Rob Hall

Born to a Roman Catholic family in Christchurch on 14 January, 1961 Robert Edwin Hall was the youngest of nine siblings. He developed a self-reliant and enterprising attitude early on in his life as he witnessed his parents striving hard enough to keep the wolf at the door.

Staying near the Southern Alps, Rob Hall was instinctively drawn to the mountains, and took to mountaineering on his own during his growing up years. He dropped out of school at 14 and knocked on the doors of Alp Sports, a firm manufacturing mountaineering apparels and accessories, with samples of tents and rucksacks.

After joining as a designer at Alp Sports, within two years Hall became in charge of production. In the meantime, he persisted with fine-tuning his mountaineering skills, and in 1980 scaled Ama Dablam (6856 m)—his first Himalayan summit—in Nepal’s Sherpa region, when he was just 19.

In 1981, he conquered another Himalayan peak, Numbur (6954m). He earned widespread recognition and became a national icon when he edged to the peak of Mt. Cook from the Caroline end in just eight and a half hours flat—a feat no other mountaineer had hitherto achieved.

Rob Hall judiciously complemented his climbing expeditions with production of mountaineering gear. He accepted an offer of employment from Macpac Wilderness Ltd, New Zealand’s most well-known outdoor equipment firm where he worked for four years. He soon established his own production unit, ‘Outdoor’ that gave him the leeway to schedule his mountaineering trips.

Rob Hall capitalized on his entrepreneurial bent of mind and Gary exploited his extensive climbing experience to set up ‘Hall and Ball Adventure Consultants’ in Christchurch in 1991. They started planning their first supervised commercial trip and in 1992 were ready to set out with a group of 10 climbers to scale Mt. Everest.

Rob and Gary had requested another fellow Kiwi, Guy Cotter, an accomplished climber who was employed with the military, to provide his support for their debut commercial trip. The 1992 expedition to Everest was thoroughly successful as the team comprising Hall, Gary, Cotter, four sherpas, and six clients all reached the summit.

The group of six climbers constituting the first batch of clients for Adventure Consultants included an Israeli, Belgian, and a Hongkonger who became the first individuals from their respective countries to scale Mt. Everest. In 1992, Rob Hall helped clients climb Mt. Aconcagua and Mt. Vinson Massif, highest peaks in South America and Antarctica respectively.

In 1993, the trio of Rob, Gary, and Guy teamed up again for taking a team of seven to scale Mt. Everest. Rob’s wife, Jan Arnold, accompanied him on this trip making them the second couple to scale Mt. Everest.

Veikka Gustafsson who was one of the clients in the 1993 batch, was the first Finnish to attain the zenith. The year ended on a disastrous note for Rob as he was devastated by the loss of his mate Gary who succumbed to pulmonary edema during an expedition to Dhaulagiri.

As both Guy Cotter and Ed Viesturs were unavailable for the 1996 Everest mission, Rob Hall signed up Aussie mountaineer, Mike Groom. and Andy Harris, a guide from NZL to assist him. The team comprising two Sherpas and six climbers reached the summit on 10 May 1996.

Soon after the climbers had started to descend, they were stopped in their tracks by a severe blizzard. Rob relentless attempts to help Doug Hansen, a client, to descend proved futile, and gradually he himself became too feeble to continue the downward journey, staying put for two days in the death zone—‘South Col’.

All endeavors to salvage Rob and remaining climbers by mountaineers from below came to a naught because of the rough weather and snowstorms. Andy Harris, a team member, attempted to climb back to South Col to rescue Hall but failed.

Anatoli Boukreev, a Russian climber and acting as a guide for Mountain Madness, another mountaineering company, saved three stranded clients but could not trace Yasuko Namba and Beck Weathers, Adventure Consultants’ clients.

Beck Weathers made a miraculous recovery and was finally rescued by climbers representing other teams. On 11 May 1996, nearly 12 hours after the snowstorm had begun, Rob Hall made radio contact to inform that he was struggling to survive as he was unable to inhale oxygen since the regulator was blocked with ice.