Russell Brice – the Guide

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Russell Brice is probably the best known mountain guide in the world. He has reinvented the way mountain guides work at Mt Everest, he is a successful mountaineer for himself and he is a movie star.

Russell was in 1952 in New Zealand, as many other famous climbers, and he was always fascinated from ice and snow. He managed ski areas, was a helicopter ski guide for 5 years, and climbed all of the 30 peaks over 3,000m in New Zealand in one summer season.

As early as 1974 he went to Mount Everest and started his guiding business no later than 1979. Since then he guided at Mount Everest every spring season. Up to 2007 he used the north side and switched to the south side later. Since that time he also guides Cho Oyo every autumn season from Tibet up to 2007, only to switch to guide Manaslu every autumn season since. He founded and own several guiding agencies such as Himalaya Experience (Himex), Chamonix Experience and Mountain Experience.

After the death of Rob Hall in 1996, another New Zealand mountaineer and by that time the most famous Mt Everest guide of the world, Russell Brice decided to change the way mountain guides work. His premise #1 is that no one should die during his expeditions – neither clients nor Sherpa. For this reason, he takes several drastic measures to increase safety dramatically

• A fixed rope is mounted newly every season from base camp to the summit
• Every client gets an own Sherpa and an own radio
• He stays in base camp makes intensive use of weather reports and supervises the crews on the mountain

The best know incident involving him was the death of David Sharp in 2006. His team bypassed David Sharp, sitting in the green boot cave, on the way up and only tried to help David on their way down. Ordered by Russell they left David to die, as he believed it was impossible to help.

Russell now has a regular team of Sherpa who are the most respected in Nepal. This enables him to take unpopular decisions such as to pull all his guides, client and Sherpa off Mount Everest in 2012 due to his concerns about dangerous conditions. During the 2013 season, Brice was involved in brokering an agreement between Sherpa and western climbers after disputes broke out on the mountain.

He also is a cameraman and location manager, a producer and a movie star for himself. Several of the most prolific film and television crews including the Discovery Channel, the BBC, National Geographic and Tigress Productions used his services. He was filming of paragliding, parachuting, ballooning and climbing in Chamonix, Namibia, Spain, Pakistan and Nepal.

If that was not enough, Russel Brice is still a mountaineer. He continued this obsession in France, where he lives since 1991, summited Mont Blanc 88 times and skied the Vallée Blanche more than 350 times.

Also, he holds some records personally: he was fastest to climb solo without oxygen on both Cho Oyo and of Ama Dablam. And he was the first climber to cross the infamous Pinnacles on the NE ridge close to the hardly climbed Kangshung face of Mt. Everest with Harry Taylor. He has summited the eight-thousanders Cho Oyu, Mount Everest, Manaslu 14 times.

At least he has some rest: Brice married Anne-Caroline Rémond in 2005.

This painting is part of the set Legends of Mount Everest with more portraits of climbers. Click for an extensive description.