Ultimate Survival: Everest (2004–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Push for the Summit - full transcript
On the last episode of
Everest.
Plans unravel for Team Discovery.
Ben Webster had maneuvered
his climbing party
into the head of the pack, but bad weather
on the summit stopped them cold.
Allowing slower teams
on the worlds tallest
mountain to catch up.
- The word I'm hearing here is that
they're prepared to go
on this first window.
Nobody's going to wait.
Worried about being
caught in a human traffic jam,
Ben devised a new plan.
He and his girlfriend, Shaunna Burke
will wait and head for
the summit next week.
I mean, I obviously prefer to go
and try to get my summit out of the way,
but that's being selfish.
That leaves just the team's
professional climbers able
to summit with the crowd
in the first window of opportunity.
Hector Ponce De Leon is
ready, willing, and able,
but Andrew Lock is sick, flat on his back.
It's May 11th.
Ben and Shaunna have spent three days
down valley recuperating
in oxygen-rich air.
They arrived back at basecamp to find
Andrew still under the weather.
If Andrew can't get on his
feet by tomorrow morning,
Shaunna might get to take his place
in the first group of
team Discovery climbers
heading for the summit.
Knowing that his climb is on the line,
Andrew gets to his feet
and begins packing gear.
This has
left me very, very weakened
and quite concerned about whether I have
the strength or not to make the summit.
Annabelle
Bond, a British socialite
along with her climbing
partner, 50-year-old
Chilean bank owner, Andrónico Craig are on
their summit push.
They've made it through the Ice Fall
and are headed past Camp
One en route to Camp Two.
I think
it's quite windy today,
and on the 15th, we want no wind at all.
As Annabelle
heads onwards, Will Cross,
a diabetic high school
principle from Pittsburgh
sorts through his supplies at basecamp.
It's a chance for Will to
take one last deep breath
before committing to his summit assault.
- It's kind of silent moment around camp
because this is what, this
is what it's all about,
this is what it's led up
to, so there's probably
a lot on our minds, and, you know,
kind of thinking about the family,
thinking about the whole project.
That we need to get up that hill
and back down in one piece.
That's my responsibility to myself,
and to be honest with
oneself when you're up there.
If it does start to get dicey, to make
honest and accurate assessments whether
to go up or down.
So that at the end of the day,
you're alive and ready
to go for the next one.
Will is taking a risk.
The oxygen system he
is using is new to him.
In fact, it's a brand new product.
The small aluminum tanks are lighter
than the standard steel ones.
It's probably fine, but trusting
an untested product on Everest requires
more courage than most climbers have.
- Here's our goal.
I'm just looking up at Everest.
It seems a long way from here,
but it seems like there's
not much snow on it.
Anyway, step by step,
and I guess I go down
into this crevasse.
Hate it, hate it.
On her way to Camp Two,
Annabelle will climb through
dozens of these crevasses.
The glacier is so carved
up, there are more ladders
here than in the Ice Fall.
It's like the landscape
is made of enormous
shifting ice plates.
Annabelle will travel through this valley
known as the Western
Cwm with the blistering
sun pounding down on her.
When non-climbers think of Everest,
they think of the cold,
but some of the most
debilitating conditions are caused
by the excessive heat
generated by sun rays
reflecting off the bright white snow.
Today, it's 35 degrees celsius in the Cwm.
It's like climbing through a solar oven.
Annabelle is sweating bullets.
The final crevasse in the
Western Cwm is 10 stories deep.
To position her feet properly,
she's forced to look down.
This gorge is bridged by
three aluminum ladders
latched together with climbing rope.
Everything about this situation
is sickening to Annabelle.
The view, the thin air, and the heat
combine to make her feel
like she might faint.
This is no place to faint.
- I've been feeling a little ill
on the way up the Cwm,
it's been unbelievably hot.
I'd heard about the heat, but this is
the first I'd experienced it.
And I've got a whole bunch
of snow underneath my hat.
I don't know what I've got.
I've got like, my panic attacks,
some kind of nausea, it's
really slowing me down.
Anyway, I'm really, really looking forward
to getting to camp two.
Thank you, that's perfect, thanks.
Well, you're meant to finish each workout
with a little bit of excess energy,
and I'm afraid I've
got none, I'm on empty.
Annabelle is hoping to spend
the night on a bed of rocks next to
a snow field at an
altitude of 6,000 meters.
That's a different part
of the Earth's atmosphere.
Camp Two is so high,
it's in the troposphere.
Team Discovery's tireless
head Sherpa's, Lhapka Gelu
right hand man, Migma
are in Camp Two already,
putting together a high
altitude communication tower.
When this UHF radio antennae is rigged up,
the preparations for the
summit push will be complete.
After climbing for eight solid hours,
Annabelle plods her way into Camp Two.
It's been the most
punishing day of her life.
It's a
tiredness that I just cannot,
I've never come across in my life before.
In my sort of competitive running,
I've never felt this kind of,
it's draining, you just,
it's, I can't explain it.
I've always read about it and I just
thought, God, those guys are unfit,
and when it actually happens to you,
you cannot literally get
one leg off the floor,
it's so exhausting.
Tomorrow, Annabelle
will have her final day
of rest, gathering her
strength for her last
big push up the mountain and
on to the top of the world.
As the sun sets, Team
Discovery plans for the worst.
Death is part of life on Everest,
so team members want to
know their partner's wishes
in case of disaster.
Do they want their body collected,
should their remains be shipped home?
To outsiders, this may seem morbid,
but to climbers, becoming a literal part
of Mount Everest is
romantic and honorable.
In the event of death, most climbers
want to bond with the mountain
in a way that no living soul can.
- At the bottom of my
last mountain climbing,
so actually I would like my body
to stay in the mountain, definitely.
If I happen to fall off a cliff
or something, well, wherever I land,
that's where I want to rest.
- In my case, if somehow I was killed
on the mountain, then
there is a climber's code,
which I ascribe to, and that is to
put the climber's body down a crevasse
on the mountain if it's safe to do so.
And that's what I'd
like done with my body.
- I try not to think about it too much,
I try to push it out of my mind
because it makes me uncomfortable
just thinking about it.
- For me, I've never
really attached too great
a, you know, purpose or whatever
in terms of the physical
nature of you being here.
So once that ends, once
the sort of spiritual thing
ends or the energy dies
out, then it doesn't really
matter to me, it's just, you know.
It's litter at that point, I guess.
- If it were to happen, I wouldn't want
any one else's life to
be put in danger just to
go up and get my, which I agree is just
a physical body.
I mean, just leave me where I lie.
I guess I would just want
my family and the people
that I love to know that I love them.
- If I have any wish or desire,
it's that it is not seen as a tragedy.
I've, mountains have given me so much,
much more than I can ask for,
so if it happens to me
here on this particular
climb, I really would want, like,
all my friends, relatives, girlfriend,
parents, just to see, you know,
it's part of life that
I've been very happy with,
and as I said, not to
be seen as a tragedy,
as something sad or terrible.
That's something that I
would really like to happen.
At the crack of dawn,
Andrew heads for Camp Two.
He likes to leave early so he can
avoid the crippling heat of the afternoon.
Back at basecamp, an offering of juniper
burns for safety.
This smoldering fire is lit whenever
a member of Team Discovery
is on the mountain.
