THE TV COLUMN : PBS’ Frontline recounts disastrous day on Everest
Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The passing of a dozen years hasn’t lessened the chilling impact of their tale.
Frontline presents Storm Over Everest, airing from 9 to 11 p.m. today on PBS and AETN. It’s the tragic drama of life and death on the mountain when three climbing expedition teams became trapped on the South Col in a freakishly horrific storm.
Five climbers died.
The film features actual footage and photos, re-enactments and interviews with survivors — several of whom bear the stubs of fingers and misshapen noses resulting from frostbite.
The documentary comes from mountain climber and filmmaker David Breashears. He was making his third ascent and leading an IMAX film team. As with the other survivors, he felt elation as he approached the summit on May 10, 1996.
“The mountain doesn’t care whether we’re here or not,” Breashears says in the film. “Everything it means to us is only what we bring to it. It’s what the mountain reveals about us that has any lasting value.” Interviews with the survivors cover the events and the difficult decisions that were made. Those decisions resulted in the deaths not only of less-experienced climbers, but of seasoned, veteran mountain guides as well.
One of the problems with good judgment and climbing Everest is that an individual has sacrificed so much to get there. The trip is expensive. The training is arduous. It’s frequently the dream of a lifetime.
“You’ve gone so far up the mountain, you’ve come so far from home and you spent six months preparing for this goal,” climber Charlotte Fox says in the film. “There’s no way you’re going to turn around unless things are really going south.” Unfortunately for the three teams on the mountain, they had precious little warning of just how bad things were going to be. While the storm was brewing, joyous climbers celebrated on the summit too long, waiting for the rest of their teams to make it to the top.
Then the mountain turned on them.
“Within the space of five minutes,” climber John Taske recalls, “it changed from really a good day with a little bit of wind to desperate conditions, something I’d never experienced the ferocity of before.” The film documents the teams’ frantic descent toward the safety of camp. As the two experienced team leaders remained high on the mountain assisting other climbers, winds whipped to 80 miles per hour and temperatures plunged to 30 below zero.
Then the sun set.
The climbers were hopelessly lost, blasted by the blizzard, blinded by the ice and unable to descend farther to the safety of camp.
Climber Lene Gammelgaard recalls, “People who have all run out of oxygen, some of them really start collapsing, and those of us who are still able to walk try and pick them up, make them keep walking. This is survival.” Not all the drama was occurring higher on the mountain.
For 48 pivotal hours, those in the wind-whipped tents at camp wrestled with the decision to risk their lives by attempting to rescue the missing climbers.
Taske explains, “We thought it was kinder to leave them rather than cause them pain, even in a semiconscious state, by dragging them over to where we were. They were basically dead.” In the end, some climbers would somehow stumble and claw their way into camp. Others were saved by the efforts of those who risked their own lives to lead them to safety. Five climbers — three of them expedition leaders — would not return.
What can be learned from the ordeal ? The best testimony comes from survivor Beck Weathers.
“Everybody always says that the definition of character is what you do when nobody is looking,” Weathers says, casually waving the stumps of his fingers. “And when we were up there, we didn’t think anybody was looking. And so everybody did pretty much what the inner person, the real them, the exposed them, would do. I got to witness those acts — the good ones, the bad ones. And the individuals that came through, that did well, that were selfless. Every one of them to me is a hero.” Feeling the pain. Showtime airs Maxed Out, a special on “the rapidly unraveling world of America’s debt crisis” at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Watch the show; get depressed.
The special showcases a country wallowing in insurmountable credit-card debt and mortgage payments and explains why the poor keep getting poorer and how the world’s largest banks “are flirting with disaster.” Dealing with depression. If all that makes you too depressed, make a note that PBS and AETN will air Depression: Out of the Shadows at 8 p.m. May 21. The film examines the mental illness that affects almost 19 million Americans each year. The 90-minute documentary discusses causes and treatment and will be followed by a halfhour panel session, Caring for Depression, hosted by Jane Pauley. The TV column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail mstorey@arkansasonline. com
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