All Abilities Trek Triumphs At Mount Everest Base Camp

By Dianna Troyer

You never know where a friendship will lead. For Carla Yustak of Edmonton, an elementary school teacher and nationally competitive cyclist, her seven-year friendship with the late Bill March led her to Mount Everest’s snowy, desolate base camp last spring. March led an expedition in 1982 that put Canadian mountaineers on Everest’s summit for the first time.

Yustak, 36, who has cerebral palsy, was among 12 trekkers, including four others with disabilities, to travel about 46 miles (74 km) from Lukla, Nepal at 9,000 feet (2,700 m) up to Everest base camp at 17,600 feet (5,280m) in close to 20 days. Members of the All Abilities Trek stunned some of the world’s greatest mountaineers in base camp with their arrival on May 11, 1998. The trekkers were not only a day ahead of schedule, they were in good health and had adjusted to the high altitude, where there’s less oxygen for the body to consume.

The trekkers were elated, exhausted, cold and wet, but weren’t surprised at their feat. Once they had climbed the Namche Hill with its 11 switchbacks and 1,200-foot (360 m) vertical rise, they never doubted they would reach their goal.

During their three-day stay at base camp, the trekkers raised a toast of tea and hot lemon to all those who had doubted them - especially guests at their hotel in Katmandu who had told them they were foolish and must surely have a death wish to undertake such an odyssey.

The trek was organized to demolish stereotypes of people with disabilities and what they can accomplish, and to cheer on Tom Whittaker, 50, who would try to be the first mountaineer with a disability to climb to Everest’s summit. Whittaker, whose right foot was amputated after a drunk driver slammed into his van in 1979, achieved his goal. He stood on the world’s tallest mountain at 29,028 feet (8,708m) on May 27, 1998.

The triumphant ascents of the trekkers and Whittaker, an outdoor education professor at Prescott College in Arizona and a longtime friend of March’s, was chronicled in a one-hour, award-winning television film, "A Footprint on Everest" which has twice been broadcast on CBS during the past year.

A year after the trek, Yustak still hears comments from people about the show and her participation in the trek. The trek has given her a deep appreciation for the power of friendship and for the culture of the sherpas, the native people of Nepal’s Khumbu Valley who were hired as porters and cooks and helped the trekkers achieve their goal.

Most trekkers were affiliated with the Cooperative Wilderness Handicapped Outdoor Group (C. W. Hog) at Idaho State University in Pocatello. After Whittaker recovered from his auto accident, he founded C.W. HOG at the university where he had been working in the outdoor program. He started the group to provide recreational opportunities for people with disabilities.

While at the outdoor program, Whittaker met March, who was at ISU earning a master’s degree. March also worked at the outdoor program. After graduating, March moved to Canada where he was hired as an outdoor education professor at the University of Calgary. When Yustak enrolled at the university in 1983, she rented a basement apartment from March and his wife, Karen.

"That’s where it all started," says Yustak, who graduated in 1988 with a degree in physical education, majoring in outdoor pursuits. She had gone sea kayaking with C.W. HOG and ice climbed with Whittaker and March. In 1990, at age 48, March died from a seizure while backpacking. Yustak maintained her friendship with Whittaker. When she learned he would be making his third attempt to climb Everest she called him to encourage him.

She learned that a web site about the expedition would be set up. Her students at Ermineskin Primary School in Hobbema about 90 kilometers southwest of Edmonton where she teaches second grade could follow the expedition’s progress and learn about the Himalayas. "Then Tom said, ’Well, Carla, we still need more trekkers. Would you be interested?’"

"Of course," she said, stunned. "It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to go to Everest and be with Tom and his wife, Cindy, who was leading the trek. How many times do you talk to someone, and they ask you to go to Everest?"

Yustak had been an avid rock climber and mountaineer and had read all about Everest. After graduating from high school, she trained extensively to climb Mt. Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies at 12,969 feet (3,954 m). She came within 300 feet of the summit, before foul weather turned her and her companions back.

To go on the trek, she first needed permission to take time off during one of the busiest periods of the school year, April 16 to May 28."The director, Brian Wildcat, Principal Jeff Pete and the board were very supportive," she says. "That was great having the school and community backing me."

When March’s wife, Karen, learned Yustak was going, she had a special favour to ask.

"I want to send some of Bill’s ashes with you. Would you spread them at base camp?"

During the Canadian Everest expedition in 1982, March was only able to climb to the Yellow Band at 25,000 feet (7,500m) on Everest’s south side. Without hesitation, Yustak said she would be glad to fulfill Karen’s wish.

Yustak’s ongoing exercise program prepared her for the physically demanding trek. As a member of the Alberta Cerebral Palsy Sports Association, she trains extensively and has competed as a cyclist on Canada’s national team since 1996. That year, she competed in the Paralympics in Atlanta, GA. and hopes to qualify for the games in Sydney, Australia next year.
"I was prepared for what I was going into," she says.

