Entertainment & Music Everest

I was at Camp 2 on my summit push and I couldnt walk more than 3 steps. I wanted to stay on at camp 2 but my other team members were summiting. Likeall summit days, the upper camps become a bit like some kind of MASH triage where the walking dead come down from the summit in various states of distress. I was informed that i should descend and it was the right thing to do. I had 2 sherpas assist me and i was in and out of consciousness by the time I got back to EBC. Funnily enough the doctor who treated me was from Alice Springs. After staying overnight at the HRA 'hospital' and on oxygen I was ok to hang out at base camp. After several more days I was ok to walk back down to Lukla.

 

Pretty cool @radson . When I was about 7 I was extremely lucky to sit next to Sir Ed Hillary on a flight from Auckland to Napier. I still have the menu he signed for me, NAC now Air NZ had menus on short flights in those days. Big thrill for me as he was pretty up there as far as heroes went in NZ at the time. Sir Ed ended up marrying his best friends wife after he took his spot on the fated Erebos flight to Antartica after Sir Ed couldn't go at the last minute. Rob Hall is/was a well respected climber and did a fair bit of climbing with Peter Hillary Sir Ed's son. Ran into Sir Ed at a number of functions when I was an adult really nice amiable down to earth guy.
Looking forward to seeing the movie.

 

Just watched it. I must admit went in with low expectations but thought quite amazing especially cinematography wise. I guess they somehow managed to super embellish google earth. Camps, 1, 2 and 4 looked very realistic. Was amazing how little has changed in Nepal over 20 years. More cellphones and less faxes but everything else looks very similar. Sherpa involvement in the icefall, setting up camps, oxygen carrying etc etc was obviously glossed over. I did chuckle at how quick everyone got out of their tents on summit night from camp 4 and obviously everyone had their goggles up so we could identify the characters. ooh the panning shot of climbers on the Lhotse face look like it had been 'tilted' as sure did look steep.

 

Maybe they used a little "Artistic licence" or maybe it is steeper than you remember. Off to NZ next week for biz so have free nights, will try and see while I am there.

 

Saw it tonight in 3d here in Christchurch, really enjoyed it. Amazing how much like Rob Hall the lead was. Thought they glossed over the physicality that it takes to climb a bit but I suppose it is hard to show real endeavour. Was thinking of you @radson during the movie,you have my admiration. Are you still climbing?

 

@Samten . Thanmks just rock climbing in the blueys at the moment as have a 5 month old son. Just trying to figure out when i can take him up Aspring and Aoraki and then the first taste of Nepal..4 yo..5 ??

 

Saw it Tuesday in 3D and first time I'd heard of the story, has me reconsidering climbing it with the brother for my 40th. 16 people died in an avalanche last year too :/

Krakauer wasn't too happy with the movie but didn't go in to specifics

 

Saw the movie last Sunday, it was incredible, great movie.

I imagine there was more than a bit of artistic license and sensationalism, but the movie seemed to emphasise a progressions of errors which resulted in the various deaths. Amongst the climbers and the various groups, there didn't really appear to be true teamwork, cohesion or executing the climbing plan appropriately.

*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

Some things that shocked me:

One of the team leaders takes a climber back down to a lower camp, then ascends solo to catch up, playing havoc with his physical system. He pushes himself to hard, both he and his team ignore the warning signs. Guess what happens next?

The journalist is exhausted on the final ascent, stops and sits down. The rest of his team continues, they'll all pick him up on the way down. They pass by him on the return because he's waiting for the team leader who never shows. 1. He should never have been left on his own. 2. He and a buddy should have descended immediately once it was decided he couldn't continue. 3. He should have descended with the first person coming back, not the last. Any one of these things would have avoided the medi-vac and frostbite.

The obvious error. Exhausted climber behind schedule (with no buddy), talks the team leader into allowing him to continue the ascent despite already being outside of the time parameters previously agreed on. The make the summit, but 3 people die as a direct result.

Other climbers die without obvious errors, but there's a good chance that had the rest of the group been working together with more cohesion, they might have survived.

Then there was of course the competitiveness and lack of cooperation between various climbing groups in base camp, due to ego and commercial interests. This should have been sorted out long before the climbers even got to base camp.

I'm no climber, but I do participate in a very dangerous and extreme sport where teams plan the event, plan the contingencies and execute the plan. We train together and trust each other. When things go wrong we deal with it as a team and the appropriate responses are already planned ahead. If one person bails out, the rest of their immediate team goes with them, the extended group supports their efforts if necessary. There's plenty of examples in this sport where people don't follow these procedures and they are injured or die.

This is a movie and I imagine it's focusing on what went wrong, not what went right. In my mind it's an example of why teamwork is so important in extreme situations.

 

Clear weather down here today Aoraki looked good with still plenty of snow up there. Kept thinking about the movie as I was driving down to Geraldine and Timaru with the Southern Alps almost touchable I reckon you could get crampons modified for a 5 year old let's hope he is not scared of heights!

 

@wylie I was thinking that as I wrote my previous post. They stated in the movie that it was $60k just to be there in the 90s; it's a lot of money and the window of opportunity is only once a year, if at all. That alone creates a lot of pressure to go against common sense and the movie certainly communicates this. Your other points are just as relevant.

My extreme sport is technical diving (going far deeper and longer than most divers). Not quite as dangerous as cave diving but some of the guys I dive with also cave dive (I'm not quite that game). The group I'm in are fairly extreme on the teamwork side but in truth I've met plenty of equivalent divers with a range of team cohesion from extreme to negligible.

Personally I've experienced 2 incidents where an individual had a problem and it was the team that was easily able to solve the issue. In both incidents it could be argued that they might have survived without assistance, but they might not have. The team effort meant that their survival was guaranteed. I've had numerous dives where we get to the bottom, things aren't going well and we abort after 2 minutes at a cost of about $400 each. Better safe than fish food.

 

Some points. If you look at '96 it was generally the more experienced people who died, not the inexperienced. Hall, Fischer, Hansen, Harris etc.
Was USD 60k in 96 generally quite a bit cheaper now although you can pay more
Difference in HA climbing than almost any other endeavour that you are slowly dying..even with oxygen. NOt only do you have to contend with weather, temperatures, avalanches etc etc, your brain is atrophying and its a reason why often such poor decisions are made and why its so frustrating to read of the armchair posturing of those sitting at their keyboards.

 

Yet to see Everest, this is out though

 

I'm a climbing movie/book junkie too. Have you watched "The Summit" (K2) and "Touching the Void"?

I just read The Chomolungma Diaries (Mark Horrell) and Summit 8000 (Andrew Lock). Then I watched a Youtube video of the summit of Manaslu yesterday - I got vertigo

 

Friends I know are happy just to make it to base camp as a bucket list item

 

That took me right back home. Used to live in Fairlie and still have a place there. Spent lots of weekends walking around Mount Cook area (easy stuff only). As for Timaru and Geraldine...you've made me homesick.

 

So do you know the MacKays who used to own the Mayfield Pub?