Emmy award winning director of photography Scott Simper. Photo / Kerrie Waterworth
Emmy award winning director of photography Scott Simper. Photo / Kerrie Waterworth
Scott Simper had climbed Mt Everest twice before but said catching Covid-19 while filming on the mountain this year was his worst experience.
"I was on Everest for the collapse of the icefall in 2014 when 16 sherpas died, I was there in 2015 when the earthquake hit and we had lots of fatalities in our camp — I have had some tough years there, really tough years, but this one was physically tough.
"If I had known what I know now, I would not have gone."
Before the pandemic, Simper spent more than six months of every year travelling and filming in some of the world's most remote and extreme environments.
When the borders closed, filming projects, some that had been years in development, were cancelled overnight.
The 52-year-old United States-born Emmy award-winning director of photography is married to New Zealand mountain guide Anna Keeling, has a 14-year-old son, and lives in Wanaka, but had almost always worked overseas.
After several months' enforced furlough last year, Simper agreed to work on two filming jobs in Nepal when the country unexpectedly reopened its borders after a drop in the number of Covid-19 cases.
Simper arrived in Kathmandu in February and, after a week in quarantine and a negative test, was allowed to fly to the Khumbu Valley in northeastern Nepal.
Climbers make their way up Mt Everest in late May. Photo / Getty Images
By late March, Simper had finished one shoot and was working on the second, a documentary about sherpas climbing Mt Everest, for a Canadian production company.
"Usually, Base Camp is a very social place but this year all the different camps were closed, everyone was wearing a mask and everyone was being quite careful, but the food has to come from somewhere and it was coming up the valley."
The border between India and Nepal was porous, passports or identification were not required for anyone from those two countries to cross over, and, unbeknown to Simper, the number of cases had skyrocketed in India.
For the next six weeks, Simper rotated between the different camps on Mt Everest, acclimatising and filming and waiting for a break in the weather.
He said it was common to get a bad cough — called the "Khumbu cough" — from the dry air and the dust, but this year he noticed a lot more people were coughing.
A sherpa carries bags on a Mt Everest trail. Photo / Getty Images
On May 11, the cyclonic winds eased and 60 to 80 people made their push for the summit. By then the number of Covid-19 cases across Nepal had climbed to 9000 and Simper began to wonder if he was one of them.
"I just felt off all day long, I had no energy, I had a headache, I felt fevery, and then, on the south summit, I lost the vision in my right eye.
"Everything went opaque, like I was looking through a clear plastic bag.
"I knew that having problems with your eyesight could be a symptom of Covid but I thought maybe I had frozen my eye or got wind in it."
Simper spent nearly five hours filming from the top of the south summit to the summit itself, and by the time he had descended to Camp Four both he and the sherpa sharing his tent were "hacking and hacking".
There was another day of filming at Camp Four before the descent to Camp Two.
"I was just feeling worse and worse and worse, headaches, coughing, nauseous, my eyesight was starting to come back but I was fevery and had no energy."
When he arrived at Base Camp, Simper had lost his voice, and he spent the next two days lying in his tent.
He dragged himself to the Himalayan Rescue Association camp where Nepali doctors examined him and said he had a very bad case of Khumbu cough and severe laryngitis.
The summit of the mountain is seen from the air. Photo / Getty Images
They did not test him for Covid-19.
Simper believed there was no testing for the virus because the Nepali Government was in denial about Covid-19 being on Mt Everest.
If it was found to be there, officials would have had to shut down the climbing season.
This year, Nepal's Government sold more than 400 permits to climb Mt Everest, each one costing $US10,000 ($NZ14,360).
Despite numerous guides and climbers reporting Covid-19 symptoms on social media, the Government has dismissed them as rumours.
"The Everest season is such an influx of money for Nepal they would not want to close it, and if they had closed the season, they would have had to roll all the permits into the next season.
"There was no season in 2020 and there were so many people out of work for so long, the Government probably had some pressure from the community to keep the season open," Simper said.
"I definitely don't agree with Nepal's denial of Covid but I can understand why they wanted to keep it open."
"Some people would call me and I would talk to them on the phone, but mostly I would go and stand in the shower for a long time to relieve the severe body aches or just rest."
Simper said although the accommodation and food were "not great", the nurses and the doctors were extremely attentive.
On the 12th day, Simper had a negative test and five days later was on a plane to the US.
He spent four days in Utah, where he found he could get a vaccination for Covid-19 in his local supermarket before flying on to New Zealand.
Even after he had emerged from managed isolation in Auckland and was back in Wanaka, Simper said he was still suffering Covid-19-related headaches bordering on migraines and had no energy.
