Brian Dickinson: Navy Rescue Swimmer Who Summited Mt. Everest Solo—Goes Blind & Survives the Death Zone Alone

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And I went snow blind. And I remember at that moment dropping down, grabbing the rope and assessing the situation, just thinking I'm at the highest point in the world. I'm completely blind. No one's coming to get me. Team Never Quit Radio. Alright everybody, welcome back to the TNQ Podcast.

I'm your host, Marcus Luttrell. Every week it's my job to fire you up, to ignite the legend inside of you, and to push you to your greatness. Join me every week as I take you into my briefing room with some of the most hard-charging people on the planet. They're going to show you how to embrace the suck of life, teach you the values of working your ass off, and charge through whatever life throws at you. This is the Team Never Quit Podcast. So buckle up, buttercup.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Team Never Quit podcast. As always, thank you guys for listening and watching. And please don't forget to hit that like and subscribe button wherever you're getting this show. So today, before we get to our... Two special guests. Let's kick it off with our weekly Patreon question. And this week we have got, if you were going to win the lottery, what is your one splurge item?

Wow. Beach house. I want a beach house. Dude, I'm about to go with the private plane. Yeah? Yeah. I think that'd be probably the move right there. Yeah, I think that's going to have to be the move because everybody I talk to, even I hear presidents say this. It's like, hey, one thing they miss is Air Force One. And it just makes travel so much easier. Yeah.

Like a full-time private driver. And if you have one of those, people who have a beach house will let you use it because you could pony the plane over. But do you have the whole crew with the plane? Yeah, I think we should go big. yeah like a like a seven seven full stream or something

Or bigger. I mean, I think we should go to the jumbo jet side. Oh, my gosh. Austin Powers. You've got a big lottery. Yeah. Well, I mean, put some spinners on it. Spend the whole thing on the plane. That'd probably be my one with you, bro. You know, I might buy like an old aircraft carrier and just put it off the coast of California and then sink it. That's a yacht. Oh, sink it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was like, turn that sucker into a yacht. You'd be the only dude out there with that. And you can land your plane on it. Oh, perfect. Okay. I can land my plane on it. Nice. How about you? Yeah, I would do a big yacht or a second home. Yeah. A yacht. Near the beach. I'm changing my answer from a beach house to a yacht. It's a toss-up. Some of those maybe yachts, man. It's nuts.

Yeah. Yeah. Just buy like a carnival cruise ship and redo the whole thing on the inside. Like three huge bedrooms. Yeah. Yeah, that's all. It's on there. Yeah, honestly, I think I'm going yacht too because I could just live out in the water, just hopping from island to island and having no schedule, doing whatever I wanted. I'd be the best. possible move plus whenever you're not using it you can just rent it out make more money yeah

Just chasing that perfect weather. So we got four boats. Yeah. And a plane. And we're sinking. Perfect. So we got a diving option. Yes.

That's so funny. I don't know if they need to do that. That would be something cool to dive on, though, an aircraft carrier at the bottom. I don't know that we have. I haven't heard of that. Yeah. But how big that thing is. They probably put it pretty deep out there. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about? That would be cool. That would be cool. That would be real cool.

All right. So let's hear your story. Thanks for coming on, brother. I appreciate it, man. I can't wait to introduce you to the team to get a little backstory on you, man. Where were you born? Where'd you come from? I was born in California, but pretty much since the age of... Grew up in Southern Oregon in the mountains. So in the 80s, small town, turning 51 here in a month. So about your age, just older. Yeah. What about your mom and dad? Yep.

They're there. My mom's passed since, but my dad's still there. Okay. What'd they do growing up? My mom was a mom and my dad was a contractor. Check. Yeah. Any siblings? Yep. I'm the youngest. I have an older brother and middle sister, older sister. What'd they get into? Just, well, my sister got her master's degree and is working in, what is her job, like HR.

And my brother is just working different jobs. What did you grow up doing? I was playing sports. So, you know, there's no technology back then. It's back in the 1900s, man. Yeah, it was way back then. So yeah, a lot of just outdoors, playing soccer, golf. But when we played golf, you know, we packed our bags full of wine coolers.

I remember we're the same age. But yeah, just a lot of outdoors things. So, you know, I was wired to just be outdoors and, you know, everything wasn't perfect at home. So there was a lot of time just being alone. you know just getting out there and kind of finding myself at what age did you start climbing um i mean i was always in the mountains climbing but per like more professionally like high altitude

Yeah, that's after I got out of the Navy. So got out in 99 and got my master's, was working in high tech. Well, let's back that up a little bit. What got you into the military? I come from a military family.

So it wasn't foreign to me. I did have opportunities for like scholarships for soccer and art, random. But I just was ready to go see the world, not to just sit behind, you know, books. What got you spun off by the Navy? If I go Top Gun, I think everyone goes there. But it's unique because it wasn't necessarily the F-14s and all that. It was the rescue swimmers picking up goose. I thought that was pretty badass. Yeah.

And that's what I ended up doing. Dude, Top Gun changed a lot of our lives, man. We had great commercials back then. I felt like recruiting was really good. Yeah, yeah, they're struggling right now. They are. We are. I guess it's us, right? I remember Rambo came out, so you wanted to be a Green Beret because he was a badass. And then Schwarzenegger had Commando. And then when Top Gun came out, switched over to Pilots. But I remember that Rescue Swimmer scene. Yeah.

Yeah, and even Charlie Sheen, your hero. I'm a Charlie Sheen seal. I'm going to tell you my whole look, my whole attitude off of that dude. But it was, for the time, it was a fun movie. It was motivating. Almost all of my graduating class in rescue swimmer school took the end test, but it was 93. So you had to fulfill a couple of years before you could actually go over. And then a few of them did and a lot of us got out.

So what year did you go in again? 93. So boot camp at Great Lakes? No, Orlando. Oh, it was? Yeah. And then where'd you go after you graduated boot camp? Pensacola. Okay, straight. And how long is that rescue swimmer school? So air crew is like five weeks, rescue swimmers four, and then you go to your A's school and then SEER. So you still got to have a job even though you're the rescue swimmer. Yeah. Yeah. The whole thing is just less than two years.

after you go to the frs and fleet replacement you're flying in the helicopters learning all that so and why do they do that just in case you get washed out yeah just like anything anything else right yeah but i mean we're We're doing everything in the helicopter. Like we're rescue swimmers, but we're also anti-submarine warfare. We're combat search and rescue, aerial gunners. You figure everything that the helicopter does, that's what we did. Right.

