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Ethics

Leave No Trace
Environmental sensitivity is not something for which mountaineers have been particularly known. When you are living on the edge, desperation often defines your actions. Life takes precedence over aesthetics. A pound discarded is always a pound off your back.

Thus have we soiled our most sacred places.

No more.

For a visitor to the Khumbu, just eating a meal is a burden on the deforested and eroding landscape of a fragile ecosystem. The production and transportation of the food, fuel to cook it, and its ultimate disposal all leave their mark.

We must strive not only to minimize these marks, but also to correct those we see.

Aside from making sure we do not leave our own bodies high on the mountain, we will follow these Seven Principles:

1. Plan Ahead and Prepare
2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
3. Dispose of Waste Properly
4. Leave What We Find
5. Minimize Campfire Impacts
6. Respect Wildlife
7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors

Our expedition plan is in place. We will camp in established sites and dig our wastes deep into ground away from water sources. We will take only pictures. We will allow no open fires ever, and cook exclusively with fuel we carry. Finally, we will respect all life, human and animal, and protect their culture and all facets of their ecosystem.

For more information, see www.lnt.org.

In this Order
All who participate in this endeavor should strive to agree both on means as well as ends. The means will be our feet and our leave-no-trace ethic. The ends are another matter.

We have four goals, prime directives of a sort, that are explicit and non-negotiable. They are:

1. Return. All four, all fourty fingers, and all fourty toes. Sayre managed it; so shall we.
2. Enjoy the experience. When all work is all play, it's a fine day. It will be trying, grueling, and stressful, at times if not most of the time, but we must seek to revel in the challenge and celebrate the adventure of each day.
3. Communicate the experience. We will document the trip as Sayre did, in words and pictures. We will produce a film that will share Sayre's dream with the world. And we will win Banff!
4. Summit. For Sayre, we will strive to complete an impossible dream. Qomolungma will decide, but we will be ready for her decision...and ever cognizant that Goal #1 precedes Goal #4.

We will leave with everything we brought in, except for perhaps a few pounds of body fat and fond memories of us lodged in the minds of all those we have met.

Contacts and Connections
Send e-mail to Rand McNeely or call him in the USA at 617-417-9020 or in Canada at 604-617-8624. You may also contact 1962 expedition team member Hans-Peter Duttle.