I CAN'T Stay Silent About the Smoky Mountains Any Longer (it's getting BAD)

I can no longer stay silent about what's going on in the Smoky Mountains. Today, I'll be telling you five of the most disturbing stories in Great Smoky Mountains National Park history, and then, if you can handle it, I'm going to tell you a bonus story about what has to be the most unhinged day in Mount Everest history. What the hell is going on in the Smoky Mountains? On September 25, 1981, 58-year-old Polly Melton went on a hike with a couple of friends in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Everything was going normal, but then Polly slipped out of sight, and her friends weren't worried right away. But they should have been. At first, they just figured that she'd be waiting around the next corner. But when they rounded that corner, Polly wasn't there. They called her name into the trees, they checked behind stumps and brush, they even retraced their steps, but they found nothing. In a matter of just seconds, a light-hearted afternoon hike had turned into one of the darkest days in National Park history, and if you think I'm being dramatic, make sure you keep watching because you're about to find out exactly what I mean. Even though Polly was 58 years old, she was super active, and she definitely seemed younger than she really was. She and her husband, Bob, had been spending time trailer camping near Deep Creek, which is just outside of Bryson City, North Carolina. This was a place that they both loved, and a place that Polly knew very, very well. She knew the trails, the trees, and more importantly, she knew where not to go. Polly was out hiking with her two friends, who were named Trula and Red, on a trail called the Deep Creek Trail. Again, a place she had been before. The three of them set out around 3 p.m., you know, just kind of hiking along and talking, as they made their way down the popular, well-traveled trail, I might add. Again, this was the kind of hike that Polly was very, very comfortable with, a trail that she had done tons of times before. And at some point along the hike, Polly actually ended up kind of picking up her pace. She wasn't running by any means, but it was almost as if she got this sudden burst of energy, right? So Polly gets this burst of energy, and she starts hiking faster, and she ends up hiking just out of view of her friends. Now Trula and Red assumed that Polly would just wait for them ahead. Maybe she just needed a moment alone, or maybe she'd be tired after this burst of energy and eager to sit down and take a quick rest. But as her friends kept walking down the trail, they still hadn't found Polly. They walked from one switch back to the next, checked around tree after tree, but their friend was nowhere to be found. At first they thought that Polly might have stepped off the path, or wandered into the trees to relieve herself. When you gotta go, you gotta go, right? But after several minutes of calling out her name, and looking up and down the trail, a quiet, kind of panic set in for the two women. I mean, this couldn't be true. They were literally just hiking with Polly, and now she was gone. What the hell had happened? The sun wasn't gonna be up forever, and they needed to act quickly if they wanted any hope of finding their friend. And so after searching all over, retracing their steps again and again, Trula and Red accepted the frightening truth, which was that Polly was missing. They rushed back to the trailhead, contacted Park Rangers, and the official search began before nightfall. At first, everyone assumed that Polly had just gotten lost, but that didn't really make much sense, because again, Polly knew the deep creek trail like the back of her hand. And plus, it wasn't like this trail itself was super rugged or technical, and so if we don't think that she was simply lost, the next logical conclusion was that her fate involves something much more complicated and much, much darker. Bloodhounds were brought in, helicopters swept the area, and dozens of volunteers scoured the woods. And yet, not a single piece of evidence was found. No clothing, not so much as a broken branch. I mean, they couldn't even find any footprints, which was unbelievable, because at the time, Polly was wearing a super distinctive pair of shoes which had the sole cut in the left shoe. These shoes would have absolutely been easy to track compared to all of the other prints along the trail, but again, they found nothing. Indeed the popular trail had just been trampled on way too much, or maybe, if we're supposed to believe the impossible, Polly had just vanished into thin air. I mean, I don't know. Investigators looked into every single possibility. They interviewed her husband, Bob, who described Polly as somewhat down in the weeks leading up to the hike. You see, Polly had been caring for Bob through a series of health issues that he was having, and though she even had her own ailments, like high blood pressure, nausea, general fatigue, nothing pointed to any major concern on her end. She was known to be a two-package cigarette smoker, but still there wasn't anything so crazy that would explain her just disappearing suddenly like this. I mean, you'd think that if she was attacked by an animal, or if she had some kind of health scare, the search crews would have found some kind of evidence of that anywhere near the trail. But they didn't. Authorities were perplexed. Hell, I'm perplexed, honestly. And so naturally, it wasn't long before Polly's mystery morphed into larger speculation and larger suspicion from the outside public. Folks, a wild theory would emerge. Some people began to wonder if Polly had disappeared on purpose. Trula and Red came forward to report that when they were hiking with Polly, the day she disappeared, they'd been kind of lightly teasing her about a man at the Bryson City Presbyterian Church Nutrition Center where Polly volunteered. They were teasing her, saying that this man was clearly interested in Polly. And apparently, Polly didn't deny this, but she clearly didn't want to talk about this mystery man. And on top of that interaction, a pastor at Polly's Church had stated that she had apparently come to him one day and started talking generally about the idea of affairs. And this pastor wasn't exactly sure what to make of it at the time, but he thought it was notable that she was so concerned about the topic, even if she wasn't getting specific. And to add even more intrigue into this "affair theory" we'll call it, Polly reportedly used the phone at her church the day before she went missing, which was something that she had never done before. She didn't tell anyone who she called or what they talked about, and none of her friends or family reported talking to her on the phone that day. No long distance charges appeared on the bill either, which led authorities to believe that the call was local. Now if Polly did walk away from her life, she left behind no clear reason. Maybe she had just grown tired of being the primary caregiver for her sick husband, but that didn't explain why she hadn't emptied her bank account or why she didn't bring any of her belongings with her as she disappeared. Nobody that knew