At 5:30 AM, Hector also heads for Camp Two
with Ben and Shaunna hot on his heels.
Ben has split the team in two.
Hector and Andrew will go for the summit
as soon as possible.
Ben and Shaunna will wait
for the crowds to thin out.
They'll try to summit in a week.
Ben is climbing to Camp Two this morning
so he can organize the
expedition from there.
Shaunna is going up to feel
like a part of the team.
Try to put two on.
No, two bars, you're balancing on one.
There.
There, there.
Better.
Okay, make sure, hold it.
Come on, focus.
Walk it, there, there.
Better.
Okay, make sure, hold it.
Before coming
here, Ben and Shaunna
dreamed of standing on
the summit together.
Tomorrow, they'll stand
together at Camp Two
waving goodbye to Andrew and Hector
who will make their way towards
the highest piece of land on Earth.
Shaunna wants to go to
the summit with them,
but Ben is making her
way so he can stagger
his climbers and maximize his chances
of getting a video camera to the top.
It's hard to believe that
the world's tallest mountain
would have a big city
problem, but this morning,
there's a rush hour traffic
jam on Mount Everest.
50 climbers are on the same schedule,
all hoping to summit on the 15th of May.
Andres Delgado is
leading a commercial team
in the most dramatic fashion, he's trying
to summit without oxygen,
a deadly proposition.
- I know I'm gonna be
sad if I don't make it.
I'm not gonna die here.
There are reasons more important
to be alive right now.
If I don't make it, I mean, I'm gonna
give it as many tries as my strength
allows me, but if I cannot make it,
I'll just go home and hug my wife.
Nobody thinks he's gonna be the one
who's gonna die, you know?
You want to think that you are able to
turn back before things turn too bad,
but I want to show strength here,
trying, daring to dream.
That's what nobody dares
these days, dare to dream.
Will Cross dares to dream.
This diabetic wants to
climb the highest mountain
on every continent and get to both
North and South Poles on foot.
So far, he's skied to both Poles
and has summited four
of the seven mountains.
Everest will be the next
notch in his climbing harness.
If he can make it.
- The only thing I question with Will
is whether he'll be able
to sustain the breakdown
that happens, and certainly once
you get above Camp Two
and into Camp Three,
the breakdown can be violent on the body,
and I don't know if his affliction
will actually not allow his
body to recover quick enough
or that the breakdown
will be that much more
violent with him than it
would be with somebody else.
On her final day at Camp Two,
Annabelle Bond is reevaluating her needs.
Vanity carries a lot of
weight for Annabelle,
so she must ask herself, is she really
dying to be seen in lipstick.
- I was too heavy on my backpack,
that's something I confess, I was wrong.
And I had to give some of my clothes
from pack to Andrónico
to carry, and I always
see this as a sense of failure, because
I always think you should
carry your own stuff,
that's part of my deal.
I always sneak in a couple
of creams, my lipstick,
and I know I shouldn't, so I always
feel like I should take my own stuff.
And Andrónico carried a few
of my clothes, my water,
and we got to Camp Two in like four hours,
which is really slow from Camp One.
And miraculously, I felt a lot better
when I got to camp, so I don't know,
I have to take a good look at whether
I'm focusing properly, like, whether I've
got the mental ability,
which is what it takes
to get to the top of Everest
or whether I'm just slacking off a bit.
One group
that never slacks off
are the sherpas, they work continuously,
and they get paid well.
The head climbing Sherpa will make
over $9,000 U.S. while men in the kitchen
will earn between $1,500 and $3,000 U.S.
for their two months work.
This in a country where the average income
is $250 U.S. a year, this is a good job.
Andrew arrives in Camp
Two and radios basecamp.
- Discovery, base, Discovery, base,
from Andrew, Camp Two, over.
A thousand
vertical meters below Andrew,
his call is received in
Team Discovery's orange
dome tent.
The communications expert,
Mike Swarbrick has been waiting
with good news, the weather
at the summit is changing.
The weather on the summit
of Mount Everest means
basically one thing, the
jet stream, where is it?
If it's cutting across the
summit, the weather's bad,
if the jet stream avoids the summit,
the weather is good.
Imagine you're in a jumbo
jet cruising at 8,848 meters,
the height of Mount Everest.
Now imagine your plane
hits violent turbulence,
the wind that can toss
around a 747 is the same
wind the climbers must deal with.
On the mountain, you can't
buckle up for safety,
so weather reports are
listened to religiously.
According to the
European weather service--
15, the morning is a bit windy.
It calms in the afternoon.
One potential problem would be higher
moisture levels up to Camp
Four, higher humidities.
The 16th looks great and improves,
the winds improve right
through to the 20th, over.
- Holy moly, okay, thanks for that, Mike,
that's great news.
The latest forecast is better
than Andrew had dared even hope for.
A six day string of clear, calm days
that could allow every healthy climber
to summit without a problem.
But that creates its own problem.
Ben calls a meeting to
talk about the weather
and the plans of other teams.
He thinks it would be
safer to avoid the rush
and let the other climbers summit first.
Avoiding traffic jams is crucial to Ben's
recipe for success.
- Right from the beginning, when we had
group discussions in terms of climbing
strategy, it was always to push to the
front edge just so that we could
not be caught in the sort of, you know,
the sort of--
Masses.
- Yeah, the masses, the
lemming march that happens.
It might
sound redundant, but when
Team Discovery is climbing, Ben wants them
to climb, he doesn't want them
standing still, stuck in
lineups, freezing to death.
- The last thing you want to be doing
is be in a position where you're in with
50 other climbers, some
of which are very suspect.
In 1996,
a pack of slow climbers
held up progress near the summit
and created a bottleneck of people.
When a vicious storm blew
through, 16 of them died.
Ben's decision is to hold
Hector and Andrew back
for another 24 hours.
It's a tough call for him to make,
but it's even tougher for Andrew to hear.
- The risk there, of course, is that
we could lose the good weather,
the forecast said the 15th
of May will be very good.
If that weather then
deteriorates, we could
have lost our one and
only summit opportunity
on this expedition, which
would be quite tragic.
But more tragic would be to get caught up
there with other teams in bad weather
and have another potential '96,
so we've decided to sit here for a day.
It's frustrating, but it's
probably the best decision.
- Decisions, decisions.
Will Cross is moving so slowly, he decides
to abandon his plan of
climbing to Camp Two,
choosing instead to stop at Camp One.
After living with diabetes for 25 years
and climbing seriously for eight,
Will knows the limits of his body.
- See, now the sun's up, so the heat
creates the Khumbu oven.
We're actually just gonna stay at One
rather than get melted by the heat
and what the Swiss call, I think,
the Valley of Silence or
the Khumbu waktu, Camp Two.
Going up slowly, never a bad idea.
Everest may seem
like a whole other world,
but it's not.
This is part of the Earth we all inhabit.
Will is going to be reminded of that
the next time he goes down to basecamp.
His wife is on her way there.
She'll be waiting for him.
Rising with the sun, Annabelle Bond
is on pins and needles as she hugs
her team manager, Rodrigo.
This is it, she's headed for
the summit of Mount Everest.
Will she live, will she die?
All she knows is that her plan tonight
is to camp just below
the 8,000 meter mark.