After arriving in Katmandu, Nepal, some trekkers, especially those who use wheelchairs, initially had doubts about reaching base camp. A trekking company had been hired and horses and yaks had been rented for the three trekkers - Ike Gayfield, Tom McCurdy and Kyle Packer - who use wheelchairs. Gayfield, 50, manager of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Adult and Child Development Center in Boise, has transverse myelitis, a degenerative disease. McCurdy, 32, an Idaho State University anthropology student, was paralyzed in a military accident. Packer, 38, who was the Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator at the Northwestern Illinois Center for Independent Living, has cerebral palsy.

When they were able, the three traveled under their own means. Yustak and Steve DeRoche, a video store owner with a double below-the-knee amputation and a congenital birth defect hiked the entire way.

After flying from Katmandu to Lukla, their adventure began. The first night on the trail, a leopard came into camp, scattering the yaks and horses. The next day, Packer’s horse bucked so much that it was impossible for him to ride it, so the Sherpa porters devised a wicker basket and carried him. Yustak was impressed that the porters were so helpful in getting everyone to base camp and helping them solve their problems.

"The people are incredible," she says. "They live simply without many amenities that we take for granted like running water, yet they have fulfilling lives and are happy."

The Sherpas easily carried 80-pound loads of camping gear, sang and hiked ahead of the trekkers to have hot tea ready for them during breaks.

Several times, the trekkers confronted intimidating sections of the trail. They negotiated deteriorating bridges made of boards and cables that swayed across deep river gorges. Along the narrow, steep trail above the Dudh Kosi River, the hillside fell away 2,000 feet (600m) down to the river.

They were awed at the scenery. Bright pink and white rhododendrons, Nepal’s national flower, bloomed. One day clouds churned up so quickly from the valley below that they looked like a series of time-lapse photographs. At the village of Tengboche, they saw the best-known Buddhist monastery in the Khumbu Valley and heard monks playing gongs and deep resonant horns.

The itinerary had been planned to allow for rest days so trekkers could acclimatize to the higher altitudes.

"The hike itself puts you in shape too, walking five to six hours a day," Yustak says. "Being there, I got in even better shape." Still, once Yustak reached 16,500 feet (4,950 m), she began to suffer from migraines. "Altitude affects everyone differently," she said. Once in base camp, her headaches disappeared because she wasn’t exerting herself as much as when she was hiking, and she was also drinking more water.The trekkers had no serious health problems. They carried a well-supplied medical kit donated from a Pocatello hospital and also had herbs and other remedies.

The day the trekkers were to arrive in base camp, they awoke to ominous clouds. By midday, flurries began to fall, and the wind gusted. Finally with the aftenoon storm blowing at their backs and snow encrusted on their coats, they arrived in base camp. "It was an exhilarating experience," Yustak says. "I was impressed with the panoramic view of the Himalayas. I had an incredible sense of awe at base camp. Just to be there is amazing."

At base camp, people can hear the roaring jet stream at the top of Everest that sometimes sounds like a jet taking off. Avalanches occasionally thunder down the flanks of nearby mountains.

Yustak was glad to find that Whittaker was still in camp. Hazardous weather higher on the mountain and illness had delayed his summit bid. Because he was still there, Yustak asked him if he would take March’s ashes to the summit for her.

"I hoped in some small way that I helped Tom achieve his goal." For Whittaker, scattering his longtime friend’s ashes was one of the most memorable things he did on the summit.

"That was a really fulfilling moment for me on Everest," he says. "Bill was always very supportive of me professionally and personally."

Yustak also kept some of March’s ashes to scatter. Near base camp, she built a cairn and placed the ashes under the rocks. She took a few rocks from that spot for friends back home.

"One looked like it had a mountain naturally sketched in the rock," she said. "Another had a yellow band through it."

Once back home, Yustak showed the rocks to March’s wife. Karen selected the one with the yellow band in memory of the highest point her husband had climbed to on the mountain. Several times on the trail, the trekkers were stopped by others who sought advice on how to get their friends and relatives with disabilities back into the outdoors. "You need a lot of communication between the people involved," Yustak says.

Throughout their journey, the All Abilities trekkers made decisions as a group after each person was given the opportunity to speak. As a result, the group was really cohesive.

The type of outdoor activity suited for a person with disabilities depends on their interest and previous experience, she says, whether it’s rock climbing, or hiking or rafting.

"Figure out what you want to do, take it from there and be sensible about it," she advises.

Yustak plans to give slide shows about the trek to community organizations and groups at the University of Calgary.

She’ll share one of Whittaker’s main messages. "Follow your dreams and know that your abilities are far more important than your disabilities whatever they may be. If you set your mind to it and take one stop at a time, you can accomplish anything. Dreams are sequential."
Another message of the trek that C.W. HOG Director Jeff Brandt shares is that the journey was a celebration of abilities. He hopes the trek will help others. "Maybe a person with a disability will see what this group has accomplished and will say, ’Maybe I can do something incredible, too...."

Brandt still receives e-mail from people interested in learning more about the trek. Information is available at the C.W. HOG’s web site at www.isu.edu/cwhog

(Dianna Troyer is a journalist and writer from Pocatello, Idaho.)