her described her as wanting to take her own life, either. And so she had simply just gone for a walk on a trail that she knew better than most, and then nothing. To this day, Polly Melton's case remains unsolved. They never found any remains, let alone, you know, an entire body. There were no confirmed sightings, no phone calls, no arrests, just a woman who disappeared into the woods without a sound, leaving behind her friends, her sick husband, and so many unanswered questions. And the great Smoky Mountains, as they so often do, continue to keep that secret. Polly's story is one of those that just breaks my heart, but there's also stories out there that make my blood boil, like the one I'm going to tell you now, the story of William Bradford Bishop. Man, if you can call him that, simply went by the name Brad, and it's safe to say that Brad had everything in life. He had a prestigious job as a foreign service officer within the United States State Department. He was a veteran of the U.S. Army. He went to both Yale and UCLA. He was fluent in five languages, and he lived in a picture perfect suburban home in Bethesda Maryland with his beautiful wife and net, and his three young sons, and his aging mother, who lived with the family. And I know that was a long sentence, I described a lot there, but I'm trying to illustrate that that's a good life. I mean, life doesn't really get much better than that, right? Well, unfortunately, everyone that I just told you about there, all of their lives were about to get much, much worse. Brad was very, very ambitious, and by the spring of 1976, he was reportedly frustrated by his career stalling out, or at least that's how he felt, right? He'd been desperately chasing after this big promotion at the State Department, and according to someone who knew him, he'd also been suffering from anxiety and maybe even possibly depression, and yet despite those facts, absolutely no one would have guessed that Brad was going to do what he ended up doing next. On March 1, 1976, Brad learned that he had actually been passed over for that big promotion, and it totally crushed him. He felt even more stuck in his current job now, and he felt like this promotion had been basically the only thing he could possibly do to get to that next level. And now it was gone. So Brad decided to leave work early, and he told his secretary that he wasn't really feeling well, you know, little under the weather. No big deal. And in hindsight, I guess he wasn't wrong, because it turns out that Brad Bishop is indeed one very sick person. After leaving work, he drove to his bank. He went up to the teller, and he casually pulled out several hundred dollars from his account. Whatever he had planned next, he obviously needed a lot of money for it, and he also obviously needed it to be simple, untraceable cash. And so after this, Brad took his fat stack of cash over to the Montgomery Mall, where he bought a hammer and a gas can, which is a pretty strange combination of items. I wonder what the cashier thought when she saw that and maybe I'm putting hindsight bias on this I guess sometimes I'll go to the grocery store just because I needed like some butter or something But then I remember that I also need some rubber dish gloves to and then I'm also out of duct tape And then I also want to get my girlfriend a bouquet of flowers and now all of a sudden I'm buying four totally normal items But from the person at the registers point of view I can totally see how they might start to have some questions But anyways, after Brad left the mall with his totally harmless combo of a hammer and a gas can He went over to a gas station across the street to fill that gas can up and the tank of his 1974 Chevrolet station wagon and then from there he drove to a hardware store where he purchased a shovel and a pitch fork Again, this guy was basically going all over town in the middle of a professional cashout and buying everything on the I'm up to no good checklist Brad returned to his family home between 7 30 and 8 p.m. That night His wife and net and his three sons were home while his mother was out walking the family dog The house was quiet for just a moment his sons were all asleep and and so it was just him and his wife awake together his day of disappointment planning and preparation had all led up to this and All at once Brad just lost it. I don't I don't know how I'll say it like all that pent-up anger all that evil it boiled up to the surface He attacked his wife first he went after her with the hammer that he had just bought and I'll spare you the details by he killed her and just as he was finishing doing that his mother came home with the family dog and Brad continued his rampage and he killed his own mother too But he certainly wasn't done there. I think you know where I'm going with this He then walked down the hallway and this is hard to say dude He walked down the hallway and slowly approached the door to his son's room There's no doubt that pure evil was floating through that house on this particular night Because Brad was about to stack even more tragedy on top of what he had already done He decided to finish the job by proceeding to kill all three of his sons aged 5 10 and 14 Again, using that hammer while they slept his violence was precise and Contained entirely within the house the next morning on March 2nd the neighbors noticed that you know Their home was oddly quiet. There were no lights. There was no movement. There was no sound of The boys playing outside days later 275 miles around 143 kilometers south of the Bishop family home a local park ranger saw a giant plume of smoke appearing in the woods He decided to grab some other rangers and go investigate and when they arrived They found something absolutely chilling the fire was coming from a shallow pit that looked like it was kind of dug in a hurry Right the rangers slowly approached the pit waving smoke out of their eyes and Smelling something much more than just a brush fire, right? They peered over the edge of the pit and they were horrified to see all five bodies of the Bishop family inside of this pit charge and Brutalized like something straight out of a horror film like it's seriously hard to even describe this stuff Authorities arrived at this awful crime scene and they were able to use dental records to identify Bishop's mother the children had been burned beyond recognition But they were later identified when connected to their grandmother and mother as the police searched around This burn pit. They managed to find a bloodied hammer as well But there was no sign of Brad Bishop himself or at least that was the case at first as they searched up the nearby road Not far from this horrible Burial site authorities located Brad bishops abandoned station wagon and inside of it were maps Camping gear a bloodstained blanket and a pair of boots one thing was abundantly clear Wherever Brad Bishop had gone next he had gone on foot and he was basically trying to disappear into the closest major wilderness Which of course was the great smoky mountains the FBI search and search for Brad Bishop They use dogs helicopters all of the standard protocols But just like the previous story they came