Tomorrow, if all goes well, she'll climb
to the highest point
of land on the planet.
- That was sort of an emotional departure,
saying goodbye to Rodrigo and Pipe.
It really feels like we're going for it.
And there's a lot of
people going up today,
there's about 30 people ahead of us.
I'm feeling good, just a little teary.
But I'm sure I'll recover soon, I hope so
as the pain kicks in.
Team
Discovery enjoys the luxury
of sleeping in.
Today is not a climbing day for them.
Andrew and Hector will head
for the summit tomorrow
while Ben and Shaunna will remain in their
cocoon until some time after May 20th.
Shaunna reveals what it's
like to climb with your lover.
- It's very nice.
Yeah?
- It makes the journey much more enjoyable
and much more warm.
- If they succeed, Ben and Shaunna
will be the first Canadian couple
to make it to the summit
of Everest together.
- Yeah, it is, it's a
double edged sword though,
because on one hand, yeah, you get all
the benefits of having
somebody share your sleeping
bag and your warmth and all that stuff.
The flip side to it is, you also
end up thinking about
that person a lot more,
especially up on the mountain.
- If anything were to happen to me,
I know that he would be right there
to help me out, and vice versa.
If anything ever happened to him,
I would do everything in my power
to help him out, so it gives
me a lot of confidence.
- That's such a right, such a good answer.
Such the right thing to say?
- Well, it's true.
Even though
all the weather forecasts
said that Mount Everest would be calm
for the next six days, the wind is slicing
through the Western Cwm, the valley Will
is headed through on his way to Camp Two.
For the climbers headed to Camp Three,
this strong wind could
shatter their dreams.
Getting turned around by weather
during the final summit
push often means defeat.
- You got about 50
people in place right now
who are gunning for the summit, meaning
there's high anxiety, a
lot of physical output,
and of course there's a
lot of money on the line
for a lot of people.
And what it comes down to is high winds.
Mother nature taking control,
as she does and will.
And different teams and their strategists
now have to make decisions in terms of,
can they get their guys
to the summit and back
fast enough, is it even worth going
up to Camp Three, are
you gonna get stalled
at 24,000 feet and just
exhaust your oxygen supply
and your climbers themselves?
So, what you tend to have right now
is, a lot of concern about the weather
and a lot of concern about
what other people are gonna do,
who's gonna go for the summit when.
At sea level,
Annabelle is capable
of running back to back marathons,
but this is not sea level.
Halfway up the Lhotse face
at 7,000 meters altitude,
she is more fatigued than
she's ever been in her life.
The air pressure up here is just 40%
of what it is in London, England.
Meaning, at this altitude,
Annabelle must take
two and a half breaths for
every one she'd take at home.
Even resting, her heart
beats twice a second.
To make the situation more dire,
Annabelle's hands are still recovering
from a recent case of frostbite.
The circulation in her digits are so weak
that she's losing her grip.
If she's not careful,
she'll lose her fingers.
If she's not lucky, she'll lose her life.
Dear.
Clap clap.
- Real cold
Thank you.
Thanks, that's better.
What hurts?
- Everything.
Yeah, okay, good.
- It's taking a while
just to catch my breath.
My hands are cold and I just
feel like taking a breather.
I hate having all these
people behind me on the line.
I really feel pushed to just go fast.
But Annabelle can't go fast,
in fact, she can't go at all.
She's unable to move her ascender.
It's exhausting trying to
work your equipment with these gloves.
Annabelle
doesn't want to be a burden
on her team, she wants
to be self-sufficient,
but she's losing dexterity in her fingers.
As a climber, this is
where she needs to make
a responsible decision.
Is it safe for her to keep climbing up
or should she bow out.
Thanks.
Thank you.
She accepts
the help from her guide
and prepares to head
stubbornly up the mountain.
Armchair critics say that
communal safety lines
have made climbing Mount Everest too easy.
They should come here and say that.
Mount Everest is studded
with haunting reminders
that human beings really
shouldn't be here.
As Annabelle enters Camp Three,
she arrives at the shredded tents
that belonged to a past team.
These flapping yellow flags were supposed
to be their shelter.
It's not a comforting sight.
After eight hours of climbing, Annabelle
can see her tent, but
she wants to lie down
and rest right here.
It's one hell of a mountain.
It's one tough challenge
is how I would put it.
You can glance up at the Lhotse face
and think, my god, can I do that?
But I think if you just resort to that
one step at a time and
just take it slowly,
I think it's, you know, if you feel good
and the weather's okay,
I think it's doable.
In the Western
Cwm, the strong wind
is getting stronger.
Will Cross is concerned
about the gusting conditions,
but he's even more concerned about his
less than stellar performance.
- No energy and no tank.
Which I don't recommend.
Because it hurts.
With the Lhotse
face looming in front of him,
Will shuffles toward Camp Two.
Already there, Andrew and Hector
giddily prepare their bags.
Tomorrow they'll continue their summit bid
by heading for Camp Three.
It's the morning of
May 14th, a perfect day
for climbing Everest.
At Camp Two, Andrew and Hector are making
the final preparations for
their big push up the mountain.
- Just packing up the gear.
Just about everything that we have here
at Camp Two needs to come
with us to Camp Three,
so that's our sleeping
bags, our down suits,
a mid layer of clothing,
our eating equipment,
water bottles, camera gear,
all the big, heavy mitts,
sunscreen, it's gonna be quite a load.
We'll end up carrying, not too much,
but probably about 15 kilos.
Whilst this extra day
at Camp Two was pretty
much forced on us by circumstance,
I think it's working
very much in our favor.
The weather forecast
for the 16th was great.
It gave us an extra day
to recover at Camp two
after our climb up from basecamp.
And I feel strong, I feel super psyched
and ready to go, so I
think it's really good,
I'm happy to get on with it.
Shaunna wants to go
with Hector and Andrew, but Ben
has made his decision and
he sticks by his guns.
He and Shaunna will wait to climb sometime
after May 20th when the crowd thins out.
- My shots waiting, but
I'm actually super excited
for the boys, I have
complete confidence in them,
I think they're gonna do a fantastic job.
I don't think anything's gonna stop them
except maybe, you know, the weather
or something that's out of their control,
but I think everything
that's within their control,
they're not gonna have a problem at all.
There's a
joke that goes, climbing
Everest is 50% physical and 90% mental.
Hector understands, his mind has been
playing tricks on him.
- I was a little down, honestly.
That's sometimes the
problem of not doing nothing
for a day up here, that you're like
emotional energy just goes down.
But once you know you gotta
move, then it comes back.
Andrew and
Hector plan on climbing
to Camp Three today.
Tomorrow morning, they head to Camp Four,
then in the middle of the night,
they'll steal the summit.
- My pleasure, guys.
This is your story, go tell it.
- We will.
Thanks for all the support.
- My pleasure, man.
- We'll see you, Shaunna.
- Thanks, see you in a few days.
- Talk to you soon.
- Okay.
- There's an element there of excitement
to watch them go up and get it done.
It's always an exciting
time, always, always, always.
A thousand meters above Ben,
Annabelle has on her oxygen mask
and glacier glasses.
Underneath that, she on mascara,
all the essentials for a Bond girl
headed for the summit of Mount Everest.
This is a proud moment for Annabelle.
Her impossible dream is
actually within reach.