I think you're our first rescue swimmer that we've ever had on. Oh, nice. Yeah. You should have more. Where'd you get assigned to? Yeah. I know about you. Where'd you get assigned the first time? North Island. Like that? Yeah. Yeah. That was great.

Met Joanne in the hot tub. That's what y'all met. After I got back from the Gulf, yeah. What did you do? uh yeah so i was born in huntington beach so um southern california is where i grew up um i grew up though in paris california okay um and then went to san diego state for college for my undergrad in psychology And we were in townhomes next to each other. And yes, there was a hot tub in a pool in the middle. And that's where we met.

Great love story. Yeah. Was it love at first sight or did you have to court her for a while? I'm going for it. No. It's in the book. No, no, no. It's cool because we're all friends here. We're family. Tell us. It's so embarrassing though. It's a means to an end and it worked out. This is not for anyone out there to do this but...

It does work. Oh gosh, it did not work. Okay, continue. So me and a buddy went down. We had, you know, a Navy buddy and we had a pitcher of beer each because we had a kegerator, karaoke machine, and a spotlight that overlooked the hot tub. From their balcony. From our balcony. We're like, man, it's packed with girls. It's packed with girls. We go down there and the water's like leveled out. There's so many girls in there. And someone asked, what do you do? And you know, when you're in the...

Navy, you don't want to tell anyone you're in the Navy. I remember. So I said, I'm a plumber. I got up, ass crack, hanging out. Is that your go-to? Yeah. And everyone's like, oh my gosh, you're so funny. And Joanna's like, you're a jerk. I'm like, whoa. I like this one. So the rest is history. No, thankfully, then we saw each other like a couple of days later, there was like a house party or something. And so, yeah. So then I actually got to talk to him.

and you realized he wasn't and i was like okay i'll give you a second chance oh my gosh did you tell him what you did for a living Being a psychologist? I was in school for psychology at the time. Yeah. And yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, you didn't know that night when you were a plumber, but yeah. You worked at The Gap back then, which I thought was so cool.

You're like, you can get me a discount. All right. So what was your, how many years did you do in the military? Six. Oh, nice. Yeah. Check. How many deployments? Two. What's your takeaway from those? I mean, it was wedged between wars, which was good. But yeah, I mean, every flight is some sort of traumatic event. You never know what you're launching for. You know, we would deploy SEALs, you know, middle of the night.

never know what you guys are doing out there and you know exfil infill and you know shooting up tanks in the kuwait doing some aerial practice work with eod's you know drop them on boats to take down or whatever and um so it was it was better than an alternative that most will never experience yeah but there is a you know when you're deployed for six months at a time it's it's tough it was still six months right i feel like

Because we're in that time right now, in between the wars, because the storms and the shields came out, and then you had that gap. I see it as a great time, too, because when you're not in the wars, you're always doing something. You're training, you're out doing something.

But then obviously you're a wartime environment or a wartime operator. So you want to be in, in that. And then you got storms and shields on either side of you. So that can be tough, man. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I knew like I got back from the first. deployment met Joanna and then had to deploy again and I was like you know now I was seeing it from a family perspective and you know we weren't married or anything but I could tell like kind of where my heart was going and I was ready to get out.

After six, that's what did it? Yeah. Yeah, a good woman will do that, man. Yeah. Right on. All right, so you get out, then what? Then, yeah, we got married. Took us six years because I had to grow up a little bit.

We both came from kind of dysfunction and chaos, and so we were trying to figure it out before we got married. Then we moved up to the Pacific Northwest, got our master's degrees.

I was working in the high tech, worked for Expedia when I was part of Microsoft and, you know, just sitting me on a desk. It's weird when you go from doing what we're doing, you know, jumping out of helicopters to something that's... less interesting to people that are wired a certain way especially if your body's still online that's the i mean that's i don't care what time period you're in the military man that's a hard thing to do yeah

And six years is just enough time to make it a difficult process. Yeah. Yeah. So I had that adventure gap and came home one day and. Well, we had, yeah, we graduated and then had babies.

And then he came home. Go ahead. And said, hey, I'm going to climb the highest peaks on the seven continents. Not many people have done it. And she's like, awesome. So what got you, what spun you up about that? Well, being in the Pacific Northwest, you got rainier there, the Cascades. So I was out hiking and like you said, with your body.

I let mine go. I've never been not fit, but we're all relatively, we know our fitness level. I was riding my bike up a hill and stopped a dry heave, and I'm like, no. That's not me. I need to do something. So climb the highest peaks on the seven continents. Yeah, but I mean... All right, so you come home and deliver that one. What was your first one? Who would you want to tackle first?

So it's tough because it's opportunistic. I was planning to do one a year, but you have the northern and southern hemispheres. So you got to be opposite time zones anyways. So it kind of worked out. I think it was like four or five years.

doing it all but um first one was denali and didn't summit got within a thousand feet what kept you down oh we were pinned down at um 17 000 feet for almost a week oh nice yeah 60 mile an hour wins one guy not in our team but he he went through our camp we tried to talk him out of it he got blown off they still haven't found him on our summit attempt we went up and it was more of a recovery looking for him

C-130s with infrared. He's still up there? Yep. Yeah. So you make good choices. Come back down. Mountain's always there. Yeah, roger that. But as a goal setter. That's something a guide would say. An experienced climber. But that was my first of this pretty hellacious goal. I could have just got rid of it at that point. I'm like, all right, well, I didn't do that. I don't want to go back. I have went back twice, snowboarded it once.

still have never stood on top. So that's kind of part of my story. That's the only one you got left? Yeah. Or not left. Yeah. And that's my choice, right? I could continue just going after something that's as silly as... climbing to a top of a mountain and coming back down, you know, if you simplify it and die trying, or maybe that's a part of my story, you know, and I know my figuring out my journey.

is a lot different than the journey that God had for me, has for me. And that all came together on Everest. Well, let's talk about that. All right. How'd you start getting ready for Everest?

