Ultimate Survival: Everest (2004–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Arrival at Base Camp - full transcript
Right now,
250 daring men and women
are climbing toward the
summit of Mount Everest,
the highest point on Earth.
Some will succeed.
Most will fail.
Seven will die.
How's the wind?
It still up?
- Yeah, it's still the same.
It throughout
the night and it's still
frozen up here.
But hopefully it'll diminish.
So, just checking in.
I think I'll go over
and talk to the Sherpas
and see if any of them are
willing to accompany me
to the summit tonight
if the winds die down.
Over.
- As you can hear, the
winds are just pounding.
They won't stop.
It's actually quite scary in the tents.
I'm always afraid that
maybe the wind'll get
underneath the tent and blow it up.
- Yeah, I think our only
chance will be to maybe leave
at midnight if they die out,
but right now
I don't think there's a chance in hell.
Over.
- Problem.
Problem, problem, problem.
- I'm on my own here.
I doubt anyone's leaving.
The wind is pounding.
I don't think anyone'll be
sleeping through the night.
Over.
After 45 days
of struggle on Mount Everest,
Shaunna Burke is trapped in a tent
within striking distance of the summit.
Her supplies are running out,
her body is dehydrating,
and the frozen wind is now gusting
at 120 kilometers an hour.
She's got to leave this place,
but the mountain has her petrified.
Down below, in the calm
safety of Base Camp,
Expedition Leader, Ben
Webster, is tormented.
He is supposed to be
up there with Shaunna.
He wants to be up there with her.
Shaunna's not just his climbing partner,
she's his girlfriend.
- South Col to
Discovery, over.
- Base Camp to South Col, over.
at South Col, over.
Shaunna's not doing well.
Her oxygen is dwindling,
her heartbeat is racing,
and hurricane-force winds
are holding her hostage
in a nylon bubble at an altitude
that is literally killing her.
- Here we are, up at the South Col.
I spent the night last
night by myself in the tent.
I did pretty well
throughout the night, but
got quite scared come five
o'clock in the morning
when the winds were still howling.
I thought that maybe my
tent would get blown,
you know, right off the face.
So it got a little bit scary, but
I made it through the night
and hopefully we won't have
to do it again tonight.
Team Leader, Ben Webster
knows the cold reality
of Shaunna's situation.
Four years ago, after
successfully summiting Everest,
Ben almost didn't make it down.
Altitude sickness immobilized
him in the exact same spot
Shaunna's stuck in now.
Ben knows that if the
winds up there don't die,
there's a good chance his girlfriend will.
- You just gotta roll with this and
and believe in your heart of hearts that
you're gonna get your shot.
That the weather'll come good late tonight
and you'll get your shot, over.
- Okay, well keep my fingers crossed.
- In terms of ultimate, ultimate
goal, everybody comes home.
To my mind, an expedition
is not successful
if you were to summit and
lose somebody in the way.
- I don't see it as something natural
that I'm consciously putting
myself into an environment
where I could possibly die.
So I'm aware that it could happen,
but it's still it does sit on me.
And the way I try to cope with it is
try not to think about it very often.
And so it doesn't overwhelm
me and paralyze me.
Shaunna's
confidence has come a long way
from Kathmandu, where she
was overwhelmed by the city
and intimidated by the
professional climbers
Ben hired to accompany
them on this voyage.
Andrew Lock, a two-time Everest summiter
and Hector Ponce De Leon,
also a two-time conqueror.
If everything goes exactly as planned,
these four souls will climb to the top
of the highest mountain in the world
and they will document the
journey every step of the way.
But first, they have
to learn to get along.
Climbers as a real, especially elite,
high altitude mountaineers,
I don't know why,
but they tend to be very
socially challenged.
My experience with most of them is that
they're not the kind of people you wanna
hang out with a lot of the time.
They're very self-consumed,
very ego-driven,
in some cases, very socially inept
'cause they spend all their
times in the mountains
not interacting with people.
And that's not the case
in both Hector and Andrew.
Shaunna's climbing partners
should be giving her their grand tour
of Nepal's capital city right now.
But instead of bonding with them,
Shaunna's throwing up in her hotel room.
- I gotta be at my washing.
- Last time I was here
was just six months ago.
Feels like I was here
yesterday for me actually.
- Yeah.
The people
of Kathmandu are used
to seeing mountain climbers.
All the greats have walked these streets.
Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing
Norgay, George Mallory.
This section, called Telmont,
is where they came to search out bargains
en route to the summit.
- It's a buzz to be a part
of that same industry,
if you like, that those great names came
and climbed these huge
mountains years before us
and now we're climbing
those same mountains.
We're coming through the
same jumping off point.
I'm actually exciting.
Well, here you go, here's a bit of gear.
On the wall,
Hector is about to see something
he dearly loves, not climbing gear,
his girlfriend, Araceli Segarra.
- The person here in front,
in the yellow down suit,
is Araceli, my girlfriend.
She's always with me.
She's always present, you know.
And I know she's back
home thinking 'bout me too
and supporting this so that's good too.
Hector and Andrew are geared up,
healthy, and ready to climb Mount Everest.
Shaunna is not.
- She's still slowly recovering.
She asked if she could
bail from dinner tonight
and I said absolutely if
she's not feeling right,
she should gain her strength.
- I actually, unfortunately,
I didn't go out to dinner
with the team last night
which I felt really bad about.
I haven't had the chance yet
to get to know everybody,
to talk with them one-on-one
just because I've been
feeling under the weather.
My body has just been
really, really, really tired
and I think it's partially
due to the fact of the stress
and the preparation that we went through
before leaving for Kathmandu and
as well as the flight and
just being in Kathmandu.
The city is very dirty and
chaotic and quite overwhelming.
After three days,
Shaunna feels strong enough to emerge.
- Priority is she now doesn't
wanna be seen as the woman
or the weak link in the chain.
And don't doubt for a
second she's gonna work hard
to prove to us that she
isn't the weak link.
I think, I think she's gonna find it hard
because she hasn't done lots
of other 8,000 meter climbing
and it's, it's just a
different world up there.
So many
people can't understand why
anyone would wanna climb Mount Everest.
But for elite mountaineers,
the most exhilarating way
to embrace life, is by risking death.
- It's very much a reality,
as part of mountaineering.
I don't want it to happen,
but if it does happen,
well, I can except that that risk exists.
I don't think I'd like doing up here
in a funeral pyre, though.
It's pretty much a climbers code
that if you die on the mountain,
your body will be put down a crevasse
and left there on the mountain
and that suits me fine.
I think a lot of effort and
risk has been put into
recovering bodies off mountains
and it's unnecessary.
At the end of the day,
you're going to end up
buried in the ground or
cremated either here or on
at the base of the mountain
or left on the mountain
so you might as well be
left on the mountain.
Bearing in mind that's
what's taken your life,
it seems appropriate to stay there.
After a week in Kathmandu,
Team Discovery heads for the airport.
Here, they hook up with
members of their Sherpa team
and fly to Lukla, a remote village
carved into the side of the Himalaya.
This is where the first steps
to the summit will be taken.
No more vehicles, no more civilization.
Now, it's just you and the mountain.
Everest, to stand on its summit
is to be at the height
commercial airliners fly.
It's the pinnacle of dreams
for elite mountaineers.
Many have perished trying
to reach its summit.
More than 180 people have
died on the mountain.
