The autumn climbing window at Everest is short, unpredictable, and dangerous. It’s rarely summited in autumn, the last successful climb was in 2010. But it can offer the chance to climb a much less crowded peak for those willing to gamble.
In late September, 2019, Garrett Madison of Madison Mountaineering led an expedition that included Zachary Bookman, a Silicon Valley tech exec, and Joe Vernachio, CEO of outdoor gear maker Mountain Hardwear, as well as a Mountain Hardwear-sponsored climber named Tim Emmett. Madison is also sponsored by Mountain Hardwear. The idea was to take photos of Mountain Hardwear athletes in action, and make a push for the summit.
Bookman’s previous alpine experience included climbs of Denali, Ranier (unguided), Mt. Vinson, and Mt. Aconcagua.
After arriving at Pumori Base Camp, and waiting more than a week for conditions to improve, Madison pulled the plug on the expedition citing concerns about a massive serac looming over the climbing route.
Bookman has since filed suit against Madison, demanding a refund of the $70,000 he paid for the expedition, claiming that the serac’s danger was overstated and that once Vernachio decided he wasn’t fit enough to climb, the trip was scuttled.
“This was a Mountain Hardwear expedition arranged by the president of Mountain Hardware to do photo shoots and then try to go to the summit,” Bookman told GeekWire. “Garrett pitched me on a ‘trip of a lifetime,’ a quote ‘hardcore group of dudes’ going to do this expedition.” [Neither party responded to AJ’s request for comment].
“On the first acclimatization walk out of Base Camp, the president of Mountain Hardwear fell seriously behind and was obviously struggling,” Bookman said. “He was like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know how I’m going to do this.’
“I’m not going to begrudge him, you know, it’s hard, it’s really high, but he was obviously not well or not fit or just having trouble,” Bookman added. “The very next morning, [Vernachio] announces the Mountain Hardwear expedition is canceled. I walk in bleary eyed and I’m like, ‘What?! It hasn’t even started.’ The very next day he flies out.”
After Vernachio departed, Bookman waited a few days before departing himself. On October 6, Madison became convinced that the serac would be falling anytime soon, and that winter weather would soon set in. Madison told Bookman the expedition was over.
In 2014, a serac had collapsed at the Khumbu Icefall while Madison was guiding. 16 Sherpa were killed, three of which worked for Madison. It was likely an experience he didn’t want to replicate.
Text of the suit.
Madison says the danger of the serac was the sole reason the expedition was canceled. As does Vernachio, counter to Bookman’s claims that Vernachio was ill-equipped to make the climb. Madison also brushed away concerns about Vernachio’s fitness, telling GeekWire that the Mountain Hardwear CEO was in excellent shape and clearly communicated his concern about the serac and the danger it posed.
“We chose safety over ego,” Vernachio said.
With the Mountain Hardwear team gone, Madison waited for a week to see what the serac would do. Bookman flew home, with Madison telling him he could fly back to try for the summit if the serac fell. Two Polish climbing teams were also there, as was ultra runner and fast climber Kilian Jornet. Neither the Polish team, nor Jornet made a summit bid, with Jornet pushing through the Icefall, but abandoning his climb higher up the mountain due to sketchy conditions at the elevated altitude.
Bookman claims that while on the mountain and with a summit push looking unlikely, Madison offered roughly half of the $69,500 fee Bookman paid as a refund. Madison denies that claim. Bookman, like all guided clients signed a waiver that included language making it clear no refunds would be given if the trip was canceled because Madison judged it unsafe.
In January, Bookman’s attorney sent Madison a letter demanding $50,000 as refund. When Madison refused, Bookman filed suit in California for $100,000. Last month a judge dismissed the suit because Madison is based in Washington, saying that Bookman can file suit there if he would like. The suit itself can be accessed, here.
It’s unclear whether or not Bookman will move ahead with the suit.
There is concern among the guiding community that if Bookman proceeds and prevails, it may spur guides to take unnecessary risks on expeditions, to avoid spurning paying clients who can demand refunds for failed summit bids. That’s the entire reason refunds aren’t given for safety or weather related concerns.
“I hope that I win this suit and it sets a precedent for the mountain guiding industry overall, that guides and expedition leaders should feel confident that they can make the right decision and not fear that if their team doesn’t summit, they might have some legal or financial repercussions from a client on their team,” Madison said. “I feel like this is a very important precedent.”
Bookman is at far left wearing red jacket with dark beard; Madison is at far right in blue beanie.
Top photo, Garret Madison, CC
Wow, typical Bay Area money grubber who thinks that he has more experience than multiple seasoned professionals! Not a cool move with the lawsuit, but to be expected from this type of person. What a shame this competent mountain guide has to fight this….
Bookman… PFT… get over it. — So many climbers through the years have attempted a summit, many multiples of times, and some never summit. Take you pocketbook and buy your way to the front of the Magic Mountain line at Disneyland and call it good. Don’t question the guiding outfit you hired. They had your back, safety first; they listened to their professional intuition and crossed it with experience to make that call, your ego should have been left at your Mountain View house. https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybookman/
Just about everything you need to know about this story is shown in the photo.
Amen.
I feel bad that Madison has to deal with this BS coming from a self-centered and spoiled Bookman. Bookman is the type of person who as a kid always got what he wanted from his parents if he screamed loud enough.
