Mimi Zieman is no stranger to adventure. After she graduated from university, she volunteered at a kibbutz in Israel. Though it was her mother’s idea, she found she enjoyed it and stayed as long as she could. A few years later, she trekked the Annapurna circuit and to Everest basecamp by herself, with a borrowed backpack (unfortunately just a suitcase with shoulder straps) and a rented down jacket. She enjoyed being on her own in the mountains, hanging out with fellow solo travelers and eating the same dish at each traveller’s hostel she stayed in. It was in Nepal that she met Robert, a climber from New Zealand, and they became close. He went home, however, while she travelled on—to Burma and eventually Thailand. After getting dysentery in Thailand, she came back home and decided to go to medical school.
She was in her third year of medical school, doing hospital rounds, treating patients, and helping doctors, when Robert contacted her out of the blue. Would she be interested in joining a four person crew plus a photographer to try a new route up the east side (Nepal side) of Mt. Everest, without oxygen? She would be the camp medic, and look after the men on their travels.
Zieman wasn’t sure. She still had at least a year of medical school left, and how could she leave in the middle of it? Was she really experienced enough? She tried to talk herself out of it, but the thought of the mountains kept drawing her in. She decided to go, and laid out a plan for a leave of absence with her medical school Dean. She said she would get real-world medical experience, and they compromised so that she could suspend her studies for several months to take on the camp medical position, as long as she did a presentation on high-altitude medical care when she returned.
The rest of the story covers Zieman’s preparation for and travel with the climbing team, right down to being the slowest hiker of the group. Before going, she consulted with other doctors who’d done similar work, and got tips from them on what supplies to bring and what medical emergencies to expect. One suggested she get a fishing tackle box and organize her supplies in it for ease of use. These kinds of oddly specific moments keep the book grounded in fact, rather than romanticizing the experience of hiking to Everest. Zieman tests the men’s vitals regularly, a requirement not just as the camp medic, but for the research study she agreed to do for her medical school studies.
What makes the book a good read is that it’s not told from a climber’s perspective. Many climbing books follow the same routine: set up a lower camp, pack gear from the lower camp to a second, higher, camp, then go back down and sleep at the lower camp. Take gear to the third camp, then go down and sleep at the second camp. And so on until you reach the camp from which you want to make your summit push.
Zieman’s book is much more than this. She recounts camp life, what it’s like dealing with a group of men. She isn’t treated differently because she’s a woman—the group accepts her as part of the team and kid her as much as they do each other. But the porters are a different story—they make graphic hand gestures and laugh at her discomfort.
Another difference with Zieman’s book is that she’s telling the story from the other side of the coin. She and Joe, the photographer, stay at base camp while the other four group members do their camp moves and finally make a summit attempt. While they wait for good weather to climb, Zieman gets a bit stir-crazy and pulls on some bright tights and tap shoes and dances on a boulder; hikes to the top of a local mountain; and jogs in the landscape around camp.
“Life could crumble in an instant no matter what. So I might as well live fiercely. Maybe the wilder the better. I didn’t realize that the real challenge is to figure out how to live fully and with uncertainty in everyday life.”
–Mimi Zieman
Zieman also draws heavily on her Jewish background. Her father’s family was lost in the Holocaust, and she feels the intergenerational trauma from his experiences. Both her mother and her grandmother divorced, moving forward in the world as strong women raising children alone while working full time. Zieman leans on their strength and her religion during her time in the mountains, practicing the Passover ceremony with food scavenged from camp.
After weeks of waiting for good climbing weather, the team finally heads up the mountain, but Paul returns after experiencing severe altitude sickness, leaving three men: Robert, Ed, and Stephen, on the mountain.
The three left in basecamp (Joe, Paul, Zieman) wait for the team to return, scanning the peak ridge with a scope in the hopes of seeing them. On the ninth day, the three climbers stumble into camp and Zieman immediately gets to work, stripping them down and wrapping them in sleeping bags, treating them for dehydration and frostbite. Ed’s fingers are severely frostbitten, as he took out his camera for a shot at the top and his fingers stuck to it. He keeps saying “I shouldn’t have taken a picture.” Robert is in particularly bad mental shape, hallucinating and talking nonsense. His frostbite isn’t as bad—it’s just a case of getting him warm and eating, and hoping the hallucinations will pass.
On the day before they’re to leave, a new group reaches the camp with a vascular surgeon and an orthopedist in their group. Zieman quickly draws them into the tent with the ailing men, asking if there’s anything she could do differently to help them recover. Both doctors congratulate her on her work thus far, and one offers her a residency in his orthopedics program anytime.
The book has a propulsive narrative voice: the story moves forward at hiking speed, and Zieman is a good storyteller who knows how to use a scene to its best effect. She tells a detailed story that never gets boring, because there’s always something she’s noticing or doing that keeps the narrative moving. Even the time she, Joe, and Paul spend in camp waiting for their teammates is interesting, when it could easily have dropped into a boring recitation of what they did each day.
It isn’t just an adventure story, though—Zieman reflects on her need to visit remote places and enjoy them both on her own and with others. She thinks about her medical career, and how well—or not—it suits her. She tells the highs and the lows of remote travel, from carrying that shoulder strap suitcase to almost dying of dysentery, from tap dancing on a rock to hanging out with her camp mates. She empathizes with the trauma her father experienced, and realizes the necessity of claiming her own voice—in one case literally, as she yells at their Chinese ‘handlers’ for transport for the injured climbers. She also realizes that her voice would “advocate for all women’s rights to self-determination.”
Hers is a refreshingly new angle on the climbing story, one that we hear too little about. The support team is just as important as the climbers themselves—maybe even more important because they keep them alive.
