The story of a tragedy on Everest in the interpretation of two films. Russian hero of Everest
Which was covered in Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air(1997), his film adaptation Into Thin Air: Death on Everest(1997) as well as films Everest(1998) and Everest(2015) , Autobiographical book of weather, titled Left to Dead: My Journey Home by Everest(2000) includes his ordeal, but also describes his life before and after, how he focused on maintaining his damaged relationships.
Youth and personal life
Weathers was born into a military family. He attended college in Wichita Falls, Texas, and is married with two children. In 1986, he enrolled in a mountaineering course, and then decided to try climbing the Seven Summits. He considered Richard Bass, the first person to climb the Seven Summits, an "inspiration" that made climbing Everest possible for "ordinary guys". In 1993, Weathers was making a guided ascent of the Vinson Mountain Range, where he collided with Sandy Pittman, whom he would later meet on Everest in 1996.
Mount Everest
In May 1996, Weathers was one of eight clients targeting Everest at Rob Hall Adventure Consultants. Weathers, who had recently had radial keratotomy surgery, soon discovered that he was blinded by the effects of high altitude and excessive ultraviolet radiation, high altitude effects that were not well documented at the time. May 10, the day of the attack summit, Hall, after being told Weathers could not see how he wanted to go down to Camp IV immediately. He, however, thought his eyesight might improve when the sun came out, so Hall advised him to wait on the balcony (27,000 feet, on Everest's 29,000 feet) until Hall came back down to come down with him.
Hall, while helping another client reach the summit, did not return, and later died further up the mountain. Weathers eventually began to descend with accompanying Michael Bridegroom, who was short-tying him. When the blizzard hit, Weathers and 10 other climbers became disoriented in the storm and couldn't find Camp IV. By the time there was a break in the storm a few hours later, Weathers was so weakened that he and four other men and women remained there so the others could call for help. Boukreev, the leader of another expedition led by Scott Fisher, came and rescued several climbers, but at that time, Weathers got up and disappeared into the night. The next day, another client on the Hall team, Stuart Hutchison, and two Sherpas arrived to check on Weathers status and client employee Yasuko Namba. Believing Weathers and Namba were both close to death and would not make it off the mountain alive, Hutchison and the others left them and returned to Camp IV.
Weathers spent the night in an open bivouac, in a snowstorm, his face and hands exposed. When he awakens, he has managed to descend into Camp IV under his own authority. His fellow climbers say his frozen hand and nose looked and felt like they were made of porcelain, and they didn't expect him to survive. Under this assumption that they were only trying to make him comfortable until he died, but he survived another freezing night alone in a tent, unable to eat, drink, or keep himself covered in sleeping bags, he was granted. His cries for help could not be heard above the blizzard, and his companions were surprised to find him alive and coherent the next day.
Later, Weathers was helped to walk, on cold feet, to the lower camp, where he was the subject of one of the highest altitude medical evacuations ever performed by helicopter. Following his helicopter evacuation from West Cwm, his right arm was amputated midway between his elbow and wrist. All five fingers on the left hand were amputated, as well as parts of both legs. His nose was amputated and
Despite all the difficulties and a small chance of survival, you either become history or write it. This list includes those who were able to cheat death, whether it was a fluke or an incredible will to live.
It was not an easy feat, and even more so not an easy one for the time when the pioneer settlers were looking for a better life. In May 1846, James F. Reed and George Donner led a train bound for California. Hoping to reach their destination before the snowfall, they chose a new route called the Hastings Cut, over the objections of the majority. Though it should have been the easiest route, the Donner-Reed group was stuck in the snowy Sierra Nevada all winter. Their food was running out, which means that some had to resort to cannibalism. In the end, only 48 out of 87 people survived to tell the story.
This American colonist had a great tolerance for pain. In 1823, Hugh Glass was in the fur trade with a dozen other men when they encountered a grizzly bear and that was where his agony began. The bear was killed by those who came to the rescue, at the cost of multiple lacerations and a broken leg, Glass endured this fateful meeting, but became a burden and the remaining members of the expedition wrote him off. He was promised a funeral and left two people with him to take care of him after his death. But the volunteers fled, taking all possible things. Having come to his senses and not finding anything useful at hand, Glass decided to go to the nearest fort, crawling. He managed to survive by eating pasture and prevent gangrene by using larvae to eat the dead tissue.
