Call him a daredevil, environmentalist, instructor or role model. But, no matter how you define him, Steve Goryl inspires people.
Goryl has climbed four of the seven highest mountain summits in the world, and Tuesday night in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center Varsity he shared his Mount Everest experience with a dozen students, an event sponsored by the SMU Outdoor Adventure Club.
Through personal photos, film footage and daily descriptions of his journey to the top with a core team of five good friends, all professional climbers, Goryl brought out the visual details of his hour-and-a-half presentation.
Before describing the physical challenges of the $170,000 hike, Goryl explained the ins and outs of the team’s emergency plans, fundraising, food rations, traveling and picking the right season and equipment.
“The most important aspect of planning an expedition like this is that your team has a clear set of goals,” he said.
One goal the team had in common was to reach the summit.
Four of the five completed the 29,034-foot ascent to the summit; two did it without oxygen tanks.
“What’s fascinating is our physiology can acclimate without supplemental oxygen when you climb higher than 20,000 feet, if you know how,” he said.
The two who made it completed the record as the third and fourth Americans to complete the climb.
But, the physical challenge was only half of the team’s overall goal. The other half was to remove trash from the mountain that previous campers had left among the rocks, snow and ice.
The team hatched an environmental cleanup marketing plan to pay for its expenses. In 1994, it was a marketing theme that no group planning to hike the Nepalese side of Mount Everest had ever used to raise money.
“Some of the trash was frozen in the glacier, so we had to hack it out,” Goryl said. “It was not an easy task.”
With help from local sherpas, part of a tribal group of paid Nepalese mountain climbing assistants, the team removed 5,000 pounds of waste.
It won them the David Brower Conservation Award, which an alpine club Web site describes as given “for contributions to the protection of mountain environments and whose active personal role deserves public recognition.”
Since the team initiated the Mt. Everest cleanup program, subsequent groups have reduced the H2O bottles left on the mountain from approximately 3,000 to 300 in nine years.
Goryl’s personal turning point happened between his climb from the third to the fourth camp. A sudden change in weather separated him and the team doctor from the rest of the group.
When the two finally made it to the fourth camp, where they expected to reconvene with the rest of the group before taking the summit, Goryl saw his friends descending from the top.
“I’m not bitter toward my team members for not making the climb with me,” he said. “Had I been in their position, I would have done the same thing.”
His teammates, tired and overwhelmed from the climb, began their trek down the mountain. Faced with the decision to follow the group or continue on his own, Goryl stayed behind, determined to finish what he had started.
He remained at the fourth camp, scavenging for used oxygen tanks to keep up his stamina.
Goryl said he then encountered a commercial mountain climbing group planning to make the climb. Encouraged by the sight of other climbers, he finally had the glimpse of hope he needed to complete his journey.
Though he’s now paid to travel across the country and share his experiences with others, to him it is not a job – it’s his passion in life.
“My goal is to see my friends successful with any amount of my help,” Goryl said in his opening statement. He later reinforced it as his No. 1 piece of advice.
Next year, he hopes to reach the Mt. Elbrus Summit in Europe. He made it to Anocagua in 1988, Denali in 1990, Mt. Everest in 1994 and Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2004. Goryl is one of seven to be recognized as a master of outdoor education from the National Outdoor Leadership School, based in Wyoming.