Um, yeah, it's, it's definitely a lifestyle. So because I have like 4,000, 5,000. Yeah. So if anybody says, I kind of want to get in, my brother's always getting me. He's like, Hey, when we turn 50, we're climbing Everest. And we have to push it a couple of years now, but he's, I mean, he's real adamant about it.

that yeah what does that even because to me i'd be like all right i'll just go wake up in the morning and start getting ready i mean what do you even do it's not something you just wake up and don't do that right yeah exactly that's what i thought

Yeah. I mean, even talk to Don Mann. I mean, he attempted it and didn't make it very far. Had the high altitude issues. It is a lifestyle though. I mean, it's not something you just... Actually, do you have any mountains around here? No. yeah so that's gonna be a challenge you can't really plan for getting up in the death zone about 26 000 feet um but you can train for the things within your control so your fitness your you know the techniques

All the technical stuff. And there's plenty of it. But you want to definitely do that on something like Rainier. You got Crevasse Rescue. You're working through ropes. You know, just living in the mountains. You know, it's a suffer fest. Not trying to talk you out of it.

No, I completely understand what you're saying. He's out of it. There's no way. That's what's going to make him want to do it. No, you've got to encourage him. That's both feet down. There's no way I'm letting him do that. At least go to base camp.

Yeah, he can go to base camp. Well, now, you know how that works, because once you get to base camp, you're like, oh, I'm already here. Do you know Darren Isham? I don't know him. Okay, he's retired now, but he wants to... go there and film it wanted me to go i think be a perfect opportunity i was gonna say man you're putting a team together you can film his brother yeah i bet there's a bunch of team guys that would do it especially if you guys got a team guy or a

team of team guys. Yeah. To be. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah, yeah. I'll talk to them. Most definitely. Getting it documented. Yeah. And I'm telling them what'll happen after that then. Those freaking guys.

All right. So when you first get ready to climb it, do you, I mean, you've got to call somebody to check in, you put a team together to help you. Yeah. Logistics are crazy. And that's where people can spend a lot of money. You know, I had sponsors, everything, but I also went independent. I didn't go with a big team.

I had some Sherpa support. Sherpa are the local people that live in the Himalayas and Tibet. But that was more like cooks at base camp and advanced base camp of it, like 21,000 feet. But yeah. the permits and just all the logistics it's it's quite a bit so fortunately most the Everest climbers and guides are out of like the Seattle area or Denver you know places in Colorado

So I had a friend who went to my church, and he coordinated everything. But I told him I wanted to be independent, like I don't want to be a part of a big group. Which means what? Means I'm, for the most part, alone on the mountain.

i'm not a part of no sherpa no nothing or just by yourself i had a sherpa a climbing sherpa friend who was with me but we're not connected to each other so on everest in these larger mountains you actually have fixed lines that are attached to the mountain so guide sherpa myself you know you put in anchor points ice screws and tie it off to rock ice and then i have all my gear full

Downsuit, harness, multiple points of locking carabiners connected in, a Jumar. So if I fall, I'm not falling for two miles straight down. That's right. I fall to the anchor. Now, is there one route up Everest or is there multiple? There's two main routes. One's out of Tibet, one's in Nepal. And I did the Nepalese. That's where you go through the Khumbu Icefall. It's that river of just flowing seracs, you know, building-sized blocks of ice.

That's where you see the ladders, those cheap aluminum ladders that you cross, got your crampons. And there'll be like five ladders tied together. It's a little sketchy. That sounds pretty sketch. Yeah. What year is this? I did it in...

2011. Okay. So you get there and then out of Nepal, you start at the, at the, in the city and just head up to base camp. So flying to Kathmandu. And then from there you take just a small, I forget what type of plane it is. Probably the one you're going to buy.

when you get the lottery okay so a little bit smaller than one you're gonna get and it's actually the highest um shortest runway most dangerous airport of course it is right into lucla it's on the side of the mountain you don't even see it coming and then it's like oh there it is You land or else, you know, you either do or you don't. And then from there, it's 38 miles on foot to get to base camp, which is 17,500 feet. So base camp is, it's legit. That's crazy.

Base camp is at 17,000 feet. Yeah, 3,000 feet higher than Rainier. So how long do you got to stay in base camp? So you're acclimating. like if we're we're pretty much at sea level here if we plicked our bodies put us on the top in the death zone there's only a third of the air up there we'd all pass out and die it's like if you're flying in an airplane and you lose that starts having that 13 right um

Well, airplanes are usually pressurized around like eight, nine. So you'll start feeling it for sure. And you don't use, I use supplemental oxygen. You don't start using that until you're at about 23,000 feet. But what happens is when you're, and I don't know how high you've climbed in the past. 15, maybe 16. Okay. So you'd start feeling it for sure. Yeah. What happens with the body is.

as you get into these oxygen deprived areas you climb high and then you come back down you sleep low that forces your body to produce more red blood cells which carry oxygen so that's that's acclimatizing so then you go up go down and you rest a few days good weather window go up a little higher and the highest you'll get is 23 000 feet and you can't acclimate to 26 the death zone you just can't right that's like a yeah you're slowly dying like if you cut your finger it won't heal

Like there's not enough air. That sounds horrible. All right, so tell me about you. I wish I had talked to you before I went. It sounds like a horrible time. I hear people doing this all the time. They usually come down missing a toe or something like that. My brother's like, hey, we've got to climb over. So I'm like, no, I...

First of all, I don't want to go on top of another mountain again. I always get my ass kicked. I get my ass kicked every time I go on top of a mountain. Tell me about your climb. It's a two-month expedition.

just going up and down up and down climbed a couple 20 000 foot peaks while i was there to acclimate on safer mountains and then uh on may 14th 2011 is when i was at 23 000 feet so this is on You actually climb up Lhotse Face. Lhotse is the fourth highest mountain in the world. You climb up that to get to High Camp, which is on this saddle, it's called the South Coal, to then make an attempt at 29,035 feet Everest. So...