- It makes all the difference,
I mean the oxygen.
I'll take it off to talk
whenever we take a break,
but it's enabled me to
have a great night sleep.
We'll see how we do today.
Yeah, I'm nervous, but I think that's
only natural when you've got
a climb like Everest ahead.
But I'm feeling good here and, you know,
just gonna give it my best shot.
Andres is leading
his team out of Camp Two.
The members carry oxygen as a precaution,
but they still don't intend on using it.
- What an incredible day for going up
the Lhotse face.
Beautiful, sunshine, not too much wind,
not too cold, and feeling on top of it.
Can't ask for much more.
This is great, glad that
we're here together.
Together is
the operative word today.
Almost 50 climbers have
begun their final push
for the summit.
Their lineup on the steep trail
looks stagnant, but it's not.
Climbers are able to fall into a rhythm
with only themselves and
the mountain in their focus.
As 50 climbers head for the summit,
one heads down.
Shaunna Burke feels ready to climb,
but her boyfriend, the expedition leader,
Ben Webster, is sending
her back to basecamp
so she can rest before her summit attempt,
which will hopefully
happen sometime next week.
Emotions and mountain
climbing are a dangerous
combination, that's why you don't see
many couples up here.
- For someone I care about a great deal,
very hard decision, and as she was crying
in the tent with me saying to her,
you know, at the end of
the day, it's my call.
- I was very, very disappointed.
I felt super strong at the time,
I knew I was ready, the weather was great,
and I know that when
you're in the mountains,
your opportunity to summit
can be very minimal.
- By sending Shaunna
down and me having to be
up here to manage the summit pushes,
I probably won't be able to get down for
a few more days if I get down at all,
depending on when the weather
comes in for the next push.
Very difficult, you can
feel your energy draining
everyday when you're sitting up here,
and not the best place to be.
And then the knowledge that at some point,
hopefully in the near future, I'll have to
go high on the mountain and go to
at least 8,000 meters,
and that is a hard process
for me right now, because
I do feel drained.
Ben is having
second thoughts about
going for the summit.
He's been there before, he knows the pain.
At the 7,600 meter mark on Mount Everest,
there is a distinctive seam of pure marble
called the Yellow Band.
Incredibly, this area is
full of marine fossils,
meaning this piece of
Earth was once underwater.
Annabelle would marvel at that irony,
but she has bigger fish to fry.
She has to figure out
which one of these ropes
is this year's safety line.
If she clips into the wrong
one, it could easily snap.
Climbing up the Yellow Band
is a hard way to have fun.
The pointy steel crampons the climbers
have attached to their
boots are designed for ice.
On marble, they're worse
than skates on concrete.
Even with bottled oxygen, breathing rates
at this altitude are so accelerated,
climbers sound like they're
constantly panicking.
If Andrónico falls during
the act of detaching
and reattaching his safety line,
his vertical drop will be uninterrupted
for a full kilometer.
Maybe he is panicking.
Down on the Lhotse face, the conditions
for Andrew are not much safer.
- Half the oxygen means
my brain is only getting
half the oxygen of all.
Any mistake on the ropes
is going to be fatal.
So when I change over, when I come
to a knot like this, I have to remember,
first carabiner, then the ascender.
If I do it the other way,
I'm going to come unstuck
and take a big fall to the bottom
like so many other climbers have done
on this face over the years.
We're very, very close to our tents
at Camp Three, and I'm glad because
although it's been a
beautiful day, not too cold.
The climbing's been fairly tough,
and I'm getting very tired,
I can feel it in myself.
Back at advanced basecamp,
things are a little more relaxed.
- Camp Two, this is Camp Three,
do you copy, over?
Hi,
Hector, how are you buddy?
I heard you're in Camp
Three, well done, over.
- Yeah, we just walked
into camp a minute ago.
And we're doing great.
- Here's the, here's the situation, bud,
I don't know if your radio's been on
so you can hear this,
but here is an update.
Lama and the Chileans
just reached the call
maybe 15 minutes ago, 10 minutes ago,
and it's just pounding in there.
- It's freezing, I also
want to get some sleep
before we leave at 10:00 o'clock tonight
to try and summit.
We're actually waking up at 8:00.
I can see the lack of oxygen in the air.
I'm very happy to be here, and I'm scared
about what tomorrow entails.
Anyway, tomorrow's going
to be one tough day,
who knows what's gonna happen.
I don't even know if I'm doing it.
Anyway, that's it for the South Call.
I'm gonna put my mask on.
The South Call,
Camp Four, the death zone.
The place where Annabelle is right now
is called many things, none of them nice.
Annabelle is dying right now.
Everyone at this altitude is.
They need rest.
The team will sleep, if that's possible,
for six hours, then they'll
head for the history books.
The summit of Mount Everest is Annabelle's
next order of business.
Camp Three?
- Camp Three.
Good to be here.
The peak of
Mount Everest is within sight.
Team Discovery's professional climbers
are in Camp Three, elevation 7,500 meters.
Just staying alive up here is hard work.
- We need to start
melting snow right away.
For that, we need a stove and propane,
to drink as much as possible.
Sometimes up here, you don't realize it,
but you, by the minute, you're just losing
water, you're dehydrating because
you breathe much harder,
and just from breathing,
you lose a lot of water,
so that's what's next.
Melt snow, prepare drinks,
and just drink a lot.
- I'm collecting snow
for the drinking water,
probably before we go tomorrow morning
to Camp Four, we'll have to do this
two or three more times to get enough
water to drink and to eat tonight.
I'm doing it now while it's warm.
Hector can do it later when it's cold.
As a murderous wind rips
through the Buddhist prayer flags
of Camp Four, Annabelle sits in her tent,
defying the skeptics.
- So here we are, the eve
before one of the biggest
days of my life.
Yeah, I'm a little teary, I'm nervous,
I really want to do it, I
know it's gonna be hell,
it's gonna be pushing
through a pain barrier,
which I don't think I've ever done before.
I need to get some sleep before I put
in this huge exertion, we're thinking
it's gonna be 18 hours if we're lucky,
and yeah, wish me luck,
that's all I have to say.
Wish all of our team luck.
I guess we're feeling the best we can.
My headaches getting worse as I carry on
talking to you, I haven't
washed my hair in days,
being a girl, that's important.
And yeah, I don't want to spend too much
time on the South Call, it's an altitude
record for me, we're at 8,000 meters.
I'm cheating a little bit because
I'm on oxygen, but it's
definitely a new high.
And if I get no further than
this, I've done my best.
Mount Everest
can be a lonely place.
Shaunna is by herself at basecamp
wondering what will happen to her dream.
Ben is at Camp Two stressing over details
he often can't control.
And Andrew is at Camp
Three dreaming of a meal
he can't have.
As the sun drops over the Khumbu Valley,
former climbing partners,
Andres and Hector
share a moment of beauty and peace.
For elite mountaineers,
this loneliness is heaven.
It's a great day to be alive.
On the next episode of
Ultimate Survival: Everest,
Annabelle Bond goes for the summit.
- That frantic screaming is because
I'm about to run out
of oxygen, and I really
don't want that to happen.
Without
oxygen, Andres Delgado
suffers intensely.
And Ben must
reevaluate his own ambition.
- I'm struggling.
It feels like I'm gonna
vomit most of the time,
which is never fun.
