours and held back the whole …show more content…
Everest is that climbers should make a U turn back to base camp 4 by 1 pm irrespective of where they are on the climb path. Despite knowing very well that if they break this rule, they can die , climbers from both teams did not reach the summit by 1 pm. Mountain Madness reached the summit at 2:05 pm and Adventure Consultants team around 2:35 pm! Moreover, Rob Hall personally escorted one of the weak climbers Doug Hansen, who was making his 3rd attempt (and the last one), to the summit around 3:30 pm! Scott Fischer was ill and he reached the summit around 3:45 pm!! If you don't respect the mountain and nature......it will get you. They say, Mt. Everest creates it own weather. By 3:30 pm, weather turned bad and the blizzard hit the team full force. They were all stranded 8650 meters above sea level. Plus the team were running short of Oxygen. Six died on the South summit that day. Including two team leaders (and owners) - Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. Recruiting weak teams or clients is a big mistake - Leaders should have clear idea about what makes their business tick. Including the rules and the way the game is played. For example, if you know that you cannot meet the business objective with a weak customer or weak team - don't hire them. In this case, Rob Hall was waiting on Doug Hansen who was a weak client. Doug had a great dream but he just dragged everybody