Typical I’d the rich let me buy my way through things instead of using his money to help, he uses it for his Instagram post and his low self esteem. They are pros because they know. Money is wasted on the rich!
Yikes. I don’t think we need to start class warfare over this. It was a crappy situation and anyone would be upset. Heck, most of us get upset if a store doesn’t apply a 50 cent sale discount on our ice cream. But the litigation concern is real. I don’t presume to know the guy’s character, but I hope he sees this article and thinks about what it could mean.
Yvon Chouinard was right.
And what did he say ?
Pardon me while I generalize a moment.
Does any other country on the planet suffer so many law suits (about almost anything) from so many people?
because you paid 70k just like every other climber who wasn’t successful in the fall since 2010. You paid for the professional judgment and safety provided for you. You should be thanking the guide. Your ignorance will not hold up in court. The guy signed a waiver, there’s no way to control conditions.
Cross reference the the speed climber who couldn’t pass so no matter what there’s not a reasonable bid for the summit with the evidence. What a scum
Madison has a history of bad business practices. For every happy client there are others that have been lied to, cheated and worse. This lawsuit is not about a failed summit bid, ask incorrectly suggested by many commenters. The narrative of evil tech CEO is convenient but clearly false. 70k to not step foot out of base camp should be suspect to anyone. People are talking about the precedent for the guides—what About the clients who can get swindled if there is a cancellation for ANY reason with ZERO recourse? The fact is, Madison has a reputation for this sort of thing and now it’s coming light.
Exactly what Outdoorsy said. To not leave base camp because one client (President of Mountain Hardware, no less) had had enough, justifies everyone having to go home? Sounds like extreme B.S. to me. Also sounds like what happened on Garrett’s K2 climb.
I never saw my 25k deposit for a climb paid over a year in advance. Was told I could apply it to another climb and when I did, he wouldn’t honor it.
There’s always the easy route of jumping on the “rich climber wants to climb Everest” bandwagon, and I get that. However, this is something different.
The story being told in all the outdoor publications is sort of half true. Definitely a frivolous lawsuit, with bad repercussions if it goes through.
The guide basically took this rich guys money to fund a trip with other, cooler clients, and then when the cool kids dropped out, decided he wasn’t even going to try to help the actual client. And this isn’t the first time this guide has been accused of promising big and not delivering a real effort.
I still think it’s a frivolous lawsuit, because the guide had enough reasons/excuses to pull the plug, although maybe not so early. This should really just be the equivalent of a one star yelp review, but at least a deserved bad review.
I was in Nepal in September of 2014, with a group of friends. We were trekking the Manaslu Circuit and ran into some really dangerous weather just before we were going to get to the highest point on the route, including snow, which we had not been expecting or were prepared for. There were landslides, other trekkers died, and I had two assholes in my group who decided they knew better than me or our guide when I called off the trip, and our guide called off the trip. I got into a physical altercation with one of them when I tried to collect money they owed us (that was my fault for not collecting money from everyone first). They tried to join other groups, but didn’t have the right gear (they would have needed gaiters, boots, ice axes, crampons, etc) so they tried to hire a helicopter to get them out (meanwhile there were a ton of SAR missions happening because people had got stuck all over the place) and that didn’t work. It was a hot mess. But in the end, I was right, they knew it, and they also knew they couldn’t do anything about it. Sounds to me like this guy got a bruise to his ego and isn’t willing to accept responsibility for it.
There is more info out there and in typical internet lynch mob fashion, the tech bro is branded as the ass and all the virtuous hard core outdoor internet keyboard warriors roast him, How about you pay 70k to fund a trip where the guide/company invites all his buddies to basically ride on your dime and then when the guides buddies bail you call it off and blame it on a “dangerous” situation that is almost always a dangerous situation each season. Yeah, the tech guy might well be a douche canoe, but this story is deeper. But hey, who needs facts. The tech bro is a bad guy fro wanting to at least leave the tent for what he paid.
Looks like 2 core issues at work here: 1) pre trip screening for group compatability; and 2) reasonable exercise of professional judgment and discretion.
Outside of conduct at the far end of the spectrum (the final 20% on either end, high or low), it’s tough to sue educated, specialized, experienced and pedigreed professionals. The law in most states provides that informed judgments by professionals and specialists, made in good faith, based on the best info available at the time are entitled to a presumption of validity or reasonableness by the law.
It is a fact intensive inquiry and, based on the limited info in the article, I don’t see this getting a lot of traction. I’ve been lawyering for 34 years and playing hard in the mountains for a little over 20.
The guy isn’t filing for bankruptcy, different legal arena.
I understand not giving a refund when you get a decent way up the hill and the conditions are judged excessively dangerous or not reasonably justifiable or something bad happens. I have pulled the plug many times for many reasons. However in this particular situation the plug seems to have been pulled before they attempted the icefall above basecamp. So there was no significant employment of sherpas, use of equipment, eating of food and so on. The guide did not spend weeks above basecamp with all the associated risks. Irrespective of the legal words the decent thing would have been to refund at least a reasonable portion of the fee. That is what I would have done.
Stay safe ya’ll. The peaks and Mother Nature are powerful. Very powerful.