Dr. Ken Kamler has been on six Mount Everest expeditions, but has never summited. Photo: Ted.com
He was 900 feet from the summit, just two hours from joining history.
But something didn’t feel right for Dr. Ken Kamler and his team that 1995 morning on Mount Everest.
“The snow had coalesced in such a way that it was like crystalline. It was like climbing in a sugar bowl,” said Kamler, a Long Island-based orthopedic microsurgeon.
“We weren’t able to make tracks in it. We were climbing really slowly and burning more oxygen than we wanted to.”
So, at 11 a.m., despite the fact the sun was out and conditions otherwise seemed navigable, Kamler and his team of eight other climbers made the difficult decision to turn back.
“We could’ve summited, but we would’ve had to come down in the dark without oxygen, which borders on suicidal,” he said. “I would’ve liked to have summited, but you have to say to yourself you have a lot more down the mountain than up.”
Kamler, long coveted by expeditions teams for his medical background, would go on three other Mount Everest climbs, six in total. But he would never get closer than he did that day.
More than three decades later, he looks back on the choice to turn back not with regret or remorse but with humility and deep gratitude for his practicality under pressure.
Best of 7 spoke to him about how he mentally prepared for dangerous expeditions, the critical question he still asks himself before making important personal decisions, and how he navigated a difficult career crossroads several years ago.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Dr. Kamler, what led you to Mount Everest initially?
I got into climbing and liked the people involved in it. They were my kind of people, more so than doctors. Some of my friends were going to Everest and I began to think I’m sort of at their level. If they can try it, maybe I can try it.
I made a call to someone from Alaska I’d heard was putting together an Everest expedition. He asked me to come along because he was doing something for National Geographic — they wanted to put some laser beacons on the summit — and he wanted to bring a doctor. I did O.K., but I was helpful as a doctor. The work we wanted to do for National Geographic proved more challenging than expected, though, and, actually to my benefit, didn’t get completed. So I got four trips to Everest out of it. I became known as the Everest doctor.
How did you prepare for a mission where, at some point, something bad was likely to happen?
I went to Everest six times total, and there was never a time people didn’t die. But I would pre-think it, and at each step along the way, I would sort of visualize in my mind what could go wrong. If this happens, what do I do? If that happens, what do I do? If this guy falls and is conscious, what do I do? If he’s unconscious, what do I do? How high are we on the mountain? What are my options at these different heights? You get these permutations.
I pre-think all of this before I even go, and I try to keep in my head these various scenarios so that when something happens, it’s almost like I’ve done it before. I just try to plug myself into the route I’ve figured out in advance. It goes a long way toward keeping your calm and making the right decision.
What stands out to you from that day in 1995 when your team made the decision to turn back?
It was a beautiful day. But for several days before, it had been snowing really heavily. This was the first break. We were going up on the Southeast Ridge, a knife-like ridge. It’s the last part on the way up. If you fall to the left, you go 8,000 feet down into Nepal and, to your right, 12,000 feet into Tibet. It’s a sheer drop off. You progress single file because it’s too steep, and you un-rope because the drop-off is so sheer that if you did fall, you’d pull off whoever you were roped to.
At 11 a.m., the leader called a halt to our progress. The sun was out, there was no wind. Everybody was feeling good. But climbers have turnaround times that you pre-plan before you climb. If you don’t get to a certain point by a certain time, you turn around. We realized our progress was very slow.
What was running through your head when you realized that just wasn’t going to be the year — because I can’t imagine that’s easy?
When you decide to turn around, it’s very hard. You’ve been planning this for at least a year and are on the mountain for three months. If you go ahead, you can be on the summit in two hours. You say, “In two hours, I can summit Everest?” But your oxygen supply is low, and it’s hard to think clearly there.
But you have to say to yourself you have a lot more down the mountain than up the mountain. Up the mountain, you get to the top, and what do you do when you get there? Down the mountain, you have your family, your friends, your entire life. How crazy is it to risk all of that just to get to the top and turn around?
