Ed Webster: From Meriam Hill to Mount Everest

When Ed Webster was a boy growing up in Lexington, his mother, Dorothea Webster, went to Cary Memorial Library and checked out climber Lute Jerstad's "Everest Diary" for her son.

It was the first book Webster read about a mountain climber's steep journeys, and it inspired him to read every other climbing book in the library's collection. Fascinated by those adventures, Webster, then 11, discovered a 25-foot cliff on Meriam hill, where he then taught himself rock climb.

From that humble cliff, Webster's passion for climbing only grew, and he went on to scale rock faces around the country, author rock climbing books and go on three expeditions to Mount Everest in the 1980s.

On Aug. 12, Webster, now 54 and living in Maine, will return to Lexington to speak at where he'll talk about and show slides of his Everest experiences, in the very place where his dream of climbing first unfolded from the pages of "Everest Diary."

"That book freed my imagination to learn how to climb," Webster said. "Those climbers were my heroes as a boy."

Patch: What were your early climbing days in Lexington like?

Webster: I learned to rock climb when I was still 11, in 1967, when I discovered a small cliff on Meriam hill. I learned to climb by reading books and following diagrams in books. I learned knots and how to rappel and how to belay. We learned basic climbing skills on the Meriam hill cliff I called "High Rock," and I don't think anyone has climbed there ever again.

Patch: Where did you climb as you got older?

Webster: When I was 13, I had my first rock climbing classes with the Appalachain Mountain Club at different cliffs around Boston. Also at 13, I had my first rock climbing trip to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. By the time I graduated high school ( 1974), I was a very proficient climber. I attended Colorado College from 1974 to 1978 – I wanted to go out west and see a different part of the country.

Patch: When did you write your first book?

Webster: I was 26. I wrote "Rock Climbing in the White Mountains of New Hampshire," it came out in 1982, and the third edition is still in print. I wrote an autobiography, "Snow in the Kingdom, My Storm Years on Everest," about all three of my expeditions to Everest.

Patch: When did you begin thinking about Mount Everest?

Webster: I was always dreaming and wondering if I would ever get to go up Everest and climb in the Himalayas. When I was 28, I worked as a rock climbing guide in North Conway (N.H.), then directed rock climbing schools for Eastern Mountain Sports serving stores in Colorado. When I was 28, I heard about an Everest expedition being organized by some climbers in Colorado and California. I was a very active climber, I specialized in doing new routes called first ascents, climbing sections of cliff that have never been climbed before. I did well over 100 new routes in the White Mountains and out west. One evening after giving a slide show, (a member of the Everest team) approached me said one member dropped out, we need one more person for the team, would you like to go? I jumped on it.

Patch: What was your first trip to Everest like?

Webster: I did reasonably well. It was my first high-altitude experience and I got to 24,000 feet, 800 feet from the top. I went back on an expedition the next year, and did three Everest trips total, 1985, 1986, 1988. Each was to a different side and was a different route. I'm one of only a handful of people who've climbed every side of Everest. My second and third times were to the Tibetan side, to the east Kangshung Face. It's the most remote and most dangerous side of the mountain. In 1988, I was on a team of four climbers. We established a new route up the mountain, never attempted before, and did it with no oxygen bottles, no sherpas, no radios.

Patch: Did you make it to the summit?

Webster: I was about an hour from the top, 28,700 feet above sea level. I knew I had given it my absolute best effort and that I'd probably be killed if I went further. I was hallucinating and passing out. I lost eight fingertips and three toes to frostbite. I took the outer layer of my gloves off to take a photograph for two minutes when (the temperature) was 40 below. It's more emotional in hindsight to realize I was so close, but I knew I had given it my all, and I didn't want to die up there.

Patch: What are you looking forward to about returning to Lexington for this talk?

Webster: It's going to be so much fun to tell my Everest story from literally where the story began at Cary Library. I have a lot of fond memories from growing up there. It will be a very special evening for me. 

Ed Webster will be at Cary Memorial Library on Aug. 12, telling stories and showing slides of his expeditions on Mount Everest, at 7 p.m. in the large meeting room.