up with absolutely nothing They believed that Brad fled into the mountains using trails to distance himself from the crime and perhaps to just disappear Completely he knew this terrain very well because he was an abbot hiker and had camped in the smoky's tons of times before He also had the skills to vanish if he wanted to after spending years and foreign countries and serving in the army He knew how to blend in and even had to disappear in plain sight for years there were scattered Reporting's of sightings of Brad a man matching his description was seen in Sweden another one in Italy One hiker in North Carolina claimed to have shared a trail with a quiet well-spoken man who had maybe looked like Brad But none of these leads stuck there was never any arrest no confirmed identity Brad's trail grew cold and the smoky's Clearly helped cover up his tracks, which is just crazy because I mean this was a man who once sat across from world leaders You know he was well read well dressed by all accounts He was super successful and then after one bad day he just snapped and Unalived his entire family and then he became a total ghost The FBI even placed him on its 10 most wanted list nearly 40 years after the crime They created a digital rendering of what his face might look like now and they broadcast that all across the world and yet Despite literally being on the top 10 most wanted list Nothing ever came from that and until the great Smoky Mountains tell us whatever it knows about Brad Bishop We're all just forced to wonder if he died out in the wilderness or if he managed to escape and started new life entirely He completely escaped justice the Smoky Mountains helped him do it and if this next story tells us anything It's that the Smokies don't really care either way in October of 1976 16 year old Teresa who went by treny was on a high school field trip to great Smoky Mountains National Park It was a crisp bottom day and the group of over 40 students and teachers from a local Knoxville high school was hiking the Andrews Bald Trail near an area called Klingman's Dome which I've been to and I didn't know about this story at the time and honestly I'm glad that I didn't because I think it would have put a damper on things Treny was surrounded by classmates for most of the day hiking with her friends and everything just seemed fine Despite the cold and wet conditions along the trail, but you know It was good all the way up until the moment that it wasn't I should say as treny was hiking She would sometimes drift either just ahead or just behind the main group of school kids And this wasn't strange at the time treny felt super safe with so many people around her and even safer in the national park I mean, it's literally called a park right parks are fun filled with jungle gyms and slides and kids playing four square Okay, maybe national parks don't have that stuff. But you know what I'm saying right the fact that this is a national park definitely gives it a Added sense of security, but um Sometimes that can be pretty misleading by the mid afternoon treny and her classmates were almost back to the parking lot where they'd Get back on the bus and head back home for the day They were all pretty tired from a long day of adventuring and hiking and so a few of the kids decided to take a short rest While there were only about a half mile from the trailhead But treny decided that she didn't want to wait she wanted to keep going and She seemed to be in a hurry to get back almost and so as her friends took a breather She continued forward on the trail and simply faded into the woods her friends soon got back on the trail This was a short break after all and they thought that they'd catch back up with her either along the trail or you know back at the parking lot but that didn't happen they hiked all the way back to the bus and Treny wasn't there waiting for them They boarded the bus and they started checking each row of seats, but one after the other Treny was nowhere to be found Um, maybe she was just in the nearby restroom, right? So they went and checked there, but they didn't have any luck the teachers had no answers either as much as the kids were freaking out Can you imagine how much the teachers and shepherds were probably freaking out everyone on this field trips soon fell a massive wave of dread Wash over them when they realized that treny was missing She was gone and of course the search efforts began very very quickly and I feel like I've said this a couple times in the video But you know rangers and dogs and helicopters and all the things combed the area her classmates were absolutely perplexed they didn't have the first clue what could have happened to her she'd seemed fine all day long and so maybe she ran away But then where would she have gone she was just a 16 year old girl surrounded by tons and tons of teachers and classmates Maybe she had sped up on the trail and somehow fallen into a hole or a ditch or something But then again the dogs and the search teams would have found her if that was the case, right? I mean they searched extensively they even went outside of the park They started checking local hospitals more than a dozen of them by the way Authorities hope that they would find treny there one hospital in Haywood County, North Carolina reported on October 13th 1976 That they thought they might have treated treny on the previous Friday, which was October 8th And so someone with the Haywood County Sheriff's Office took a picture of treny to the hospital But it was later determined that the patient thought to have possibly been treny was actually some other local girl now There's another theory about what might have happen to her which is that maybe she was abducted. I mean it's certainly plausible that a popular tourist destination like a national park could be a potentially dangerous place for human trafficking and child abduction. I mean these places are so big and they're filled with so many people so it could be really easy for someone evil to simply swipe up children and then you know cover it up or blend in with all the distractions. I don't know. Shortly after Trendy disappeared one report came out that an underage girl in Bryce and City, North Carolina had tried to get married to an older man and some folks wondered if this was Trendy but unfortunately nothing was ever confirmed. Another report given to Knoxville police said that someone looking similar to Trendy got on a plane in Newark, New Jersey with a quote much older man and the two of them got off the plane in NASA. But again nothing ever came out of that report either. Trendy had vanished and the hope of finding her was rapidly vanishing too. To this day, no real trace of Trendy Gibson has ever been found and the mystery of how a young girl can just straight up disappear and broad daylight surrounded by her friends and teachers remains one of the most haunting unsolved cases in the Smoky Mountains and in all of national park history. And speaking of one of the most haunting cases in national park history, this next one is quite possibly the most famous in national park history. It's actually one that I've told on this channel before. This story is so significant that if I