San Rafael Man Leads Team in Everest Ascent
Jim Doyle, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 6, 2004
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Tom McMillan shows few signs of
being addicted to danger.
The mild-mannered computer whiz
lives with his wife in a San Rafael suburb and commutes by ferryboat to an
office on the San Francisco waterfront. He talks about his passion for rock
climbing with an air of humility.
After scaling the 29,035-foot
summit of Mount Everest this spring, McMillan had hoped to enjoy a panoramic
view of the Himalayas, with their vast river valleys and towering peaks.
Instead, his five-member Friendship Beyond Borders Expedition team stood above
a dense layer of rain clouds.
No matter. Posing for photographs
beside McMillan at dawn on May 16 was his mountaineering friend Nawang Sherpa,
who had just become the first person to climb the world's highest peak with a
prosthetic leg.
"We took some risks,"
McMillan said in an interview. "Nawang made a great achievement. No one
with a disability as severe as his has ever done anything like this. For five
years we had tried to help Nawang get to Everest."
McMillan, 48, is a software
developer for AMB Property Corp. of San Francisco, a real estate investment
trust. He lives in Lucas Valley with his wife, Linda, who is a rock climber,
business consultant and conservationist.
"I pretty much spend all my
free time climbing," McMillan said. "For me, it's been a lifelong
obsession."
McMillan grew up in Charlotte,
N.C., and began rock climbing as a teenager. At 16, he visited Yosemite
National Park and climbed the west face of Leaning Tower, which took 2 1/2
days.
"That was the first big
climb I made and it scared the crap out of me," he said. "It was
audacious."
A year later, he scaled the North
American wall of Yosemite's El Capitan -- the first of his many ascents of El
Capitan, including its most difficult routes, Reticent and Tempest. In 1981, he
climbed Mount Edith Cavell in the Canadian Rockies.
He studied chemical engineering
at the University of Utah, then worked in Arizona before moving to the Bay Area
in 1986 to take a job with SRI International. He lived in Menlo Park, met Linda
at Yosemite, and they began climbing together. They were married in the Yosemite
chapel three years later.
McMillan was an early investor in
San Francisco's Mission Cliffs Climbing and Fitness Club, where he perfected
his climbing technique in the mid-1990s.
He has climbed twice in the
Peruvian Andes and seven times in the Swiss Alps. In 1991, he scaled the
Central Pillar of Freney on Mount Blanc in France. On the Cassin Ridge of
Alaska's Denali (Mount McKinley) in 1992, he climbed past the grisly sight of
an Italian climber whose corpse was left dangling by a rope after a sudden storm
hit.
In 1998, his attempt to climb
Annapurna -- also in Nepal -- was aborted because of avalanches and heavy
snowstorms. Last year, McMillan ascended the 7,536-meter Mustagh Ata in western
China -- which he considered a test for his ability to withstand high altitude.
He's also had some close calls.
In September 1991, he scaled the
north face of the Matterhorn with his longtime climbing buddy Mark Melvin of
Larkspur.
"We really underestimated
how hard it would be," McMillan said. "It was much more technical
than we expected, we weren't acclimatized, and we were out of shape."
A snowstorm left both of them
hanging from pitons on a sheer wall. They had no warm clothes or tents. Their
expected 7 1/2-hour climb took 51 1/2 hours. A rescue helicopter could not find
them.
"They thought we were
dead," he said. "It was really dumb. It was just hubris. We should
have done some warm-up climbs."
McMillan also had a close call in
2000 on the Reticent wall of El Capitan when a huge block of granite gave way.
He fell almost 40 feet, before reaching the end of his climbing rope. "I
was absolutely certain I was about to die," he said.
The catalyst for the Everest
expedition occurred over lunch in spring 2003 when Hamid Moghadam, AMB
Property's chairman and chief executive officer, asked McMillan whether he
dreamed of climbing the world's tallest peak.
McMillan replied that he never
considered it because of the expense. Moghadam offered $25,000 of his own money
for his employee to lead an expedition. McMillan decided it was a perfect
opportunity to help Nawang Sherpa, who lost his left leg when his motorcycle
collided with a bus in 2000 in Kathmandu.
The Everest expedition's budget
of $60,000 included airplane tickets, permits from Nepal's government, Sherpa
guides, food and supplies. McMillan raised the additional $35,000 from private
and corporate sources. Several of AMB Property's top execs and other employees
made contributions. Early backers also included Jim Wickwire, one of the first
Americans to climb K2 in Pakistan, the world's second-highest peak.
Tom Halvorson, of Duluth, Minn.,
provided the new prosthetic device for Nawang Sherpa's left leg, and the
nonprofit High Exposure Foundation paid for his treatment. Walter Racette of UC
San Francisco's Department of Orthopedic Surgery had provided Sherpa with his
first prosthetic leg after his motorcycle accident.
McMillan endured months of
heavy-duty training -- hitting the gym up to three times a day for
weightlifting and aerobic workouts, methodically tracking his pulse rate. He
climbed at the Class 5 Climbing-Health Club in San Rafael. He took 15-mile runs
and mountain-biking expeditions through the Marin hills. He skied at Lake Tahoe
to train his body to adjust to higher elevations.