One for about every 30
attempting to climb it.
Or one for every seven will
have reached the summit.
Everest can be a place where
people can't see or move,
where tents are ripped apart,
where all the high-tech gear
in the world can't save you,
and yet, this season, 250 western climbers
will attempt to summit
and some will die trying.
Not known as the most
technical mountain to climb,
it's still among the most treacherous
with its sheer altitude and
the ever-changing weather.
The Discovery Team flies into
Lukla, altitude 2,800 meters.
From here, they will trek to Base Camp.
It's a rigorous 12 day walk, during which
they will almost double their
altitude to over 5,400 meters.
This 42 kilometer trek
is an important part
of acclimatizing to thin air.
If someone from sea level
was immediately transported to Base Camp,
that person would be
unconscious within a few hours
and they'd die soon afterwards.
You might think that the
team would use this trek
as a last chance to get to know each other
before beginning their climb.
But until now, they
work in splitter groups,
all hiking at their own pace.
Today, the 12th day, the
team finally come together
for the walk into Base Camp,
an inhospitable lunar landscape
that will serve as the
expedition's nerve center.
This is it, Base Camp.
Welcome home.
- You know, this is funny.
It just feels like I was here yesterday.
It's actually,
it just, nothing's changed.
I mean the glacier changes, but
I spent such a big part of my life
in this Base Camp
that it's like coming home again.
The support
staff got here days ago
and have already set
to work clearing ground
for Team Discovery's camp.
- Lhakpa Gelu!
Good to see you, buddy.
- Good, thanks.
How you feeling?
- It's good, yeah.
- Excellent.
Good to see you, good to see you.
Lamma.
How are you?
Come and say hello, Kopah.
Well, without the knife.
Don't kill me.
All in all, about 30 people
will work for this team.
16 sherpa climbers, as well
as an ethnically diverse group
of men who will act as porters,
runners, camp staff, and cooks.
There's also a doctor
and a communications expert.
- Again, you got lots of
humidity the day before.
Right now, Ben is speaking
with his hand climber, the
famous Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa.
Lhakpa Gelu holds the world
speed record on Everest,
from Base Camp to summit
in under 11 hours.
He and his right hand man, Mingma Sherpa,
have an incredible 19
Everest summits between them.
Attempting to summit without Sherpas
is as dangerous as attempting
to summit without oxygen.
- We're trying to create
a big platform here
for our communications tent.
So, it means a lot of BF and
I, brute force and ignorance.
Strong back, weak mind.
All right, ready?
While the men set up camp,
the only female in the crew stands back,
doubts her abilities,
and has second thoughts.
- I would say the last couple of days,
I've been feeling a
little bit intimidated by
the mountain itself
and I began questioning
whether I really belonged here
and whether I really had
what it takes to make it
to the summit of Mount Everest.
I think the reason that
was happening was because
I'm surrounded by such a strong team
both Hector, A.J, as well as Ben
are very, very physically fit.
I'm physically fit as well,
but they're on a different level.
And I think their mental
toughness is also something
that is extremely
that they're extremely, extremely good at.
There are
no permanent fixtures
built at Base Camp.
That's because Base Camp moves.
It's an active glacier
that melts and shifts
and changes shape as each day gets warmer.
To make it more challenging,
there's no electricity,
no plumbing, and the nearest
store is three hours away.
Another problem, real
estate's getting scarce.
- It's pretty crowded, but
that's the nature of the game.
It's restricted space
to find at Base Camp.
But yeah, we've got some
great equipment here
and the boys are right into setting it up.
- Even though I've been here twice before
and I breached the
summit on both occasions,
it's always exciting to climb Everest.
Offers so many different challenges
and dangers and difficulties.
Every time I come back
it's different, you know.
The ice always, always gonna be there
and it's always gonna be dangerous
and exposed every time you go through.
It's exciting as well as fearful.
Okay.
- Hector, do you need
some help organizing?
- Yeah, of course.
- Tell Bavaram we need chocolate powder.
- Yeah.
- Kay.
- Milk.
- Yeah.
- Powder milk and sugar.
- 'Kay.
You don't just pack your bag
and head off for the
summit of Mount Everest,
there's still a month's worth
of work and acclimatization
that has to happen.
The team's plan is to
fully stock four camps
with food and oxygen.
Oxygen is what makes this climb deadly.
There just isn't enough of
it high up on the mountain.
So climbers go up and down in stages,
forcing their bodies to
create extra red blood cells.
This allows them to absorb
more oxygen with each breath.
- It's a complimentary process really.
We need to establish our
camps and establish the route
and we need to acclimatize.
So by carrying loads up to a high camp
and then coming back down to sleep,
we're forcing our body to
acclimatize to a higher altitude.
On the climb,
the team has two opponents.
Most obvious is the mountain,
less apparent is time.
The south side of Mount Everest
is a Nepalese National Park
and the infrastructure
set up to help climbers
will all be shut down on June 1st.
That's in eight weeks.
When acclimatization,
climbing, and weather
are all factored in, it usually comes down
to just a seven day window
when summiting is possible.
Maybe it will be impossible.
Mount Everest is blanketed
in religion, superstition, and myth.
Many Sherpas and westerners believe
you can't climb the mountain at will,
she must let you climb her.
The Sherpa people call
the mountain Sagarmatha
or Chomolungma and they
revere her as sacred.
Before every expedition,
the Sherpas hold a religious ceremony.
A high-ranking Buddhist Lama is summoned,
offerings created, and
climbing gear gathered
for a service known as the Puja.
- I definitely wanna take
my harness and my jumar
up there.
That definitely gotta be blessed.
I'm taking the gear that
we're taking to the Puja
and this is pretty much the
gear that we wanna get blessed
in this ceremony, that we wanna be,
have the Lama blessed in
the ceremony, you know,
for good luck, for good
karma up in the mountain.
So am I picking like the most
important pieces of my gear
which are the harness, jumar,
ice ax, boots, and crampons.
A stone
altar, called a lapso
was built in the middle
of Team Discovery's camp.
Whenever any climber is on the mountain,
aromatic sprigs of juniper must
smolder constantly on the lapso.
It's a complex ritual.
And at it's heart, the Lama is asking
the goddess of Mount Everest
for permission to climb.
He blesses the climbers
and prays for safe passage.
- I respect tremendously
and have a sensitivity
to their own connection to
the mountain and what it means
and certainly for them, it's important.
At the end of the day,
these men that I climb with,
speaking of the Sherpas, will
have my life in their hands
and I will at some point,
probably have their life in my hands.
And so that trust has to be there.
And one of the things you
want to do is build that trust
by respecting each other's
culture and belief system.
These are
not decorative flags.
They are prayer flags,
always hung in odd numbers.
They must never come down
while the climb is underway.
The climbers receive their
sunjis, deeply symbolic
and worn by everyone on the mountain.
Sunjis are a necklace made of red string.
In the middle, they have what
is called a protection knot.
These knots must never be
undone and during the climb,
the sunjis must never come off.
Something spiritual happens
to people who come here.
It can be life changing.
Mount Everest is a higher power.
With the Puja ceremony over,
the Sherpas head off to set up Camp One.
To reach the summit, Everest climbers use
boots with crampons attached,
an ice ax, an ascender,
also called a jumar,
to help pull themselves
up the fixed ropes,
and a harness with carabiners
for locking into safety lines.