At camp three, this is where you see, you know, it's just a straight up ice wall and the tents are anchored. So if you fall, you're falling for a mile. So you're always on rope, just always super cautious and everything. That altitude is in slow motion. So it's just one slow step. You know, there's people say, oh, you must be such an adrenaline junkie. Well, maybe, but not when I'm mountaineering. And I'm not anyways. I mean, it's all relative, right?

Anyone else move? Yeah, you are. I'm not. But yeah, during my summit push, May 14th, I was moving up just myself and Pasang, Sherpa, it's my Sherpa friend, and there were 70 mile an hour winds. So it was like every step forward was like two steps back. So we're just pushing to get to the South Cole High Camp to be in a position when the weather would die down for that night to then climb through the night.

highly glaciated mountains you climb at night because once the sun comes up things become very unstable. When this was part of my story though when I got about a thousand feet above camp three I had to anchor off to get some water. And I have an oxygen mask. I have goggles. And I took my goggles off, put it around my wrist. And as I was getting my mask off so I could drink water.

My foot slipped out. I went to grab the rope and my goggles slid off and they're just like down. And you don't bring extra gear on. You don't? No. Okay. You have to carry everything that you're bringing. Yeah, I do now. FYI. I usually bring sunglasses, but because the band for the strap for the oxygen mask, it pushes out. So it would have damaged my eyes either way.

um but anyways the goggles fell down the mountain and some sherpa like 500 feet below were like waving up at me and they got my goggles i mean it's a miracle because they would have went for over a mile miracle or not maybe is

Maybe they should have went for a mile and they should have just got out of there. So I came off, put my pack, anchored it, my oxygen, everything. I rappel down, get to them, and the goggles are cracked on the internal lens. So when you have... goggles or glasses in the cold they fog up anyways because the contrast of the cold outside and the hot breath mine were fogging and freezing between layers so i ended up ripping the internal lens out not realizing

that probably cut their effectiveness in half. So, continued climbing, got up to 26,000 feet, so the south coal, found Pasong, he was in a tent, he continued up, and...

That night, a couple people summited. One famous Japanese climber died on the South Summit, and the rest retreated. They came down. It's too dangerous. We made our radio calls. down to see if the weather was going to be clear they said yes it was and it was it went from like 70 mile an hour to nothing and that's because everest is up in the jet stream and that's just kind of how it rolls 50 mile an hour gusts were going to occur the next day

But the goal is climb through the night, headlamp, get to the top by sunrise, and then head back down. So it all looked good. We didn't realize at the time we were the only two people climbing to the summit. from either side from tibet or nepal really it's very rare like you've probably seen pictures of lines yeah yeah we had no lines so answer this please if you don't mind what makes ever so dangerous

There's many objective hazards. There's crevasses that you cross across ladders that you can't even see at the bottom. In fact, when we were there, two bodies churned up at base camp. that had fallen in up at like 20 000 feet off that five ladder like 20 years ago oh that's how glaciers work you know they're just slowly moving turning so i mean it was

You know, a blessing for their families. They get caught in the glacier and it turns them back into the mountain and then eventually it rolls them back out. Yeah. But there's also just cornices overhanging ice that breaks loose. Avalanches are kicking off left and right. The Khumbu Icefall.

it's two miles of just building size blocks of ice every time i went through eight times every time it was a different route so you're rerouting ice climbing up and over rappelling down next time there's a ladder straight up next time it's across and then the the biggest thing is is just the death zone when you're exposed like at the summit it's a literal two mile drop on each side of you like a this wide of a space so if you come off rope

If you push for the summit and you have high altitude cerebral or pulmonary edema, everything is swelling, just reacting to the altitude. And most accidents actually occur on the way down.

you know you blow your load on the way up you don't have enough to get down and then if you have freak weather so fortunately the the weather predicting the close the just predictability of when you can climb there's a few days that you can actually summit you know it's gotten so much better if you don't have so many people on the mountain you know if you're stuck and not moving it's that's not good if you're moving too fast

you can start sweating then you slow down you go hypothermic right so it's this game of just like figuring out your body and just you know being real and being honest because if there's only a few days to get up there then there's got to be a lot of people going after that day right

That's what happens. Yeah. And there's only one way up, one way down on each side. So it's not like, I don't know. Everest is the tallest mountain, so it gets lots of crap. The news is going to say all kinds of things. I've been all around the world. I've seen a lot grosser mountains, seen a lot worse scenarios, but the spotlight goes on Everest. How many people she claimed?

There's over 300 bodies still on the mountain. So talking about the night you were going up, you said you and the Sherpa are the only ones going up. Why is that?

um just the weather window so the next couple days behind us it was going to be even more clear but when we were at base camp so you have to get like a five-day weather window when you're down at base camp because it takes that long to get in position to go for the summit and everything looked like it would be calm and it was it was like super calm so that that worked out getting up to high camp was was a lot of work we just had to get up and down before the 50 mile an hour gusts came through

so it's just it's about timing one is to sometimes beat the crowd so you know i had a friend who was a day behind me you know he wasn't feeling well so he wanted to rest in an extra day so yeah it's just You know, you live and die by the decisions you make and a lot of things in life, but specifically on the mountains and use the information you have at that time. You know, usually it's within a three foot reach. Does that feel eerie though, going up without anybody else?

going when normally like i mean i know i've seen pictures of like the headlamps going up so i don't know does that so no

Like, I'm very much used to soloing things. In fact, my job in the military was unique in that we jump from the helicopter. We're one on one, one to many. So it's one of the jobs where it's... it we do actually act alone you have the crew and the helicopter and stuff but so i think there's part of that and then i just i train by myself a lot um i've soloed the highest peak in the southern and northern hemisphere and

most of the mountains and the Cascades. So I'm very comfortable alone. I did have a song with me. As we were going up though, I was inching ahead of him. And I got to the balcony at halfway point at 27,500 feet. And I waited an hour. And he's a strong young guy. He had summited a few times before in the past years. And once he got there...