don't tell it, people are going to rip me in the comments for it. So just bear with me on Father's Day weekend in 1969. Six-year-old Dennis Lloyd Martin disappeared during a family camping trip in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Dennis had traveled there with his father, his grandfather and his older brother from Knoxville, Tennessee. While playing a game with some other kids at Spence Field, Dennis planned to hide out behind a bush and then jump out to like surprise the adults, which sounds fun, but this would not end up being fun at all. Dennis was last seen skipping towards the trail full of innocent energy. He was just a kid trying to play some harmless pranks minutes past and then hours and then by nightfall panic set in when his family had fully come to terms with the fact that Dennis was gone. He had never returned to camp. What followed was the largest search in National Park history. I'm talking nearly 1400 people, including Rangers, a lot of volunteers and even the National Guard calmed over 56 square miles of rugged terrain. Heavy rain and dense fog made the search pretty much impossible and lots of theories swirled, right? Some believe that Dennis had wandered off and then succumbed to the elements. Seems pretty likely. Others fear that he was snatched up by a wild animal. I mean that's I guess likely as well or possible I should say, but the most chilling suggestion came from Dennis's father who suspected that his young son had been abducted. Eyewitnesses even reported hearing a scream and seeing a shaggy haired man running through the woods carrying something over his shoulder. Maybe it was a cloth or a large bag or something because nothing ever came from that mysterious sighting and that lead like all of the other leads went cold. Despite massive efforts and over 400,000 dollars in today's money spent on this search, no trace of Dennis was ever found. This search was pretty much cursed from the start with a lot of disorganization, terrible weather, way too many people trying to get involved. More than five decades later, Dennis's disappearance remains one of the most haunting and heartbreaking unsolved cases in the history of the Smokies. A joyful weekend turned into a nightmare that no family should ever have to face. Oh and speaking of nightmares, this next story follows a nightmare scenario and a beloved park volunteer named Ann Houghton. So every National Park has a dedicated group of volunteers that make the place special. And for the great Smokie Mountains, 73 year old Ann was just that. On January 28th, 2025, Ann set off for a two-day hike along some of her favorite trails in the park. She left her car at Smokemont Campground. She checked her pack to make sure that she had everything she needed. She took in the cool mountain air and then she set off for a peaceful adventure in a place that felt less like the wilderness and more just like her backyard. And I say that because Ann had logged over 4,000 hours of service over the course of the past two decades. And while she didn't volunteer for attention, obviously, she certainly earned it when she was nominated by the park for an outstanding volunteer service award and loved these mountains. But the Smokie Mountains aren't really known for loving you back. They're known for being cold, ruthless and in this case, unforgiving. Ann started her hike with hopes of simply enjoying some time in a park that she worked so hard to keep running and it definitely started out that way. But then something really strange happened after a couple of days had gone by and failed to show up at a volunteer shift that she had committed to. And that wasn't like her at all. Her friends and fellow volunteers were immediately concerned when this happened. And on February 1st, after no word from her, she was officially reported missing, which is obviously not a good situation. But I should say that park staff and everyone who knew Ann didn't immediately jump to the worst case scenario. They were sure that she had to be out there somewhere safe and sound. I mean, this park was her playground after all, her safe space, you could say. Park staff visited the Smokemot campground and when they pulled into the parking lot, they got a chill down their spines because Ann's car was still there. They all hopped out and walked around her car in circles, hoping to find some kind of clue that she'd been back there recently or maybe that she'd gotten a flat tire and had to just leave the car behind. Something like that. Something more innocent. But they couldn't find anything like that. The car looked like it had just been left behind. Just a flat out spooky scene. The search for Ann grew very quickly from there. Rangers, volunteers, and multiple local rescue and fire departments all joined in. They all wanted to find their friend Ann. They searched all of Ann's favorite trails nearby. I mean, surely she was just adding a few extra days on to her adventure, right? She must have been just too dang busy enjoying her time in the place that she loved so much that she just forgot about her shift, right? On the afternoon of February 2nd, one local search crew was coming through a thick section of brush, roughly a quarter mile off trail near Enlo Creek. The rough terrain, the cold winter months, the isolation, all that stuff made this a pretty difficult place to reach, but they had a hunch that Ann could have easily ended up somewhere near there. You see, she wasn't the kind of hiker to chase after breathtaking views, you know, popular spots like that, Ann preferred to find a unique and quiet spot and then kind of just go there to bask in the glory of nature. And just hearing that had a lot of people wondering what could have possibly happened to her, you know, in this location specifically. Could she have slipped along the wintery trails? If she had fallen down, that fall would have been extra devastating if she was already off trail and away from anyone else who could have helped her. I also need to mention that Ann was 73 years old, and even though she was super super active, it is totally possible that she could have suffered some kind of medical event that left her unable to cry for help, even if there were other people nearby. And I can't help but worry that some very evil person could have been lurking in those woods and could have been capable of hurting, abducting, or even doing much worse to sweet Ann. But I don't know, it's just a dark thought. As search crews pushed through the brush and the dense woods near Enlok Creek, they caught the familiar smell of the wet moss on the forest floor, but this time with a different smell mixed in. This smell wasn't as pleasant. It actually kind of stung. They covered their noses, but moved towards it at the same time. I mean, it was so distinct that it had to be some kind of lead to finding Ann, right? And as the smell intensified, they looked down and they saw something absolutely shocking. It was Ann, off trail, kind of out of view, and tragically dead. Now, despite my comment earlier, no foul play is suspected, and this actually happened, you know, this year, 2025. So the details of how Ann died haven't been made public yet, at least that I've been