I'm just really suffering.
Everest.
Plans unravel for Team Discovery.
Ben Webster had maneuvered
his climbing party
into the head of the pack, but bad weather
on the summit stopped them cold.
Allowing slower teams
on the worlds tallest
mountain to catch up.
- The word I'm hearing here is that
they're prepared to go
on this first window.
Nobody's going to wait.
Worried about being
caught in a human traffic jam,
Ben devised a new plan.
He and his girlfriend, Shaunna Burke
will wait and head for
the summit next week.
I mean, I obviously prefer to go
and try to get my summit out of the way,
but that's being selfish.
That leaves just the team's
professional climbers able
to summit with the crowd
in the first window of opportunity.
Hector Ponce De Leon is
ready, willing, and able,
but Andrew Lock is sick, flat on his back.
It's May 11th.
Ben and Shaunna have spent three days
down valley recuperating
in oxygen-rich air.
They arrived back at basecamp to find
Andrew still under the weather.
If Andrew can't get on his
feet by tomorrow morning,
Shaunna might get to take his place
in the first group of
team Discovery climbers
heading for the summit.
Knowing that his climb is on the line,
Andrew gets to his feet
and begins packing gear.
This has
left me very, very weakened
and quite concerned about whether I have
the strength or not to make the summit.
Annabelle
Bond, a British socialite
along with her climbing
partner, 50-year-old
Chilean bank owner, Andrónico Craig are on
their summit push.
They've made it through the Ice Fall
and are headed past Camp
One en route to Camp Two.
I think
it's quite windy today,
and on the 15th, we want no wind at all.
As Annabelle
heads onwards, Will Cross,
a diabetic high school
principle from Pittsburgh
sorts through his supplies at basecamp.
It's a chance for Will to
take one last deep breath
before committing to his summit assault.
- It's kind of silent moment around camp
because this is what, this
is what it's all about,
this is what it's led up
to, so there's probably
a lot on our minds, and, you know,
kind of thinking about the family,
thinking about the whole project.
That we need to get up that hill
and back down in one piece.
That's my responsibility to myself,
and to be honest with
oneself when you're up there.
If it does start to get dicey, to make
honest and accurate assessments whether
to go up or down.
So that at the end of the day,
you're alive and ready
to go for the next one.
Will is taking a risk.
The oxygen system he
is using is new to him.
In fact, it's a brand new product.
The small aluminum tanks are lighter
than the standard steel ones.
It's probably fine, but trusting
an untested product on Everest requires
more courage than most climbers have.
- Here's our goal.
I'm just looking up at Everest.
It seems a long way from here,
but it seems like there's
not much snow on it.
Anyway, step by step,
and I guess I go down
into this crevasse.
Hate it, hate it.
On her way to Camp Two,
Annabelle will climb through
dozens of these crevasses.
The glacier is so carved
up, there are more ladders
here than in the Ice Fall.
It's like the landscape
is made of enormous
shifting ice plates.
Annabelle will travel through this valley
known as the Western
Cwm with the blistering
sun pounding down on her.
When non-climbers think of Everest,
they think of the cold,
but some of the most
debilitating conditions are caused
by the excessive heat
generated by sun rays
reflecting off the bright white snow.
Today, it's 35 degrees celsius in the Cwm.
It's like climbing through a solar oven.
Annabelle is sweating bullets.
The final crevasse in the
Western Cwm is 10 stories deep.
To position her feet properly,
she's forced to look down.
This gorge is bridged by
three aluminum ladders
latched together with climbing rope.
Everything about this situation
is sickening to Annabelle.
The view, the thin air, and the heat
combine to make her feel
like she might faint.
This is no place to faint.
- I've been feeling a little ill
on the way up the Cwm,
it's been unbelievably hot.
I'd heard about the heat, but this is
the first I'd experienced it.
And I've got a whole bunch
of snow underneath my hat.
I don't know what I've got.
I've got like, my panic attacks,
some kind of nausea, it's
really slowing me down.
Anyway, I'm really, really looking forward
to getting to camp two.
Thank you, that's perfect, thanks.
Well, you're meant to finish each workout
with a little bit of excess energy,
and I'm afraid I've
got none, I'm on empty.
Annabelle is hoping to spend
the night on a bed of rocks next to
a snow field at an
altitude of 6,000 meters.
That's a different part
of the Earth's atmosphere.
Camp Two is so high,
it's in the troposphere.
Team Discovery's tireless
head Sherpa's, Lhapka Gelu
right hand man, Migma
are in Camp Two already,
putting together a high
altitude communication tower.
When this UHF radio antennae is rigged up,
the preparations for the
summit push will be complete.
After climbing for eight solid hours,
Annabelle plods her way into Camp Two.
It's been the most
punishing day of her life.
It's a
tiredness that I just cannot,
I've never come across in my life before.
In my sort of competitive running,
I've never felt this kind of,
it's draining, you just,
it's, I can't explain it.
I've always read about it and I just
thought, God, those guys are unfit,
and when it actually happens to you,
you cannot literally get
one leg off the floor,
it's so exhausting.
Tomorrow, Annabelle
will have her final day
of rest, gathering her
strength for her last
big push up the mountain and
on to the top of the world.
As the sun sets, Team
Discovery plans for the worst.
Death is part of life on Everest,
so team members want to
know their partner's wishes
in case of disaster.
Do they want their body collected,
should their remains be shipped home?
To outsiders, this may seem morbid,
but to climbers, becoming a literal part
of Mount Everest is
romantic and honorable.
In the event of death, most climbers
want to bond with the mountain
in a way that no living soul can.
- At the bottom of my
last mountain climbing,
so actually I would like my body
to stay in the mountain, definitely.
If I happen to fall off a cliff
or something, well, wherever I land,
that's where I want to rest.
- In my case, if somehow I was killed
on the mountain, then
there is a climber's code,
which I ascribe to, and that is to
put the climber's body down a crevasse
on the mountain if it's safe to do so.
And that's what I'd
like done with my body.
- I try not to think about it too much,
I try to push it out of my mind
because it makes me uncomfortable
just thinking about it.
- For me, I've never
really attached too great
a, you know, purpose or whatever
in terms of the physical
nature of you being here.
So once that ends, once
the sort of spiritual thing
ends or the energy dies
out, then it doesn't really
matter to me, it's just, you know.
It's litter at that point, I guess.
- If it were to happen, I wouldn't want
any one else's life to
be put in danger just to
go up and get my, which I agree is just
a physical body.
I mean, just leave me where I lie.
I guess I would just want
my family and the people
that I love to know that I love them.
- If I have any wish or desire,
it's that it is not seen as a tragedy.
I've, mountains have given me so much,
much more than I can ask for,
so if it happens to me
here on this particular
climb, I really would want, like,
all my friends, relatives, girlfriend,
parents, just to see, you know,
it's part of life that
I've been very happy with,
and as I said, not to
be seen as a tragedy,
as something sad or terrible.
That's something that I
would really like to happen.
At the crack of dawn,
Andrew heads for Camp Two.
He likes to leave early so he can
avoid the crippling heat of the afternoon.
Back at basecamp, an offering of juniper
burns for safety.
This smoldering fire is lit whenever
a member of Team Discovery
is on the mountain.