He's like, I'm not feeling good. And he said he ran out of water. So I gave him some water and he threw up. I'm like, at that point, I thought we were turning around. And I said, we need to go down. He's like, no, no, no. He's like, I'm okay. I just, I ran out of water. I'm dehydrated. So he like pounded the water. We continued up. And at about 28. It doesn't freeze from the pass from the bottle to the.

It will. It will, right? Yeah, yeah. So you have boiling water walking out of the tent. Right. And it's in like a cozy type thing.

i have a down suit it's like wedged you know within layers i'll keep everything like close to my body so my at least 98.6 is you know keeping it at room temperature you're not camel backing it no no that no even on rainier like the tube will freeze yeah itself but yeah it makes for a nice slushy after a while right right right but yeah it i've been on mountains at the top like you're even high on denali and down in antarctica and it's

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So the name of your book, Blind Descent, tell me about it. Yep. What happened? So at 28,000 feet, it starts becoming a little more technical. It's a rock climb.

at 28 000 feet so on sea level it'd be whatever you just run up it up there you're wedging a single point of your crampon jumaring up a rope but right at the base of that a song said i'm gonna go back to the balcony he's like you you should continue up i'm gonna leave an extra oxygen bottle here and it was at that time that i had the conversation because again you live and die by these conversations

But I thought about things like, how was I doing? I felt strong. The weather was good. Most importantly, could Posong get down? He said he could. He said he was going to wait right there. He ended up going all the way down to High Camp, which... he needed to do. So it's fine. But I didn't know at the time. Left an oxygen bottle. He turned away. I continued up. So at that point, I'm the only person climbing towards the summit of Everest. Yeah, bro. What if you don't want to get back?

I mean, I guess it's just straight down, right? On the ropes there? Yeah. It's pretty gnarly doing that by yourself, man. If there weren't fixed lines, I wouldn't have done it. The other thing is they don't clean up the ropes. So you got to make sure you're in the right one because it's like dreadlocks from death zone up just because you can't clean that stuff up. So you can snap into a brittle one and it's game over. Okay. Wasn't the case. So I continue up.

I look out to my left and there's the sun rising, sun rising from my right, casting that perfect pyramid shadow if you've ever seen that when you're in the mountains. It's amazing on the highest peaks in the world, Himalayas. When you climb any mountains at night, The sun is your first indication of hope. You know that you should be close to the top. Otherwise, it's just headlamp one step in front of the other.

um got up to the south summit you actually drop down there's this area called a cornice traverse it's this overhanging ice that's where it's a two mile drop literally on your left into nepal and to your right into tibet So you have options. Yeah. But slowly just make your way across that. And then it's Hillary step. So a 40 foot rock climb, usually a point of contention. I was completely alone. Just bounced over that. And then you can actually see the summit.

And it's a lot. Like you can see the summit, it might take close to an hour to get there because it's so slow moving. But just the emotion of reaching that point was, you know, I'm still processing it to this day. And then eventually pierced my crampons on the summit and just kind of took it in. How big is it up there? Like the big is your table. It is, right? Gosh. What's that even feel like?

It's a lot. You can see the curvature of the Earth because you're at 29,000 feet. But it's tough. If you ever get in these moments where it's like, I know I need to process this right now because I'm only going to be here for a half hour. You can't. You're like almost forcing yourself and your mind is going slow anyways. I got some water, got a snack, and I didn't know at the time, but according to the Himalayan database, I'm one of two people that have ever had the summit to myself.

on a given day really wow so i wasn't attempting to do that it's just life happens god thing hooking you up yep thanks god is there anything up there Lots of prayer flags and scarves and some memorabilia, but not a ton. There were some bags of extra rope, like these big yellow bags that are kind of anchored down.

The highest selfie. And I made a radio call. Like, wanted to share it with someone. Yeah. so i call him like this is brian that's gonna be my next question i was like man didn't you feel like you want to share that with somebody i know that's it is well usually i have a sat phone and i'll call joanna from the summits i've done that all around the world but i didn't have a sat phone that time

Like it never came in the mail. It never came. And it was so hard to say goodbye with knowing that he didn't have a sat phone. Yeah. So I made a radio call. So this is Brian checking in from the summit of Everest. and it's all in the same frequency everyone just comes to life just all pumped and my friend who is down at camp three gets on he's like congratulations he's like you know you and pasang be careful on the way down

And at that moment, I realized, oh, no one knows I'm alone. So I'm like, that's cool. But Pasang went down over an hour ago. He's like, you're alone? Like, yeah. He's like, all right, please be careful. Like, all right. He turned to Lok Basherpa, who he was climbing with. Strong guy had been climbing with him for the last month as well. He had five summits. He asked, how long is it going to take Brian to get down to high camp? He's like, oh, Brian, it'll take him two, three hours.

and no one would hear from me for seven. So I took my last pictures, got some water, and can't stay up there forever, and I just started heading down.

you know gravity on my side sort of just moving down at about 10 feet into it everything just went completely white and i went snow blind and i remember at that moment dropping down grabbing the rope and assessing the situation. Just thinking, I'm at the highest point in the world. I'm completely blind. No one's coming to get me. And without overthinking it, without panicking, I just stood up and started moving.

Just one slow step. And I tried so hard to use my eyes. You ever been snow blind? No. So I don't recommend it. It usually takes 24 hours to return. I wouldn't regain mine for a month and a half. It was very severe, having blue eyes, more susceptible, having the cracked goggles, and just being in the death zone. As soon as the sun banks off the ice, it fries the cornea. And yeah, it was very severe.