able to find. And I don't think this is like a coverup or anything nefarious, by the way, that they haven't released this stuff. It does make me wonder though. I mean, did she fall? Was it an animal? I don't know. And I wish that I did, and hopefully we'll know soon. The truth is that the great Smoky Mountains would be a much worse place without people like Ann. I mean, you can't deny that. But like we keep saying, the park doesn't always love you back, and it doesn't always care about you. And now buckle up because I'm gonna tell you about a man who is physical proof that Mount Everest is not meant to be climbed. But first, be sure to leave the show a five-star review. Please, please, please, it helps us tremendously. And it's totally free. So, you know, come on, I appreciate you guys so much. And now let's get into it. On May 25th, 2006, Lincoln Hall, Thomas Webber, and a few other climbers in their group reached the summit of Mount Everest. For a few brief moments, they were literally on top of the world. And yet just a few hours later, they found themselves absolutely, excuse my language. F***t. On the way back down from the summit, Webber, suddenly collapsed, and he died on the spot, and shortly after this, Lincoln Hall found himself heading for the same fate. He too felt to the ground with the other members of his expedition pleading and pleading for him to get back to his feet. Everybody knew that if Hall couldn't get moving again, they would have no choice but to leave him for dead and continue down the mountain before they too became victims of Mount Everest. In a desperate final attempt to revive him, Hall's climbing partners poked him directly in the eyeball, hoping to get any response from him. This yielded nothing, and thus, Lincoln Hall was left for dead. The news of his death quickly spread, and because of this, the next day, a group of climbers that were making their way up the mountain were fully aware that they would likely be stepping over the dead body of Lincoln Hall at some point on their climb. When they were only two hours shy of the summit, they noticed a frozen man sitting up in the middle of a knife-edge ridge, and when they approached him, this man introduced himself as Lincoln Hall. He was somehow still alive, but all the climbers knew that this wouldn't be the case for much longer, unless something drastic happened. There's no ambulances or air rescues up in the death zone on Mount Everest, so these men knew that the only way Hall would survive is if they took immediate action to get him down the mountain. They also knew that this would make it impossible for them to summit Mount Everest, something that they had spent months and months training for, and spent more than $20,000 each in order to achieve. As other groups of climbers passed by keeping their distance because they didn't want to get involved, the men who had come to the aid of the dying Lincoln Hall made their decision. This is the heroine story of Lincoln Hall. Many people simply can't fathom why the hell anyone would climb Mount Everest. Now, don't get me wrong, I think it would be super cool to reach the highest point in the entire world like I get that, but obviously attempting to achieve this goal comes with tremendous risk. Many, many climbers have died on Mount Everest, and as much as I hate to say it, many more will die in the years to come. In 2006, Lincoln Hall would have definitely been aware of this risk when he set out on his second ever attempt to reach the summit. Lincoln Hall was from Canberra, Australia, and by the way, to my Australian listeners, let me know if I said that right, Canberra. By the time he was 15 years old, he was already on a path to eventually reach the highest point in the world. In 1970, one of his physical education teachers actually took him to an imaginary national park in the southeastern part of the country on what would be the very first climbing trip of the young halls life. Apparently, this teacher was like a well-known local climber, and so Hall was at least in theory in good hands. However, Mother Nature must have wanted to challenge the pair that day for whatever reason, because the end of their climb was just straight up dangerous. It was raining significantly that afternoon, and the rocks were just extremely slippery, so slippery that Hall eventually had to stop climbing himself, and they just pulled him up by the rope. He, apparently and unsurprisingly, did not have a very good time on this first climbing trip, and this might not sound like it would be the start of a climbing career that would eventually lead him to Mount Everest, but despite his initial miserable and straight-up dangerous experience, Mount Everest is eventually where Hall would end up. So despite the fact that his very first climbing trip definitely did not go according to plan, which is kind of an understatement, Lincoln Hall would go on to climb again, and again, and again, and by the time he entered university, he was regarded as one of the best climbers in the Canberra area, still not sure if I'm saying that name right by the way. I'm sorry, Australians, if I got it wrong. Hall studied at the Australian National University, where he became known for climbing on the walls of the buildings around campus, which is pretty epic. Word about his skills quickly spread throughout the university, and before he knew it, he actually found himself with impromptu live audiences when he would do these climbs. This just happened on accident, and just because he was so impressive. That was never his intention. All he wanted to do was to practice, because Lincoln Hall had his mind set on much more ambitious routes, will say, than just the walls of the ANU library. Eventually, Hall made the transition from a climber into a proper mountaineer. In 1978, he traveled to the Himalayas as part of his very first expedition ever, and boy, would it be an eventful one. Now this expedition's goal was to reach the summit of a mountain called Dunajiri, again, I could be pronouncing that wrong, I'm sorry. This mountain stands just over 23,000 feet in elevation, or around 7,000 meters. Due to some very bad weather, the summit attempt was eventually called off. The expedition basically decided to just give it up. But Lincoln Hall and one of his fellow classmates named Tim McCartney-Snape were actually assigned to climb up the route in order to gather the ropes and equipment that had been placed by the expedition. And while they were in the process of doing this, the two men ended up making a very bold, somewhat even say, dangerous decision when they found themselves in an unanticipated window of good weather. The two men made an on-the-spot decision to push for the summit, and McCartney-Snape would actually end up making it to the top, but unfortunately Lincoln Hall wouldn't. Not only did he not make it to the top, he almost wound up dead. Hall became severely frostbitten, and by the time he made it back down to base camp, he was in such a bad condition that he actually had to be airlifted to the nearest hospital, like he couldn't even walk out himself. Thankfully, he did end up surviving somehow, although he lost a few toes in the process. Remember, this is his