Ahead of the 30th anniversary of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, Wānaka resident Guy Cotter sat down with RuairiO’Shea to reflect on the tragedy, and the lessons learned from a life leading expeditions in one of the most hostile places on Earth.

Thirty years ago this weekend, Wānaka’s Guy Cotter watched as a storm rolled toward Mt Everest, and he knew his friends were in danger.

What followed was one of the most infamous disasters in the history of climbing on the world’s highest peak, with Mr Cotter’s pivotal role in the rescue told in Jon Krakauer’s 1997 best-seller Into Thin Air and the 2015 blockbuster Everest .

Cotter was a guide for Hall and Ball Adventure Consultants — the mountaineering company founded by Rob Hall and Gary Ball that pioneered guided expeditions to Everest — for the company’s first guided expedition to the mountain’s summit in 1992, as well as for expeditions in 1993, in which the group reached the summit but Cotter did not as he cared for a client, and in 1995, when the group…