Trevor Stokol, Mark tells us, disappeared on Mt. Everest in the Himalayas on July 22, 2005. The 25-year-old Plano, Texas man was in the last week of an 8-month tour through India and southeast Asia. In his blog, Mark links to this Dallas News story about Trevor's disappearance. From the article, titled, Plano man missing near Mt. Everest, by Steve Stoler:
Barbara Stokol is waiting for the phone to ring, anxious to hear good news about her son. Trevor decided to take a final 14-day adventure before ending his trip. He backpacked through Kathmandu to the Everest base camp, and was staying at a guest house with a traveling companion. Friday, he decided to take a day trip toward the camp to take some photos; that's the last time he was seen...
This is not one of those cases where someone goes missing and I can say to the reader; be on the lookout. No one in the vicinity of Mt. Everest is reading this weblog. The Stokol family, and friends of Trevor's like Mark, are in a boat the Holloway-Twitty family must find familiar — their child, son, friend, is lost in a distant part of the world, seemingly without a trace. Trevor knows how to survive in the wilderness; but this is Mt. Everest. The highest peak above sea level on the planet, the dangers in climbing Everest in the best of times are legendary.
Jon Krakauer wrote about this very thing in his book, Into Thin Air. The link will take you to excerpts from Krakauer's book published in Outside Magazine's online edition. The book is about the worst disaster in the history of western climbing of the great mountain, when at least 8 people died in one week. A short excerpt, from page 11 of the online article:
Climbing mountains will never be a safe, predictable, rule-bound enterprise. It is an activity that idealizes risk-taking; its most celebrated figures have always been those who stuck their necks out the farthest and managed to get away with it. Climbers, as a species, are simply not distinguished by an excess of common sense. And that holds especially true for Everest climbers: When presented with a chance to reach the planet's highest summit, people are surprisingly quick to abandon prudence altogether. "Eventually," warns Tom Hornbein, 33 years after his ascent of the West Ridge, "what happened on Everest this season is certain to happen again."
Article comments
1 - Aaman
Those Yetis!
2 - Eric Olsen
great job Steve, very poignant, thanks
3 - Trekker
The Stokol family has a webpage with updates.
here
Latest news in there now doesn't look good, but who knows: sometimes miracles do happen!
4 - Jessica Bigby
Thank you for this article about Trevor. I gathered the same opinion of him after reading all his journal entries. I don't know Trevor, but his father Arnold has been my optomotrist for the last 15 years and is hands-down one of the kindest people I've ever met, and I know how much he loves his son. Please keep the Stokol family in your prayers...
5 - Steve Yarbrough
Thank you very much for this post. My wife has worked with Dr. Stokol for over 13 years and we have watched Trevor grow from a child to a highly intellegent and sensitive young man who was entering SW Medical School this month. The journal of his travels is well worth reading.
6 - Jesica
My name is Jesica - I'm Trevor's first cousin, living in Australia.
The situation faced by the family is horrible, but there has been so much support from everyone in helping current rescue efforts. He is an incredible individual - funny, intelligent, adventurous, strong and well equipped mentally and physically to survive almost anything.
Thank you for posting Trevor's story - in this way, we hope more love, prayers and thoughts are with him and the family.
7 - Jimmy Myers-former co-worker
I worked with Trevor for a short time at Medical City Hospital in Dallas. I have been there for sixteen years. That being a transition job for most (not me it seems), I have seen many many people come and go. I can honestly say, that Trevor is one of the "good" people. I can sometimes be very hard headed and not very easy to work with. Trevor really opened my eyes on several occasions and in his way, made me see the error of my ways. Eventhough he was ten years younger than I, we had some conversations that made me think that I was the one who was younger. Reading his journal brought back many memories of his passion mixed in with his humor. I have informed all who know Trevor at the hospital of the recent happenings. Everyone who worked with Trevor there offer their hopes and prayers to Trevor and his family in this tough time in their lives. We are hoping for a miracle.
8 - mieke (trekker)
Hi,
Instead of a thumbnail of what the book looks like, why don't you show a PHOTO here of missing Trevor Stokol? Wouldn't that make (more) sense? Such as this recent one, from his own blog and published f.e. by Everestnews:
http://www.everestnews.com/stories2005/pictures/Recent_Trevor_Photo.jpg
Or the one showing his father in Ktm while holding the searchposter, but unfortunately your "automated eyes" don't allow me to copy its URL here too.
Anyway, I guess that's what I would do if it's about the search for a missing person, even though the majority of your readers won't be in Nepal now.
Btw URL of 1SRG's (1st Special Response Group) page on how the search for Trevor is going:
http://www.1srg.org/trevor.html
Updated URL of the family webpage:
http://www.beverleylewin.com/trevorstokol.html
bye.