Documentary scales peak of danger
By Mike Pearson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Friday, May 9, 2008
Stephen McCarthy
Filmmaker David Breashears, at Everest's base camp, has re-created the mountain's deadliest day.
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Storm Over Everest
* When and where: 8 p.m. Tuesday, KRMA-Channel 6
* Grade: A-
What's it like to freeze to death on Mount Everest?
Filmmaker David Breashears gives you a pretty good idea in Storm Over Everest, which documents a horrific 48-hour stretch when members of three climbing teams perished on the fabled mountain.
The film will air three days after the 12th anniversary of the worst disaster ever on Everest, which occurred May 10, 1996.
"Within the space of five minutes it changed from a really good day with a little bit of wind to desperate conditions, something I'd never experienced the ferocity of," says climber John Taske, one of the survivors.
The film details how several groups of climbers actually made it to Everest's south summit. Did they stay too long before heading down? Some say yes, although the climbers stress that they spent six months planning and executing the trip. On the climb down, a storm rolled in and wreaked havoc.
The film details how several groups got separated, with at least two climbers having to spend the night atop Everest in a blinding snowstorm and freezing temperatures. Elsewhere on the mountain, others dropped in their tracks from exhaustion or, in the case of American Beck Weathers, were halted by snow blindness. He couldn't see a thing.
Breashears happened to be on the mountain that day filming an IMAX documentary. Although he wasn't with the stranded climbers, he knew many of them and decided to return years later to chronicle what happened.
The high-definition footage is amazing, while the re-creation of the climbers' struggle is equally palpable. Most compelling are testimonials from the survivors themselves, many of whom obviously endured amputations.
In 1923 British mountaineer George Leigh Mallory famously said that people want to climb Mount Everest "because it's there." He disappeared on the mountain the following year and his body was finally found in 1999.
After watching Storm Over Everest, you'll wonder anew whether tackling the world's tallest peak is worth it.
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