High and Hallowed: Everest 1963 (2013) - full transcript

[zipper scratching]

(T. Hornbein)
Risk is a two-sided coin.

Sometimes, you win.
Sometimes, you lose.

[film projector rolling]

[applause]

I want to, on behalf
of all the people of the United States,

to express
our great appreciation to...

for this wonderful effort
by our fellow citizens

in which man pits himself
against his friend and enemy, nature.

(Narrator)
Of all the mountains in the world,

the only that rise
about 7,000 meters or 23,000 feet



lie in central and south Asia.

Of those, only 14 peaks
surpass 8,000 meters or 26,200 feet.

These 14 peaks,
known as the Eight-Thousanders,

have long been a focus
of climbers worldwide.

In 1950, a French team made the first
8,000-meter summit,

climbing Nepal's Annapurna.

After three decades
and a dozen attempts,

Mount Everest, the highest
of the Eight-Thousanders,

was successfully climbed in 1953

by Edmund Hillary
and Tenzing Norgay.

Three years later, in 1956,
a Swiss expedition reached the summit,

followed by
a Chinese expedition in 1960.

In 1954,
an Italian team summited K2,

the second-highest
Eight-Thousander.



In 1958, Pete Schoening
and Andy Kauffman,

pulled off the first ascent
of Gasherbrum I,

making them the only Americans
to have climbed an 8,000-meter peak.

On the other side of the world,

the early 1960s saw
an America filled with conflict.

The Cuban missile crisis
nearly unhinged a world

already destabilized
by the Cold War.

And Americans struggled
with civil rights,

igniting passion and emotion.

But amidst this tension,

the allure of the world's
highest mountains
could not be denied.

In 1963, nine people had stood
on Mount Everest's summit.

Not one of them was an American.

With luck,
that was about to change.

Climbing Everest in 1963,
is like launching
a military campaign.

The logistics are mind-boggling.

Gathering all this equipment,
packing it,

shiploads
of equipment and supplies

organized and sent
halfway around the world

in an age when that was not
a simple thing.

You needed a logistical genius
to do this. It was
not a simple matter.

When I tried to raise money,

they said,
"The British climbed it.
Why do it again?"

That was the attitude.
And from then on,

I really, I started preparing
the American Everest expedition.

I got a phone call from Norman,

that he was putting
together a team.

Would I like to be a member?

I told my wife,
"I'm going to be going
on a vacation."

I got a postcard
in the mail from Norman.

I wrote him back
and said I'd be interested.

Part of the genius of Norman
is the team he selected.

I then worked for three years
to organize the expedition,

to raise almost
half a million dollars.

At that time,
that was a lot of money.

And the team,
I had 20 members.

(J. Krakauer)
Everyone on that team was chosen

for their unique talents,
that they could contribute.

(J. Whittaker)
He picked out
the best that he could.

Looking back on it,
he did a pretty good job.

You have to give N. Dyhrenfurth
a lot of credit

to be able to hold
this diverse group together.

He was very clear about
what our obligation was

and we took it from there.

We're trying to tell a story

and it's a story that
I'm genuinely interested in

and a story
that I value a lot myself.

Our efforts

this year on Everest are
mirroring the efforts

in 1963.

To walk in their footsteps
is something
I couldn't say no to.

A lot has changed in 50 years,
but that view hasn't.

Being with Jim Whittaker
for a return to Mount Everest

sparks my curiosity
even more about what it was like

to be in those places in 1963.

It's a special experience
to be traveling alongside

one of the Americans
who really paved this path.

Being here with my dad,
it's just going to
be a great trip.

We all found it
very special traveling
in the Khumbu with him,

hearing his stories
and his memories as we went.

[prayer wheel squeaking]

[film projector rolling]

In '63,
we were the only ones.

There were
no guest houses, nothing,

no other expeditions,
no one, but us.

(J. Krakauer)
Everest now,
you fly to the Village of Lukla,

30 miles from base camp.

But in '63, they could drive
just beyond the outskirts
of Kathmandu.

And it took them a full month
of hard walking every day.

At times, it's hard
to imagine
having really been there.

Our feeling was that,
if we could get into higher
altitude, we'll make it.

Everest was constantly,
I suspect, on all our minds

and constantly part
of our group-gathering
conversations in the evening.

(J. Krakauer)
After this long approach,
on the third day,

Dyhrenfurth called
in a team meeting.

They agreed on the spot,
our main objective is to climb
by the Southeast Ridge route.

You've got to reach the summit.
Then you can play
around on the routes.