At 5:30 AM, Hector also heads for Camp Two
with Ben and Shaunna hot on his heels.
Ben has split the team in two.
Hector and Andrew will go for the summit
as soon as possible.
Ben and Shaunna will wait
for the crowds to thin out.
They'll try to summit in a week.
Ben is climbing to Camp Two this morning
so he can organize the
expedition from there.
Shaunna is going up to feel
like a part of the team.
Try to put two on.
No, two bars, you're balancing on one.
There.
There, there.
Better.
Okay, make sure, hold it.
Come on, focus.
Walk it, there, there.
Better.
Okay, make sure, hold it.
Before coming
here, Ben and Shaunna
dreamed of standing on
the summit together.
Tomorrow, they'll stand
together at Camp Two
waving goodbye to Andrew and Hector
who will make their way towards
the highest piece of land on Earth.
Shaunna wants to go to
the summit with them,
but Ben is making her
way so he can stagger
his climbers and maximize his chances
of getting a video camera to the top.
It's hard to believe that
the world's tallest mountain
would have a big city
problem, but this morning,
there's a rush hour traffic
jam on Mount Everest.
50 climbers are on the same schedule,
all hoping to summit on the 15th of May.
Andres Delgado is
leading a commercial team
in the most dramatic fashion, he's trying
to summit without oxygen,
a deadly proposition.
- I know I'm gonna be
sad if I don't make it.
I'm not gonna die here.
There are reasons more important
to be alive right now.
If I don't make it, I mean, I'm gonna
give it as many tries as my strength
allows me, but if I cannot make it,
I'll just go home and hug my wife.
Nobody thinks he's gonna be the one
who's gonna die, you know?
You want to think that you are able to
turn back before things turn too bad,
but I want to show strength here,
trying, daring to dream.
That's what nobody dares
these days, dare to dream.
Will Cross dares to dream.
This diabetic wants to
climb the highest mountain
on every continent and get to both
North and South Poles on foot.
So far, he's skied to both Poles
and has summited four
of the seven mountains.
Everest will be the next
notch in his climbing harness.
If he can make it.
- The only thing I question with Will
is whether he'll be able
to sustain the breakdown
that happens, and certainly once
you get above Camp Two
and into Camp Three,
the breakdown can be violent on the body,
and I don't know if his affliction
will actually not allow his
body to recover quick enough
or that the breakdown
will be that much more
violent with him than it
would be with somebody else.
On her final day at Camp Two,
Annabelle Bond is reevaluating her needs.
Vanity carries a lot of
weight for Annabelle,
so she must ask herself, is she really
dying to be seen in lipstick.
- I was too heavy on my backpack,
that's something I confess, I was wrong.
And I had to give some of my clothes
from pack to Andrónico
to carry, and I always
see this as a sense of failure, because
I always think you should
carry your own stuff,
that's part of my deal.
I always sneak in a couple
of creams, my lipstick,
and I know I shouldn't, so I always
feel like I should take my own stuff.
And Andrónico carried a few
of my clothes, my water,
and we got to Camp Two in like four hours,
which is really slow from Camp One.
And miraculously, I felt a lot better
when I got to camp, so I don't know,
I have to take a good look at whether
I'm focusing properly, like, whether I've
got the mental ability,
which is what it takes
to get to the top of Everest
or whether I'm just slacking off a bit.
One group
that never slacks off
are the sherpas, they work continuously,
and they get paid well.
The head climbing Sherpa will make
over $9,000 U.S. while men in the kitchen
will earn between $1,500 and $3,000 U.S.
for their two months work.
This in a country where the average income
is $250 U.S. a year, this is a good job.
Andrew arrives in Camp
Two and radios basecamp.
- Discovery, base, Discovery, base,
from Andrew, Camp Two, over.
A thousand
vertical meters below Andrew,
his call is received in
Team Discovery's orange
dome tent.
The communications expert,
Mike Swarbrick has been waiting
with good news, the weather
at the summit is changing.
The weather on the summit
of Mount Everest means
basically one thing, the
jet stream, where is it?
If it's cutting across the
summit, the weather's bad,
if the jet stream avoids the summit,
the weather is good.
Imagine you're in a jumbo
jet cruising at 8,848 meters,
the height of Mount Everest.
Now imagine your plane
hits violent turbulence,
the wind that can toss
around a 747 is the same
wind the climbers must deal with.
On the mountain, you can't
buckle up for safety,
so weather reports are
listened to religiously.
According to the
European weather service--
15, the morning is a bit windy.
It calms in the afternoon.
One potential problem would be higher
moisture levels up to Camp
Four, higher humidities.
The 16th looks great and improves,
the winds improve right
through to the 20th, over.
- Holy moly, okay, thanks for that, Mike,
that's great news.
The latest forecast is better
than Andrew had dared even hope for.
A six day string of clear, calm days
that could allow every healthy climber
to summit without a problem.
But that creates its own problem.
Ben calls a meeting to
talk about the weather
and the plans of other teams.
He thinks it would be
safer to avoid the rush
and let the other climbers summit first.
Avoiding traffic jams is crucial to Ben's
recipe for success.
- Right from the beginning, when we had
group discussions in terms of climbing
strategy, it was always to push to the
front edge just so that we could
not be caught in the sort of, you know,
the sort of--
Masses.
- Yeah, the masses, the
lemming march that happens.
It might
sound redundant, but when
Team Discovery is climbing, Ben wants them
to climb, he doesn't want them
standing still, stuck in
lineups, freezing to death.
- The last thing you want to be doing
is be in a position where you're in with
50 other climbers, some
of which are very suspect.
In 1996,
a pack of slow climbers
held up progress near the summit
and created a bottleneck of people.
When a vicious storm blew
through, 16 of them died.
Ben's decision is to hold
Hector and Andrew back
for another 24 hours.
It's a tough call for him to make,
but it's even tougher for Andrew to hear.
- The risk there, of course, is that
we could lose the good weather,
the forecast said the 15th
of May will be very good.
If that weather then
deteriorates, we could
have lost our one and
only summit opportunity
on this expedition, which
would be quite tragic.
But more tragic would be to get caught up
there with other teams in bad weather
and have another potential '96,
so we've decided to sit here for a day.
It's frustrating, but it's
probably the best decision.
- Decisions, decisions.
Will Cross is moving so slowly, he decides
to abandon his plan of
climbing to Camp Two,
choosing instead to stop at Camp One.
After living with diabetes for 25 years
and climbing seriously for eight,
Will knows the limits of his body.
- See, now the sun's up, so the heat
creates the Khumbu oven.
We're actually just gonna stay at One
rather than get melted by the heat
and what the Swiss call, I think,
the Valley of Silence or
the Khumbu waktu, Camp Two.
Going up slowly, never a bad idea.
Everest may seem
like a whole other world,
but it's not.
This is part of the Earth we all inhabit.
Will is going to be reminded of that
the next time he goes down to basecamp.
His wife is on her way there.
She'll be waiting for him.
Rising with the sun, Annabelle Bond
is on pins and needles as she hugs
her team manager, Rodrigo.
This is it, she's headed for
the summit of Mount Everest.
Will she live, will she die?
All she knows is that her plan tonight
is to camp just below
the 8,000 meter mark.
Tomorrow, if all goes well, she'll climb
to the highest point
of land on the planet.