Andrew and Hector prep their gear
and double check their backup supplies.
You never know what might
save your life on Everest.
- Extra wide bolts.
- These are my old good
heavy duty steel ones,
which I'll use between Base and Camp Two.
But the other thing about these is that
if my lot-like ones should break,
these also fit my high altitude boots.
- Harness and jumar and ice screw, okay.
Pulley-proof shirts,
hats.
- I just cut off a bit
of sleeping pad foam
and taped it over the head of the ax
because the reality is on this climb,
it's not very steep.
I'll be using my ax
more as a walking stick
than as a climbing tool.
So if my hand over the top
of the ax all the time,
the cold of the metal would
suck the heat straight through
my very heavy-duty mittens and
probably lead to frost-bite.
- There's probably at
While Ben deals
with more logistical details,
Shaunna packs her bag, then his.
More than five kilometers above sea level
is a rough place to live.
But compared to where
the climbers are headed,
Base Camp is like a health spa.
Climbing officially kicks off tomorrow
with a trek over the Icefall,
a spectacular death trap
that's infamous for having
air pockets, crevasses,
and an appetite for climbers.
Climbing Mount Everest
officially starts today.
Team Discovery still hasn't
formed a strong social bond.
For professionals, that's no problem.
In fact, it's normal.
- Until now, no complaints.
I am for, as far the core climbing team
of Ben, Shaunna, Hector, and myself goes,
I'm having, I have a very good feeling.
I very much enjoy Hector's
company and trekking with Hector.
I'm sure he's gonna be very
strong on the mountain.
Ben, obviously, is very
tied up with the management
and logistical side of this expedition.
And that should ease off for
him in the next few days.
So haven't had much interaction with him.
- I feel very good about how things
are coming together right now.
Both Andrew and Hector are
pretty much as advertised,
real hard men.
- I'm feeling very good
about the whole team
about everyone that's
gonna be on the climb,
especially I've,
I really like Ben's way of
leading this team, you know.
- Shaunna is very quiet, but
she's very nice and I'm sure she's
keen to get on with the climb as well.
- Every day that I wake up, I, you know,
sort of have to pinch myself and say,
"Here you are, you know.
You're at Everest, you're doing this.
You're one of the climbers.
You're not just one of the
trekkers coming up here."
- So all in all, pretty happy.
Everest could be considered
the world's ultimate obstacle course
where a mistake could end your life.
Today, the team turns their
back on the safety of Base Camp,
destination Camp One,
which has already been
set up by the Sherpas.
Getting there is no cakewalk.
For starters, they must
negotiate the Khumbu Icefall,
a deadly mess of slow-moving ice
riddled with crevasses, drop-offs,
and the ghosts of 20 fallen climbers.
- Easiest way to describe the
Khumbu Icefall for laymen is
think of it as a moving river of ice.
- You have to make your peace
before you even go into it.
Before
anyone from the core team
sets foot onto the Icefall,
lead Sherpa climber,
Lhakpa Gelu, gets the
juniper fire going strong.
Prayers are said,
thoughts are gathered,
and the climb is on.
The Icefall is one of the
most dangerous sections
on the entire mountain.
10% of Everest deaths happen here.
Unfortunately, climbers
must travel back and forth
over this minefield repeatedly
if they're going to summit.
And they never get used to the Icefall
because it's a flowing, freezing,
thawing, cracking, shifting glacier
that is different every day.
Even the marked trail moves and warps.
Sometimes it breaks away to nothing,
vanishing right out from
under the feet of a climber.
When this happens, the Sherpas call it
the one-way ticket to America.
- You know, in all the
seasons that I've been here,
this Icefall has never been
the same two times running.
It's just so broken up,
just so chopped up every single time.
You can just, you feel
those little rumbles,
those little thumps underneath your feet.
It's just never know if it's
the little one or the big one.
I'm always glad to get out of here.
Getting through
the Icefall is scheduled
to take four hours.
If they do it and reach Camp One,
the team will have gained
600 meters in altitude.
That's like climbing to the top
of Toronto's CN Tower, twice.
- Heeyah!
Some crevasses
are small enough to leap.
Bigger ones are bridged
with aluminum ladders.
Meet the Icefall doctor,
perhaps the most famous
man on Mount Everest.
For 28 years, this Sherpa
has made it his business
to bridge any gap in the Icefall.
This particular crevasse has been spanned
by four household ladders lashed together
with half inch polypropylene rope.
Head Sherpa, Lhakpa Gelu, is very familiar
with the skywalks
constructed by his friend.
Still, he clips his harness
into the safety line
before setting across.
Structural engineering has
turned into a family business
for the Icefall doctor.
This year, his son is working with him.
After five hours of climbing,
the team stands in a dreamland
5,900 meters above sea level,
a full kilometer higher
than any peak in Europe.
The Icefall is behind them,
but that's little comfort.
This beautiful weather is creating
perfect avalanche conditions.
Team Discovery has made it
to the first of four camps
they plan to establish on
the face of Mount Everest.
This is an exciting day.
Being here means the
dream has really begun.
- And I'm happy to be up here.
Before you like spend
your first night up here,
you really don't feel like
you're actually climbing the mountain.
So tonight's gonna be
our first night up here
for four of us, at least.
And that's always good, the first,
as I say, the first night.
See what tomorrow brings.
Tomorrow brings snow.
It snows deep into the night.
The following morning, snow falls again.
This time, from a clear blue sky.
As down breaks on the mountain,
an avalanche breaks off it.
- This morning, we had two big releases.
Doesn't surprise me 'cause
it snowed quite a bit.
And you can see, if you,
looking at these mountains,
or at these faces, yesterday
there was quite some ice there.
So all the snow that fell last night
wouldn't like stick to that ice.
So the moment the temperature
changed a little bit,
boom, and that's when the release occurs.
I'm sure we're gonna be seeing more today.
It's a clear day, no clouds.
So the sun is gonna hit
hard on those slopes
and I'm pretty sure we're gonna be seeing
a few more big ones too.
On Everest, avalanches
are simply a way of life.
They're also a way of death.
When you dive deep underwater,
pressure can force your
eardrum to flex inward,
causing intense pain.
At altitude, the phenomenon is reversed
and it can feel like
your head will explode.
- It's like somebody's
taking a couple of needles
and just driving into
the ears at the moment.
- Want me to radio down to and ask if you.
- Well, I just took some sinus medicine.
I'm hoping that'll help
clear the passages,
but this is not a lot
of fun at the moment.
And every time I try to blow my nose,
all I hear is crackling
and popping in my ears
and intense, just intensifies the pain.
So these things are gonna
have to open up and drain.
This is the small little things like this
that are really common here.
You just, you have periods
that just uncomfortableness
and you just sort of deal with it
and hopefully it clears up.
Even
without a sinus condition,
Everest can be a high pressure head game.
You want your thoughts to remain positive.
However, there are variables
beyond your control,
like who sets up camp beside you.
In Camp One, Team Discovery has a neighbor
whose presence is messing
with Hector's head.
Meet Andreas, leader of a climbing team
that has the same summit
plan as Team Discovery.
Andreas and Hector have a long
and shocking personal history
that is so full of life and death,
it's almost impossible for
non-climbers to believe.
- I know some of the guys in this team,
well, specifically this guy named Andreas.
I climbed a lot with him in the past.
We haven't climbed though in many years.