very first expedition. Now, I'm willing to bet that for most people, or for myself anyway, as I'll speak for myself, a brush with death like this on your very first time trying something would probably mean that you wouldn't do it again, ever. That was definitively not the case for Lincoln Hall. In fact, literally the exact freaking opposite thing happened. Lincoln Hall was just getting started, and after a few more expeditions on various Himalayan peaks, Lincoln Hall was set to make his very first attempt at climbing Mount Everest. In 1984, Lincoln Hall, McCartney Snape, and a few other experienced climbers, made an attempt at becoming the first Australians to ever reach the summit of Mount Everest. And as if this wasn't already daunting enough, they planned to attempt the mountain via a brand new route on the North Face that had never been climbed before, and in addition to that, they planned to make the attempt without the use of supplemental oxygen. In case you weren't aware of that, that's a big, big deal. Now, I'm a backpacker, I'm not a mountaineer, so I've never had to use supplemental oxygen, and I'm far from an expert on it. But my understanding is that once you get above 26,000 feet, or around 8,000 meters in elevation, oxygen levels are just so thin, they're like less than half of what they are at sea level, and because of this, it just becomes very difficult to breathe and just to survive for that matter. I mean, you're on borrowed time at that elevation. The team spent months preparing for the summit push, preparing both logistically and physically. While digging a snow cave at around 22,000 feet, which I guess was to be used as a future campsite on their actual summit push, Lincoln Hall would experience yet another brush with death when an unexpected avalanche nearly buried him alive. This experience was actually so traumatic that one of his fellow climbers and extremely experienced and accomplished mountaineer, by the way, decided that he no longer wanted to make an attempt at summoning the mountain. However, Lincoln Hall, McCartney Snape, and a few others on their team were still determined to make it all the way to the top. And so they continued to acclimate, fix ropes, and set up campsites along their planned route. Eventually, Hall and McCartney Snape actually dodged a severe winter storm, descending back down to advanced base camp just before the storm hit. And though they missed the worst of the storm and they were fine, the storm still left an impact on the expedition and particularly on Lincoln Hall. After this storm, Hall All developed a chest infection and this left him hacking and wheezing and severely weakened. He would go on to slowly recover from this infection but he was never able to fully regain his strength. Eventually that expedition member that had temporarily dropped out rejoined the push for the summits and actually on October 3rd, 1984, Hall, McCartney Snape and three other climbers made their push for the summit of Mt. Everest. Hall made it past 26,000 feet or again roughly 8,000 meters but he eventually had to make the very wise decision to turn around. Just like had happened on his very first expedition, he was once again suffering from frostbite and he understandably did not want to lose any more toes or lose any more fingers or anything like that. McCartney Snape and a climber named Greg Mortimer ended up successfully summiting Mt. Everest before turning around and meeting Hall back at their highest camp. Even though Hall had turned around shy of the summit, his presence was still like completely indispensable as the climbers spent the next couple days descending back down the mountain. Greg Mortimer had actually started to deteriorate physically and without the help of Lincoln Hall, he likely would have died on his way down the mountain. So this expedition was a massive deal in Australia. They had made history, they were the first ones from the country to ever summit and their expedition would actually go on to be written about in articles and books and discussed in movies and documentaries for years afterwards even to this day. And even though he hadn't made it to the summit, Lincoln Hall was a part of that expedition and so he had essentially cemented his place in Australian climbing history. He would go on to summit a few more peaks including the 5th highest in the world and he would also become an author, he would publish multiple books about Mt. Everest and about various mountaineers who had tackled it. He settled into a prospering career and he also started a family and yet despite this comfortable place in his life, he couldn't quite shake his desire to reach the summit of Mt. Everest and to reach the tallest spot in the entire world. Now the reason that I've told you Lincoln Hall's background in such extensive detail is because well I mean it's fascinating first of all but more importantly because I just want to illustrate to you how many times he found himself in dangerous situations while he was mountaineering. I don't think this viewpoints necessarily common but I have seen it before. I think that some people who aren't into mountaineering who aren't mountaineers can sometimes assume that people who run into trouble on Mt. Everest are just like naive to the risks and I'm just going to tell you this is not true, the vast majority of the time. After surviving multiple near death experiences in the mountains, any future Everest attempts that Lincoln Hall made would come with a full understanding of all of the risks involved obviously. And just in case he forgot about these risks for some reason, all Lincoln Hall would have had to do is simply look down at his bare feet. In 2006 Lincoln Hall was given another chance to summit Mt. Everest. He was now 50 years old and despite his extensive mountaineering experience, his age would obviously raise the risk factor at least a little bit on a feet that was already just so incredibly risky. But then again plenty of other climbers his age and much older had successfully summited Mt. Everest. So it's not like it was unheard of for someone who was 50 to do it either. And so he arrived at Everest Base Camp in April of 2006 and he was going to be accompanied on this expedition by a man named Richard Harris and Harris's 15 year old son Chris. Now this is significant because Chris was actually attempting to become the youngest person to ever reach the top of Mt. Everest at the time. And Hall, one of the most famous mountaineers in Australia, was invited on the expedition to help oversee this history making accomplishment. Now that's not to say that he was the leader of the expedition. He wasn't, but his experience and his expertise would be completely indispensable for a successful and safe summit attempt. The team spent the rest of April and most of May training and acclimating. And in the process of doing this, they would have heard about the disturbing and controversial story of British climber David Sharp. Sharp became incapacitated while he was high up on Everest on May 15th, 2006. And despite being passed by over 40 different climbers, he was ultimately left to die. Or at least that's what the headlines were saying at the time, I actually did a full