Those who are trying to conquer Everest keep two thoughts in mind - reach the top and stay alive. On May 10, 1996, 49-year-old Beck Weathers suffered from health problems during his ascent. After he was practically blind, he began to wait for his guide, when suddenly a snowstorm hit. Falling unconscious into the snow, a group of climbers abandoned Weathers, believing him to be dead. After lying like this for some time in sub-zero temperatures, he returned to the camp a day and a half later. Despite the fact that 15 people died on that expedition, the lucky man did not get off with a slight fright. Weathers lost his nose, his entire right hand, and most of his left.
What started as a simple sailing trip from Maine to Florida for a crew of 5 quickly turned into an absolute nightmare. After a shipwreck, in a storm in October 1982, the five ended up in an inflatable boat and, due to the lack of supplies and water, in the company of a wounded girl, the comrades began to go crazy. Two guys jumped off and were eaten by sharks, and the wounded girl died of blood poisoning. What are the chances of saving a couple of people on the high seas? But they were lucky, a Soviet freighter passed by and picked up his comrades.
September 13, 1848 Gage was in charge of blasting rocks for laying railway. He was injured in the explosion from a metal rod that flew into his head. Having lost an eye and part of the frontal lobe of the brain, Gage was conscious. Despite the fact that Phineas Gage recovered from such an injury, friends claimed that he had changed too much. Doctors confirmed that the damaged part of the brain affected the change in the psyche and emotional nature.
In April 2003, Ralston went on a routine hike in one of the Utah canyons. After an unexpected collapse that crushed the climber's hand with a boulder, he had to spend 5 days waiting for help, which never came. As a result, after running out of food and water, he had to take hard decision about amputation own hand penknife. However, this painful and agonizing act ultimately saved his life. Having managed to walk several kilometers under the scorching sun, he met tourists who helped him get to the hospital.
While Olympic runner and former World War II POW Luis Zamperini spent 47 days drifting at sea, this story is about a man who lived 13 months drifting in pacific ocean. In November 2012, two fishermen, José Salvador Alvarenga and Ezekiel Cordoba, set sail off the coast of Mexico but were thrown off course by a storm. Having lost his will to live, Cordova stopped eating and died, leaving Alvarenga to consider the alternative of suicide for many months. Surviving on urine, sea birds, turtles and fish, on the 438th day, the sailor's boat was washed up on one of the Marshall Islands, where he was helped.
On Friday 13th October 1972, the Uruguayan rugby team, along with their families and friends, flew over the Andes for their upcoming match. Terrible weather conditions led to a plane crash on a peak called the Glacier of Tears. Some of the passengers died in the fall. Two months later, Nando Parrado and his friend Roberto Canessa made an 11-day march without equipment and food. Exhausted, they met a shepherd who helped them get to the village and call rescuers to the plane.
Although built to maneuver in the ice, the ship known as the Endurance got stuck in the ice of the Weddell Sea in December 1914. Turning the stranded ship into a winter camp, Shackleton intended to wait for a convenient opportunity to break out of the icy chains, but over time, damage to the ship did not allow his plans to come true. The ship sank, all the animals had to be killed. Due to the lack of the ability to move on the ice, the team had to take lifeboats. Thus, the team was at sea for 497 days, but thanks to Shackleton's leadership, not a single member of the crew died.
Few survive plane crashes, but nothing compares to the fall of Vulović. In January 1972, stewardess Vesna Vulovich was on an in-flight plane when a bomb exploded. Although Vulovich survived after falling from a height of 10 thousand meters, she does not remember anything about the landing. And this is not so scary, because she was the only survivor of the crash, escaped with a fracture of the base of the skull, three vertebrae, both legs and the pelvis. The first days she was in a coma. The treatment lasted 16 months, 10 of which she was paralyzed from the waist down. In 1985, her name was entered into the Guinness Book of Records as a survivor of a fall from the high altitude.
Rob Hall, leader of the Adventure Consultants, fell behind his group on the descent from the summit and was freezing at 8,500 meters. He radioed to base camp and was connected by satellite to his pregnant wife in New Zealand.
"I love you. Good night, my dear. Don't worry too much about me," were his last words. Twelve days later, two Americans from the IMAX expedition, whose path passed through the South Summit of Everest, found an icy body. The hall lay on its side, half covered with snow.
May 10, 1996. The highest point of the Earth (8848 meters) is Mount Chomolungma or Everest, as it is called by the Sahibs (“white people” is a polite name for a European in colonial India). One day, one snowstorm and five dead climbers.
