Last night was the final episode of a TV program I've been enjoying quite a bit over the past few weeks -- Everest: Beyond the Limit.
This year's climbing season on Mount Everest was one of the deadliest on record and also one of the most controversial. In April and May 2006, the Discovery Channel documented Mount Everest summit attempts by climbers in veteran guide Russell Brice's expedition, who is based on the mountain's northern face, in Chinese-controlled Tibet.
Using cutting-edge technologies, including high-altitude video and small cameras mounted to Sherpas' helmets, as well as old-fashioned human determination, the six-part production not only puts viewers on the summit of Everest, but also captures the amazing journey of individuals striving to reach an almost impossible goal.
The series documents the two-month expedition from start to finish, highlighting the struggles, highs, lows and triumphs as people from around the world attempt to reach the world's tallest peak.
The show broke two distinct summit attempts into about six episodes and it jumps right into the action immediately. It shows the work needed before the summit attempt -- sherpas need to climb to the higher camps to set everything up while the paid climbers do their acclimatization thing -- all the way through to the gruelingly painful six hour (or longer) descent. One thing I will say, though -- this show does an amazing job of making you feel like you're right there. Some of the sherpas carried helmet-mounted cameras and documented their trek up and back, and you see them manuever through the ice cliffs and ledges that make up the tallest mountain in the world...
I read the Into Thin Air, a fantastic Jon Krakauer novel, a few years ago; in it, he details the disastrous events that transpired during the 1996 Everest Expeditions. Here's his piece that ran for Outside magazine...
...after six bodies had been found, after a search for two others had been abandoned, after surgeons had amputated the gangrenous right hand of my teammate Beck Weathers—people would ask why, if the weather had begun to deteriorate, had climbers on the upper mountain not heeded the signs? Why did veteran Himalayan guides keep moving upward, leading a gaggle of amateurs, each of whom had paid as much as $65,000 to be ushered safely up Everest, into an apparent death trap?
Throughout the book, I tried and tried to picture what it looked like and felt like to be up there. The Discovery Channel show took care of this part for me, and for that, I'm wildly grateful. Reading about Everest is intense enough, but seeing it makes me quite a believer.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions on the show if you decide to catch it -- Discovery is actually re-running every single episode this Sunday night at 5pm CST -- but the overwhelming conclusion that I came away with was simple: people that try to accomplish this feat are nothing short of insane.
Everest photo © Steve Bogie
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I chatted with my buddy 
