The Disruptor Podcast

Conquering Limits: Gary Guller's Ascent to Mount Everest and the Power of Human Spirit

• John Kundtz

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In this episode of The Disruptor Podcast, host John Kundtz and Jan Almasy are joined by adventurer, author, and motivational speaker Gary Guller to discuss his extraordinary journey to the summit of Mount Everest.

Despite losing his left arm in a tragic climbing accident at 19, Gary refused to let perceived limitations hold him back from pursuing his dreams.

Gary didn't just overcome his physical limitations; he shattered expectations by leading the first team of people with disabilities to Everest Base Camp and then going on to summit Mount Everest himself.

Key Highlights:

  • Early Days: Gary shares his introduction to climbing and how it shaped his life's trajectory, leading up to the life-altering accident that cost him his arm but not his spirit. 
  • The Ascent: Experience the harrowing and inspirational climb to Everest's summit as Gary recounts the challenges, close calls, and solidarity that propelled him forward. 
  • Motivational Insights: Gary delves into the lessons learned from the Sherpa community, his personal recovery, and how these experiences have influenced his motivational speaking career and philanthropic efforts.
  • Legacy of Belief: A testament to believing in oneself and the power of community support, Gary's story is a profound reminder that limits are often just a state of mind.

Special Moments:

  • A chilling account of a near-fatal avalanche and the miraculous survival thanks to a Sherpa's faith and a handful of rice. 
  • Insights into the formation and execution of the groundbreaking expedition to Everest Base Camp with a diverse team, showcasing the inclusivity and strength found in diversity.
  • Gary's Message: Through adversity comes an opportunity to discover our true potential. It's not the mountains we conquer but ourselves.
    Inspired by Gary's story? 

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Gary Guller:

I mean I could see the summit and I mean it's hard now to even really still talk about it, but if you can imagine with every color that your brain can come up with, right, that's how it seems to me.

Gary Guller:

At that time I had never been this high in my life and I saw the summit. I knew and I remember thinking it's like my God, gary, this is that next step. You know, this is that next step. And as soon as I had that fall, my friend yells out color, I'm falling, color, I'm falling. And I looked back very quickly behind me and he had basically come off the this little ice step and was falling backwards. So I immediately went down into the ice and tried to stop this fall with my ice axe and we're hooked together, tied together in the same rope team and before I could do that, he pulled me off the ice and then I pulled my climbing partner and best buddy off the ice and got 1500, maybe 1600 feet later. We just stopped and on the second day I lost my best friend and thankfully, you know, a day and a half after that, some folks found us.

Jan Almasy:

All right, we're live. What is going on? Everybody.

John Kundtz:

Welcome Jan. It's great to see you. How's the snow in Canton Ohio? Hopefully it's not too much here.

Jan Almasy:

It's happy to wake up and see, because there's those of you that don't know where I'm kind of located. I'm right smack dab in the center of downtown Canton. Outside of my one window is a direct view of the new Centennial, seeing it covered in snow, beautiful. So I'm excited because it's the first time I've really seen this much snow in downtown Canton. It's actually really pretty.

John Kundtz:

Well, anyway, let's kick this off. I see we're on the live stream. I want to welcome all the apex chasers. This is our eighth installment of the disruptor segment of the apex podcast, and even though the main focus of our podcast is typically around digital disruption and what's going on in the industry, around digital businesses and design thinking and empathetic selling and things like that, I think everyone would agree that 2020 has pitched us the mother of all disruptive curveballs, so to speak, and as a result, we should kick off 2021 season of disruptor podcast in this live stream with a bit of motivation from a gentleman named Gary Guller. He's a motivational speaker, he's an athlete, he's an author, he's an Iron man, he's an ultramarathon, he's a mountaineer extraordinaire, and so we have the great pleasure of bringing him in. But before we do, we have a lot to explore with Gary today. But before we do that, john's going to run a short, two minute film clip from ABC World News.

Jan Almasy:

Awesome. This is exciting. I'm starting to feel like Jamie from Joe Rogan. We're getting there, john, we're leveling up. All right, I'm going to play this video.

Intro Speaker 1:

The story is tonight about human achievement and the quest for overcoming obstacles, and they come from the sports of mountain climbing and golf, mountain climbing first, and Mount Everest, which has fascinated man for centuries. It is foreboding, it is beautiful, it is mysterious. Abc's Mark Litke is at Mount Everest.