Why haven't
they climbed in many years?
In 1996, Hector saved Andreas's
life on this very mountain.
Then, a few years later,
Andreas left Hector for dead
in a deep crevasse of ice.
Hector survived and vowed never
to climb with Andreas again.
At today's frigid reunion,
their history goes unmentioned.
Climbing Mount Everest allows no room
for personal politics, just work.
The next goal is to fix safety
ropes on the Lhotse Face.
Once in place, every climbing
team will be able to climb
into these communal ropes
and use them for going up and down.
The exhausting work of fixing the lines
is usually done by Sherpas,
but Hector wants to be involved
and challenges Andreas to join him.
- I would proposition would be
you guys go down now, right.
- Yeah, yeah.
- If you can
wait down there for four, five days,
then we come down rest two or three days.
Then I come up with you and
I'll bring two of my Sherpas.
As far as rope goes, we have enough.
- Un-
- And we'll start fixing the Lhotse face
and we can make it in
one day up to Camp Three.
Sounds good?
- I'm sure in a long day we can make it
- Yeah.
- two and three.
We need to, we were thinking
of resting three days.
But we can take four,
five, whatever's needed
so you can catch up with your itinerary.
With you we can put up two or
three Sherpas and some rope.
- If the Lhotse Face
doesn't get fixed early,
then everything is pushed
back two, three weeks
and we don't want that.
We want to, to be ready by the
beginning of May, you know,
and if the weather allows,
have an early summit.
- Getting better, not as painful.
The team spends
two light-headed days at Camp One.
Oxygen levels here are half
what they are at sea level.
Lack of oxygen can confuse climbers.
It's time to go back to Base Camp.
For Shaunna, it'll be a paralyzing trip
through the Icefalls.
Team Discovery's camp has 25 tents.
It's basically a neighborhood
in a small village.
Overall, Base Camp is
home to 19 climbing teams.
This Chilean Team is one of them.
British socialite Annabelle Bond
is climbing with the Chilean Team.
Annabelle doesn't fit
the stereotypical image
of a grizzly Mount Everest assaulter,
but she is ready to take on this challenge
with that same flare
that women in her family
have shown for generations.
- My grandmother was one of
the first western women in
at altitude in the pool.
So I've got pictures
of her in 1929 in the,
you know, the cool goggles
and kind of blazers
and the plus fours.
And, you know, set against
backgrounds like right behind me
and she's looking down in her crampons.
And that's always been
an inspiration to me.
And she's still alive now.
She's 96 and she's following this climb.
Annabelle's
father owns the Hong Kong Bank.
50 year old Chilean Team
Leader, Andronico Luksic,
also owns a bank.
It costs a mountain of
money to climb Everest
and two very different kinds
of people manage to get here:
dedicated, first-class mountaineers
and globe-trotting
adventurers who can afford it.
- On the last climb we did in Chile,
I got frost-bite on the end of my fingers
because we had to keep taking off
and putting on our crampons
and I had like completely
inappropriate gloves.
So I still have really
bad ends of my fingers,
which I can't worry about.
Okay.
Mom was the one that got me into it
and she met Andronico at a party
and she was bragging about my climbing,
which I'm gonna tell her
to stop doing from now on.
And, you know, she was saying,
"You know, my daughter's a climber."
And he said, "Would she
like to come to Everest?"
And without even consulting
me, she said, "Yeah."
So the next thing is, she wakes me up.
I'm like late night in London.
And she's like, "Darling,
you're climbing Everest."
That's kind of how it came about.
Are these
Mount Everest rookies
ready for the brutal punishment
that's in store for them
more than 8,000 meters above sea level?
- Being a long distance
runner, I keep myself fairly,
kind of, I mean I'm not tuned,
but my body's fairly tuned.
Ever since I was invited
to join the group,
since August, I've been down,
I've done I think six peaks
above nine, between 19
and 22 and a half thousand
down in Chile.
And then I've been hiking
the ski mountain in Aspen.
So, I mean, pretty intensely since August.
It's now
the second week of April.
As Annabelle and the Chilean
Team set off for Camp One,
Team Discovery leaves there,
headed back down to Base Camp.
This season, only 12 women
are climbing Mount Everest.
They follow each other's
progress through word of mouth
and by listening on the radio.
They may never meet face-to-face,
but there was a sisterhood amongst them,
complete with sibling rivalry.
They wanna know how strong is she?
How fast is she?
Will she get there before me?
Odds are strongly against
rookies making it to the summit.
It will be especially
difficult for Annabelle
because no one on her core team
has ever been there before.
All of Shaunna's core team has stood
on the top of the world,
including her boyfriend, Ben.
Some people wouldn't
wanna be with their lover
on an adventure like this.
It could get too icy and tense
for the relationship to survive.
Climbing Mount Everest is not a date.
It's a brush with death.
Early in the Icefall,
Annabelle is stopped cold
by a single ladder.
To get to the top of Mount Everest,
you need determination and creativity.
Annabelle sees an obstacle
and gets down to it.
- Do it, but I just feel
more comfortable like this.
Stylish, I know it, but...
Sorry, just need to stand.
My god, and I have really sore knees.
The higher you go, the more realize is
what a huge mountain this is.
And there's so much
that can go on up there.
I think the whole climb is one tough climb
and anyone who says it's
fix nines the whole way,
I don't care.
It is tough.
So far, Team Discovery
has had good luck on their side.
The weather has cooperated,
everyone feels strong,
and there have been no
real mishaps to speak of.
Even crossing these breathtaking ladders
has gone without a hitch.
- Always in the back of my mind,
there is that sort of
fear that one misstep
could lead to my death.
- Slow and easy now.
Be sure.
Good girl.
- My crampon got stuck.
I actually told myself don't look down
because that's when you're
gonna lose it and you'll panic.
So I just focused on trying
to little strategies to
sort of wiggle my foot
to try to get it loose,
but nothing was working.
- Take a step backward, Shaunna.
- One step back.
- On the, yeah.
- That good there.
Team Leader Ben
Webster steadies the lines.
His girlfriend is frozen midair,
just a meter from safety.
The crevasse she hovers over
is the depth of a 10 story building.
Mingma Sherpa has seen enough.
It's time to fix this
problem and get out of here.
- He came right over to me
and he tried to loosen my
crampon from the ladder.
He wasn't able to.
So he came up with plan B,
which was to actually
take my crampon right off.
Part of
the reason Shaunna came
to Mount Everest is to do research
for her PhD in Sports Psychology.
Her thesis paper is called
Motivation in High Altitude Climbing.
As a psychologist, Shaunna
knows the danger of panic.
- I think it's very important not to panic
because if you do panic when
you're on a ladder like that
the possibility of losing
your balance and falling over
is extremely high, so I
think it's very important
to try to stay focused.
He took the crampon right off my foot
and I was able to walk off the ladder.
- Da-da-da-da!
- Thank you!
In normal
life, an incident like that
would take weeks to become a funny story.
Here, it's laughed about immediately.
Climbers on Mount
Everest live every second
like it might be their last.
It's the highest feeling in the world.
On the next episode of
Ultimate Survival: Everest,
a sick doctor brings
his virus to Base Camp.
- Usually these things
last three to five days,
but who knows.
Ben descends
to the edge of oblivion.
- We're gonna go real, real slow
and real, real careful on the way down.
And Annebelle
stares death in the face.
- I just seen my first dead body.