- That was sort of an emotional departure,
saying goodbye to Rodrigo and Pipe.
It really feels like we're going for it.
And there's a lot of
people going up today,
there's about 30 people ahead of us.
I'm feeling good, just a little teary.
But I'm sure I'll recover soon, I hope so
as the pain kicks in.
Team
Discovery enjoys the luxury
of sleeping in.
Today is not a climbing day for them.
Andrew and Hector will head
for the summit tomorrow
while Ben and Shaunna will remain in their
cocoon until some time after May 20th.
Shaunna reveals what it's
like to climb with your lover.
- It's very nice.
Yeah?
- It makes the journey much more enjoyable
and much more warm.
- If they succeed, Ben and Shaunna
will be the first Canadian couple
to make it to the summit
of Everest together.
- Yeah, it is, it's a
double edged sword though,
because on one hand, yeah, you get all
the benefits of having
somebody share your sleeping
bag and your warmth and all that stuff.
The flip side to it is, you also
end up thinking about
that person a lot more,
especially up on the mountain.
- If anything were to happen to me,
I know that he would be right there
to help me out, and vice versa.
If anything ever happened to him,
I would do everything in my power
to help him out, so it gives
me a lot of confidence.
- That's such a right, such a good answer.
Such the right thing to say?
- Well, it's true.
Even though
all the weather forecasts
said that Mount Everest would be calm
for the next six days, the wind is slicing
through the Western Cwm, the valley Will
is headed through on his way to Camp Two.
For the climbers headed to Camp Three,
this strong wind could
shatter their dreams.
Getting turned around by weather
during the final summit
push often means defeat.
- You got about 50
people in place right now
who are gunning for the summit, meaning
there's high anxiety, a
lot of physical output,
and of course there's a
lot of money on the line
for a lot of people.
And what it comes down to is high winds.
Mother nature taking control,
as she does and will.
And different teams and their strategists
now have to make decisions in terms of,
can they get their guys
to the summit and back
fast enough, is it even worth going
up to Camp Three, are
you gonna get stalled
at 24,000 feet and just
exhaust your oxygen supply
and your climbers themselves?
So, what you tend to have right now
is, a lot of concern about the weather
and a lot of concern about
what other people are gonna do,
who's gonna go for the summit when.
At sea level,
Annabelle is capable
of running back to back marathons,
but this is not sea level.
Halfway up the Lhotse face
at 7,000 meters altitude,
she is more fatigued than
she's ever been in her life.
The air pressure up here is just 40%
of what it is in London, England.
Meaning, at this altitude,
Annabelle must take
two and a half breaths for
every one she'd take at home.
Even resting, her heart
beats twice a second.
To make the situation more dire,
Annabelle's hands are still recovering
from a recent case of frostbite.
The circulation in her digits are so weak
that she's losing her grip.
If she's not careful,
she'll lose her fingers.
If she's not lucky, she'll lose her life.
Dear.
Clap clap.
- Real cold
Thank you.
Thanks, that's better.
What hurts?
- Everything.
Yeah, okay, good.
- It's taking a while
just to catch my breath.
My hands are cold and I just
feel like taking a breather.
I hate having all these
people behind me on the line.
I really feel pushed to just go fast.
But Annabelle can't go fast,
in fact, she can't go at all.
She's unable to move her ascender.
It's exhausting trying to
work your equipment with these gloves.
Annabelle
doesn't want to be a burden
on her team, she wants
to be self-sufficient,
but she's losing dexterity in her fingers.
As a climber, this is
where she needs to make
a responsible decision.
Is it safe for her to keep climbing up
or should she bow out.
Thanks.
Thank you.
She accepts
the help from her guide
and prepares to head
stubbornly up the mountain.
Armchair critics say that
communal safety lines
have made climbing Mount Everest too easy.
They should come here and say that.
Mount Everest is studded
with haunting reminders
that human beings really
shouldn't be here.
As Annabelle enters Camp Three,
she arrives at the shredded tents
that belonged to a past team.
These flapping yellow flags were supposed
to be their shelter.
It's not a comforting sight.
After eight hours of climbing, Annabelle
can see her tent, but
she wants to lie down
and rest right here.
It's one hell of a mountain.
It's one tough challenge
is how I would put it.
You can glance up at the Lhotse face
and think, my god, can I do that?
But I think if you just resort to that
one step at a time and
just take it slowly,
I think it's, you know, if you feel good
and the weather's okay,
I think it's doable.
In the Western
Cwm, the strong wind
is getting stronger.
Will Cross is concerned
about the gusting conditions,
but he's even more concerned about his
less than stellar performance.
- No energy and no tank.
Which I don't recommend.
Because it hurts.
With the Lhotse
face looming in front of him,
Will shuffles toward Camp Two.
Already there, Andrew and Hector
giddily prepare their bags.
Tomorrow they'll continue their summit bid
by heading for Camp Three.
It's the morning of
May 14th, a perfect day
for climbing Everest.
At Camp Two, Andrew and Hector are making
the final preparations for
their big push up the mountain.
- Just packing up the gear.
Just about everything that we have here
at Camp Two needs to come
with us to Camp Three,
so that's our sleeping
bags, our down suits,
a mid layer of clothing,
our eating equipment,
water bottles, camera gear,
all the big, heavy mitts,
sunscreen, it's gonna be quite a load.
We'll end up carrying, not too much,
but probably about 15 kilos.
Whilst this extra day
at Camp Two was pretty
much forced on us by circumstance,
I think it's working
very much in our favor.
The weather forecast
for the 16th was great.
It gave us an extra day
to recover at Camp two
after our climb up from basecamp.
And I feel strong, I feel super psyched
and ready to go, so I
think it's really good,
I'm happy to get on with it.
Shaunna wants to go
with Hector and Andrew, but Ben
has made his decision and
he sticks by his guns.
He and Shaunna will wait to climb sometime
after May 20th when the crowd thins out.
- My shots waiting, but
I'm actually super excited
for the boys, I have
complete confidence in them,
I think they're gonna do a fantastic job.
I don't think anything's gonna stop them
except maybe, you know, the weather
or something that's out of their control,
but I think everything
that's within their control,
they're not gonna have a problem at all.
There's a
joke that goes, climbing
Everest is 50% physical and 90% mental.
Hector understands, his mind has been
playing tricks on him.
- I was a little down, honestly.
That's sometimes the
problem of not doing nothing
for a day up here, that you're like
emotional energy just goes down.
But once you know you gotta
move, then it comes back.
Andrew and
Hector plan on climbing
to Camp Three today.
Tomorrow morning, they head to Camp Four,
then in the middle of the night,
they'll steal the summit.
- My pleasure, guys.
This is your story, go tell it.
- We will.
Thanks for all the support.
- My pleasure, man.
- We'll see you, Shaunna.
- Thanks, see you in a few days.
- Talk to you soon.
- Okay.
- There's an element there of excitement
to watch them go up and get it done.
It's always an exciting
time, always, always, always.
A thousand meters above Ben,
Annabelle has on her oxygen mask
and glacier glasses.
Underneath that, she on mascara,
all the essentials for a Bond girl
headed for the summit of Mount Everest.
This is a proud moment for Annabelle.
Her impossible dream is
actually within reach.
- It makes all the difference,
I mean the oxygen.