Intro Speaker 2:

It's been a remarkable week of firsts on the world's highest peak, but perhaps the most inspiring first today was that of 36 year old American, Gary Guller, who lost his left arm in a climbing accident four years ago. He had led a team of Texans with disabilities on a grueling 17 day trek to Everest Base Camp. A remarkable Everest first in its own right, but then Guller immediately began his own assault on the summit the first attempt by a climber with one arm. It was treacherous from the start, as fierce winds slowed his team's advance for days. But as fast as it deteriorates, weather can suddenly improve on Everest and after a 17 hour final push, today Gary Guller stood on top of the world.

John Kundtz:

Awesome. So I am super excited to have on our show someone that I believe truly exudes the Apex tagline John ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things. Again ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things Easy for me to say. Anyway, a little bit about Gary. He was featured as an award winning documentary filmmaker in a film called Team Everest a Himalayan Journey, and was the climbing advisor for a documentary called Sherpa Stew. Both of them are I've watched and they're excellent. I highly recommend them. He's also a co-author of a book called Make Others Greater. From Mount Everest to the Boardroom Vital lessons from dynamic innovators, explorers and everyday heroes that will inspire the way you lead. In addition, gary is also the founder of Make Others Greater. It's a US 501C3 not-for-profit that's serving remote areas around the world, including Nepal, with medical supplies, school supplies and healthcare initiatives. So please welcome to the Disruptor, mr Gary Gaur.

Gary Guller:

Hey, hey everyone, good morning, nice seeing you guys.

John Kundtz:

Good morning, Namaste Gary.

Gary Guller:

Thank you for joining us. I swear to you, to everyone, when I, even now, when I watch that ABC World News Tonight clip and I hear my name and Charlie Gibson and Mount Everest in the summit and the team that went to base camp, you know I hope the feeling never goes away my hands still get sweaty. I've watched this thing 20,000 times. My heart starts beating really fast and you know it's just. I mean, there are a number of bumps along the journey, for sure, but ultimately there was success. And.

Gary Guller:

I'm just honored to share the story and start my week out and start my morning out at this level. It's great to be here.

John Kundtz:

Well good, thank you. Yeah, I tell you, in prepping for this show I got real nostalgic and really sort of want to go back to Nepal. I can't, you know, some one of these days. It's a really special place. But anyway, hey, I have another podcasting friend of mine that always says that everyone was born into someone else's story and obviously you have a great story. I wondered if you could give us a little bit of a. I'll let you give a little bit of background, particularly even a little before the actual accident, if you know of mine.

Gary Guller:

Yeah, no, I mean not at all, I was. I mean I was a teenager right and I was a bit of a free spirit kind of teenager. And you know, basically someone took me rock climbing one day and really got into it, really enjoyed it. And back in those days you know this was in the seventies right and Southeast down in Carolina and there wasn't many of us out on the rock and we looked very a little bit different from kind of everybody else in a way, and a lot of people, especially in the Southeast they weren't really quite sure how to sort of take sort of the rock climbing community back then and I really got, I just really got into it and some really wonderful I mean they're probably old guys, you know, they're 18 or 19 at the time right Took me under their wing, just kind of showed me the ropes, and not just necessarily the ropes literally on the rock face, but kind of another way of looking at life and how you should appreciate the feeling that you get when you're in nature, when you're on the rock, when the sun is on your back, get to the top and then you sort of enjoy and celebrate together.

Gary Guller:

And one of my first jobs, john was as an assistant for nonprofit and what we did? We went to a very, very poor side of town and we would take some kids that either, you know, had lost their father or their mother or didn't have any parents at all. We would take them on a rock climb just way out of their environment, just a short, you know climb and a short repel. And you know, I was fascinated even at God. I was 15, I think maybe 16 at that time but I was so fascinated when you would see these kids that they've really had never experienced anything like that in their life ever and their eyes would light up and then they would smile and then you would hear them talking about them as you was descending down the trail back to this band that we had hired and just like they were just way over the moon.

Gary Guller:

And you know my hope that just that experience, you know, offered them some I don't know some self-motivation, some like success, you know, just something different out of their norm. And you know, from then on, really up to the accident, you know, I just continued to climb and made multiple trips out west, went to Europe and always searching for sort of colder weather, deeper snow and you know, kind of pushing the boundaries as much as I could. And then, of course, you know, when I put the exhibition together with some friends down into Mexico. You know my whole life, I mean it just it came to an abrupt end, you know, on Peacock Day or Zava quickly.

John Kundtz:

Obviously you were in Mexico. How old were you again?

Gary Guller:

I think I was 19. I always say 20, but I was, I was a 19.

John Kundtz:

So you were yeah, you were still a baby.

Gary Guller:

Oh, I was still a baby, you know. But we, you know, we put this exhibition together. We were going to do the three volcanoes there and you know our first one was Peacock Day, or Zava, and there were a few friends and you know it was kind of back in those days, you know, it wasn't that you just wrote the check, hopped on a plane and you went to the Himalayas, you went to the Alps. Really there was some, I think, much more respect in a sense that if you really wanted to climb into Himalayas you really needed to kind of pay your dues a bit. And you know, mexico was kind of that next step. And then of course we had South America on the calendar for soon thereafter and then of course I hopefully into Europe, into the Alps, and then you know, maybe you know God willing to the Himalayas, and but I'm near the very top of what is all I could see, the. I mean I could see the summit, and I mean it's hard now to even really still talk about it, but the, if you can imagine, was every color that your brain can come up with. Right, that's how it seems to be.

Gary Guller:

At that time I had never been this high in my life and I saw the summit. I knew and I remember thinking it's like my God, gary, this is that next step. You know, this is that next step. And as soon as I had that thought, my friend yells out go around falling, go around falling. And I looked back very quickly behind me and he had basically come off the this little ice step and was falling backwards. So I immediately went down into the ice to try to stop this fall with my ice axe and we're hooked together, tied together in the same rope team, and before I could do that, he pulled me off the ice and then I pulled my climate partner and best buddy off the ice and got 1500, maybe 1600 feet later. We just stopped.

Gary Guller:

And the second day I lost my best friend and thankfully, you know, a day and a half after that, folks found us. My family was on the East Coast, so they flew me basically to Duke University as fast as they could and my other friend went to California. His family was in San Jose and the doctor coming in after laying there for a few months and saying you know, I've been a neurosurgeon for 30 plus years and the damage is so extensive in your spinal cord that your left arm and your shoulder is never going to be the same and it's never going to come back. And you know, you know what I was saying.

Gary Guller:

I was 19, 20 years old. You know, I was a kid. I was a kid. I just wanted to climb freaking mountains and travel the world and experience people and culture and lands. I never thought I'd be laying on my back in a neurosurgeon coming in. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to hear from anyone in my life and I was lost. And I was lost for a number of years after that.

John Kundtz:

I can imagine. I mean talk about the ultimate disruption as a 20 year old, right, you've got your whole. I was doing some climbing in the Sierras at that time in the 70s and I, you know they were mostly 14,000 foot, 13,000 foot peaks, but I mean it was. I was fortunate nothing ever catastrophic happened. But I a couple of close calls where a climbing friend of mine was above me and, you know, stepped on a loose rocks and a big rock avalanche would come tumbling down and you know, fortunately, you know, would go by me by a foot or two, but you know, if it was a six inches one way or the other, I could have easily been down at the bottom of that slope as well. So amazing story. And so tell us what happened. So obviously you're 20 years old. They amputate your arm. You still got the once. I mean I'm like, I mean I'm 62 years old and I still got the climbing bug right.

John Kundtz:

So I know you can't get it out of your system, and I am nothing compared to what the kind of stuff you were doing. So then what happens?

Gary Guller:

Yes, I was just disrupt for a number of years. I mean, I still, when I look back, you know I was just doing things that I can't even imagine. I'm just not proud of that period of my life. And I went on for, you know, four or five years too long really. And I eventually said, you know what, enough is enough, I'm starting over. And I went back to where I was born. I went back to England and just wanted really to start a whole another life, and not necessarily at that time really, I didn't want to be associated.

Gary Guller:

You know there was press about the accident. You know, a lot of people knew about it, or that almost defined me and I was like I'm not tired of telling the story back then, but it seemed like that was the only thing people wanted to hear. So I decided just to start again. And my grandfather was still alive at the time and he lived in England and I remember he came up to me one day and he knew that I had been up to no good and he looked at me, you know, and he put these big British builders hands around my face and he was like here you got to basically, he's like you got to get your shit together. And if there's not a person in the world that has climbed some of the highest mountains with one arm, he said, be the first. You know, that's when it started. I mean that's.

Gary Guller:

I eventually started then going to North Wales, scotland, with meeting new friends, and then, you know, a mountaineer sort of took me under his wing for a short time and we adapted and tried different things and then eventually got in the mid 90s, I got that opportunity to go to the Himalayas and life hasn't been the same since on so many levels. Right, just my first minute landing in Kathmandu, you know, I mean, in a sense that was, that was almost enough. And then to go on your first trek and then try to, you know, I was on a low sex expedition back in 97 and really fell, but learn a lot at the same time. And meeting the Sherpa people, as you know, and the culture and the colors and the cuisine and even the smoky poops, I just, you know, it was just, it was what I needed in my life.

Gary Guller:

It was, it was what I needed to kickstart, relight, you know, that positive avalanche I call it sometimes right, just light yourself again. And, you know, and I kept going back. I mean, I was hooked, you know, and I still keep going back as much as I could and to be able to tie, you know, part of my sort of adventure life into and with the corporate world and then with the nonprofit and, you know, try to Do some good, I think, in the world. I don't know if there is a better way to For me anyway, a better way to live cool.

Jan Almasy:

I'm gonna kind of hop in on on this portion here, john. So and John has heard this story hundreds of times I was a borderline, also Getting into some things that I probably shouldn't be getting into as a teenager, right? Yeah?

Intro Speaker 2:

and we're disruptors started and then started getting Started getting caught.

Jan Almasy:

And you know I essentially had the same conversation with my grandfather, but he was actually the one that pulled me out of my pit and told me get your shit together. He's the one that told me, you know, you're gonna join the Air Force. And I always say my grandpa pulled a card that is Irreversible because he's on his deathbed and he said this is my final wish and so that's. I have his dog tags tattooed on my chest. I go to visit him in the cemetery at least once a quarter, because talking to that man is my entire Inspiration for everything that I do.

Jan Almasy:

So I wanted to say, gary, I 110% Feel that when you, when you said that the hair on the net on the back of my neck was standing it, and then for all of us, you know, as what I really view as our charge as disruptors, is to be that person that sparks a conversation, like our grandfather sparked with us To other people, because sometimes people get so caught in the weeds of their own lives that they need that objective vision.

Jan Almasy:

Come in from the outside and repaint what they're capable of and readjust their lenses, you know, adjust their prescription on their glasses so they can see more clearly and the fact that Went through what you did. You know you had that period of time where you're off track and then you be ripped back by an objective person like your grandfather, and Then both of us and and there's so many millions of other people out there that experience the same thing feel this now burning Passion and this charge to go at an impact live. So I just wanted to throw that in there that you know that they really just emotionally punched me in the face. So I agree, I'm grateful for that. On an amazing Monday morning here on disruptor All right on so back to the corporate world.

John Kundtz:

You mentioned so a little story about how you and I first met. I think it was 2010, so I think you were. You know you were still relatively early in the motivational speaking Gig. I think you were at a. We were at an IBM Regional sales kickoff meeting of some sort. If you probably don't remember, I had just been promoted to management, so I had, if you will, needless to say, I had was facing what I would call a everest caliber challenge of trying to lead a set of sales team here in the eastern United States. And you, you know you gave your your pitch and we'll talk a little bit about that in a second. But you know what? That was great. And obviously you, you hit my mountaineering bug Accord, if you will. But what was really cool and, to be honest, you were the one that motivated me to get to napal in 2014.

John Kundtz:

But what was what I really enjoyed about meeting you is we at the end, we sat around a table, we had a couple of beers or a mental, if you remember this. You know we, we shot the shit. You know we were talking. I mean, the thing about climbers young, or mountaineers is we can talk about mountains all day long, right? Well, you know, you know, and it's just one of those things. It just it's sort of I don't know what it is it gets in our blood and we will sit there and we'll be asked for it.

John Kundtz:

So that was sort of how you and I met, and that was 2010 ish. So it's been almost 11 now, almost 11 year, over 11 years or over 10 years. So, anyway, that's sort of the back story on my end, but what I wanted to get to next obviously is is the expedition. So you, as you say, we're probably the or is, you know, probably the leader of the most diverse team ever to reach ever a space camp. And for those of you that aren't in sort of into the mountaineering World, ever a space camp in itself is is a feat. It's of 17,598 feet, so I mean it's, it's way higher than any mountain I've ever climbed. And so tell us a little bit about the, how you came up with the idea that's what really got me. In my world, we'd call that a big, hairy, audacious goal or a be hag and a little bit about the team and what you did and how it came about.

Gary Guller:

Right, and because it's fascinating, I think yeah, thanks for just everything you just said, john, and I got to give a shout out to the organization you work with. You know IBM. Ibm's been a huge supporter of me over the years, I mean from the very, very get go. It's one of just a handful of the early companies way back in 2003 that you know invited me to their campus there in Austin Texas and said they, you know, wanted to be involved with the messaging, with the expedition, and you know their only sort of requirement was that I wasn't allowed to say that were sponsored. But they didn't have a problem with Me saying that they were a partner and they wanted me to come back because it was successful, to come back to the one of my first presentations, the lunch cafeteria in Austin Texas, and just and just share the story with them.

Gary Guller:

And I mean I could go on for an hour then or more. I could go for hours about then who I met at that Presentation that I did and how our friendship developed, and then how I was invited to Florida. And then some other senior people Saw me and invited me to another event that led me to our month, and then it went on and on and on. So I'm grateful to IBM for their support and their continued support. I mean for sure. But in a nutshell, I tried ever since 2001 and I didn't make it very far. I mean honestly, I just Physically I thought I was okay, but mentally I just wasn't there in the right headspace, you know.

Gary Guller:

And I remember getting off the plane I was living in Austin at the time getting off the plane and there were a lot of people from the community just kind of Root me on and telling me how I inspired them, not because of how far I got on ever it's but because I got on the plane and actually just tried. You know, I got invited a few weeks after that to give a slideshow out west Texas, in El Paso, and At the end of that little, basically power point, you know, here's the Rockies, here's Mexico, here's Europe. You know, the lights came on.

Gary Guller:

In the back of the room I saw this gentleman and he could only Move one part of his body but I could tell he wanted to ask me a question. And I walked to the back of the room and I said, yes, what is your question? And I can see it was a person with quadriplegia and and had limited movement. And he looked at me and he said mr Guller, would you ever take somebody like me to some of the places that you've been to? Oh Right, and immediately, you know, in my mind I was like not only does he have this pretty severe physical challenge she's gonna.

Gary Guller:

Hey, I think he's a little bit freaking. Nice too, right, and we're great friends.

John Kundtz:

It's right in with us right.

Gary Guller:

And he is a little bit crabby is a lot crazy gotta be wonderful, wonderful person.

Gary Guller:

But and then, you know, thought about it. You always say the one of the greatest lessons I've learned from the Sherpa people is that they have this wonderful ability to look beyond what they See in a human being. They have this ability to look towards somebody's heart First and not look towards somebody's heart. But they have a wonderful ability. You feel like they're looking you and to your heart and inside of your soul. And you know, I thought about it and I was so inspired by this event Because it was an event on equality and equal access and accessibility, and half the people in the audience had some sort of physical or Cognitive challenge. But it wasn't just those people that inspired me, it was their employers were there, their teammates, whether the partners or husbands or wives, they were all there and it was just. This is collective force of life. It's just compassion and kindness and love and just people wanting to explore and try to have a Whatever a normal life is, but have an equal Life to somebody, let's say, that doesn't have a physical or cognitive challenge or as much as possible.

Gary Guller:

And I decided to put that started and I want to go back to ever and I was so blown away by this event that I decided, you know, I want to take a group of people Representing just about every type of person you can possibly imagine, including those with physical challenges, including those who've never been on a freaking Kappa drip before. I didn't really know how to do things back in those days. You know, at that time I think I was like minus two hundred seventy five bucks in the bank, but I, you know, did my research and I put out this little PSA it probably wasn't in the right format or anything and one radio station picked up on it and said you know, I'm going back to Everest and I want to take a team with me and, within God, within four or five weeks I probably had a team of 30 members and fortune of those had varying degrees of physical and cognitive challenges.

Gary Guller:

And again I mean I'm very appreciative of the better situation I'm in now. But I'm not joking at all. I was died minus two hundred three hundred dollars in the bank and I had this idea and this team already to go and I Put pencil to paper and this is a little clear, with three, four, five was half a million dollars.

Gary Guller:

I can't imagine so. So you imagine, you know I got to go knocking on some doors right and I hadn't been in Texas for very long, and people that understand Texas will get this. You know, texas is one of the greatest states, I think, in the country Because once you get into into the sort of, I think, the corporate world, the business folks, and you earn their trust. They never forget that and that is so very true. But it takes a while and at that time my hair is a little long. You know I have this funky sort of English Carolina, texas. You know Global accent. You know I don't think I own a pair of shoes at the time.

Gary Guller:

And imagine, you know you're CFO, you'll get this job or you on. You know You're CFO of an organization and then through the door comes this guy with short, long hairs but his hair pulled back, some old like barnage from the 70s and since that in front of you and says hi, mr, mr CFO, my name's Gary. I got this great idea. I need you get involved with it. Okay, yes, sir, but you say what your story is well, I'm gonna be the first guy to stand on top of one arm, and you know what? Before that, I'm gonna lead the largest cross diverse team ever to Mount Everest base camp. Some of the folks who are in wheelchairs. How about writing me a check for half a million dollars?

Jan Almasy:

Man, I've had some tough pitches in my life.

Jan Almasy:

That is, is that like, like you're saying that and and I'm connecting with it because I mean that's I walk in and boots, jeans, belt buckle you know, I'm just me, you walk in, you're just you.

Jan Almasy:

And the thing I think is beautiful and what you're gonna really give people confidence to do after this episode is understand, you know, if you truly are passionate, 110% believe in an idea, and sometimes it's just walking by faith and not by what you can see, because there's be like somehow this is gonna come together. I don't know how, but this is what is on my heart to get done Something like the bricks are gonna lay themselves, and that was to give you the confidence to go into a room like that. And then those CFOs are looking back and saying is this dude nuts? I feel like it's serious. But then, at the same time, they're like in order to have that much conviction, in that much conviction, you have to be ready to take it all the way through, and so I would actually probably Say that there's a little bit of confidence, or at least curiosity that gets spiked on their end like is it what, if it is possible?

Gary Guller:

Right, exactly right. I mean I think the number one. It took me a little while but I was like why are you not gonna be part of this? I can't understand why you would not want to be part of this. But I didn't know the whole deal about really sponsorships, you know, at this level and partnerships, and you know I had a number of folks and you know I've mentioned the organizations before that said, had it be happy, I mean financially. It was tough Proposition in the sense that things can go horribly wrong right in the mountains, mountain area, altitude, even fly and get in there.

John Kundtz:

It's getting to look alone is a life-threatening, risky adventure, right.

Gary Guller:

Yes, I mean totally right, who. What company wants to see. You know their logo or their corporate name. You know, on 27 expedition bags, you know, 3,000 feet down in the bottom of the canyon With a few people laying beside them. That's not a real good image to project, right, but I did figure out really quick. I had a number of organizations that said, you know, explain to me why they couldn't financially get involved as a sponsor, but they could get involved as a partner. And you know I was born a night but I'll tell you guys, I wasn't born last night. And once I figured that part out, I was like, okay, well, I can start leveraging these partnerships into perhaps some other people that don't mind either. They were not us really throwing in some cash and basically that's how it finally came together, barely.

John Kundtz:

So tell the audience like how, because I know exactly how I sort of know the proportion of people, of trackers to Portors, to Sherpas, right so, but give them, give the people a little feel of you had, how many people were you trying to take up? I forget, it's a 16 no.

Gary Guller:

We're 30 sort of we had 30, we had 28 Westerners, and then I just didn't want it to be just about, you know, americans, right, or even we had a couple Canadians as well. We also had to Sherpa those guys were awesome, man.

John Kundtz:

I met so many people like that, those two that you had in the movie in my. I'll send you a picture. I swear to God, I met the guy's brother right.

Gary Guller:

No, of course, and he probably was related. I mean, all the children generally are staying family. But yeah, I mean one of the guys. Both were bitten by cobras in the village. So one guy had an as a quick invitation in the village, bit by Cobra. So one guy had he was missing his right arm and the other guy was missing his left leg and they are also part of the expedition.

Gary Guller:

And I swear on my life, I remember we're at the at a hotel near Bodinoff in Kathmandu and I had never met these gentlemen before, but Neva, I was sure, but dear friend of mine had told me about these gentlemen before, so I kind of knew what to expect. But Think about this so the fours in the high hotel, actually not marble, but there's some rock or something very, very slippery. This guy is probably 60 years old, is missing his leg and he come and he comes from the village and he cannot even walk through the foyer there in the hotel because his crutches are made of just wood with no like rubber, slip or nothing under his shoulders. So he's walking and he's sliding on these heavily watched drawers and, you know, finally made it over when we all sat in the chair and all the team came there and you know we, we at least made it to Kathmandu, so we got to get up into the hills here pretty soon.

Gary Guller:

But when we landed up into Leucla, as you mentioned, got them and look, don't take off a landing airstrip. The damn thing is about 73 feet long right and then the runway is a Mountain face and the other end, when you depart the village, you know, on this Short take off a landing airstrip is about 3000 foot drop off. So you start having a whole another appreciation for when you land breaks and for when you take off acceleration, right, yeah, and you know so immediately we had. So at 30, made it to Leucland. Then I had to, immediately we have I'd sit sharp up in advance. So in the very early stages of this exhibition, at any one given time, I had over 300 people working.

John Kundtz:

Yes, I'm gonna say because that's a pretty good mean. Even our trip was the proportions to trekkers, to borders, the Sherpas was quite large and you obviously needed more people. So let's, let's get back to to Everest. So obviously you get this team up there and it's amazing, you break a world record. But you know, at that point you're like most of us would have turned around and gone home, but you obviously decided that the next thing to do was to try to scale the peak and you became the first person With one arm to climb Mount Everest.

John Kundtz:

Now get, mount Everest is 29,000, 28 feet, so it's another 10,000 feet above base camp. But for those. But to get to start off, when you start off from base camp, to get to camp one right, you've got to go across the treacherous and infamous bar icefall and I think you've got a really neat story about your trip and you were with the $1, your Sherpa that that helped you through the expedition and I think you had an experience on the icefall that was probably pretty Inspiring but I got still even what.

Gary Guller:

I even share the story now. Even when Neemland myself talk about the story, right, it's still hard to believe how it all sort of unfolded. Where Left base camp and you leave very early because you want to get through the icefall, when the ice is very hard, but that is possible the scariest place in the world, I mean, there's crevasses you can't see the bottoms of. You have to cross these crevasses on these like old rinkety ladders and there's, you know, there's avalanches that are happening. It's moving. It's his own life force really, and I mean a lot of people Heard a few years back I'm we lost the most 20 Sherpa in one avalanche.

Gary Guller:

You know that's 20 Sherpas and 20 Sherpa families, kids, wives, husbands, that's it was. It's scary and we're about half through the icefall and we hear this boom, boom and and it's the sounds you don't want to hear when you're in the icefall, because generally that means that something broke somewhere Right. And we both stopped and we looked up, looked around and we couldn't like see when it was. But we knew that wasn't a good, a good sound to hear. So we tried to pick up our pace as much as you can, like an 18 and 19 thousand feet for the first time. And then we heard again. It was like, but it was like three times as loud, three times as long and we looked up at the top of the icefall. This avalanche is coming directly toward nemadol or sherpa.

Gary Guller:

Myself, and I mean honestly, at that time I thought it's, it's over. You know, bloody hell. You know You've come all this way, you're very successful, with the team getting into base camp with some enjoyment and some happiness and she a lot. Gary, before you get to step one, your life is done.

Gary Guller:

And Niba put his arms around me and he thought the same and I put my arms around him and it was like, just before the impact of this avalanche was about to hit us, niba, just, he let go, reached into his pocket and he threw something three times in the path of the avalanche and then he quickly came back and he put his arms around me and honestly, it seemed like it was. It seemed like a lifetime. I mean, it was what? Maybe six seconds, seven seconds, and then everything just stopped, everything it was just, and it was so quiet, I mean so very quiet and I opened up my eyes and I looked at Niba and I could barely see him because of all the debris, but I knew he was still attached to me, me obviously, him and we. I wouldn't say laugh about it now because we but we're grateful, but we both thought at that time this is where you go. We thought maybe this is heaven.

Gary Guller:

Right. We couldn't see anything else. It's just this big cloud of like snow dust in the eyes. We're like this is it? And then it settled. And then we realized that we made it and we were alive.

Gary Guller:

And as I'm dusting off the snow and the ice from Niba's helmet and his shoulders, I looked at him and I said, niba, what did you throw in the path of that avalanche? What did you? I watched you. You threw something three times very quickly and apparently, when I went back to Kathmandu to say goodbye to the base camp team, he went back to this village by the name of Panglache and paid a very old man. I mean that old man, I don't mean like this guy's like 58. I mean this guy's like 558. And he's the llama. He was sort of a spiritual leader for the Kumbu Valley and Nima went back to see that man and he asked that man for a special blessing and that 560 plus year old man gave him some rice and he told Nima, if danger comes your way, throw this rice three times in the path of the danger and you'll be all right. I mean, I still have some rice that I carry with me sometimes, but wasn't the rice I don't know, dude, I'd be carrying rice too.

Gary Guller:

Right, or was it that old man? But I'll tell you, over the years, especially now, I think this story has even a greater meaning now. I mean, we've had one massive avalanche last year and it's like a continuing avalanche still going into this year. What I got from that whole near death experience was that Nima believed in that rice and Nima believed in that old man and Nima believed in me and I equally believe in him. And that is what God is through Simple belief, belief in yourself and belief in others.

Gary Guller:

Here's the gig, right. If Nima would have went this way and I would have looked after myself and went the other way, I would not be here this morning sharing this story. We stuck together through what was almost certainly a dying situation, but we stuck together, we remained calm, but we continued to believe in ourselves and that's why I'm here and that's why we're still friends and that's why we're still together. And I think in the whole world now people have to start believing back in themselves and into other people, especially as we crawl out of this massive, continued pandemic avalanche Right 100%.

Jan Almasy:

I'm actually. I'm going to pull up some pictures for just because our audience, I feel like, may not be as quite well versed in the climbing. So I know I had to do a little bit of research into the actual pathway. So I'm going to pull up a picture here that actually shows a little bit of where that path is. So right there we can see that Kumu Icefall above base camp. That's like that's really the first step You're entering the journey into actually climbing, I mean that's kind of the first thing that you guys are going to have to get through.

Jan Almasy:

So your journey was almost over before it even started, exactly, and then there's a couple Go ahead, john I was going to say.

John Kundtz:

The one thing that we didn't mention is, you know, it took Gary and his team about what three weeks to get from, from Lukla up to base camp the team of the expedition team but then you just don't turn around and start climbing, based Everest, right. You probably, I think you spent probably another two or three, probably four weeks up on the mountain to just right there, because you spend a week or two acclomating and then you do a couple of practice climbs, at least today, today you go up to camp one, come back down Right, and so, you know, then you get to camp two and, of course, then you got to deal with the weather and the weather windows. So we're talking about, right, three weeks on the, the trek to base camp, and then what? Another four weeks trying to summit the mountain. So at that point in time you're, you're basically out there for about two months, and so I mean this is a major commitment of time. There's Dua, dua, sherpa, you know, and, speaking of Sherpas, while you're pulling it up, I want to talk to you.

John Kundtz:

You know, I got to give a shout out to the Sherpas that I worked with, because when I was in Nepal we had three Sherpas and five porters and our trekking company was organized or run by a guy named Ang Jongbu Sherpa, but our lead Sherpa was a guy named Lapsang Sherpa, and we had two other and he was older than I am, so he was probably at the time he was probably close to 60, maybe even over that and again, you would never know right and he could run up and down those mountains like there was no tomorrow. And then we had a couple of younger guys Punru Sherpa and Joe Baharu. Punru was excellent. He actually spent some time in the United States, up in your part of the world, in Washington, oregon.

John Kundtz:

He climbed Mount Hood a couple of times. He's climbed up, he's climbed Kilimanjaro. But a little funny story just to remind us. So we're walking around the second day. The first day is pretty easy. The second day we're starting to get some terrain and, as Lapsang used to tell us, you never go flat in Nepal, you're either going up or you're going down.

Gary Guller:

A little up, little down.

John Kundtz:

Yeah, and then you'd walk up a thousand or two thousand feet and you'd come around just turning and all of a sudden you've got to go all the way back down the other side to cross some bridge, across some river. But we're trekking along and my buddy's with me and he says hey, punru, have you ever done this trek before? And I go no, this is my first time, and we were going to the Annapurna Sanctuary. So we were eventually going to get up to Montepachuri Base Camp and then up to Annapurna Base Camp. And we're sort of scratching our head. He goes yeah, no, I don't normally do this. I'm normally my day job, if you will, is I do Everest trips. My buddy goes Well, have you ever climbed Everest? And he goes yeah, seven times. And today I believe he's got three more. So I think he's up to nine or 10 times up Everest. The guy was, he was great.

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John Kundtz

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Gary Guller

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