Soaring to new heights
For Thousand Oaks climber, the goal is to become oldest to reach top of Mount Everest.


By Bill Becher
Special to the Daily News


THOUSAND OAKS - When you're a 60-year-old retired grandfather and you've already run with the bulls at Pamplona and you don't play golf, life could get boring.
But if you're Mike Fucci from Thousand Oaks, there's always climbing Mount Everest -- even if it means seeing death up close.
Fucci , who taught biology for 25 years and helped coach varsity football at Agoura High before retiring in 1995, decided he wanted to be the oldest person to climb Mount Everest.

To get in shape he rode a bicycle across the United States. Twice.

His first experience with climbing on Everest was as part of a base camp group that helped set up tents and supplies. Fucci wasn't on a summit team, but had the chance to practice at the Khumbu Icefalls, 2,200 vertical feet of ice blocks and shifting ice falls cut by deep crevasses that have killed 19 climbers on Everest.

To have time to make the summit, climbers have to cross the icefalls in the dark, before the sun warms the ice, causing it to shift. After three attempts, Fucci realized he was climbing too slowly to have a chance at the summit and needed more practice.

"I left there knowing what the job was going to be if I was going to have any kind of shot," Fucci said. "I had to get on some big mountains that really challenged me."

This summer, Fucci journeyed to the highest mountain in Europe, 18,510-foot Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus in Russia, to hone his climbing skills and acclimatize to high altitude before traveling to Mount Everest. He was with a group of climbers from Brazil, Ireland and the U.S. headed by Wally Berg, who has climbed Mount Everest four times.

Mount Elbrus is known as a fairly climber-friendly mountain with the kind of ice fields and weather conditions found on Everest but fewer avalanches.

"It's known as a good test mountain, but not a killer mountain," Fucci said. But he found that in high-altitude climbing things can go bad quickly anywhere.

Fucci kept in touch with friends and family at home via e-mail. Modern mountain-climbing expeditions bring satellite communications gear and laptop computers.

He reported on summit day at Mount Elbrus:

"Breakfast was at 2 a.m. with a weather check from Seattle at 3 a.m. Wally laid out the summit plan, we are hoping to take 14 hours."

The group headed out at 4 a.m. with headlamps. The weather was benign -- calm and clear.

Forty-five minutes into the climb, Fucci's friend George Carabetta couldn't go farther. He'd caught an already operated-on ankle in a small crevasse and had to turn back.

As the sun rose, the temperature was 10 degrees and the winds began to blow.
Fucci realized he should have eaten more, but adrenaline and a climber's high kept him going. One of his close friends was getting chilled and Fucci was worried about him.

By 9 a.m. the climbers were in a full-on blizzard and the temperature had dropped 20 degrees.

The group had learned that four climbers from a Czech expedition had just died on the mountain. Four other climbers were lost and never found.

"I stumble over a girl," reported Fucci in his e-mail. "It took several seconds before I realized she was dead -- her arm was in the air and she looked so peaceful."

Fucci started to go blind in one eye. This is a sign of high altitude cerebral edema (HACE). The brain begins to swell, causing loss of vision and coordination.

The expedition leader selected four climbers to push for the summit, but Fucci wasn't one of them. He needed to get to lower altitude before HACE killed him.

Visibility had dropped to zero. Fucci followed the markers and ropes the group had placed in the snow.

After six hours, Fucci made it back to base camp, his vision and balance restored.

Fucci e-mailed his friends: "This mountain is so unreal. So beautiful and so deadly. I'm sitting at base camp with three body bags next to me. George comes up and says, 'If not for the grace of God, one of those could say Fucci .' "

In an airline seat, not a body bag, Fucci traveled to Nepal and more practice on Mount Everest.

The icefalls were well-roped, and Fucci made better progress this time but didn't make a summit attempt and returned home.

Fucci's daughter, Angie Soebbing, said she has no interest in following in her father's footsteps.

"I think it's great. He's living life the way he wants to," she said. "I worry about him every time he climbs. But I know he'd rather die up there than sitting on a rocking chair. That's the way I try to look at it."

The obvious question is: Why does Mike Fucci climb mountains?

"Without the danger element, you're not as focused," Fucci said.

"But when you are on the mountain, you are so focused because there are a hundred ways to die up there. You feel this adrenaline and it's like the best gift you could ever get. It puts tears on your face and you think, 'Does it get any better than this?' "

Somebody else would say: "What are you talking about? Better than this? The temperature is 20 below zero; the wind is 60 miles an hour. What is better than this? A whole bunch of things, including sitting on the beach with a Kaluha in your hand."

You're not likely to find Fucci on the beach sipping cocktails with little umbrellas. He plans more climbing.

Fucci would like to summit Everest, but he's realistic about the costs involved without sponsorship. Climbing Everest with a guide can cost from $65,000 to $70,000. He's turning his sights to the mountains of Patagonia in South America.

"I've learned I don't have to keep pushing higher and higher to enjoy mountain climbing," Fucci said.

Bill Becher covers the outdoors for the Daily News. He can be reached at billbecher@yahoo.com