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Community Corner

Mount Everest Conqueror Comes To Commack Library

Bob Pospischil shares stories from the top of the world.

Bob Pospischil is inside the auditorium of the , talking about a recent mountain climbing trip he went on. He pauses on a slide that depicts a rickety, narrow, Indiana Jones-esque bridge with a few climbers using it to carefully traverse a gap.

"If you're afraid of heights, this is not the sport for you," he says with a smile. The audience laughs. Bob continues, "I don't particularly like heights, but that's one of my challenges, is to go out there and face my fears."

And in the spring of 2008, he did just that: He crossed the bridge, trekked up the Khumbu Icefall, fought winds that gushed faster than any posted speed limit on Long Island and, early in the morning one day in May, stood nearly 29,000 feet above sea level at the peak of Mount Everest.

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Bob was born and grew up near the border of Illinois and Wisconsin. After graduating college, he joined the Marine Corps as a fighter pilot. Years later, he'd make his way to Long Island. Now a resident of Nesconset, he works as the chief financial officer for horticultural wholesaler Bissett Nursery Corporation and Riverhead aquarium Atlantis Marine World. Somehow, his job affords him the ability to take a two-month leave of absence to climb the tallest mountain on Earth.

The expedition set out in late March on an airplane destined for Nepal's capital of Kathmandu. Not even close to the actual mountain yet, there was already danger present: the 800-foot runway Bob and other mountain climbers had to land on ends abruptly with a cement wall, followed by a 3,000-foot cliff.

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"You just pray to God it stops before you hit the cement wall," he says of the plane.

Once off the plane, Bob and the other climbers walk 35 miles over the course of six days through the Khumbu Valley to arrive at base camp. Once in camp, the climbers will spend weeks moving back and forth between the 19,200-foot-high first base camp and 21,500-foot-high second base camps to get acclimated to the altitude.

"I cut my finger on a zipper, it took me four days to get a scab," Bob says of a high-altitude injury. "That's how long it takes your body to repair itself."

But none of this is the real test. That comes several weeks into the climbers' stay on Everest. Typical winds near the mountain's peak can get as fast as 180 mph. But for a very small window of time—as long as week, as short as a day, Bob says—the winds die down. It's only during this period that the peak of the mountain can actually be reached.

So it goes something like this: Climbers will use their best estimates to determine when the wind will drop off. The group will head to camp three, situated at 24,100 feet. They'll sleep, and when they wake, don't sleep or eat for another 24 hours. During that time, they will climb to camp four, the final camp which sits roughly five miles above sea level, rest for a short while, and at 10 p.m., make the last leg of the trip to Everest's summit.

Hours later, they get to watch the sun rise on the top of Mount Everest. Twelve hours or so on the way down, and it will be another year before anyone sets foot atop the mountain. (Diet lovers, take note: In the 24-hour period from camp three to summit back to camp three, Bob lost 22 pounds.)

The 2008 climb was, by anyone's standards, a success. "My first goal was to survive," Bob says. But a lung infection he caught on the mountain led to Bob running short on oxygen, which meant he had to settle for the South Summit that sits abou 300 feet shorter than the North Summit. He plans to make another run at the North Summit in 2012.

Some climbers receive sponsorships to climb, which help offset the steep costs (the cheapest Everest climb will set you back $50,000; Bob's two-climbers-one-chaperone setup ran $65,000). Bob gets these offers too, but he passes on them in lieu of supporting Contractors For Kids, a nonprofit that raises money to help families of terminally ill children.

Bob admits climbing is a self-centered activity, and uses it to spread the word about the group.

"You have to have a purpose behind climbing," he says. "Climbing is a very selfish thing, something you do for yourself. Really not a lot accomplished other than what you challenge yourself to do.

Pictures Bob takes on his climbs adorn a calendar he sells each year to raise money for the nonprofit, which has amassed tens of thousands of dollars to help Long Island families.

Bob is 62 years old. If he attempts the North Summit next year and succeeds, he will be the oldest American in history to scale the Seven Summits. Factoring in a range of other mountains he has climbed, he would be the only person in the world to have a resume as accomplished as his. He admits he isn't positive about scaling Everest again—"For $65,000 and two months there's a lot of other things I could do too"— but after listening to Bob reminisce at the Commack Public Library, don't be surprised when he's on the news next year for entering the record books.

"[If] you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space," he says. "You've gotta go out there and enjoy life and live it to the fullest."

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