Um, it feels like if you break potato chips, put them in your eyelids. Okay. It's kind of like pain that goes with it. This whole thing sounds horrible. Yeah, that sucks. But just kept moving. I was using my other senses. I could hear the 50 mile an hour gusts.

coming over the ridge and i remember just hunkering down and it was taking me forever but the entire time i just i never once felt alone it's like if you're in the room right now you close your eyes you know i'm here even if you don't say anything

I didn't think too much about it. I just felt this peaceful presence every step of the way. I got to the top of Hillary's step, 40-foot rock climb, reversed my gear, went to rappel down and just kind of slipped out, pendulumed, hit the wall. i remember landing on this ice shelf and assessing like am i broken like just feeling around like i think i'm okay and next thing was that cornice traverse a two mile drop

that's when I could really hear the 50 mile an hour gusts. And because of the angle of the anchor points, if you have your full body weight, if you're pulling that carabiner on the anchor... it's it's like doing a 300 pound pull up trying to get yourself back up so you're really using your hands touching once you get close clip in clip out always two points of contact so just very slow moving

i'd hear the wind coming i would just hunker down let the the wind go over my body get up take one more step and just i just never felt alone i was like i remember like my mouth was so dry I'm going to drink some water right now. Thanks, me too. And it's so tough because I still had my goggles on, I still had my mask, so I had to go through that whole system. I had a hot thermos.

that I was drinking from, and then I would just move a little more. I got to the top of the south summit. You actually have to climb back up, which is kind of humiliating and a bummer. But if you fall going up, you fall up. So that's kind of a...

a bonus got to the top slipped off and it was just head over heels it was the scariest thing even to this day falling it's like if you go to your roof close your eyes and jump off oh i've fallen down a mountain i know what that feels like i know you have yeah yeah Yeah. So it's that helpless feeling. It definitely sucks. The rope shock loaded and it saved me. I would have went for over a mile, but I was upside down. My mask is ripped from my face. My oxygen bottles coming out of my pack.

And my heart is just racing. It's just, I had to right myself for one, slow my breathing and just calm myself. And from there, I side-traversed over to the rock area where I needed to be, and a slab avalanche kicked off. So slab avalanche is very common where a thick... part of the ice is on top of a thinner part and once the sun comes up it'll just like release. And I remember immediately grabbing the line with my hand and it cut straight through my glove.

and i remember feeling that but i stopped myself but even that it's a simple action my my heart was just like ripping out of my chest i just like slow slow my breathing you know it's everything you know we learn in training Got down, almost walked right past where Pasang had left the extra oxygen bottle. And it was just like this bright orange. So with snow blindness, everything is bright white. If you put a light bulb in front of your face, you can move your finger.

in front of it. You'll know something just moved. There's no way you can focus. It's bright white, not like black, where blind is black. And it was just like this bright orange thing. And I knew I was going to be out soon. Supplemental, so it just mixes with the outside air. If you were 100% scuba tanks, you would die if you came off. So I lay down next to it, fumbled around with my regulator. It just wouldn't work. So I don't know what was up. I put my other one back together. I don't know why.

to this day but i grabbed that extra 15 pounds and put it in my pack and just started making my way down this ridge got to the balcony and called out for pasang and he wasn't there every radio on you Yeah, but there's a dead zone, bad terminology, but the radios don't work basically from the summit down to, and I had twisted the frequency. Oh, check. And honestly.

I wouldn't want anyone risking their lives to come get me. It wasn't necessarily an option, but I put myself in this place. I can't imagine. I got to that balcony, and I remember being happy at this point. I got through the really technical stuff. It was like 20 pitches of rappel. I'm like, I can do this. And I just reversed my gear, started rappelling down.

And about 20 feet into it, my mask just sucks into my face. And I remember just ripping it off and just dropping to my knees. If you're on supplemental oxygen. if you come off there's a high chance you're gonna die you just you can't breathe um but at that moment it had been 33 hours from the day prior to this point completely blind i'd already lost 20 pounds

black eyes, tried so hard to do it on my own. And I just reached a point that I couldn't. And I remember I just, I prayed a simple prayer, God, I can't do this alone, please help. And around the world. Joanna was woken up and just felt an urge to pray for me. A good friend, same thing. People I didn't even know that knew I was climbing, they reached out months later.

i don't know what you were doing at this point but i just i know i needed to pray for you and at that very moment i i just witnessed a miracle it was like someone reached down and picked me up it was like this unexplained energy the first thing i did was not overthink it but just try the extra oxygen bottle and i remember it started working and i got like five full breaths just was reeling it in and it burned

It felt like fire going through my veins. It was painful, like tangibly painful. And again... Didn't want to stay there forever, overthink the situation. I was so focused on take one more step forward, do anything to survive. So just continued heading down, rappelling down the last quarter mile.

I'm just kind of staring like, where am I? I was just kind of losing it at this point. And out of nowhere, Pasang just hugs me. Oh, he showed up. He's like, Brian, you alive. And just never saw him coming. Where have you been? He's like, apologized. He's like, I'm so sorry I leave you. And I'm just like, don't worry about it, dude.

That's a cool story now. So where were you exactly on the mountain at this point? This is still up in the death zone. Oh, you're in the death zone. This is high camp because I got back to the tent. collapsed, slept for like 15 hours. So you made it to high camp on your own? Yeah. He came out the last quarter mile. Oh my gosh. Did he see you? That's why. Is that what happened? He was looking for you? Yeah.

Yeah, he had said that, you know, everyone thought the worst had happened. And the next thing, here I come stumbling down a mountain. Oh my gosh. That's something straight out of a movie.

All right, then what? You wake up after 15 hours? I still had to get down. I'm still up at 26,000 feet. I had to get down, let's say, get across the ladders. No one can come get you. It's not like you can fly a helicopter up there to pick somebody up.

Nothing like that. I mean, if you go up there, you've got to climb your butt back down. Yeah, yeah. Is there a doctor at High Camp? No. If you're at High Camp, you're there for a purpose, and it's to go for the summit and get down and minimize your exposure at High Camp. It'll stay. maybe a couple days at most. I did get to call Joanna when I got to Camp 2, Advanced Base Camp. I had a French Canadian friend had a sat phone.

like dial this number um she answers hi and i'm like stop you know how 1am for me you know there's a delay with sat phones and i'm like i'm i soloed the summit And I'm blind. And then the phone cut out. Oh my gosh. Of course it did. And I couldn't get her back until the next day. It was 24 hours later. So I own the worst phone call to spouse in history.

