Nobody goes there. It’s almost suicidal. She was there with the world’s best climbers, Steve Swenson and Alex. She never claimed to be elite, but she didn’t let on that she was being guided. She paid Alex to guide her. Once the guiding started, well, it’s the highest mountain in the world. If somebody said you could go to space for a lot of money, people would line up. So in ’95 Outside called and said there was an expedition leaving in a matter of days. I said yeah, I want to go. Then I thought, I don’t want to sit at base camp for two months. I said, let me go next year and I’ll train. And that’s how I ended up there in ’96. By then it had been going on for a few years, but ’96 was when it was getting really serious.

When you finished the magazine story and the book, was there any part of you that thought you’d successfully warned the world and that people would back off?

I was sure I’d destroyed the nascent Everest guiding industry. I’d killed it in the crib. I really believed that. Then I found out my book was actually the best advertising it ever got. Eric Simonson said it on the record. “We couldn’t buy advertising like that book.” I remember on book tour, people would look at me and say, “You climbed Everest.” You could see them thinking, that f***ing guy.

I came home with incredible survivor’s guilt, because my presence on the mountain, I believe, had a direct influence on the catastrophe. I think it distorted Rob Hall’s judgment. Scott Fischer was there, and Scott’s team was younger and stronger, and all his clients made the summit. Rob felt pressure to get as many of his clients up as possible, so he didn’t turn around people he should have.

I only learned recently from Frank Fischbeck, the oldest guy on our team, who lives in Hong Kong. He turned around early on May 10 because he didn’t feel right. What I didn’t know until a few months ago is that as he was descending, he passed Rob, and Rob tried to talk him into going up. He’d done the same with Doug Hansen [who died on the descent], and Doug had said no, and then Rob talked him into going up. If Rob hadn’t done that, I don’t think the catastrophe would have happened. And then Rob didn’t turn Doug around at one or two. Doug summited at four p.m. That cascaded. Doug collapsed on the ridge, so Andy Harris had to stay with him, which left Mike Groom as the only guide below with clients. Mike had been escorting Yasuko Namba, the smallest member of our team, but at the Balcony [the high promontory that defines the beginning of Everest’s Southeast Ridge] he ran into Beck Weathers, blind, and had to short-rope him down. Mike’s one of the heroes. Three feet of rope, Beck’s blind, Beck’s a big guy. If he hadn’t had to do that, Yasuko would’ve been fine.