Climbing the mighty Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain is an achievement to which few can lay claim. To follow in the footsteps of Sir Edmund Hillary and reach the summit is a remarkable feat. However, going back to do it again, climbing a different route that is treacherous in parts and passing areas where other explorers have fallen to their death, persevering and reaching the summit against all odds, this can only be described as a extraordinary achievement.
But
then nothing of any worth was achieved by a man or woman playing
it safe, and Cathy O’ Dowd is no ordinary woman. In
1999, Cathy became the first woman in the world to climb Mount
Everest from both its north and south faces. She now shares
her story with corporate audiences, describing her experiences
as a degree in ‘living’, and providing insight
into how to succeed in the sometimes, very sheer face of adversity.
Cathy lives in the Andorra mountains and remains an active adventurer. In 2003 she and her husband Ian and two others had a new ambition... to climb a new route on the North East Face of Everest, in the 50th year of the first ascent. And so the 2003 Everest North East Face Expedition was born.
The east face of Everest (far right) from the Langma La
The symbolic climb attracted sponsorship and a lot of media attention across Europe. Cathy controlled light communications, and was responsible for supplying their sponsors and a set of website owners with information and photographs on a daily basis. She needed a dedicated expedition website and an e-mail system that would work from Mount Everest, in the Tibetan Himalayas. It could be argued that this was the ultimate in remote networking.
To ensure that her dispatches were of the highest standard she enlisted the help of Virtual Showcase, a digital media company, who project managed the supply of information to sponsors and website owners together with Info IQ to manage and host the dedicated expedition site together and provide the technical back up.
Being part of the Adventure….
Cathy
worked with Fred Weil, (MD of Info IQ) and all equipment was
tested in Hemel Hempstead before departure. Equipped with
a laptop and a satellite phone, she and the rest of the team
left for Kathmandu on their six week expedition. The following
weekend in Kathmandu Cathy tested the equipment and discovered
a system fault. She telephoned Fred and after two hours of
discussion all communications were working and the team left
for Tibet on schedule. As Cathy commented “Info IQ really
pulled out the stops. There was no-one locally who could help
me. This help enabled us to leave Kathmandu on time.”
The team faced adversity from the start, firstly with health
issues and then in a dangerous event, half of the Base Camp
was destroyed in a spectacular snow storm. The images and
the reports which Cathy was able to send of the aftermath
were harrowing in their bleakness, although the national media
loved it, and asked for more. Cathy continued to send words
and images almost on a daily basis.
… And the Solution
The effective utilisation of simple technology made the communications possible. Info IQ recommended that Cathy use an Iridium satellite telephone, linked up to the Iridium Direct Internet Data Service. The Internet connection was used to connect to the Info IQ hosting service server in the UK, where dedicated e-mail accounts were set up for use by the expedition.
The
advantages of this solution were that the server could be
specially configured to work reliably at the low speed of
a satellite telephone which is not normally possible when
using a normal Internet Service Provider's e-mail system.
To all intents and purposes it works just like normal dial up except the wires are replaced by a satellite link.
“Brilliant”…. Was how the media described the images and information sent during the trip. Besieged by problems from start to finish, Cathy and her team were forced to abandon their attempt. Down but not defeated, the team started planning their next adventure, and everyone agreed that the communications project had undoubtedly been a success.
Cathy O Dowd…
“Just as we scaled new heights, both physically and mentally, it was important that our communications partner could rise to the challenge. We could not have communicated our experiences to the world without the help of Info IQ.”
Click here to read the article about the expedition from the Summer 2003 Herts IOD Magazine.