And I'm not really
enjoying that experience.
250 daring men and women
are climbing toward the
summit of Mount Everest,
the highest point on Earth.
Some will succeed.
Most will fail.
Seven will die.
How's the wind?
It still up?
- Yeah, it's still the same.
It throughout
the night and it's still
frozen up here.
But hopefully it'll diminish.
So, just checking in.
I think I'll go over
and talk to the Sherpas
and see if any of them are
willing to accompany me
to the summit tonight
if the winds die down.
Over.
- As you can hear, the
winds are just pounding.
They won't stop.
It's actually quite scary in the tents.
I'm always afraid that
maybe the wind'll get
underneath the tent and blow it up.
- Yeah, I think our only
chance will be to maybe leave
at midnight if they die out,
but right now
I don't think there's a chance in hell.
Over.
- Problem.
Problem, problem, problem.
- I'm on my own here.
I doubt anyone's leaving.
The wind is pounding.
I don't think anyone'll be
sleeping through the night.
Over.
After 45 days
of struggle on Mount Everest,
Shaunna Burke is trapped in a tent
within striking distance of the summit.
Her supplies are running out,
her body is dehydrating,
and the frozen wind is now gusting
at 120 kilometers an hour.
She's got to leave this place,
but the mountain has her petrified.
Down below, in the calm
safety of Base Camp,
Expedition Leader, Ben
Webster, is tormented.
He is supposed to be
up there with Shaunna.
He wants to be up there with her.
Shaunna's not just his climbing partner,
she's his girlfriend.
- South Col to
Discovery, over.
- Base Camp to South Col, over.
at South Col, over.
Shaunna's not doing well.
Her oxygen is dwindling,
her heartbeat is racing,
and hurricane-force winds
are holding her hostage
in a nylon bubble at an altitude
that is literally killing her.
- Here we are, up at the South Col.
I spent the night last
night by myself in the tent.
I did pretty well
throughout the night, but
got quite scared come five
o'clock in the morning
when the winds were still howling.
I thought that maybe my
tent would get blown,
you know, right off the face.
So it got a little bit scary, but
I made it through the night
and hopefully we won't have
to do it again tonight.
Team Leader, Ben Webster
knows the cold reality
of Shaunna's situation.
Four years ago, after
successfully summiting Everest,
Ben almost didn't make it down.
Altitude sickness immobilized
him in the exact same spot
Shaunna's stuck in now.
Ben knows that if the
winds up there don't die,
there's a good chance his girlfriend will.
- You just gotta roll with this and
and believe in your heart of hearts that
you're gonna get your shot.
That the weather'll come good late tonight
and you'll get your shot, over.
- Okay, well keep my fingers crossed.
- In terms of ultimate, ultimate
goal, everybody comes home.
To my mind, an expedition
is not successful
if you were to summit and
lose somebody in the way.
- I don't see it as something natural
that I'm consciously putting
myself into an environment
where I could possibly die.
So I'm aware that it could happen,
but it's still it does sit on me.
And the way I try to cope with it is
try not to think about it very often.
And so it doesn't overwhelm
me and paralyze me.
Shaunna's
confidence has come a long way
from Kathmandu, where she
was overwhelmed by the city
and intimidated by the
professional climbers
Ben hired to accompany
them on this voyage.
Andrew Lock, a two-time Everest summiter
and Hector Ponce De Leon,
also a two-time conqueror.
If everything goes exactly as planned,
these four souls will climb to the top
of the highest mountain in the world
and they will document the
journey every step of the way.
But first, they have
to learn to get along.
Climbers as a real, especially elite,
high altitude mountaineers,
I don't know why,
but they tend to be very
socially challenged.
My experience with most of them is that
they're not the kind of people you wanna
hang out with a lot of the time.
They're very self-consumed,
very ego-driven,
in some cases, very socially inept
'cause they spend all their
times in the mountains
not interacting with people.
And that's not the case
in both Hector and Andrew.
Shaunna's climbing partners
should be giving her their grand tour
of Nepal's capital city right now.
But instead of bonding with them,
Shaunna's throwing up in her hotel room.
- I gotta be at my washing.
- Last time I was here
was just six months ago.
Feels like I was here
yesterday for me actually.
- Yeah.
The people
of Kathmandu are used
to seeing mountain climbers.
All the greats have walked these streets.
Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing
Norgay, George Mallory.
This section, called Telmont,
is where they came to search out bargains
en route to the summit.
- It's a buzz to be a part
of that same industry,
if you like, that those great names came
and climbed these huge
mountains years before us
and now we're climbing
those same mountains.
We're coming through the
same jumping off point.
I'm actually exciting.
Well, here you go, here's a bit of gear.
On the wall,
Hector is about to see something
he dearly loves, not climbing gear,
his girlfriend, Araceli Segarra.
- The person here in front,
in the yellow down suit,
is Araceli, my girlfriend.
She's always with me.
She's always present, you know.
And I know she's back
home thinking 'bout me too
and supporting this so that's good too.
Hector and Andrew are geared up,
healthy, and ready to climb Mount Everest.
Shaunna is not.
- She's still slowly recovering.
She asked if she could
bail from dinner tonight
and I said absolutely if
she's not feeling right,
she should gain her strength.
- I actually, unfortunately,
I didn't go out to dinner
with the team last night
which I felt really bad about.
I haven't had the chance yet
to get to know everybody,
to talk with them one-on-one
just because I've been
feeling under the weather.
My body has just been
really, really, really tired
and I think it's partially
due to the fact of the stress
and the preparation that we went through
before leaving for Kathmandu and
as well as the flight and
just being in Kathmandu.
The city is very dirty and
chaotic and quite overwhelming.
After three days,
Shaunna feels strong enough to emerge.
- Priority is she now doesn't
wanna be seen as the woman
or the weak link in the chain.
And don't doubt for a
second she's gonna work hard
to prove to us that she
isn't the weak link.
I think, I think she's gonna find it hard
because she hasn't done lots
of other 8,000 meter climbing
and it's, it's just a
different world up there.
So many
people can't understand why
anyone would wanna climb Mount Everest.
But for elite mountaineers,
the most exhilarating way
to embrace life, is by risking death.
- It's very much a reality,
as part of mountaineering.
I don't want it to happen,
but if it does happen,
well, I can except that that risk exists.
I don't think I'd like doing up here
in a funeral pyre, though.
It's pretty much a climbers code
that if you die on the mountain,
your body will be put down a crevasse
and left there on the mountain
and that suits me fine.
I think a lot of effort and
risk has been put into
recovering bodies off mountains
and it's unnecessary.
At the end of the day,
you're going to end up
buried in the ground or
cremated either here or on
at the base of the mountain
or left on the mountain
so you might as well be
left on the mountain.
Bearing in mind that's
what's taken your life,
it seems appropriate to stay there.
After a week in Kathmandu,
Team Discovery heads for the airport.
Here, they hook up with
members of their Sherpa team
and fly to Lukla, a remote village
carved into the side of the Himalaya.
This is where the first steps
to the summit will be taken.
No more vehicles, no more civilization.
Now, it's just you and the mountain.
Everest, to stand on its summit
is to be at the height
commercial airliners fly.
It's the pinnacle of dreams
for elite mountaineers.
Many have perished trying
to reach its summit.
More than 180 people have
died on the mountain.
One for about every 30
attempting to climb it.