(J. Krakauer)
Everyone agreed,
including Hornbein. We get it.

(J. Whittaker)
"Well, okay,
but the way to the top

maybe should be another route."

All the hotshots thought,
"We're going to go
get the West Ridge."

For the same reasons
of adventure and the essence
of climbing in general.

How are you?

So we are here in prime season
for climbing Mount Everest

and everybody
has come to the show.

Life is simpler
and a lot more beautiful.

This is my cathedral.

I've always wanted to step out
of that comfort zone on Everest

and get into a little bit
of that pioneering feel.

This is my 13th
or 14th 8,000-meter
peak expedition,

but this year
with the West Ridge
is totally different.

We're going up there
and there's no given of success.

There's a tremendous
amount of risk still there.

A lot of strong climbers
have been turned back
on the West Ridge.

(Jake Norton)
The Southeast Ridge
and the West Ridge teams

will head out of base camp
through the craziness
of the Khumbu Icefall

and into the massive valley
of the Western CWM.

From there, the Southeast Ridge
or South Col Team

will follow
the route up the Lhotse Face

and our route will take
a hard left up
a steep head wall.

(Brent Bishop)
If all goes well

and the conditions are great,
we push up to the West Shoulder

and then we move up a couple
of thousand feet
in elevation gain.

And we put up Camp 4W there.

From that point, we'll start
traversing out along
the diagonal ditch

and then along
a big snowfield face
to the Hornbein Couloir

which will take us up
to Camp 5 West or our high camp.

We're going to be facing
some technical climbing:

ice climbing and rock climbing.

No step
is given away on that route.

(Brent Bishop)
And then, we go up
to the summit,

and then down
the Southeast Ridge
where the lines are fixed.

And if we can get there,
we can get home.

(J. Krakauer)
By the time the Americans
arrived at base camp,

everyone knew
that their first goal was to get
someone to the summit.

But Hornbein and Unsoeld
had their hearts set
on climbing the West Ridge.

But Willi and Tom
thought the West Ridge would go.

They knew what could
and could not be done.

(J. Krakauer)
Willi was the climbing leader

and he had to have
some common sense and judgment.

Willi had a real sense
of adventure

and he liked stepping
outside of his comfort zone.

(J. Krakauer)
He believed that
a challenge where success
is guaranteed isn't a challenge.

He'd rather be out
on the unknown,

even if he knew there was
no chance of getting up it.

And that's a fascination.

Can you keep pushing even when
your body is saying
"down, boy, down"?

I have a great deal
of respect for Willi.

Willi had
tremendous influence on people.

People
really admired him. So did I.

I have wondered,
over the last 50 years,

whether Willi's strength

was physical or emotional.

God, he was unstoppable.

Once they decided
to attempt the West Ridge,

there was competition
for resources.

Our group, the South Colers,

wanted to make sure

that we had enough Sherpa

and enough bottled oxygen.

We had a couple hundred bottles
of oxygen for the whole shebang.

How that was going
to get divvied up

was one of the tensions.

Norman and Tom
tangled quite a bit

because of what Tom wanted
and what Norman wanted.

He said, "Why don't you just
skip the South Col route

and throw everything
into the West Ridge?"

So I said, "I worked three years
getting this expedition going.

What happens
if we don't make it?"

So I was viewed

as a bit of a fanatic

in my sort
of single-minded focus.

Sometimes,
I did things with a rather

calculated purpose in mind.

Hornbein wanted
to so badly do that West Ridge,

Unsoeld had to hold him down:
"Come and take it
easy now, Tom."

Willi and I
complimented each other
in a very nice way

and I knew that I could be
a little bit
on the extreme side.

And he would be the one
that would bring things
back into balance.

Willi was there,
with his hand on his shoulder,

and made it all work.

Essentially,
we became two small teams,

one team up to the summit,
which we all
considered essential,

and then the other team
to lay a new route
up the West Ridge.

The whole idea
that you could die up there,

I don't think anyone
was thinking about that

until the accident with Jake.

(J. Whittaker)
When I came in to the base
of the mountain

and looked at that Icefall,
I thought,

"Nobody would
in their right mind
would climb through that."

But then, you thought,
"We're halfway around the world

and we've come
to climb Mount Everest.

We're going to have
to go through
that son-of-a-bitching Icefall."

The team went up
and the block of ice came off,

buried Jake,
buried Pownall halfway,

buried Ang Pema, Sherpa.

Jake had the radio.
And when we tried to call them

and there was no answer,

we knew there was trouble.