How did it all happen
Two commercial groups - "Mountain Madness" and "Adventure Consultants" consisting of 30 people, among which were 6 high-class guides, 8 Sherpas and 16 commercial clients, led by their leaders - American Scott Fisher and New Zealander Rob Hall - went on the assault summits of Everest before dawn on May 10th. By the evening of May 11, five of them were already dead, including Fisher and Hall.
Almost immediately after the start of the assault on the summit, unplanned delays began due to the fact that the Sherpas did not have time to hang the rope railing along the route of the groups. Before the Hillary Step - the most important and difficult part of the ascent - the climbers lost almost an hour due to the lack of insurance and a long line of climbers. By 5:30 am, when the first climbers reached the Balcony (8350 m) - another delay for the same reason.
This height is already part of the "death zone", dooming a person to death. At altitudes above 8000 meters, the human body completely loses its ability to recover and, in fact, enters the stage of slow dying.
By 10:00 am, the first member of the Adventure Consultants expedition, 53-year-old Frank Fishbeck, decides to turn back. At 11:45 in front of the South Summit, another client of the Hall, Lou Kazischke, decides to abandon the attempt. Stuart Hutchinson and John Taske also decide to turn back. And this is only 100 meters from the summit of Everest in wonderful weather - such a difficult decision, but, in the end, it may have saved the lives of all four.
“I took off my glove and saw that all my fingers were frostbitten. Then he took another - the same thing. I suddenly felt how tired I was. Other than that, unlike most of my comrades, I didn't need to climb at any cost. Of course, I wanted to conquer the summit. But… I live in Detroit. I would go back to Detroit and say, "I've conquered Everest." They would answer me: “Everest, right? Great. By the way, did you hear how our guys played against the Pittsburgh Penguins yesterday?”
Lou Kazishke
Anatoly Bukreev was the first to reach the summit of Everest at about 1 pm, climbing without the use of additional oxygen. Hall's client Jon Krakauer followed him to the top, followed by Adventure Consultants guide Andy Harris. At twenty-five past one, Mountain Madness guide Neil Beidleman and Fisher's client Martin Adams showed up. But all the following climbers were strongly delayed. By 2:00 pm, when you need to start descending in any case, not all clients reached the summit, and having climbed it, they spent an unacceptably long time photographing and rejoicing.
At 15:45 Fisher reported to the base camp that all the clients had ascended the mountain. “God, how tired I am,” he added, and indeed, according to eyewitnesses, he was in an extremely exhausted physical condition. The time to return was critically missed.
Boukreev, who was the first to reach the summit, could not stay there for a long time without a supply of oxygen and began the descent first in order to return to Camp IV, take a break and go up again to help descending clients with additional oxygen and hot tea. He reached the camp by 17:00, when the weather had already deteriorated badly. Krakauer would later, in his book Into Thin Air, falsely accuse Boukreev of running away and leaving his clients in danger. In reality, this was not the case at all.
After some time, following Bukreev, some of the clients begin to descend, and at this moment the weather begins to deteriorate badly.
“Before descending to the Hillary Step, I noticed that some kind of whitish haze was rising from below, from the valleys, and the wind was picking up at the top.”
Lyn Gammelgard
Scott Fisher. Doom
Fischer began his descent together with Sherpa Lopsang and the head of the Taiwanese expedition climbing the same day, Min Ho Gau, but they experienced great difficulties due to their poor physical condition and braked on the Balcony (8230 m). Already closer to the night, Fischer forced Lopsang to go down alone and bring help. By this point, Scott began to develop severe swelling brain.
Lopsang successfully reached Camp IV and tried to find someone to help Fischer, but everyone in the camp was not ready to go up the mountain again and conduct rescue work (Bukreev was saving Sandy Pittman, Charlotte Fox and Tim Madsen at that time). Only by lunchtime the next day, the Sherpas, who had risen to help Fisher, considered his condition hopeless and set about saving Gau. At the camp, they informed Bukreev that they had done everything possible to save Fischer, but he did not believe them and made another attempt to save a friend from the fourth camp after he rescued three other members of the Mountain Madness under the most difficult conditions. By 19:00 on May 11, when Boukreev reached Fischer, he was already dead. The following year, while climbing Everest with an Indonesian expedition, Bukreev paid his last respects to his friend - he overlaid his body with stones and stuck an ice ax over his grave.
