The Three Finns
By Marshall Thompson
The other night we had a visit from Three Finns and it was a night to remember. The Three Finns came to our camp to visit with Mika and Timo, the two Finns who are climbing with the Eco Everest Expedition. Mika and Timo are very serious, polite and pleasant people. The Three Finns, on the other hand, are hard drinking, loud laughing, rascals of the highest order.
They are each roughly the size of a refrigerator, except for Yonni, the youngest, who is even bigger and bears a striking resemblance to Lurch for the Adamm’s Family. They have distinguished themselves in the past by climbing Mount Everest without Sherpa assistance. This year, however, they decided to break down and hire one Sherpa to help them get their stage their loads at the higher camps.
When they’re not climbing, the Three Finns are drinking vodka and Everest Lager. That’s the state in which I met them the other day as one of them mused, “How come nobody writes about climbing Everest drunk?”
Of course this was just a joke. The other two quickly pointed out that they have a hard and fast rule, no booze on the mountain. Rest days at base camp, however, are a different story. That’s why they came bustling into our camp blasting the Beach Boys on a small speaker system and insisting that we all sit down and have a good conversation. And so we did.
As the evening wore on as we huddled around the heater in our mess tent, the apparent leader of the Three Finns, stopped the music suddenly. In a refined, almost British, English accent, he said, “I don’t know the mood of the room, but I think we might benefit from some Jim Bellushi who died tragically doing a mix of cocaine and heroin called speed balls.”
He then proceeded to play the Blues Brothers soundtrack. Despite his inebriated state, he had perfectly calculated the mood of the room. By the time Aretha Franklin was singing “Think,” everyone was feeling good, even if we hadn’t just consumed an unholy amount of vodka like our visitors, the Three Finns.
marshall – okay – so i’ve finally made time to track you down on everest my friend. glad to see you are safe (i’m sure the peace community would have heard if you weren’t). too bad you are there though, as you probably know who is in logan this evening (our good friend mr. rove). anyhow – safe and successful climbing to your team and safe travels back to little ol’ logan when you are done.