(J. Whittaker)
We ran up to find
where Jake was.

And so Jake
was down under at least 30 feet

and we couldn't get to him.

That Icefall was
the only route up the mountain,

so it really caused us
to seriously think about
what we were doing.

I think we mourned
for a couple of days.

We couldn't think straight.

Yeah, it was a tough deal.

There's always the, "He died
doing what he most loved to do."

Suddenly,
there's an additional purpose.

You're not going to turn around
and go home.

You're going to even focus more
on getting the mountain.

Jake was 27 years old
when he died here
and I'm 27 this year.

It just makes it very tangible.

I never liked the Khumbu
Icefall. Only a fool would
like it.

It's very active.
It's a turning glacier.
It's moving quite a lot.

(David Hahn)
Things fall over.
Things collapse.

[footsteps crunching]

[ice crashing]

[footsteps accelerating]

[Someone coughing]

(David Norton)
You play the odds when you go
through the Icefall

and that's all
you really can do.

(Jake Norton)
That collapse
kept our attention,

but we're all here.
We're all good.

I was daydreaming
about my wife and kid.

I'm now back into the fact
that I'm at Camp 2 on Everest.

Once there was enough supplies
at Advance Base,

we, the West Ridgers,

would have access
to those supplies first
for reconnaissance.

The intention
of the reconnaissance

was to go up there to see
if there was a route
to be climbed.

And the first few days,

we couldn't see our nose
in front of our face.

Five Sherpas came up

and these were mostly Sherpas

who were a little bit
caught up in the same spirit
of just,

out there to do something
a little different.

I can remember Ila Tsering

putting a big grin on his face
and saying,
"Good Sherpas down below.

Only bad Sherpas up here."

Then the day
when we finally got up

to where the West Shoulder
buts against the West Ridge,

we found this incredibly

beautiful wind-scoured
flat surface of snow

right where the shoulder ends
and the ridge starts going up.

That had to be
the most spectacular

tent site
anywhere on the mountain.

It looked like
a really tough climb.

(T. Hornbein)
It was devastating to find
that there had been a meeting

to decide that we needed
to get the mountain climbed

and that the West Ridge
was going to have to wait.

Good job, but you're going to
have to wait.
All of the carrying power

is going to be dedicated
to getting the mountain climbed.

(J. Krakauer)
He didn't think
the Southeast Ridge was trivial,

but to him, the expedition
was about so much more
than that.

It was about trying
something very difficult.

Here we are at Camp 2 embarking
on the route we've been thinking
about for the last year.

[exhaling heavily]

(J. Norton)
We're going
to be sinking our teeth
into the West Ridge route

and seeing what Hornbein
and Unsoeld back in '63 saw.

Man, damn near 23,000 feet,

making our way up
to the shoulder.

Climbing from Camp 2
to the West Ridge,

should be,
moderate mountaineering,

one-tool climbing,
snow, cramp-ons,

but this season
is a lot different.

(J. Norton)
We've worked
several days up here

just on solid blue ice
like glass, not very steep,

but if you screwed up,
you're going down to the bottom.

We were thinking we'd get up
to the shoulder in just one day

and we've spent
six calendar days.

And most of those
have been 12-hour days.

(Radio Operator)
Hey, Dave,
how did the climbing go today
up onto the shoulder?

Got up to about 6,800 meters.

[Breathing heavily]
That was an ass-kicker.

I'm just hacking.

(David Morton)
We still haven't made it
up to Shoulder

and it's starting to get
a little discouraging.

We can't really put
any protection in,

anything significant.
We'll see.

We could be
at the end of our rope here.

[sniffling]

(J. Krakauer)
So in '63, the goal was

to get an American up Everest
via the Southeast Ridge.

At that point in the expedition,
it was clear

that Norman Dyhrenfurth,
Jim Whittaker, and Gombu Sherpa

would make the strongest team
for that very important
first attempt.

Looking up the mountain,

you could see what the normal
route would be

and what the British had done.

When we got up there
in the high camp,

we crawled into the tents
with the wind picking up

and it was just
a hell of a night.

So at 4:00 in the morning,
we stepped out
into this howling storm.

It was a ground blizzard,
blowing stuff over.

So you couldn't even see
your feet.

Just before that,
someone had stopped,

and "Come on, Gombu. You go,"
and, "You, Big Jim."

And so we went side by side

and, at 1:00 in the afternoon,
May 1st,

top of the world.

(J. Krakauer)
They became the 7th and
8th people, Big Jim and Gombu,

In '63,
to climb the Southeast Ridge.