Yasuko Namba. Doom
At this time, the Mountain Madness group led by guide Neil Beidleman (Clev Schoening, Charlotte Fox, Timothy Madsen, Sandy Pittman and Lyn Gammelgard), along with members of the Adventure Consultants guide Mike Groom, Beck Withers and Japanese Yasuko Namba - in total 9 people - got lost in the area of the South Summit and could not find the way to the camp in a snowstorm, which limited visibility to literally arm's length. They wandered in the white snowy mess until midnight, until they collapsed exhausted at the very edge of the cliff of the Kanshung wall. All of them suffered from altitude sickness, oxygen had long come to an end, and in such conditions, imminent death awaited them in the very near future. But fortunately for them, the storm soon subsided a little, and they managed to make out the tents of Camp IV only some two hundred meters away. The most experienced Beidleman, along with three other climbers, went for help. Then Bukreev, who was waiting for them in the camp, learned about the scale of the unfolding tragedy and hurried to help.
Bukreev took turns going around the tents of Camp IV and tried to force guides, Sherpas and clients to rise in search of the missing with threats and persuasion. None of them responded to his insistent calls, and Bukreev went alone towards the snowstorm and the gathering darkness.
In this mess, he managed to find the freezing climbers and take Pittman, Fox and Madsen in turn to the fourth camp, actually dragging them on his shoulders these ill-fated 200 meters. The Japanese Namba was already dying, and it was impossible to help her, Withers Bukreev did not notice.
“He did a heroic thing. He did something that an ordinary person could not do.”
Neil Beidleman
On the morning of May 11, Stuart Hutchinson, who went in search of his comrades, found Weathers and Nambu, severely frostbitten, already unconscious and decided that they could not be saved. As hard as it was to make such a decision, he went back to the camp. But a few hours later, Withers reached the camp on his own. It was a pure miracle - they gave him oxygen and put him in a tent, not even hoping that he would survive. But even here his misadventures did not end - the next night, when some of the climbers had already left the camp and went lower, a strong gust of wind destroyed his tent, and he spent another night in the cold, trying to shout to the others.
Only on May 14, in critical condition after a difficult descent to Camp II, he was sent by helicopter to Kathmandu, where doctors managed to save his life. Withers lost his right hand and all the fingers on his left, lost his nose, but survived.
Rob Hall, Doug Hansen, Andy Harris. Doom
Rob Hall and his old client Doug Hansen were the last to descend from the summit. During the descent, Hall radioed his camp and asked for help, reporting that Hansen had passed out at 8,780 meters but was still alive. From the South Summit, Adventure Consultants guide Andy Harris comes out to meet them to deliver oxygen and help on the descent.
On the morning of May 11, the stubborn Rob Hall was still fighting for his life. At 4:43 am, he contacted the base camp and reported that he was near the South Summit. He said that Harris managed to get to them, but Hansen was very sick, and Hall himself had an oxygen tank regulator iced up, and he could not connect it to the mask.
At 5:31, Hall calls back and says "Doug is gone" and Harris has gone missing and still can't get over his mask. Rob Hall is constantly wondering where his clients Weathers and Namba are, and why they are still not in the camp.
By 9:00 a.m., Hall was able to get his oxygen supply back on, but he was already suffering from severe frostbite. He got back in touch and asked to be connected to his wife Jan Arnold in New Zealand. This was the last person with whom he spoke, Hall did not get in touch again.
His body was found twelve days later by members of the IMAX expedition. But the bodies of Harris and Hansen could not be found. Their fate has remained unknown.
On Scott Fisher's "Mountain Madness" expedition, everyone survived except for Fisher himself, who collapsed due to heavy workload during the expedition and died during the descent from the summit. Six clients, two instructors - Beidleman and Boukreev - and four Sherpas summited and returned alive.
Rob Hall's expedition "Adventure Consultants" suffered heavy losses: Hall himself and his old client Doug Hansen died, freezing during the descent, instructor Andy Harris, who came to their aid from below, and Japanese Yasuko Namba, who got lost along with other climbers on the way to fourth camp. A year later, Boukreev found her body and apologized to her husband for failing to save her.
Stories like these make us remember that not everything can be bought, and in order to do really worthwhile things, you need to prepare hard and carefully think through all the little things. But even in this case, mother nature can easily disrupt your plans and in five minutes overthrow you from the top of the world into the abyss of non-existence.
