The first Iowan to ever climb Mount Everest spoke to 4-H members on the Iowa State campus June 27 at the Iowa 4-H Youth Conference.

Charlie Wittmack told his story at Stephens Auditorium, describing the challenges he faced as he climbed to the world’s highest peak.

“I spent three days without food or water, and one day without supplemental oxygen,” Wittmack said.

He said everybody in his group, except him and one other, quit on the way up.

“The last three miles takes 30 hours,” Wittmack said.

He said that after taking a single step, he would collapse on the mountainside for three minutes before he regained enough strength to get up and take another step.

Wittmack attended Iowa State and was a member of the Mountaineer Climbing Club.

“We climbed in Mexico, Mount Rainier, then glaciers,” Wittmack said.

It took three months for Wittmack to climb to the summit of Mount Everest. The climb followed seven years of rigorous training.

“For every five people who climb Everest, one doesn’t come down,” Wittmack said, highlighting the dangers of the climb.

He said he had climbed mountains on several continents, including Alaska’s Mount McKinley. Ever since he was young, he had always wanted to scale the mountain. Wittmack called it his “Everest dream.”

He said the biggest challenge was to trust his fellow climbers and capture fear.

“There’s two reasons we feel fear – when we’re doing something that we shouldn’t be doing,” he said, “[and] when we’re on a new path that we haven’t been on.”

At the high altitudes reached on Mount Everest, the air has about one-third the oxygen Iowa air does.

Wittmack said the first thing to go is your brain.

“If you said five words to me, I couldn’t repeat them back,” Wittmack said.

The lack of oxygen also takes a toll on a climber’s physical ability.

“It takes 30 minutes to tie your shoes,” Wittmack said.

The mountaineers started their journey at a base camp. Yaks helped carry the food to be eaten during the trek. Wittmack and his small group were also joined by local Sherpas.

“There’s only a week’s worth of days where you can stand on Mount Everest’s summit,” Wittmack said.

Initial plans called for Wittmack’s team to try to reach the summit on May 10, 2003. The Sherpas’ fear of bad weather forced everyone back down to the base camp. May 10 brought a horrible storm on the cliffs of Everest.

“2003 was the worst weather on Everest in recorded history,” Wittmack said.

Wittmack and one other climber decided to wait out the storm, but the others decided to head back down the mountain.

He decided to take one last chance to climb Everest with just five tanks of oxygen left.

Charlie Wittmack stood on top of the world on May 22, 2003, to become the only Iowan to ever climb Mount Everest.