Sherpa : Russell Brice, the expedition leader

I came away from the film/doc thinking that Russell Brice wants to portray himself as the good guy but felt it was kind of insincere. While no doubt he cares for the sherpas and such, he is a businessman and the climbing industry is a lucrative business.

So I felt he was just making excuses as to why they can't climb and trying to pin the blame and a few "bad Sherpas" who were ruining the reputation of all Sherpas. We never verified who was the one making these treats.

One of the clients asked if he could talk to the "owner" of these bad Sherpas to fire them or something and he was all like "I don't know how I could". That is just illogical, considering it would be in all their interests (not counting the Sherpas here) for the climbing to go ahead without any fear or threats from the bad Sherpas.

As one guy noted, it was just an excuse and the bottom line is.. most of the Sherpas didn't want to climb that year because of the tragedy.

I wonder if those clients got a partial refund. The doc makes it sound like they lost all their money

Brice is more than "kind of insincere". To paraphrase Stan Freberg "Sherpa starts with an S, and it's a dollar sign."

There's a moment in the documentary where it's clear the Sherpas aren't going to climb, and Brice gets all teary-eyed and says he doesn't know how he's going to eat. This was the most baffling part of the documentary to me. He seemed to consider a single year of minor financial hardship (if he gave all participants a partial refund) to justify having an adamant stance that Sherpas continue to climb the mountain. I think he's got a better attitude and higher level of warmth towards the Sherpas than others would, but he still calls them "boys" (and no, that's not friendlyhe certainly doesn't refer to the wealthy climbers this way) and make hefty demands of them. His insistence on making up a story to justify ending the climb was some of the worst behavior I'd ever seen out of him.

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So I felt he was just making excuses as to why they can't climb and trying to pin the blame and a few "bad Sherpas" who were ruining the reputation of all Sherpas. We never verified who was the one making these threats.

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I think there was a genuine communication gap generational as much as cultural - at play that probably contributed to Brice misreading how the Sherpas felt as well as his perception of what was going on amongst them.

This was probably exacerbated by the fact that he had a longstanding relationship with Phurba Tashi and through him had built up his own network and crew of Sherpa assistants and crew, and this insulated him from the changes among the wider pool of young Sherpa workers, who were better educated than in the past, more aware of the inequities they faced, and with less personal loyalty (in some cases at least) to their employers. So RB didn't see it coming and didn't "get it" when it did.

I couldn't tell what was excuse or not, because the film was definitely an edited work and that could have given some objectively false impressions, intentional or not. It's quite possible Brice believed a lot of the rumors; his own staff were unlikely to want to contradict him, as it was not considered polite to do so.

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I wonder if those clients got a partial refund. The doc makes it sound like they lost all their money

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This has come up in the past. Brice cancelled the climb for his team in 2012 (I think it was) due to safety concerns - he was the only one who did and it raised a lot of eyebrows. It's part of the HIMEx contract that in the event of cancellations, no refunds are due. Whether he gave returning clients a cost break, I don't know.

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I think there was a genuine communication gap generational as much as cultural - at play that probably contributed to Brice misreading how the Sherpas felt as well as his perception of what was going on amongst them.

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Yes, me too. Kind of surprising for a guy who had that much experience working with Sherpas for so long.

That awkward meeting where they all sat around - everyone knew that they didn't want to climb and they wanted him to say it, for him to "save face" as the boss. But he didn't.

His ridiculous comments about Sherpas being irrational and not being able to feed their families later on as a sign of irrationality. The Sherpas were totally rational - 16 of their comrades had died, they didn't want to climb over their bodies, they wanted better pay and insurance.

It really wasn't necessary for Brice to say that his Sherpas were being threatened and didn't want to climb out of fear. I think it would have been respectable and understanding to just say to his clients, "look, Sherpas just died while prepping the mountain for us. Out of respect for them and their families, I'm cancelling the season. It's not right to ask Sherpas to help us climb after their colleagues just died on the same mountain only a few days ago."