It was a formidable challenge
and a great accomplishment.

Now, most of the people
are guided.

Every inch of that route
is prepared for them,
fixed ropes, camps established.

As in 2012, just getting up
to the high camp is just
lockstep,

hundreds of climbers.
Someone stops
to adjust their goggles

and the whole line has to stop.

There's quite a few teams

that are lined up
to squeeze through this little
break in the weather.

(L. Whittaker)
I imagine my dad with Gombu,

climbing
without fixed ropes.

I always think about that
when I'm holding
onto those fixed ropes.

It's a completely different game
to be up there, unsupported,
all alone.

(D. Hahn)
The mountain bears
so little resemblance

to the mountain climbed in 1963,
that I'm straining at the link.

You climbed the hell out
of this mountain, Leif.

(M. Arnot)
That spot
is a very special place.

You look out and you can see
the world all around you.

As of right now, 2013,
Everest has been climbed

6,200 times
by all the different routes.

Of these routes,

3,730 people have climbed
Everest via the Southeast Ridge.

103 people have died
attempting the Southeast Ridge.

That's a ratio of 36 summits
for every death.

Now, you can pair that
with the West Ridge of Everest.

It's been climbed
by exactly 14 people.

16 people have died

either attempting to climb
the West Ridge
or while descending it.

You have a greater chance
of dying on the West Ridge
than reaching the top.

The regular route up Everest
is super dangerous,

but is nothing
like the West Ridge.

After Whittaker's success,
there was no question

that there was going to be
a major push on the West Ridge

and that there was going to be
a traverse.

And a traverse wasn't a good
idea unless you were supported
on the Southeast Ridge also.

And so Bishop and Jerstad
would be up there.

(T. Hornbein)
Lute and Barry had wanted to
summit on the 18th of May.

It seemed logical that
their effort to go to the top
would be timed with ours

to support us
in our fantasy of a traverse.

But there were still plenty
of stressful interactions.

They reach this understanding,
"We'll give you
a couple more days.

Lute and Barry
will postpone their ascent.

We'll have the porters
hang around.

But just climb
the fucking mountain, will you?"

May 16th, the clock is ticking,
time is running short.

And they were up at Camp 4 West,
at the top of the West Shoulder.

(J. Whittaker)
Willi and I got back to camp
and it was kind of windy.

And we all had our dinner
and climbed in.

And this hurricane blew
in overnight and crushed
their tents.

It looked bad.
They were basically
blown off the mountain.

(J. Whittaker)
You're like the boxer
between rounds

trying to catch a few breaths

and before somebody comes
and starts pounding
on you again.

(J. Krakauer)
Having survived
that, they just felt crushed,
defeated.

But Hornbein was like, "No.

The clock is running out,
but there's still
a few seconds left

for one final three-pointer
from half court."

"No, we're not going home yet."

(J. Whittaker)
My brain began to plot

the possible way we might
still be able to have
another shot at it.

(J. Norton) If we zoom in
on the traverses out
of the diagonal ditch...

(D. Morton)
It's all ice.

(J. Norton)
It's definitely looking to
be fairly glazed,

blue ice,
like what we've seen so far.

(D. Morton) It's hard to tell.
This route is just totally
changed from '63.

(J. Norton)
But I feel no less committed

to the need to get up
to the shoulder to see it
for ourselves.

We're all in total agreement
that the story is still
in trying.

Nobody gets anywhere sitting
in base camp and that's
why we're going up.

I'm feeling strong and healthy.

It's always hard to motivate
at 1:30 AM.

(C. Mace)
You feeling good about today?

(D. Morton)
Yeah. I'm good.

(C. Mace)
You look great
{end-italic} .
-(D. Morton) Thanks.

Thanks.

[wind blowing]

[breathing heavily]

(J. Norton)
We got these terrible
conditions up here,

just rock-hard blue ice,
covered by a little bit of snow.

We're totally out of options
and it's just not going to
happen this year.

I'm just happy that our trip
may end on a beautiful day

up at near 7,000 meters.

(D. Morton)
Since 1963, this mountain
has changed so much.

But if you get out anywhere
else on this mountain,
like the West Ridge,

you're all alone and it's
a completely wild experience.

(D. Hahn)
I think most climbers
get into climbing

because it's an adventure.
It's not a guarantee of success.

(J. Norton)
We today have
so many more advantages

than the American Mount Everest
expedition had in 1963.