Of course, you’re disappointed. I was thinking all of my friends are going to be disappointed that I didn’t summit when I get back and tell them, but nothing could’ve been further from the truth. When I got back and told people the story of why we turned around, they admired me for it. They admired me for having the sense and wherewithal to understand what was most important at that moment and to do the right thing. To this day, people don’t say, “You didn’t climb Everest.” They say, “Wow, you had the sense to turn around when you had to.”
It's really terrific perspective. You use an interesting term, “reflected glory,” to describe those types of decisions. What is “reflected glory?”
If you’re climbing Everest because you want to be able to tell people about it and brag about it, then you’re climbing it for the wrong reasons. What I always like to ask myself before I take on any of these kinds of challenges is, “If I could never tell anybody I’m doing this and no one is ever going to find out that I’ve done it, do I still want to do this?” If you answer that question honestly, then you’ve really inspected your reason.
But if the whole point is so other people will admire you and you have a trophy in your hand, that’s a very shallow way to live — and that’s true of any opportunity in life, not just climbing. You want to do something because, intrinsically, it’s valuable to you, not because you want the accolades of the people around you.
I didn’t summit for reasons that were really beyond my control. I would’ve liked to summit. I would’ve liked to have had that trophy. But the most important thing for me and the reason I wanted to climb Everest was to see if I could do it. And I did what I set out to do — I proved to myself I could climb Everest. I didn’t need the last 900 feet.
Was that decision to turn back the most difficult you’ve ever had to make?
The most difficult decision I’ve had to make was to go my first time. Everest was a three-to-four-month deal, and I already had a practice going. But I had to say to myself I’m not going to be a prisoner of my profession. Hand surgery is what I do, but it’s not what I am.
What I expected might happen was the doctors around me — who are all going to golf clubs, which is fine, but that’s not me — would look at me like I was a weirdo, like this guy doesn’t fit. And my practice is 100 percent referrals. But I said if my practice collapses when I come back, I’ll deal with it. I’m not going to limit what I want to do with my life to fit some standard from other people. I’m not going to grow old regretting not doing these things.
And as it turned out, I had my cake and I ate it, too. The doctors lived vicariously through me. When they would call and refer patients to me, they would take about one minute to tell me the patient’s problem, then it would be, “So, tell me where you’ve been lately.”
They’d always say, “I wish I could do what you do,” and I would just sort of smile. But I was always thinking, you could do what I do. You chose not to. You chose to buy a fancy house in a fancy neighborhood and a fancy car. And that’s O.K. if that’s what you really want. But if you want what I want, then you could’ve made a different choice.
I’ve heard you say that you think everyone should have their own Everest in life. What does that mean?
I think everyone in life should have a challenge they think is beyond them, and they should take it on anyway, no matter what it is. Whether it’s physical or mental, you should have a goal that you think is maybe beyond you and go for it.
If you don’t make it, you’ll at least have brought out qualities in yourself that you didn’t know you had. It will make you a better person.
And you might surprise yourself and actually make it.
What I learned…
One of the other interesting parts of the interview was when I asked Kamler how he re-acclimated to every day life after something as intense and physically demanding as an Everest climb. Like Air Force Col. Kim Campbell told Best of 7 earlier this month, Kamler said he would take two-to-three weeks largely to himself when he returned to his Long Island home.
“I needed to decompress and get back to living in the rest of the world,” he said.
What stood out to me, though, was how being in rigorous outdoor environments — where nobody cared about his job title or salary — gave him newfound perspective on life… But only for a short time.
“When you climb a mountain, what you’re concerned about is food, shelter, good friends you can rely on, the basics of life. You’re not concerned with trivialities, like getting stuck in traffic, getting yelled at by your boss, being late to meetings,” he said.
“But as time goes on, you get more wrapped up and you do start getting mad at traffic jams again,” he added.
“When that happens, it’s time to go climb.”
I view “time to go climb” as engaging in a particular activity or routine that returns us to some foundation of humility and gratitude, while making us numb to the common annoyances of our lives.
“You don’t get excited when you realize how trivial all of it is,” Kamler said.
What’s your “time to go climb?”