But did you ever imagine that you could turn this into the way that you would monetize your life and that you'd actually do Mount Everest 20 times?

No, not at all.

And I think this is a real challenge.

learning point for so many people.

And my daughter's going through it a little bit at the moment.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

Even in 2004, my first year on Everest, I was given this opportunity to go to Everest as a guide, a leader.

And so everything you're telling me, I can relate to, except for the fact that I was there for two months and it wore me down and it just tore me

Chicken feed.

Uh, for me, it's work to an extent.

This is one of the ways I pay the mortgage.

I'm a full qualified guide, so I would do the Eiger and the Matterhorn, and I would go down to South America or Antarctica looking after my clients.

But I'm kind of known as Mr. Everest, and clients keep coming to me on this mountain.

And I can charge a relatively good wage doing so.

Added to that, I love the country of Nepal.

Wow, okay

what's next?

Well, uh, yeah, well, nobody really knows.

I mean, there's, there's all sorts of rumors flying around.

Uh, what we do know is that as of today the Icefall Doctors who are governed by the SPCC, that's the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, are joining forces with the, uh, Expedition Operator Association, and they're putting together a crack team of Sherpas to go back into the icefall tomorrow morning with a view to try to either ascertain if that ice cliff is indeed unstable or has, perhaps it's fallen down and is now safe or try to find another possible route through the icefall.

But time is ticking.

It's already at least two weeks later than it, than it was last week when they op- uh, last year rather, when they opened the icefall.

So what are the implications for that, assuming that the access does become available? Is this gonna create problems, uh, th- you know, during the se- during the climbing season?

P- p- p- potentially, yes, because what you would expect, uh, to see by now is most of the, uh, most of the teams would have been moving logistics up the mountain.