video on the controversial death of David Sharp. I'll have a link above, or is it here, one of these places, and also in the description, in case you haven't seen that video. The death of David Sharp had ignited the already fiery debate about what obligation climbers had to assist other climbers, especially when it meant putting themselves at heightened risk in the process. Days after David Sharp had died, and while this debate was still raging, Lincoln Hall and the rest of his expedition began their final push for the summit of Mount Everest. Along with the Harris' Hall's team also included five Sherpas, a Dutch guide, and interestingly enough, a visually impaired German climber named Thomas Weber. Weber also had a photographer climbing with him as well. This didn't start off very strong for this expedition. They quickly began losing members when Richard Harris came down with an intense cough. I mean, this was a bad cough. It got so bad that he actually couldn't eat. I mean, imagine that, that's brutal. If you can't eat, you obviously won't have enough energy to climb. It would just be dangerous. And so this forced Harris to turn around and head back down to base camp. The rest of the team pushed on, however, but unfortunately Harris' son Chris was the next one to drop out. Now Chris did make it further up than his father, but he too would eventually fall ill. He was having trouble breathing, and ultimately he was told that he needed to turn around and head back down to base camp. The air was just too thin for him. He just wasn't adjusting to the altitude up there. And so Hall, Weber, and the rest of the team continued on until May 25th when they made their final, final push for the summit of Mount Everest. It was now 22 years after his first attempt. I mean, Lincoln Hall was about to go for Everest attempt number two at age 50. Hall had promised his wife and his two sons that he would make it back from Everest alive. His family was definitely nervous about him throwing himself back into the world of mountaineering. But at the same time, they also recognized just how much it meant to him and given his incredible skill sets, they were ultimately supportive of him attempting to achieve this lifelong dream. In reference to her final conversation with Hall before his departure, his wife said, "I think we just all said that we wanted to see him again." And you know, please keep that in mind and not to take any risks, you know, it wasn't worth it. Lincoln Hall and his Sherpas summited Mount Everest at 9 AM local time on May 25th, 2006. It's actually been reported that Hall was the first person to reach the summit that day. And so for a brief moment, he was undisputedly the highest person in the entire world, which is just incredible. And it's also incredible that at 50 years old, he had succeeded in achieving the very same dream that he had failed back at age 28. While standing on top of Mount Everest was quite literally a high point of Lincoln Hall's life, the descent back down would end up being every climber's worst nightmare. And this nightmare started literally only minutes after they began climbing back down from the summit. This Weber, the visually impaired member of the expedition, couldn't keep up towards the top of the mountain and actually ended up turning around with his guide before they reached the summit. His condition then began to deteriorate before this is super disturbing. He just suddenly proclaimed, quote, "I'm dying" and then he just collapsed into the snow. He then began sliding downwards through the snow for a little bit before a few climbers were actually able to catch up with him and to check on him. One of these climbers was quoted saying, "I looked for signs of life like a pulsed breath reaction to pupils but could only determine that Thomas had gone i.e. died, likely from the moment he collapsed by then maybe 10 or 15 minutes ago." So tragically, the expedition loses Thomas Weber and things only got worse for the expedition after this. The next climber who began to deteriorate was Lincoln Hall himself. As his team was traversing down the third and the second steps, Hall became more and more delirious. He basically began hallucinating and he was like slurring his speech and the Sherpas that were with him that were helping him down. soon realized that he was suffering from altitude sickness. They continued to help him for a while, but eventually he just laid down and he refused to get up. The Sherpas, they tried to help him. I mean, they made an incredible effort. They gave him oxygen. They attempted to like coax him back to his feet, and they stayed there trying to help him for hours and hours and hours. I'm talking nine hours. That's so much time passed, and the whole time they were trying to help him, and the entire time their own conditions were starting to deteriorate as well. After being stranded in the same spot at such high elevation for so long, they were starting to run extremely low on bottled oxygen, and it was also later in the day now and it was starting to get dark. This entire time Lincoln Hall made no improvements, quite the opposite, actually. And so by seven PM, the Sherpas basically concluded that he was dead. He was gone, but in a last ditch effort to assess his condition, the Sherpas actually pulled open one of his eyelids and they just poked him directly in the eyeball. The reason that they did this is because, I mean, surely if there was any life left in him, he would have responded to this at least in some way and they could have been able to tell that he was alive, but unfortunately, I mean, they poked him directly in the eyeball and he still didn't respond. And so with that in order to save their own lives, the Sherpas had no choice but to just leave hall at this point and to send down the mountain before they too ended up in the same dire position. I mean, they made such a strong effort to save him, but eventually their expedition leaders ordered them to leave over the radio. And so at that point, Lincoln Hall was essentially left for dead. And it didn't take long for the news media to pick up on the story of what had happened, especially since they were already on heightened alert for ever stories after what had happened to David Sharpe only like 10 days prior. And of course, if the news media had already started writing about Lincoln Hall's death, that also meant that his family soon found out as well. I mean, this is just brutal stuff. Talk about the worst phone call you could ever receive. I guess only minutes after the Sherpas left hall, his wife received the phone call that, I mean, every single climber's spouse would fear. She was contacted by one of Hall's friends and she was quoted saying his voice referring to the caller was broken up. He said, I don't know how to tell you and I said, well, you don't have to. I think the worst part of what he told me was that Lincoln had only passed away 20 minutes earlier. You know, while I'd been sitting there waiting, my husband had been dying. Talk about an absolute freaking bunch to the gut, dude. So Hall's wife and his two sons then spent the next few hours sobbing, trying to come to terms with the major loss that their family had just