It's tough enough just to breathe, to tolerate your pounding head and to keep your gut from heaving at the 29,028-foot summit of Mount Everest.
But Tom Whittaker, 46, is measuring pain in more than altitude sickness as he struggles to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain.His legs were mangled and his right foot was amputated following a 1979 car accident, and his back aches from the leg imbalance.
But the former Pocatello man wants to be the first disabled climber to reach the top - which could be any day now. And he also wants to be the first to chronicle his tribulations and triumphs in cyberspace.
Using two-way radios and a base-camp satellite fax machine, Whittaker and the rest of his crew are faxing accounts of their attempt to Mountain Visions, a Boise multimedia company posting an expedition diary on the Internet.
Owners Gary Grimm and Katy Flanagan and "technology whiz" Boyd Wold have created a site on the World Wide Web, a magazine-style interface to the Internet, which allows people to view graphics, photos and video and to navigate easily from one source of information to the next.
There is a daily account of the group's progress, details and photos about expedition members, sponsor information and a map of the route.
Grimm and Flanagan, who are husband and wife, have more than a business interest at stake in putting the "Web page" on the Internet. They are longtime friends and climbing buddies of Whittaker.
From their office at the old State Penitentiary, the two create multi-image slide shows, videotapes and computer multimedia programs for businesses, many with a bent toward outdoor issues.
They met Whittaker in 1977 before his accident and watched as the skier, climber and kayaker fought his way back to health and founded the Cooperative Wilderness Outdoor Group (C.W. HOG) to introduce the disabled to wilderness adventures.
Whittaker, who now teaches in the Outdoor Action department at Prescott College in Prescott, Ariz., made an unsuccessful attempt to reach the summit of Everest in 1989. He lost his prosthesis in a vicious storm that swept away his gear. Fortunately, he had a spare, and set an altitude record for an amputee by reaching 24,000 feet.
For this attempt he is using a device called a Flex Foot and attaches a crampon to the bottom.
"He said when he's climbing, he has no disadvantage at all," Grimm said. Swelling in Whittaker's stump may cause problems, but his accounts so far have not reflected that.
"The last message he sent was that they were at advanced base camp (25,000 feet) and were resting and waiting to go to the top," Grimm said.
Computer users can follow Whittaker's expedition and later view digitized photos of the trek at http://www.primenet.com/(tilde)mtvsion.