Non-Fiction Highlights: Everest

The film script was drawn from several non-fiction books that were written about the event, most notably Texan pathologist Beck Weathers’ account, Left for Dead: My Journey Home From Everest. Weathers was a member of Rob Hall’s Adventure Consultants expedition, along with Jon Krakauer who went on to write the most well-known account, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Everest Disaster. Krakauer, because of his mountaineering experience, was assigned by Outside Magazine to write an article about the growing commercialisation of climbing Mount Everest. He joined the Adventure Consultants’ commercial expedition when Hall outbid a rival American expedition led by mountaineer Scott Fischer. Both expeditions set out from Camp IV (7,925 m) on the South Col late on the night of 9 May, aiming to summit before an agreed turnaround time of 2pm the next day. The killer storm began rolling in about 1:30pm. All of Fischer’s clients who summited made it back alive, but Fischer became incapacitated while descending on the exposed Southeast Ridge where he died. The members of Adventure Consultants’ expedition who died in the storm were leader Rob Hall, one of his guides, Andy Harris, and clients Doug Hansen and Yasuko Namba. The bodies of Harris and Hansen were never found. The three other climbers who died on the mountain that day were part of an Indian expedition climbing the North Face.

Krakauer controversially wrote about two of Fischer’s team members: elite Russian mountaineer and expedition guide Anatoli Boukreev, and client and wealthy socialite Sandy Hill Pittman. Although employed as a guide, Boukreev overtook all his team members to summit alone and without oxygen. He then descended back to Camp IV, where he was while the storm raged on the mountain. Krakauer was critical of both behaviours, believing a guide should use oxygen and should stay with his clients. In Boukreev’s defence, he was strong enough to effectively search out and rescue climbers stranded on the South Col. Boukreev felt slighted by Krakauer and wrote his own version of the disaster, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest to restore his reputation. Reinhold Messner, world-class mountaineer, knew Boukreev, who was killed in an avalanche on Annapurna in 1997. Messner was interviewed in 2011* and supported Krakauer’s description of Boukreev, saying that the author had got him absolutely right, and that he only climbed for himself. Pittman was reporting for the NBC website during her ascent and although she had already summited six of the Seven Summits (the highest mountains on each continent), Krakauer cast her as the epitome of the rich client buying her way to the top. She reportedly arrived at Base Camp with an espresso maker in her luggage, and her weighty electronic equipment was carried up the mountain by one of Fischer’s Sherpa guides.

Experienced Danish mountaineer Lene Gammelgaard was a client and friend of Fischer’s. She wrote her own account of her experience, Climbing High: A Woman’s Account of Surviving the Everest Tragedy. She was well aware that most climbers die on the descent, after summiting, and her mental preparation for her ascent was a mantra: “to the summit and safe return.” She was, together with Weathers and Pittman, amongst a group of climbers and guides who became lost in the whiteout conditions on the South Col as they tried to find Camp IV. They became known as ‘The Huddle’ – cold, exhausted and hypoxic, they huddled together to keep warm and keep each other awake. During the night the sky briefly cleared: one of the guides immediately became oriented and led some of the stronger climbers back to the camp. Boukreev returned to rescue the remaining members of Fischer’s team. Namba was too weak to stand and Weathers lay out of sight in the snow – both were left for dead. The next morning, a client and some guides from Adventure Consultants returned and found Namba had died while Weathers was unconscious - he was left for dead again. Then in the late afternoon Weathers stumbled into Camp IV, badly frost-bitten on his face and hands. He was immediately placed in a sleeping bag with hot water bottles, given oxygen and fluid, but was not expected to survive the night. The climbers began to descend the following morning, and Krakauer, one of the last climbers to leave, looked in on Weathers. To his astonishment he saw he was still alive and immediately raised the alarm. Ed Viesturs and David Breashears were part of a team of mountaineers who were making an IMAX film about Everest, and who were located at Camp II when the storm struck. Their team played a major role in the rescue, making available their supplies of oxygen cached at Camp IV, and helping the exhausted climbers descend. Their account is related in Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, by Broughton Coburn.

*Video clip available on Youtube.

More recommended titles about the thrills and perils of climbing Mount Everest:

Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest’s Most Controversial Season. Nick Heil
A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest’s Worst Disaster: The Untold True Story. Graham Ratcliffe
Going Up is Easy: The First Woman to Ascend Everest Without Oxygen. Lydia Bradey
High Adventure. Sir Edmund Hillary
Legs on Everest: The Full Story of His Most Remarkable Adventure Yet. Mark Inglis
Mountain Madness: Scott Fischer, Mount Everest and a Life Lived on High. Robert Birkby
The Mountain: My Time on Everest. Ed Viesturs
No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks. Ed Viesturs
Touching My Father’s Soul: In the Footsteps of Sherpa Tenzing. Jamling Tenzing Norgay