From gear to the knowledge
of the route, of human
physiology at high altitude,

advanced oxygen systems,
better technical
climbing equipment,

detailed forecasts
that we can get over e-mail
on a daily basis,

we've got these huge advantages.

But what is interesting is that,
even on the Southeast Ridge

and more so on the West Ridge,

there's still no guarantee
of success.

(J. Whittaker)
That windstorm had scoured
the mountain

and there was still snow,
but there was stable snow.

(T. Hornbein)
We got up to this incipient
ledge for a tent site.

I slept better that night
than any night on the trip up
until then.

there was nothing in me left
to plot anymore.

We were out of the tent
by about 7 AM

and it was still grey.

Life was simple in those days,
no harnesses.

We were climbing
a little bit on rock

between snow.

This is 1963, technical rock
climbing at 28,000 feet.

Nothing like that
had been done anywhere.

(T. Hornbein)
That may be about
the place where we radioed down
to base camp.

But then, no more word.
All night, we were wondering,

"What the hell?"
We didn't know where they were.

Neither of us had it in
our heads that any...

We weren't turning around.

We traversed toward
the West Ridge,

not difficult,
but very airy climbing,

dropping off on both sides.

A good 28,000 feet
with another thousand to go,

thinking to myself,
"We're a long way from home."

And then there was
just a short distance up
some snow.

We'd been cruising along
for so many hours that day

with no end in sight

and realized
that we weren't going to
be able to go any higher.

Hit the top about 6:15,
and saw Whittaker's flag
half-shredded,

and had our moments
on the summit,

maybe a few tears
in reflections,

but realizing
that it was getting quite late.

You could see the cramp-on holes
that told us that Lute
and Barry had been there.

The plan on the 22nd was that
the West Ridge guys
would reach the summit,

and meet Bishop
and Jerstad there,
and descend together.

And Willi and Tom
didn't get to the top
until 6:15.

And Lute and Barry
got to the top at 3:15.

(T. Hornbein)
We came up
on Bishop and Jerstad.
And they were tuckered out.

And I thought, "We've got to
get these guys up and get us all
moving down."

So we must have gone
another three hours.

I'm guessing it
was around midnight,

had to stop and climb into
our own thoughts for the night.

And it was a big,
lonely, empty, long night.

They had to stop and spend
the night out in the open.

Climbers call that a bivouac,
an unplanned night out.

We were really alone up there.

When they didn't show up
is when I had a lot of dread
that they were lost.

So that was the beginning
of the longest night of my life.

28,000 feet,
highest bivouac in history,

at the time
and for many years thereafter.

no oxygen, no tent,
no sleeping bags,
no water, no food.

The temperature
fell to 18 below zero.

Three of the four, Barry, Lute,
and Willi, got severe frostbite.

If there had been
a 10-mile-an-hour breeze,
they would have frozen to death.

And the sunrise
came over Kanchenjunga

and the whole world woke up.

Came around a corner and here
are Dingman
and Germe Dorje coming up.

I expected to find
four dead people,
if I found anybody,

and here I found four friends
still alive.

What would have happened
if they'd have died?

How terrible.

They were so lucky.

And they knew
that when they came off
the mountain.

The '63 Everest expedition

is a bigger deal than
when American landed
on the moon.

Even if you only have an inkling
of what it was like in '63,

you can't come away without
tremendous respect for those
who came before you.

What Tom and Willi did
can never be repeated

in terms of sheer commitment,
in my opinion.

(Speaking German)
I consider the 1963 traverse
of Mount Everest

as much
more important than anything
that came afterwards.

And today it's
still one of the most iconic
climbs ever in the Himalaya.

The unknown
that those guys dealt with,

and climbed through to do that,
traversing the mountain,

I mean, all those things...

respect.

And if one night,
say they hadn't said,

"So now we're going
to put ourselves out there.

Now we are giving everything,
willing to risk our lives,"

then they wouldn't have set off.

And this kind of commitment
is needed by anyone

who's choosing a new direction
in any part of one's life.

Let's have a little mystery.

Let's have
a little bit more challenge,
an unknown outcome.

Let's raise the bar.

The real motivation is personal.
It's getting to know yourself.

It's going through
the experience. It's going
through hardship

and seeing who you
are when you come out
on the other side.

A basic ingredient of climbing
or any adventure,

is the amount of uncertainty

as to whether
you're going to succeed,
as to the outcome.

And the more uncertainty,

then the more memorable
the whole thing is going to be.

[Breathing heavily]

(T. Hornbein):
Everything you do in life,

risk is obviously
part of the game

and uncertainty

is just an essential part
of the seasoning of life.