Why did it happen
Conquest of the eight-thousanders is an incredibly difficult task, which certainly implies a certain degree of risk to life. It can be minimized by proper preparation and planning, but at such a height, even small mistakes and accidents, forming into a harmonious chain, growing like a snowball, lead to a great tragedy.
Non-compliance with a rigid schedule of ascent and descent. “If you have not reached altitude Y at hour X, then you must immediately turn back.”
Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants began their ascent at midnight on May 10th. According to the ascent plan, both groups had to reach the ridge by dawn, be at the South Summit by 10:00 or earlier, and at the peak of Everest around noon. But the time of return was not strictly stipulated.
Even by 1 pm on May 10, none of the climbers managed to reach the summit. It wasn't until 4:00 pm that the last two people, among them Rob Hall, the leader of the Adventure Consultants, who himself set the maximum return time, reached the peak. The climbers violated their own plans, and this led to a chain of fatal events that eventually led to tragedy.
Ascent delays
It was planned that the two senior Sherpas (sirdars) Lapsang and Roba would go out on the assault two hours ahead of everyone else and hang a rope railing at the base of the South Summit. But Lapsang showed signs of altitude sickness, and he could not recover. The guides Beidlman and Bukreev had to do the work. This caused a major delay.
But even if the whole path had been properly prepared, this would not have saved the climbers from inevitable delays: on that day, 34 climbers rushed to the top of Everest at once, which caused real traffic jams on the ascent. Climbing three at once large groups climbers in one day is another mistake. You definitely wouldn't want to wait your turn to climb at 8500 meters, shivering with fatigue and biting wind. But the group leaders decided that a large crowd of guides and Sherpas would make it easier for them to cope with deep snow and a difficult route.
Saving Beck Withers.
Height impact
At high altitudes, the human body experiences a powerful negative impact. Reduced Atmosphere pressure, lack of oxygen, low temperatures, aggravated by incredible fatigue from a long ascent - all this adversely affects the physical condition of climbers. The pulse and respiration become more frequent, hypothermia, hypoxia sets in - the body is tested by the mountain for strength.
Common causes of death at these altitudes:
- cerebral edema (paralysis, coma, death) due to lack of oxygen,
- pulmonary edema (inflammation, bronchitis, broken ribs) due to lack of oxygen and low temperatures,
- heart attacks due to lack of oxygen and high loads,
snow blindness, - frostbite. The temperature at such heights drops to -75,
physical exhaustion from exorbitant loads with the complete inability of the body to recover.
But not only the body suffers, mental abilities also suffer. Short-term and long-term memory, the ability to correctly assess the situation, maintain clarity of mind and, as a result, make the right decisions - all this deteriorates at such high altitudes.
The only way to minimize the negative effects of altitude is proper acclimatization. But in the case of the Hall and Fisher groups, the acclimatization schedule for clients could not be maintained due to delays in setting up high-altitude camps and the poor preparation of some clients who either saved their strength for the final assault or, on the contrary, thoughtlessly squandered it (for example, Sandy Pittman instead of resting in the base camp on the eve of the ascent, she went to meet her friends in a village in the foothills of Everest).
Abrupt weather change
When you climb the high pole of the planet, even if you have carefully prepared yourself and your equipment and thought out the ascent plan in great detail, you must win over your most important ally - good weather. Everything should be favorable to you - high temperature, light wind, clear sky. Otherwise, you can forget about a successful ascent. But the problem is that the weather on Everest changes with amazing speed - a real hurricane can come to replace a cloudless sky within an hour. So it happened on May 10, 1996. The bad weather made the descent more difficult, because of a snowstorm on the southwestern slope of Everest, visibility dropped sharply, the snow hid the marks set during the ascent and indicating the path to Camp IV.
Gusts of wind up to 130 km/h raged on the mountain, the temperature dropped to -40 ° C, but in addition to the freezing cold and hurricane wind that threatened to sweep the climbers into the abyss, the storm brought with it another important aspect that affected the survival of people. During such a powerful storm, atmospheric pressure dropped significantly, and, consequently, the partial oxygen content in the air (up to 14%), this further aggravated the situation. Such a low content is practically a critical milestone for people without oxygen supplies (and they have come to an end by this point), suffering from fatigue and hypoxia. All this leads to loss of consciousness, pulmonary edema and the inevitable lethal outcome after a very short time.
Lack of oxygen tanks
Some clients of both groups did not tolerate altitude well, they had to sleep with oxygen during acclimatization trips. The lion's share of oxygen was also eaten by the rescue of the Sherpa "Mountain Madness" