Rob Hall, climbing visionary and entrepreneur.

In 1990 along with his climbing partner Gary Ball, Rob Hall climbed all of the highest points on each of the seven continents in just 6 hours shy of 7 months. 1990 was a year of accomplishments for Rob, he reached the Summit of Mt. Everest for the first time, and he was the lead climber in the expedition, which included Peter Hillary, the son of Sir Edmund Hillary. It was also in 1990 and during his Everest trek that he meet Jan Arnold, the women he would fall in love with and marry in just 2 short years. Jan is a doctor and at that time was working at a clinic about 3,000ft below base camp. After the successful climb Rob stopped by the clinic and asked Jan to go out on a date with him. She agreed. The date was a climb to the top of Mt. McKinley. Both Jan and Rob are New Zealand natives; in fact Rob received the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal for his 7 summit feat. Jan would accompany Rob on many climbs, including the summit of Mt. Everest in 1993. In 1991 Rob and Gary started dreaming up what would become the first operation offering climbing ascents to the top of worlds highest peaks. The company was called Adventure Consultants, and they considered it to be an immediate success. In May of 1992 Rob and Gary had 10 clients, paying $35,000 each to be guided to the top of Mt. Everest. They enlisted the services of friend/climber, Guy Cotter to help as a guide. Six of the clients reached the summit. Rob and Gary led another successful climb with clients up Everest in 1993; however Gary did not make the summit due to bleeding from his sinuses. This was foreshadowing what was to come. In October Gary died of pulmonary edema while climbing Dhaulagiri in Nepal. Rob had to bury his body in a crevasse. Rob persevered and with the support of his wife, who worked as the team doctor at base camp made his fourth successful climb up Everest in 1994. With the assistance of Ed Vestures, Adventure Consultants took six clients to the summit. Rob continued to climb hard, adding Lhotse and Makalu to his list, which already included K2. He guided 39 clients to the top of Everest between 1990-1995, and added many more peaks to the list that Adventure Consultants would guide. By 1996 clients were paying $65,000 to climb Everest with Rob. Unfortunately, it all ended tragically on Mt. Everest in 1996. Shortly after reaching the summit a storm hit the mountain and Rob along with several other climbers, was trapped. Rob stayed with his client and died. Rob Hall is survived by his wife Dr. Jan Arnold and their daughter. Shortly after Robs death Jan sold the business to Guy Cotter. Just the facts: Rob summited Everest May 10, 1990, May 12, 1992, May 10, 1993, May 9th, 1994, Lhotse 5/16/94, Cho Oyu 10/6/1994 and 9/26/95, Makalu 5/18/95 and Everest again on 5/10/1996 when he stayed with his client and died on Everest.

Rob Hall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rob Hall
14 January 1961 New Zealand

Born

Died

11 May 1996 (aged 35) Mount Everest, Nepal

Cause of death

Hypothermia

Resting place

South Summit of Everest

Nationality

New Zealand

Occupation

Mountain guide

Known for

1996 Everest disaster

Rob Hall (14 January 1961 11 May 1996), a New Zealander, was a mountaineer best known for being head guide of a 1996 Mount Everestexpedition in which he, a fellow guide, and two clients perished. A best-selling account of the expedition was given in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. At the time of his death, Hall had just completed his fifth summit of Everest, more at that time than any other nonSherpa mountaineer. Hall met his future wife, New Zealand medical doctor[1][2] Jan Arnold, during his Everest summit attempt in 1990. Hall asked Arnold for a date on a climb to Mt. McKinley and later, the two married. In 1993, Rob Hall summited Everest along with Arnold[1]. In the catastrophic 1996 season, Arnold would have accompanied Hall on his Everest expedition, but she was pregnant. Two months after Hall died on the descent from Everest she gave birth to Sarah, their daughter.

