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CNN Live At Daybreak

70-Year-Old Man Training to Climb Everest

Aired December 27, 2001 - 06:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Most people in their 70's are in retirement or nearing it, but not one Chicago commercial mortgage banker, oh no, he wants to go up Mount Everest.

CNN's Keith Oppenheim has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): By day he is a commercial mortgage banker. By night, he's a hiker. Albert Hanna's routine is to climb a sled hill at 1:00 in the morning carrying a 60- pound backpack.

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ALBERT HANNA, MOUNTAIN CLIMBER: I guess part of doing it is going out every morning five days a week up and down, up and down for three hours.

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OPPENHEIM: Al Hanna says he is preparing himself mentally, trying to maintain a sense of inner peace that mountain climbing demands. If he succeeds, Hanna will become, at age 71, the oldest human being to have climbed all seven summits, the earth's tallest mountains. So far, he's done six. Oddly enough, though, he hadn't done any mountain climbing at all until his late 50's.

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HANNA: Climbing I knew had a risk factor, an "R factor", and that R factor just attracted me to go do something else.

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OPPENHEIM (on camera): In fact, Mount McKinley, more than 20,000 feet high, was the first mountain where he ever reached the summit. That was June of 1990. Hanna was then 60 years old, and since then, he's been on about 20 exhibitions, 3 to Mount Everest.

(voice-over): And on that last trip to Everest, Hanna says he had just another 300 feet to climb but lost his concentration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HANNA: So that when I started talking to myself about all the negative aspects of what could happen, I hadn't finished my estate plan, my kids would miss me, I lost it. I absolutely lost it and off I went down the hill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OPPENHEIM: But this spring, Hanna plans to go back up to the top of that big hill then back down into the record books.

In Chicago, I'm Keith Oppenheim reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: You go, Al.

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