Expedition Everest 2004 & 2005
A L G O N Q U I N C O L L E G E Small World Big Picture Expedition Everest 2004 & 2005 “A Season on Everest” Articles Published in the Ottawa Citizen 21st March 2004 – 29th June 2004 8th March 2005 – 31st May 2005 Back into thin air: Ben Webster is back on Mount Everest, determined to get his Canadian team to the top By Ron Corbett Sunday, March 21, 2004 Page: C5 (Weekly Section) The last time Ben Webster stood on the summit of Mount Everest, the new millennium had just begun. He stepped onto the roof of the world with Nazir Sabir, a climber from Pakistan, and stared at the land far below. The date was May 17, 2000. Somewhere beneath him, in a camp he could not see, were the other members of the Canadian Everest Expedition, three climbers from Quebec who would not reach the summit of the world's tallest mountain. As Webster stood briefly on the peak -- for no one stays long on that icy pinnacle -- stories were already circulating he had left the other climbers behind, so driven was he to become the first Canadian of the new millennium to reach the top of Everest. He would learn of the stories later, and they would sting. Accusation followed nasty accusation, the worst perhaps being that the other climbers had quit on him, so totalitarian had they found his leadership. When Webster descended from the mountain, he walked into a firestorm of negative publicity that bothers him to this day. At times in the ensuing four Julie Oliver, The Citizen's Weekly Shaunna Burke, a U of O doctoral student, Andrew Lock, an Australian, years he would shrug, and say simply he was the and Hector Ponce de Leon, of Mexico, will attempt a team assault on strongest of the four climbers, the only one able to Everest in May, led by Ottawa climber Ben Webster.
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