Or one for every seven will
have reached the summit.
Everest can be a place where
people can't see or move,
where tents are ripped apart,
where all the high-tech gear
in the world can't save you,
and yet, this season, 250 western climbers
will attempt to summit
and some will die trying.
Not known as the most
technical mountain to climb,
it's still among the most treacherous
with its sheer altitude and
the ever-changing weather.
The Discovery Team flies into
Lukla, altitude 2,800 meters.
From here, they will trek to Base Camp.
It's a rigorous 12 day walk, during which
they will almost double their
altitude to over 5,400 meters.
This 42 kilometer trek
is an important part
of acclimatizing to thin air.
If someone from sea level
was immediately transported to Base Camp,
that person would be
unconscious within a few hours
and they'd die soon afterwards.
You might think that the
team would use this trek
as a last chance to get to know each other
before beginning their climb.
But until now, they
work in splitter groups,
all hiking at their own pace.
Today, the 12th day, the
team finally come together
for the walk into Base Camp,
an inhospitable lunar landscape
that will serve as the
expedition's nerve center.
This is it, Base Camp.
Welcome home.
- You know, this is funny.
It just feels like I was here yesterday.
It's actually,
it just, nothing's changed.
I mean the glacier changes, but
I spent such a big part of my life
in this Base Camp
that it's like coming home again.
The support
staff got here days ago
and have already set
to work clearing ground
for Team Discovery's camp.
- Lhakpa Gelu!
Good to see you, buddy.
- Good, thanks.
How you feeling?
- It's good, yeah.
- Excellent.
Good to see you, good to see you.
Lamma.
How are you?
Come and say hello, Kopah.
Well, without the knife.
Don't kill me.
All in all, about 30 people
will work for this team.
16 sherpa climbers, as well
as an ethnically diverse group
of men who will act as porters,
runners, camp staff, and cooks.
There's also a doctor
and a communications expert.
- Again, you got lots of
humidity the day before.
Right now, Ben is speaking
with his hand climber, the
famous Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa.
Lhakpa Gelu holds the world
speed record on Everest,
from Base Camp to summit
in under 11 hours.
He and his right hand man, Mingma Sherpa,
have an incredible 19
Everest summits between them.
Attempting to summit without Sherpas
is as dangerous as attempting
to summit without oxygen.
- We're trying to create
a big platform here
for our communications tent.
So, it means a lot of BF and
I, brute force and ignorance.
Strong back, weak mind.
All right, ready?
While the men set up camp,
the only female in the crew stands back,
doubts her abilities,
and has second thoughts.
- I would say the last couple of days,
I've been feeling a
little bit intimidated by
the mountain itself
and I began questioning
whether I really belonged here
and whether I really had
what it takes to make it
to the summit of Mount Everest.
I think the reason that
was happening was because
I'm surrounded by such a strong team
both Hector, A.J, as well as Ben
are very, very physically fit.
I'm physically fit as well,
but they're on a different level.
And I think their mental
toughness is also something
that is extremely
that they're extremely, extremely good at.
There are
no permanent fixtures
built at Base Camp.
That's because Base Camp moves.
It's an active glacier
that melts and shifts
and changes shape as each day gets warmer.
To make it more challenging,
there's no electricity,
no plumbing, and the nearest
store is three hours away.
Another problem, real
estate's getting scarce.
- It's pretty crowded, but
that's the nature of the game.
It's restricted space
to find at Base Camp.
But yeah, we've got some
great equipment here
and the boys are right into setting it up.
- Even though I've been here twice before
and I breached the
summit on both occasions,
it's always exciting to climb Everest.
Offers so many different challenges
and dangers and difficulties.
Every time I come back
it's different, you know.
The ice always, always gonna be there
and it's always gonna be dangerous
and exposed every time you go through.
It's exciting as well as fearful.
Okay.
- Hector, do you need
some help organizing?
- Yeah, of course.
- Tell Bavaram we need chocolate powder.
- Yeah.
- Kay.
- Milk.
- Yeah.
- Powder milk and sugar.
- 'Kay.
You don't just pack your bag
and head off for the
summit of Mount Everest,
there's still a month's worth
of work and acclimatization
that has to happen.
The team's plan is to
fully stock four camps
with food and oxygen.
Oxygen is what makes this climb deadly.
There just isn't enough of
it high up on the mountain.
So climbers go up and down in stages,
forcing their bodies to
create extra red blood cells.
This allows them to absorb
more oxygen with each breath.
- It's a complimentary process really.
We need to establish our
camps and establish the route
and we need to acclimatize.
So by carrying loads up to a high camp
and then coming back down to sleep,
we're forcing our body to
acclimatize to a higher altitude.
On the climb,
the team has two opponents.
Most obvious is the mountain,
less apparent is time.
The south side of Mount Everest
is a Nepalese National Park
and the infrastructure
set up to help climbers
will all be shut down on June 1st.
That's in eight weeks.
When acclimatization,
climbing, and weather
are all factored in, it usually comes down
to just a seven day window
when summiting is possible.
Maybe it will be impossible.
Mount Everest is blanketed
in religion, superstition, and myth.
Many Sherpas and westerners believe
you can't climb the mountain at will,
she must let you climb her.
The Sherpa people call
the mountain Sagarmatha
or Chomolungma and they
revere her as sacred.
Before every expedition,
the Sherpas hold a religious ceremony.
A high-ranking Buddhist Lama is summoned,
offerings created, and
climbing gear gathered
for a service known as the Puja.
- I definitely wanna take
my harness and my jumar
up there.
That definitely gotta be blessed.
I'm taking the gear that
we're taking to the Puja
and this is pretty much the
gear that we wanna get blessed
in this ceremony, that we wanna be,
have the Lama blessed in
the ceremony, you know,
for good luck, for good
karma up in the mountain.
So am I picking like the most
important pieces of my gear
which are the harness, jumar,
ice ax, boots, and crampons.
A stone
altar, called a lapso
was built in the middle
of Team Discovery's camp.
Whenever any climber is on the mountain,
aromatic sprigs of juniper must
smolder constantly on the lapso.
It's a complex ritual.
And at it's heart, the Lama is asking
the goddess of Mount Everest
for permission to climb.
He blesses the climbers
and prays for safe passage.
- I respect tremendously
and have a sensitivity
to their own connection to
the mountain and what it means
and certainly for them, it's important.
At the end of the day,
these men that I climb with,
speaking of the Sherpas, will
have my life in their hands
and I will at some point,
probably have their life in my hands.
And so that trust has to be there.
And one of the things you
want to do is build that trust
by respecting each other's
culture and belief system.
These are
not decorative flags.
They are prayer flags,
always hung in odd numbers.
They must never come down
while the climb is underway.
The climbers receive their
sunjis, deeply symbolic
and worn by everyone on the mountain.
Sunjis are a necklace made of red string.
In the middle, they have what
is called a protection knot.
These knots must never be
undone and during the climb,
the sunjis must never come off.
Something spiritual happens
to people who come here.
It can be life changing.
Mount Everest is a higher power.
With the Puja ceremony over,
the Sherpas head off to set up Camp One.
To reach the summit, Everest climbers use
boots with crampons attached,
an ice ax, an ascender,
also called a jumar,
to help pull themselves
up the fixed ropes,
and a harness with carabiners
for locking into safety lines.
Andrew and Hector prep their gear
and double check their backup supplies.
You never know what might
save your life on Everest.
- Extra wide bolts.
- These are my old good
heavy duty steel ones,
which I'll use between Base and Camp Two.
But the other thing about these is that
if my lot-like ones should break,
these also fit my high altitude boots.
- Harness and jumar and ice screw, okay.
Pulley-proof shirts,
hats.
- I just cut off a bit
of sleeping pad foam
and taped it over the head of the ax
because the reality is on this climb,
it's not very steep.
I'll be using my ax
more as a walking stick
than as a climbing tool.
So if my hand over the top
of the ax all the time,
the cold of the metal would
suck the heat straight through
my very heavy-duty mittens and
probably lead to frost-bite.
- There's probably at
While Ben deals
with more logistical details,
Shaunna packs her bag, then his.
More than five kilometers above sea level
is a rough place to live.
But compared to where
the climbers are headed,
Base Camp is like a health spa.
Climbing officially kicks off tomorrow
with a trek over the Icefall,
a spectacular death trap
that's infamous for having
air pockets, crevasses,
and an appetite for climbers.
Climbing Mount Everest
officially starts today.
Team Discovery still hasn't
formed a strong social bond.
For professionals, that's no problem.
In fact, it's normal.
- Until now, no complaints.
I am for, as far the core climbing team
of Ben, Shaunna, Hector, and myself goes,
I'm having, I have a very good feeling.
I very much enjoy Hector's
company and trekking with Hector.
I'm sure he's gonna be very
strong on the mountain.
Ben, obviously, is very
tied up with the management
and logistical side of this expedition.
And that should ease off for
him in the next few days.
So haven't had much interaction with him.
- I feel very good about how things
are coming together right now.
Both Andrew and Hector are
pretty much as advertised,
real hard men.
- I'm feeling very good
about the whole team
about everyone that's
gonna be on the climb,
especially I've,
I really like Ben's way of
leading this team, you know.
- Shaunna is very quiet, but
she's very nice and I'm sure she's
keen to get on with the climb as well.
- Every day that I wake up, I, you know,
sort of have to pinch myself and say,
"Here you are, you know.
You're at Everest, you're doing this.
You're one of the climbers.
You're not just one of the
trekkers coming up here."
- So all in all, pretty happy.
Everest could be considered
the world's ultimate obstacle course
where a mistake could end your life.
Today, the team turns their
back on the safety of Base Camp,
destination Camp One,
which has already been
set up by the Sherpas.
Getting there is no cakewalk.
For starters, they must
negotiate the Khumbu Icefall,
a deadly mess of slow-moving ice
riddled with crevasses, drop-offs,
and the ghosts of 20 fallen climbers.
- Easiest way to describe the
Khumbu Icefall for laymen is
think of it as a moving river of ice.
- You have to make your peace
before you even go into it.
Before
anyone from the core team
sets foot onto the Icefall,
lead Sherpa climber,
Lhakpa Gelu, gets the
juniper fire going strong.
Prayers are said,
thoughts are gathered,
and the climb is on.
The Icefall is one of the
most dangerous sections
on the entire mountain.
10% of Everest deaths happen here.
Unfortunately, climbers
must travel back and forth
over this minefield repeatedly
if they're going to summit.
And they never get used to the Icefall
because it's a flowing, freezing,
thawing, cracking, shifting glacier
that is different every day.
Even the marked trail moves and warps.
Sometimes it breaks away to nothing,
vanishing right out from
under the feet of a climber.
When this happens, the Sherpas call it
the one-way ticket to America.
- You know, in all the
seasons that I've been here,
this Icefall has never been
the same two times running.
It's just so broken up,
just so chopped up every single time.
You can just, you feel
those little rumbles,
those little thumps underneath your feet.
It's just never know if it's
the little one or the big one.
I'm always glad to get out of here.
Getting through
the Icefall is scheduled
to take four hours.
If they do it and reach Camp One,
the team will have gained
600 meters in altitude.
That's like climbing to the top
of Toronto's CN Tower, twice.
- Heeyah!
Some crevasses
are small enough to leap.
Bigger ones are bridged
with aluminum ladders.
Meet the Icefall doctor,
perhaps the most famous
man on Mount Everest.
For 28 years, this Sherpa
has made it his business
to bridge any gap in the Icefall.
This particular crevasse has been spanned
by four household ladders lashed together
with half inch polypropylene rope.
Head Sherpa, Lhakpa Gelu, is very familiar
with the skywalks
constructed by his friend.
Still, he clips his harness
into the safety line
before setting across.
Structural engineering has
turned into a family business
for the Icefall doctor.
This year, his son is working with him.
After five hours of climbing,
the team stands in a dreamland
5,900 meters above sea level,
a full kilometer higher
than any peak in Europe.
The Icefall is behind them,
but that's little comfort.
This beautiful weather is creating
perfect avalanche conditions.
Team Discovery has made it
to the first of four camps
they plan to establish on
the face of Mount Everest.
This is an exciting day.
Being here means the
dream has really begun.
- And I'm happy to be up here.
Before you like spend
your first night up here,
you really don't feel like
you're actually climbing the mountain.
So tonight's gonna be
our first night up here
for four of us, at least.
And that's always good, the first,
as I say, the first night.
See what tomorrow brings.
Tomorrow brings snow.
It snows deep into the night.
The following morning, snow falls again.
This time, from a clear blue sky.
As down breaks on the mountain,
an avalanche breaks off it.
- This morning, we had two big releases.
Doesn't surprise me 'cause
it snowed quite a bit.
And you can see, if you,
looking at these mountains,
or at these faces, yesterday
there was quite some ice there.
So all the snow that fell last night
wouldn't like stick to that ice.
So the moment the temperature
changed a little bit,
boom, and that's when the release occurs.
I'm sure we're gonna be seeing more today.
It's a clear day, no clouds.
So the sun is gonna hit
hard on those slopes
and I'm pretty sure we're gonna be seeing
a few more big ones too.
On Everest, avalanches
are simply a way of life.
They're also a way of death.
When you dive deep underwater,
pressure can force your
eardrum to flex inward,
causing intense pain.
At altitude, the phenomenon is reversed
and it can feel like
your head will explode.
- It's like somebody's
taking a couple of needles
and just driving into
the ears at the moment.
- Want me to radio down to and ask if you.
- Well, I just took some sinus medicine.
I'm hoping that'll help
clear the passages,
but this is not a lot
of fun at the moment.
And every time I try to blow my nose,
all I hear is crackling
and popping in my ears
and intense, just intensifies the pain.
So these things are gonna
have to open up and drain.
This is the small little things like this
that are really common here.
You just, you have periods
that just uncomfortableness
and you just sort of deal with it
and hopefully it clears up.
Even
without a sinus condition,
Everest can be a high pressure head game.
You want your thoughts to remain positive.
However, there are variables
beyond your control,
like who sets up camp beside you.
In Camp One, Team Discovery has a neighbor
whose presence is messing
with Hector's head.
Meet Andreas, leader of a climbing team
that has the same summit
plan as Team Discovery.
Andreas and Hector have a long
and shocking personal history
that is so full of life and death,
it's almost impossible for
non-climbers to believe.
- I know some of the guys in this team,
well, specifically this guy named Andreas.
I climbed a lot with him in the past.
We haven't climbed though in many years.
Why haven't
they climbed in many years?
In 1996, Hector saved Andreas's
life on this very mountain.
Then, a few years later,
Andreas left Hector for dead
in a deep crevasse of ice.
Hector survived and vowed never
to climb with Andreas again.
At today's frigid reunion,
their history goes unmentioned.
Climbing Mount Everest allows no room
for personal politics, just work.
The next goal is to fix safety
ropes on the Lhotse Face.
Once in place, every climbing
team will be able to climb
into these communal ropes
and use them for going up and down.
The exhausting work of fixing the lines
is usually done by Sherpas,
but Hector wants to be involved
and challenges Andreas to join him.
- I would proposition would be
you guys go down now, right.
- Yeah, yeah.
- If you can
wait down there for four, five days,
then we come down rest two or three days.
Then I come up with you and
I'll bring two of my Sherpas.
As far as rope goes, we have enough.
- Un-
- And we'll start fixing the Lhotse face
and we can make it in
one day up to Camp Three.
Sounds good?
- I'm sure in a long day we can make it
- Yeah.
- two and three.
We need to, we were thinking
of resting three days.
But we can take four,
five, whatever's needed
so you can catch up with your itinerary.
With you we can put up two or
three Sherpas and some rope.
- If the Lhotse Face
doesn't get fixed early,
then everything is pushed
back two, three weeks
and we don't want that.
We want to, to be ready by the
beginning of May, you know,
and if the weather allows,
have an early summit.
- Getting better, not as painful.
The team spends
two light-headed days at Camp One.
Oxygen levels here are half
what they are at sea level.
Lack of oxygen can confuse climbers.
It's time to go back to Base Camp.
For Shaunna, it'll be a paralyzing trip
through the Icefalls.
Team Discovery's camp has 25 tents.
It's basically a neighborhood
in a small village.
Overall, Base Camp is
home to 19 climbing teams.
This Chilean Team is one of them.
British socialite Annabelle Bond
is climbing with the Chilean Team.
Annabelle doesn't fit
the stereotypical image
of a grizzly Mount Everest assaulter,
but she is ready to take on this challenge
with that same flare
that women in her family
have shown for generations.
- My grandmother was one of
the first western women in
at altitude in the pool.
So I've got pictures
of her in 1929 in the,
you know, the cool goggles
and kind of blazers
and the plus fours.
And, you know, set against
backgrounds like right behind me
and she's looking down in her crampons.
And that's always been
an inspiration to me.
And she's still alive now.
She's 96 and she's following this climb.
Annabelle's
father owns the Hong Kong Bank.
50 year old Chilean Team
Leader, Andronico Luksic,
also owns a bank.
It costs a mountain of
money to climb Everest
and two very different kinds
of people manage to get here:
dedicated, first-class mountaineers
and globe-trotting
adventurers who can afford it.
- On the last climb we did in Chile,
I got frost-bite on the end of my fingers
because we had to keep taking off
and putting on our crampons
and I had like completely
inappropriate gloves.
So I still have really
bad ends of my fingers,
which I can't worry about.
Okay.
Mom was the one that got me into it
and she met Andronico at a party
and she was bragging about my climbing,
which I'm gonna tell her
to stop doing from now on.
And, you know, she was saying,
"You know, my daughter's a climber."
And he said, "Would she
like to come to Everest?"
And without even consulting
me, she said, "Yeah."
So the next thing is, she wakes me up.
I'm like late night in London.
And she's like, "Darling,
you're climbing Everest."
That's kind of how it came about.
Are these
Mount Everest rookies
ready for the brutal punishment
that's in store for them
more than 8,000 meters above sea level?
- Being a long distance
runner, I keep myself fairly,
kind of, I mean I'm not tuned,
but my body's fairly tuned.
Ever since I was invited
to join the group,
since August, I've been down,
I've done I think six peaks
above nine, between 19
and 22 and a half thousand
down in Chile.
And then I've been hiking
the ski mountain in Aspen.
So, I mean, pretty intensely since August.
It's now
the second week of April.
As Annabelle and the Chilean
Team set off for Camp One,
Team Discovery leaves there,
headed back down to Base Camp.
This season, only 12 women
are climbing Mount Everest.
They follow each other's
progress through word of mouth
and by listening on the radio.
They may never meet face-to-face,
but there was a sisterhood amongst them,
complete with sibling rivalry.
They wanna know how strong is she?
How fast is she?
Will she get there before me?
Odds are strongly against
rookies making it to the summit.
It will be especially
difficult for Annabelle
because no one on her core team
has ever been there before.
All of Shaunna's core team has stood
on the top of the world,
including her boyfriend, Ben.
Some people wouldn't
wanna be with their lover
on an adventure like this.
It could get too icy and tense
for the relationship to survive.
Climbing Mount Everest is not a date.
It's a brush with death.
Early in the Icefall,
Annabelle is stopped cold
by a single ladder.
To get to the top of Mount Everest,
you need determination and creativity.
Annabelle sees an obstacle
and gets down to it.
- Do it, but I just feel
more comfortable like this.
Stylish, I know it, but...
Sorry, just need to stand.
My god, and I have really sore knees.
The higher you go, the more realize is
what a huge mountain this is.
And there's so much
that can go on up there.
I think the whole climb is one tough climb
and anyone who says it's
fix nines the whole way,
I don't care.
It is tough.
So far, Team Discovery
has had good luck on their side.
The weather has cooperated,
everyone feels strong,
and there have been no
real mishaps to speak of.
Even crossing these breathtaking ladders
has gone without a hitch.
- Always in the back of my mind,
there is that sort of
fear that one misstep
could lead to my death.
- Slow and easy now.
Be sure.
Good girl.
- My crampon got stuck.
I actually told myself don't look down
because that's when you're
gonna lose it and you'll panic.
So I just focused on trying
to little strategies to
sort of wiggle my foot
to try to get it loose,
but nothing was working.
- Take a step backward, Shaunna.
- One step back.
- On the, yeah.
- That good there.
Team Leader Ben
Webster steadies the lines.
His girlfriend is frozen midair,
just a meter from safety.
The crevasse she hovers over
is the depth of a 10 story building.
Mingma Sherpa has seen enough.
It's time to fix this
problem and get out of here.
- He came right over to me
and he tried to loosen my
crampon from the ladder.
He wasn't able to.
So he came up with plan B,
which was to actually
take my crampon right off.
Part of
the reason Shaunna came
to Mount Everest is to do research
for her PhD in Sports Psychology.
Her thesis paper is called
Motivation in High Altitude Climbing.
As a psychologist, Shaunna
knows the danger of panic.
- I think it's very important not to panic
because if you do panic when
you're on a ladder like that
the possibility of losing
your balance and falling over
is extremely high, so I
think it's very important
to try to stay focused.
He took the crampon right off my foot
and I was able to walk off the ladder.
- Da-da-da-da!
- Thank you!
In normal
life, an incident like that
would take weeks to become a funny story.
Here, it's laughed about immediately.
Climbers on Mount
Everest live every second
like it might be their last.
It's the highest feeling in the world.
On the next episode of
Ultimate Survival: Everest,
a sick doctor brings
his virus to Base Camp.
- Usually these things
last three to five days,
but who knows.
Ben descends
to the edge of oblivion.
- We're gonna go real, real slow
and real, real careful on the way down.
And Annebelle
stares death in the face.
- I just seen my first dead body.
And I'm not really
enjoying that experience.