So at that time, it woke me up. And he was also very emotional, bawling, I could tell, and just says, I'm blind. I wasn't crying. I solo summited.

and um and then it went dead and then I was just like okay like now what and I didn't know like I the next morning I had to wake up our kids were four and six and um put on a happy face and like yeah daddy summited I don't know what else is going on you know um and then not knowing like will he actually I didn't know if he was snow blind I didn't know if he was permanently blind I had no idea

because I didn't know what had happened. So I had to just wait and be patient and pray. And yeah, so 24 hours later. Yeah, I got down to base camp. They had like a... a cake for me summit cake the sherpa made i don't know what it's made of it's pretty nasty it was it was cool that they did that but yeah i had a line of sight like 3g phone and talked to joanna for like an hour and just

i don't know it would be interesting if we had recorded that lots of tears and love and just yeah amazing it's it's tough but yeah still had 38 miles to get out and then get back around the world to get home

And he still had to go through the Khumbu Ice Falls, which is highly dangerous as well. Yeah, I was crawling across ladders. But Pasang was with me, so I mean, that was good. I almost stepped right into a crevasse. A guy ran over and like, because I'm just like... walking there's like snow bridges that you just pop right through and it's like hundreds of feet gosh so when did that start to wear off um so my right eye came back sooner

But I mean, it's never fully gotten, I've had LASIK and stuff. That's going to be my next question. What did it do? It accelerated. You know, the doctors were like, oh, it's just because you're getting older. Like, yeah, I'm not buying it. Cause and effect. Yeah, I've heard that before. Yep. So you got your right eye back? Where were you at when you started getting sight back? I might have been somewhere in like Thailand.

It was tough. I was bumping into everyone. Oh, because you were on your way home. And I was by myself, like going through these airports and walking through Thailand. And it was a layover before I go back to Taipei and then to Seattle. But yeah, it was just, it was like, you know, if you blur your eyes really bad.

would be like my good eye yeah and then my left and like even on the that's my pick on the the cover of the book that's a selfie pic i can tell like my left eye is completely already gone i didn't even realize at that point You know, now I look at pictures and it's disturbing. But yeah, you know, you get back and I know you're familiar with this. How long did it take you to get back? It takes like maybe five days. So another week almost.

yeah but everyone loves a survival story they could care less about the survivor i hadn't even began to process what i had been through and that trauma and you have fox news and like you know bright lights everywhere i'm still blind i'm on stage weeping you know and it's they've wanted to make a movie since day one like i'm not healthy enough to even consider it so i wrote a book

Oh, well, guess what's coming next? Yeah. That's how it works. Yeah. No, I know. Yeah, they're... yeah now screenwriting yeah now but back then they just wanted to add all this drama to it and like now we're with the right people who are like yeah yeah like when you especially when you go into the void and you taste that and then the way you crawled back from it well even watching we watched lone survivor the other couple days ago with our son everything it's those moments or um

captain phillips right there's that one moment that still triggers that one moment when you know you're finally alive that you're rescued and that i just i'll lose it over those moments you remember yours Exactly. Was it when Hassan showed up? He was. It was, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because at that point, I thought I might have died. Because I was looking around, I'm like, did I die? Yeah, you don't know. Yeah.

I mean, that could be heaven or hell. They stick you right exactly where you died. You're like, all right, get out of here. Right. I remember that. When I heard my name for the first time, someone yelled my name. That's when I was like, whoa. So both of you, it was because you weren't alone. It's that moment of being comforted by someone else. Even though you feel like you're in perfect solitude. When you are alone, that that's your comfort. I kept saying, too. I was like, I'm pretty sure.

supposed to be dead i mean you know and it was beautiful and i didn't i had this quiet calm like there's this real calm piece like you're talking about that's real i had that too and then those other moments and showman shows up and you hear you hear My name, I don't know. He called out to you the same thing. Yeah, Brian, you're alive. Yeah, yeah. That's when I started feeling stuff again. Yeah. I remember that too. Yeah, it's powerful. We need you, man.

tell those stories that's what god put you in that spot and then you you know manned up and got through that and that is inspirational i mean from the highest peak on the freaking planet bro yeah well yeah exactly and

It sucks because when you're, as you know, you're dealing with it and you're on stage and you're reliving it every single day, like it's been almost 14 years and I'm still emotional and that's just how it is.

you know with survivor's guilt it's why am i here why is there 300 bodies up there and even in my talks motivational talks it really comes down to faith and focus focus is unique because i couldn't see a thing but military training i knew what i needed to do to survive i knew within 100 i was not going to live if i start thinking about that i'm already dead i had to find a way to survive one more step forward and i tried to do it on my own

This entire time is the first time in my life. I know I've had miracles. I've never given God credit. That whole time, Jesus is walking alongside me. I felt that presence. He's like, yeah, keep crying. You know, do it on your own, dummy. And I reached a point I couldn't. He's like, I've been here the whole time. I prayed to him. Power of prayer lifted me up. I witnessed a miracle, and I wouldn't be here otherwise. Well, when you're out there by yourself all alone, it's just you and him.

If you don't know that, it's terrifying. Yeah, I can't imagine. But your wife's back home praying for you too. So, I mean, her lifting you up. Kept you alive as well. And the survivor's guilt thing, I was kind of running into that too until somebody told me, hey man, they were the good ones. God pulled them out of here on purpose. I was like, they're better than you. Yeah. Amen. And I'm the kind of guy that I was like... They were badass guys, too. No wonder. They were better than me.

I'm stuck in here still freaking trying to figure it out. You know, and they're there. You know what I mean? Yeah, I get it. When he told me like that, I was like, oh, I can get to that. I can understand that. I can stay in here doing some suffering until I square myself away. For sure, man. That was definitely a good way to look at it. How did you handle it?

Gosh, only through prayer. Thankfully, at the same time that he, well, when he started climbing, the kids were three and five. So for Alaska and our church started doing a 30. 60-60 challenge. So for every 60 minutes for 60 days, you pray. And so it kind of got you into that pattern of connecting with God hourly. And so it happened to line up when he started climbing for the first of the seven summits. And that really helped because I struggle with anxiety and fear. And so just.

praying and God giving me peace I was like okay I can do this like I'm not alone in this and then by the time he got to Everest actually our church ended up doing it again as another it just happened to line up and so It was God, obviously, because he knew what I needed. And so, again, I had that just that habit of hourly prayer. And that was that was just really how I got through it. It's only through.