Mountaineering
Hall grew up in New Zealand where he climbed extensively in the Southern Alps. In 1988, Rob Hall met Gary Ball, who would become his climbing partner and close friend. As with most other mountain climbers, Hall and Gary Ball sought corporate sponsorships to fund their expeditions. The partners decided to climb the Seven Summits, but upped the ante by summiting all seven in seven months. Starting with Everest in May, they climbed the last mountain, Antarctica's Vinson Massif, on 12 December 1990, hours before the deadline. After this success, they realized that, in order to retain their sponsorship, each successive climb would have to be more risky and spectacular, increasing the risk of an accident. Therefore, Hall and Ball decided to quit professional climbing and form a high-altitude guiding business. Their company, Adventure Consultants, was incorporated in 1992, and quickly became a premier expedition guiding company. That year, they successfully guided six clients to the top of Everest. In October 1993, Ball died of cerebral edema[3], leaving Hall to run Adventure Consultants on his own. By 1996, Hall had successfully guided thirty-nine climbers up to the top of Everest. Although the price of a guided summit attempt $65,000 USD was considerably more expensive than those offered by other expeditions, Hall's reputation for reliability and safety attracted clients from all over the world. Rob Hall was well known in the mountaineering world as the "mountain goat" or the "show". [edit]1996

Everest disaster

Main article: 1996 Mount Everest disaster Adventure Consultants' 1996 Everest expedition consisted of eight clients and three guides (Hall, Mike Groom and Andy Harris). Among the clients was Jon Krakauer, a journalist on assignment from Outside magazine. Hall had brokered a deal with Outside for advertising space in exchange for a story about the growing popularity of commercial expeditions to Everest. Shortly after midnight on 10 May 1996, the Adventure Consultants expedition began a summit attempt from Camp IV, atop the South Col. They were joined by climbers from Scott Fischer's Mountain Madness company, as well as expeditions sponsored by the governments of Taiwan and India. The expeditions quickly encountered delays. Upon reaching the Hillary Step, the climbers discovered that no fixed line had been placed, and they were forced to wait for an hour while the guides installed the ropes (Rob nonetheless "fixed most of the mountain in 1996").[4] Because some 33 climbers were attempting the summit on the same day, and Hall and Fischer had asked their climbers to stay within 150 m of each other, there were bottlenecks at the single fixed line at the Hillary Step. Many of the climbers had not yet reached the summit by 2:00 pm, the last safe time to turn around in order to reach Camp IV before nightfall. Hall's Sardar, Ang Dorje Sherpa, and other climbing Sherpas waited at the summit for the clients. Near 3:00 pm, they began their descent. On the way down, Ang Dorje encountered client Doug Hansen above the Hillary Step, and ordered him to descend. Hansen refused.[5] When Hall arrived at the scene, he sent the Sherpas down to assist the other clients, and stated that he would remain to help Hansen, who had run out of supplementary oxygen.

At 5:00 pm, a blizzard struck the Southwest Face of Everest, diminishing visibility and obliterating the trail back to Camp IV. Shortly afterward, Hall radioed for help, saying that Hansen had fallen unconscious but was still alive. Adventure Consultants guide Andy Harris began climbing to the Hillary Step at 5:30 pm with supplementary oxygen and water. On 11 May, at 4:43am, Hall radioed down and said that he was on the South Summit. He reported that Harris had reached the two men, but that Hansen had died sometime during the night and that Harris was missing as well. Hall was not breathing bottled oxygen, because his regulator was too choked with ice. By 9:00 am, Hall had fixed his oxygen mask, but indicated that his frostbitten hands and feet were making it difficult to traverse the fixed ropes. Later in the afternoon, he radioed to Base Camp, asking them to call his wife, Jan Arnold, on the satellite phone. During this last communication, he reassured her that he was reasonably comfortable and told her, "Sleep well my sweetheart. Please don't worry too much." Shortly thereafter, he died, and his body was found on 23 May by mountaineers from the IMAX expedition.