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<< Previous   of   Next >> (click to enlarge) Athans, an expert climber and former Mount Everest guide, will speak to the Everett Mountaineers on Nov. 14 at Smokey Point, an event that is open to all. (click to enlarge) Bill Crouse Pete Athans celebrates a successful sixth summit of Mount Everest. He holds a postcard featuring paintings of Everest and bearing a blessing said to protect the bearer of the card. (click to enlarge) Kristoffer Erickson Pete Athans looks at ancient sacred folios he helped discover in the Mustang caves of Nepal as part of a National Geographic and PBS film project. He wears a mask to protect himself from hundreds of years of dust, bird dung and "other fairly toxic stuff" covering the documents. Robert MacKinlay  (click to enlarge) Pete Athans climbs Tibet’s Mount Chanadorje, a peak name that means “protector.”   ADVERTISEMENT   See Pete Athans What: Pete Athans, a climber, filmmaker and philanthropist who has reached the summit of Mount Everest seven times, will speak at Everett Mountaineers' annual awards banquet, which is open to the public. When: 5 p.m. Nov. 14 Where: Medallion Hotel, 16710 Smokey Point Blvd., Arlington Cost: $32.50 How: Mountaineer members can register at www.everettmountaineers.org. Nonmembers can contact Bernadette Lamarca at mountain_babe@comcast.net or 425-232-5751. Auction: As part of the event, the Mountaineers will host a silent auction for the nonprofit Live Love Laugh for Youth foundation, established in honor of local Mountaineer Larry Ingalls, who died in 2006 while scrambling with two friends on Lewis Peak. Proceeds will help kids receive grants to pay for outdoor gear, special training and group outings. Video: See a PBS preview of “The Secrets of Shangri-la” at www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRLyJbt6wvs   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Saturday, November 7, 2009 Everest veteran devoted to world's most remote places By Sarah Jackson Herald Writer Pete Athans made history in 2002, when he reached the summit of Mount Everest for the seventh time, the first climber of non-Sherpa ethnicity to do so, earning him the title of Mr. Everest. If that weren't monumental enough, he was awarded the David A. Sowles Award from the American Alpine Club for helping rescue two climbers in the Everest disaster of 1996, documented in the book “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer. During his travels as a climbing guide, he has worked on numerous high-altitude films, including the 1997 feature film “Seven Years in Tibet.” These days, Athans, who will speak at the Everett Mountaineers' annual awards banquet on Nov. 14, is still climbing high. But the 52-year-old Bainbridge Island father of two isn't tromping around 29,000-foot-tall Everest. Instead, he's scaling remote dusty cliffs, 14,000 feet up in the Mustang Valley of Nepal, discovering ancient Tibetan manuscripts, sacred works of art and human remains. During his talk for the Mountaineers, an event that is open to the public, Athans will show slides and video of his extensive alpine climbing career as well as clips from his latest documentary project in the caves of Mustang, “Secrets of Shangri-la,” set to air on Nov. 18 on PBS. Helping researchers explore the ancient, previously off-limits caves has been the perfect adventure for Athans. He, along with climber Broughton Coburn, helped PBS, National Geographic and a team of researchers, most of them inexperienced and uneasy at climbing, gain access to the crumbly caves. “It's really, in many ways, where art, sport and life sort of interface,” Athans said. “It involved not only using climbing skills to get into the cave entrances. There was a technical challenge in developing our own equipment to make it possible to do that.” Athans had to use power tools and other tricks to create safe anchor points for climbing ropes. “I call it rock climbing. It's not what people do recreationally,” he said. “It's pretty industrial.” Artifacts that Athans and researchers found in the caves could shed light on the spread of Buddhism through the Himalayan region. That includes a 55-panel mural from the 13th century depicting important Buddhist sages as well as numerous 11th century Tibetan manuscripts. Researchers suspect the caves, perhaps originally accessed with ladders, were a sacred gathering place for a large religious, meditative, self-sufficient community that could have inspired the myth of Shangri-la. “The object is to create a comprehensive inventory of what is in the caves,” said Athans, whose wife, longtime filmmaker Liesl Clark, is also involved with the project. Athans, who works as a full-time employee in product development for North Face outdoor gear company, is also deeply involved in philanthropic projects in Nepal. He is a board member of the Himalayan Cataract Project, which brings eye care to those suffering from cataract blindness. He is also a teacher in the Khumbu Climbing School Program, designed to increase safety among Nepali climbers and other high-altitude workers. His family just returned from Nepal, where they were setting up libraries as part of the Khumjung School Magic Yeti Library, a program his wife founded to provide libraries and books for kids in the Everest region. Research and philanthropic work are exactly what Athans wants to be doing. “That's where I'm trying to focus the last two decades of my life,” said Athans, who has no plans to climb Everest again. Other American climbers have since surpassed his seven-summit record. “It was a chapter in my life,” he said. “Mostly those pages have been written and those chapters have been closed.” After the 1996 disaster on Everest, in which eight climbers died, Athans stopped climbing with less experienced climbers. “I knew I didn't want to be making those decisions anymore, those life-and-death calls. I wanted to climb with experienced climbers and friends,” Athans said. “I think it puts both guides and people who sign up for those trips in a, sometimes, very high-stakes gamble.” There's only one way Athans might be willing to go back. His daughter, Cleo, 4, or son, Finn, 6, would have to want to go someday, he said, adding: “I think seven is a good number for me.” Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037, sjackson@heraldnet.com. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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