Him giving me peace and just the power of prayer. And then also, of course, it comes back to that too. And finding out that's also like prayer is what lifted him up at that time too. And that was the same timing. It wasn't just me praying either. It was like so many people.

that we were told later or like reached out and said hey i felt the urge to pray for brian like last night what you know something going on have you heard anything i'm like no i haven't heard anything but i feel peace now so i don't know like must be good like I don't know so uh and then when we found out it was like oh my goodness that's just that's just amazing wow it's

It's nice when you have something tangible like that because it's like you can't deny that God exists. You got the keyboard warriors out there that'll, no, you're search and rescue, whatever, military, don't give it to God. I would love to, but I can't. I was there, you weren't. I wouldn't be here otherwise. Keep your courage, man. I love those guys. Those bots. Marcus doesn't even look at them. At all.

I don't either. I don't have an effect in my day at all. My mom used to go after people on Amazon. I'm like, Mom, Mom, stop. I appreciate it. That's how I used to be. And Marcus got mad at me. He was like... If I'm not doing it, why would you? Yeah, don't engage. There's nothing healthy about that. Yeah.

I mean, it can go the other way because you can get built up so much from that and then you get a big head, everything else, and that's not where God wants us to be. Inspiring people, man. Okay, so when did you go back up? Up what?

Did you go up any mountain? Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. So after my eyesight came back, I actually let a group up on Rainier just because being at home wasn't doing it. Hotel Mountain, right? Yeah.

so just to get back out and see you know you know is this am i ever going to climb again i actually ran into a whiteout had to turn everyone around at like 13 000 feet um got us down but um just being out there that that was scary that kind of brought me back and triggered me but i got us through it um but being out there is what i needed so later that year i went down to antarctica climbed the highest peak down there Negative 70 on the summit. Bro.

That just sounds so terrible. I mean, none of that sounds enjoyable. That's how you know there's different humans down here. That doesn't even sound like a good time to me. You got all the gear. It's fine. I mean, I'm all about getting Gucci gear. I'll do some stupid stuff if you're going to give me some gear for it, but I don't know about that one, man. Sounds so awful. No, it's amazing down there. Antarctica. It's awesome.

My little sister just went there for her honeymoon. She went or was going to? She went. Oh, nice. Wow. Yeah, right? That's where she went, right? Yeah, neat. Yeah. She did a cruise, right? Yeah, they did a cruise to Antarctica. I was going to say, there's not many opportunities unless you're a researcher or on a cruise ship and they go right there. Yeah, she did a cruise. Yeah, if you're there, you're there for a purpose.

Nat Geo was there I think Nat Geo was filming Frozen Planet so we were watching like the raw footage and with them it was yeah you're there for a reason so what do you got coming up I don't know. They're doing a movie, right? Yeah, they're looking to do a movie for Blind Descent. Are you involved for that? Okay, good. Yeah, I want to talk to you offline on that since we've had that experience. We can help you with that, man.

Are you speaking a lot? Do you enjoy it? Yeah. Yeah. I do. I mean, I don't enjoy going down that path, but I... I see the results and the conversations that we have with individuals that have had near-death experiences or just climbing their Everest, whatever that is. I never try to make this about me.

If that's about me, then I've failed. I've failed Jesus. I'm here because of him. Oh, you're testifying. Testify. Yeah, check. Yeah, because there's a difference. For sure. Good on you for doing that, man. What are your favorite mountains you've climbed? I don't know. They're all so unique. So just in Washington State in the Cascades, like North Cascades, there's so many just amazing peaks. And it sucks because it can be addicting because you get up on top of one and you're like, oh, that one.

and then you get up on that one you're like oh that one so you know how I have to be disciplined I am 50 and my body's pretty broken from the military from you know just living life to its fullest. From being blind on Everest. Being blind. Falling down Everest. Yeah. Yeah, just everything, you know, take calculated risks. I mean, I'm still pushing myself. I'm not dead yet.

But, you know, we're just very adventurous. We get out and if I need to do something a little higher, Joanna's definitely scared of heights. So we couldn't be more opposite. I was going to say, don't ask. I don't climb. pretty impressive portfolio already yeah but they're I'm not the type that pushes them like okay like you're gonna go you know do this thing but I create opportunity they love doing winter camping Like just going in five miles, getting in a snow cave or.

You know, there's no one else out there. He started that when they were little. Every winter they do that. I stay home and stay warm. I'd be with you. That's it, man. If you push it on them, it's one thing. But if you go do something and love it.

and they kind of uh they picked that up oh yeah and they i mean we were all hiking together from when they were in a in a pack you know so like they grew up hiking too and that was just and so now like we're traveling speaking and the kids will get together the kids they're now 18 and 21 they'll get together on a weekend at home and they'll go for hikes

together so like that's their thing too and um yeah so it's kind of cool because it's definitely created a love for the outdoors and yeah but as we get older you know the adventure is still there it's just

We're different. I think it's important to recognize that because there's so many people that they get out of the military, they've been doing that, ready to jump on a grenade, and now you're out. Yeah. You know, you're not prepared to be out. Same in the workforce. Yeah. You work till you're 65 and then. Then what? I don't know what I'm going to do. You got to retire today. Retirement and dying is two different things.

So are you still working? Do you still do like the tech stuff at all? No, I stepped away from that actually recently. There's opportunity like this year. so we'll see where that goes but i just had i had so many speaking opportunities that's good and yeah and with the movie i have a third book my first kind of like chad robert my first uh fiction

Nice. That's awesome. Yeah. So it's probably coming out. So, yeah. So how can people follow you, look you up? Well, I'm definitely on the Google. Just look for Brian Dickinson. My website's briandickinson.net. I host Calm in the Chaos podcast, so that's where I'm interviewing aviation rescue swimmers um these untold stories back from like the apollo 13 recovery to hell 3 vietnam to current um so just weekly episodes there and yeah very

Cool. Well, thank you for coming all the way out here and sharing your story. That's amazing. It's a blessing to meet y'all for sure. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate you having us. Oh, it's important not to let it change you. Resist the temptation to totally uproot your life, you know? I'll still do all the same things I did before. I'm still me. It was £25 you won, wasn't it, Baz? Yeah.

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