A different high

Mount Everest, really, is a public as well as a personal symbol of what we can achieve.

It stands for dreams that come true, prayers that are answered, hopes that are dashed.

It is a symbol of ambition, a peak of pride, a summit of character and determination.

For Filipinos who are as conscious of world records as every Guinness follower, conquering the peak of the world’s tallest mountain was initially difficult because there was no contest for it – nothing that cheering fans could roar in the arena for. It was a personal quest until the networks smelled a conquest in it as well.

When Leo Oracion and Pastor Emata dropped by the STAR offices recently, I just had to have my picture with them. As a little girl going up the steps to the Lourdes Grotto in Baguio City, I learned what catching one’s breath meant – literally! Since then, I have been on other steep climbs in my life – literally and figuratively – and I know how every step is a result of all that you’ve got – your drive, your health, your stamina, your will. The climb up the 29,000-ft. Mount Everest also pits the climber against the unpredictable forces of nature and the whims of fate.

"Because I’ve been to the mountaintop," Martin Luther King once said, to describe the highs in his life. And to be on the mountaintop of Mount Everest? Oracion and Emata are truly admirable.

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But the Filipino conquest of Mount Everest is slowly but surely degenerating into a controversy on who really reached it first: Oracion on May 17 or Dale Abenojar on May 15? Reporters try to get both sides – Oracion’s camp and Abenojar’s camp. Because the dates of conquest come on the heels of each other, what could have been a solid record for either (as the first to reach the peak) is melting under the harsh glare of doubt. Was it really Oracion first? Or is Abenojar telling the truth?

The issue will bring to the fore cracks and flaws in our own character as a people and as a nation. What price are we willing to pay for a conquest? Are we willing to pay the same price for the truth?

As this controversy rumbles like an avalanche down Everest, I chanced upon a segment of the Today Show on NBC that showed me the peak of human kindness. It was a feature on two Mount Everest climbers.

Veteran Australian climber Lincoln Hall was on his way up Mount Everest on May 25 when he suffered cerebral edema, a potentially fatal condition. After consultation with the head of Hall’s expedition on Base Camp and after about eight hours of trying to revive him, his Sherpas decided to leave Hall for dead. The Sherpas took with them Hall’s oxygen supply and sleeping bag, probably because they assumed he no longer would be needing them.

But Hall awakened, amazingly, in the dead of night. Miraculously, the weather turned gentle and he survived the elements long enough to see the face of a startled American climber who chanced upon him – Dan Mazur.

"Are you surprised to see me here?" a weak Hall asked the American climber.

Mazur and the members of his team were just about two hours short of reaching the peak of Mount Everest when they saw Hall, left for dead. Hall was conscious, incoherent and dying. There was not a minute to waste.

If you were Dan’s team – you’ve trained a lifetime to reach the peak of Mount Everest and it was now within reach– what would you do? A. Proceed with your climb and come back for Hall, hoping he would still be alive on your way down. B. Radio for a rescue team and still proceed with your climb. C. Turn back.

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Dan Mazur turned back. He and the members of his team did not even hold a conference to come up with their decision.

In giving up Mount Everest’s peak for a stranger, Mazur rose to his own summit. Hall has lost some toes and fingers to frostbite and temporarily moves around in a wheelchair. But he is alive, thanks to a modern-day Good Samaritan.

Asked by Today host Matt Lauer what message he had for Mazur, Hall, his voice choked with emotion, simply clasped Mazur’s shoulders with his bandaged fingers and said, "What else can I say?"

Mazur recalls there were other climbers who passed Hall by, but they decided to proceed with their climb anyway. He declines to pass judgment on them. I wouldn’t either.

But I would like to pass judgment on Mazur. In the Mount Everest of my admiration, Mazur sits right there, on the peak.

When you’re feeling low, and when some of life’s climbers disappoint you, think of the Mazurs of this world and feel a different kind of high.

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