taken. I mean, as far as they knew, Lincoln Hall had become yet another frozen body on the side of Mount Everest and he would likely stay there for a long, long time, perhaps forever. As they began to face this cruel reality and as they began to grieve, they would have had no way of knowing that Lincoln Hall was not actually dead. He probably should have been at this point, but Lincoln Hall had made a promise to his family before he left for Everest. He promised that he would return alive and now as he sat all alone, high up on Mount Everest in the pitch dark, he was fighting off a death in order to keep this promise. Hall's hallucinations were just fierce. He was imagining conversations. He was imagining that he was in a completely different place like in a boat or something like that. He imagined that he was surrounded by various people that he knew. But after existing in this state for hours and hours and hours, all of a sudden he just snapped back into reality. Okay, maybe not like full reality, but by some miracle, Lincoln Hall was all the sudden able to assess where he was and assess the state that he was in. This was a crucial step in the right direction, but he was still unable to like do simple things, like move his feet, let alone stand up. And so he realized that his only hope was if somebody came across him the next day. He used what remained of his strength to kind of sit up and then cross his legs and he did this in an effort to conserve his body heat. And then he waited and waited and waited. Because the news of Hall and Weber's presumed deaths traveled so quickly, teams that were poised to climb the mountain on the morning of May 26th learned that they would likely be encountering the men's dead bodies as they made their push for the summit. And so with this in mind, that very same morning, a team consisting of four climbers, Dan Mazor, Miles Osborne, Andrew Brash, and Jang Boosherpa. Well, these men made their way towards the summit amount Everest, the highest point in the world. And when they reached the top of an obstacle known as the first step, what they found absolutely shocked them. Dan Mazor was quoted saying, "I saw in the distance a little bit of yellow fabric on the ridge top and I thought, oh, what is that? A tent or something, and then I got a little closer and I could see that it was a person." So at the first step, this group of climbers found a man in very bad shape, but still alive, sitting up legs crossed. And when they got up to him, this man reportedly said to the group, "I imagine you're surprised to see me here." Shockingly, he then told them that his name was Lincoln Hall. Mazor said, "I have never seen anything like that before. The thing that struck me was how he was holding his hands up and he had no gloves on. You could see his fingers had frozen and they were sort of a waxy yellow. And then below that, it looked like normal skin and he was holding up his hands like this and sort of looking around. I was blown away." Mazor actually took some photos of Hall at this point and here are what I'm pretty sure are those photos. To correct a mistake, I actually made in the David Sharp video. I thought that this photo was of David Sharp. They do look pretty similar to be fair, but that was a mistake on my par and a few people pointed that out to me in the comments, which I'm very grateful for, by the way. I always try to bring you the most accurate information in these videos and of course I do make mistakes sometimes. So always open to hearing about that. But anyways, Mazor and his team quickly got to work saving Hall's life. They helped him get his gloves back on, they gave him some food and some water and they also critically prevented the still hallucinating Hall from accidentally rolling off the steep cliffs that were on either side of them. They also radioed out that Hall was still alive and that he needed rescue, which of course sent shockwaves through Everest Base Camp. And while all of this was happening apparently at least two unnamed climbers passed by the group and these climbers opted to just continue their journey to the summit rather than stopping to help the rescue attempt. Mazor, Osborne, Brash and the Sherpa could have made that same decision, by the way. Mazor was the guide and both Osborne and Brash had paid over $20,000 each for this expedition, $20,000 each in order to reach the summit of Mount Everest. That's what they were there to do. That's what they were paying this incredible amount of money to do. And it's not like they were at the bottom of the mountain still. At this point they were literally only a few hours, two hours away from the summit and everyone in their group was healthy, everything was going well. I mean, they definitely were on track to make it. The men knew that if they waited with Lincoln Hall any longer that they would run out of time to reach the summit. But they also knew that if they did continue on to the summit, Paul would almost certainly die. And thus, the men had a choice to make. Do they give up on their dream of summoning Mount Everest while they were so close to the top in order to save the life of a complete stranger or do they get their money's worth, you know, go tag the summit and likely leave this man to die. Mazor, Osborne, Brash and the Sherpa made the selfless decision to wait with Lincoln Hall keeping him alive until the rescue party showed up. Incredibly, this took four hours. After this, Hall was assisted by a heroic group of Sherpas down the mountain. Apparently he was still hallucinating and he was like fighting with them. And like it was kind of a struggle. Like, I guess it was like, I mean, obviously it was a total ordeal. It took a few days, but eventually he was finally able to be evacuated out of the backcountry and receive proper medical attention. And also in the middle of this rescue, once he kind of came to a little bit more, he was actually able to call his wife, who I imagine was beyond thrilled and probably extremely surprised to hear his voice. I mean, can you imagine that phone call after your husband's been basically declared dead and then all of a sudden he calls you like man? So the group of men that day saved Hall's life. I mean, there's no question about it. and when asked about this Lincoln Hall said quote, "Chances are that had they not been there, I would have died. But people who are sort of committed mountaineers, those people know that the summit isn't the most important thing in getting down alive is the most important thing. And that includes getting other people down alive as well. Lincoln Hall would end up losing one of his big toast to Frostbite as well as the majority of his fingertips. He also suffered a paralyzed vocal cord, which fortunately actually returned to normal function after a few months. He would go on to write and speak extensively about his Everest experience, and he also maintained a close friendship with the men who saved his life on the mountain that day. Tragically, in March of 2012, Lincoln Hall passed away after suffering from mesothelioma. He was only 56 years old at the time, so it's super sad, but he did leave behind a stunning legacy that I think we can all learn from and be inspired by.