I'll take it off to talk
whenever we take a break,
but it's enabled me to
have a great night sleep.
We'll see how we do today.
Yeah, I'm nervous, but I think that's
only natural when you've got
a climb like Everest ahead.
But I'm feeling good here and, you know,
just gonna give it my best shot.
Andres is leading
his team out of Camp Two.
The members carry oxygen as a precaution,
but they still don't intend on using it.
- What an incredible day for going up
the Lhotse face.
Beautiful, sunshine, not too much wind,
not too cold, and feeling on top of it.
Can't ask for much more.
This is great, glad that
we're here together.
Together is
the operative word today.
Almost 50 climbers have
begun their final push
for the summit.
Their lineup on the steep trail
looks stagnant, but it's not.
Climbers are able to fall into a rhythm
with only themselves and
the mountain in their focus.
As 50 climbers head for the summit,
one heads down.
Shaunna Burke feels ready to climb,
but her boyfriend, the expedition leader,
Ben Webster, is sending
her back to basecamp
so she can rest before her summit attempt,
which will hopefully
happen sometime next week.
Emotions and mountain
climbing are a dangerous
combination, that's why you don't see
many couples up here.
- For someone I care about a great deal,
very hard decision, and as she was crying
in the tent with me saying to her,
you know, at the end of
the day, it's my call.
- I was very, very disappointed.
I felt super strong at the time,
I knew I was ready, the weather was great,
and I know that when
you're in the mountains,
your opportunity to summit
can be very minimal.
- By sending Shaunna
down and me having to be
up here to manage the summit pushes,
I probably won't be able to get down for
a few more days if I get down at all,
depending on when the weather
comes in for the next push.
Very difficult, you can
feel your energy draining
everyday when you're sitting up here,
and not the best place to be.
And then the knowledge that at some point,
hopefully in the near future, I'll have to
go high on the mountain and go to
at least 8,000 meters,
and that is a hard process
for me right now, because
I do feel drained.
Ben is having
second thoughts about
going for the summit.
He's been there before, he knows the pain.
At the 7,600 meter mark on Mount Everest,
there is a distinctive seam of pure marble
called the Yellow Band.
Incredibly, this area is
full of marine fossils,
meaning this piece of
Earth was once underwater.
Annabelle would marvel at that irony,
but she has bigger fish to fry.
She has to figure out
which one of these ropes
is this year's safety line.
If she clips into the wrong
one, it could easily snap.
Climbing up the Yellow Band
is a hard way to have fun.
The pointy steel crampons the climbers
have attached to their
boots are designed for ice.
On marble, they're worse
than skates on concrete.
Even with bottled oxygen, breathing rates
at this altitude are so accelerated,
climbers sound like they're
constantly panicking.
If Andrónico falls during
the act of detaching
and reattaching his safety line,
his vertical drop will be uninterrupted
for a full kilometer.
Maybe he is panicking.
Down on the Lhotse face, the conditions
for Andrew are not much safer.
- Half the oxygen means
my brain is only getting
half the oxygen of all.
Any mistake on the ropes
is going to be fatal.
So when I change over, when I come
to a knot like this, I have to remember,
first carabiner, then the ascender.
If I do it the other way,
I'm going to come unstuck
and take a big fall to the bottom
like so many other climbers have done
on this face over the years.
We're very, very close to our tents
at Camp Three, and I'm glad because
although it's been a
beautiful day, not too cold.
The climbing's been fairly tough,
and I'm getting very tired,
I can feel it in myself.
Back at advanced basecamp,
things are a little more relaxed.
- Camp Two, this is Camp Three,
do you copy, over?
Hi,
Hector, how are you buddy?
I heard you're in Camp
Three, well done, over.
- Yeah, we just walked
into camp a minute ago.
And we're doing great.
- Here's the, here's the situation, bud,
I don't know if your radio's been on
so you can hear this,
but here is an update.
Lama and the Chileans
just reached the call
maybe 15 minutes ago, 10 minutes ago,
and it's just pounding in there.
- It's freezing, I also
want to get some sleep
before we leave at 10:00 o'clock tonight
to try and summit.
We're actually waking up at 8:00.
I can see the lack of oxygen in the air.
I'm very happy to be here, and I'm scared
about what tomorrow entails.
Anyway, tomorrow's going
to be one tough day,
who knows what's gonna happen.
I don't even know if I'm doing it.
Anyway, that's it for the South Call.
I'm gonna put my mask on.
The South Call,
Camp Four, the death zone.
The place where Annabelle is right now
is called many things, none of them nice.
Annabelle is dying right now.
Everyone at this altitude is.
They need rest.
The team will sleep, if that's possible,
for six hours, then they'll
head for the history books.
The summit of Mount Everest is Annabelle's
next order of business.
Camp Three?
- Camp Three.
Good to be here.
The peak of
Mount Everest is within sight.
Team Discovery's professional climbers
are in Camp Three, elevation 7,500 meters.
Just staying alive up here is hard work.
- We need to start
melting snow right away.
For that, we need a stove and propane,
to drink as much as possible.
Sometimes up here, you don't realize it,
but you, by the minute, you're just losing
water, you're dehydrating because
you breathe much harder,
and just from breathing,
you lose a lot of water,
so that's what's next.
Melt snow, prepare drinks,
and just drink a lot.
- I'm collecting snow
for the drinking water,
probably before we go tomorrow morning
to Camp Four, we'll have to do this
two or three more times to get enough
water to drink and to eat tonight.
I'm doing it now while it's warm.
Hector can do it later when it's cold.
As a murderous wind rips
through the Buddhist prayer flags
of Camp Four, Annabelle sits in her tent,
defying the skeptics.
- So here we are, the eve
before one of the biggest
days of my life.
Yeah, I'm a little teary, I'm nervous,
I really want to do it, I
know it's gonna be hell,
it's gonna be pushing
through a pain barrier,
which I don't think I've ever done before.
I need to get some sleep before I put
in this huge exertion, we're thinking
it's gonna be 18 hours if we're lucky,
and yeah, wish me luck,
that's all I have to say.
Wish all of our team luck.
I guess we're feeling the best we can.
My headaches getting worse as I carry on
talking to you, I haven't
washed my hair in days,
being a girl, that's important.
And yeah, I don't want to spend too much
time on the South Call, it's an altitude
record for me, we're at 8,000 meters.
I'm cheating a little bit because
I'm on oxygen, but it's
definitely a new high.
And if I get no further than
this, I've done my best.
Mount Everest
can be a lonely place.
Shaunna is by herself at basecamp
wondering what will happen to her dream.
Ben is at Camp Two stressing over details
he often can't control.
And Andrew is at Camp
Three dreaming of a meal
he can't have.
As the sun drops over the Khumbu Valley,
former climbing partners,
Andres and Hector
share a moment of beauty and peace.
For elite mountaineers,
this loneliness is heaven.
It's a great day to be alive.
On the next episode of
Ultimate Survival: Everest,
Annabelle Bond goes for the summit.
- That frantic screaming is because
I'm about to run out
of oxygen, and I really
don't want that to happen.
Without
oxygen, Andres Delgado
suffers intensely.
And Ben must
reevaluate his own ambition.
- I'm struggling.
It feels like I'm gonna
vomit most of the time,
which is never fun.
I'm just really suffering.