Some mountaineers view Everest
with disdain because its climbers rely on fixed ropes, supplemental oxygen and
Sherpas, an ethnic group of strong, genial mountaineers. But the ascent takes
days of rugged climbing.
"It's definitely a lot safer
than it used to be," McMillan said. "Historically, there was a 1 in
20 chance that you'd die from climbing Everest, the equivalent of being on the
front lines of combat."
More than 1,300 people are
believed to have made it to the summit, and nearly 200 have died in the attempt
since Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand first scaled Everest in 1953 with a
Sherpa named Tenzing Norgay. Five-day weather forecasts and accumulated
knowledge of the mountain's weather patterns have significantly raised the odds
of survival.
In April, McMillan and Nawang
Sherpa trekked to the Everest base camp.
"The Khumbu region of
Everest was particularly spectacular," McMillan said. "The peaks are
so steep and magnificent."
The two spent several days
acclimating themselves to the high altitudes, climbing between the mountain's
base camp and upper camps when the snow and wind permitted. The altitude gave
McMillan severe headaches.
"I'm fortunate because I've
got a God-given ability to acclimatize," McMillan said. "It really
boils down to genetics."
At Everest's higher altitudes,
there is not enough oxygen to sustain the body's metabolic processes and to
turn food into energy.
McMillan brought along beef jerky
and energy bars.
The two climbers rested for four
days in a village at 12,000 feet, which improved their strength. Then, they
waited at base camp with other climbers from around the world for a lull in the
weather.
They knew that storms and
hurricane-strength winds arise in the afternoon, and that avalanches,
exhaustion, dehydration, frostbite and pneumonia had forced legions of others
off the mountain. They recalled the 1996 disaster -- depicted by the bestseller
"Into Thin Air" -- when eight climbers died after getting lost in a
storm.
McMillan and Nawang Sherpa were
assisted by three Sherpas, who acted as guides and high-altitude porters who
carried the expedition's tents, sleeping bags, food and supplemental oxygen
tanks for the higher altitudes. One of them, Nima Gombu Sherpa, had climbed
Everest 10 times.
"Some people treat the sherpas
with disrespect. I wanted everyone to be part of the team, not just be the
sahib," McMillan said. "I don't think the Sherpas get enough
credit. They do most all of the work. Without them, I most certainly would
not have made it."
Before his climb, McMillan was offered
puja prayer beads and lotus petals. He asked for the blessing of Chomolungma
-- "Goddess Mother of the Earth."
On May 15, the wind faded.
McMillan's down suit and climbing
boots performed well, but his eyeglasses often froze.
In this spring's climbing season,
168 people successfully climbed Everest from Nepal. Retired physician Nils
Antezana, 69, of Washington, died after apparently losing his way due to snow
blindness on the South Col route that McMillan took.
After reaching the summit,
McMillan posed with several flags, including one from AMB Property. He shot
videos of his team and the stark landscape, with its gray rock, glacier-blue
ice and sky. He called his wife and his boss in California via a satellite phone.
McMillan is editing video footage
for a documentary on the expedition, which aims to inspire people to overcome
their physical disabilities and other special challenges.
In the last 15 years or so,
McMillan has seen significant improvements in cold-weather clothing, boots and
tents, the advent of high-tech telecommunications and the availability of
accurate weather forecasts that enhance safety in mountaineering.
Climbing has become increasingly
popular, as evidenced by a huge rise in the number of climbing gyms around the
world. Mountaineering has also become more commercialized. A new industry has
emerged offering guided climbs of Everest and other high peaks. But the
availability of climbing opportunities has also given inexperienced climbers a
false sense of safety, resulting in mishaps and fatalities.
He disputes the notion that
climbers are macho guys who trash the landscape. His heroes include explorer
John Muir and conservationist David Brower.
"Climbers are often zealous
environmentalists," McMillan said, "because 90 percent of the reason
we're there is because of the mountain's beauty. Basically, climbers find
themselves in the most beautiful places on Earth."
He also enjoys the sport's
camaraderie, or what climbers call "the fellowship of the rope."
Climbers trust each other with their lives. Mountain climbing is often compared
to going into combat. Bad weather, sickness and interpersonal conflicts can be
deadly.
He and other climbers blame the
media, especially Hollywood movies, for presenting a distorted image of
climbers as stunt men.
"It can be an extreme mental
challenge like chess with a time limit," McMillan said. "A climber
would not look at it as a Sylvester Stallone kind of situation. You need to
figure out hand and foot positions as the clock is ticking and your strength is
giving out."
Linda McMillan, 54, began rock
climbing some 20 years ago. She has tried ice climbing and mountaineering, but
prefers scaling rocks in the sun. She did not consider herself physically able
to climb Everest, and did not want to put others at risk.
"In all of our lives, we
each have an Everest -- meaning that it's the most difficult thing you've ever
done or wanted to do," she said. "Something that seems impossible,
whether it's an accomplishment in sports or just losing weight. If a Sherpa
with a prosthetic leg can climb Everest, then anything's possible."
E-mail Jim Doyle
at jdoyle@sfchronicle.com
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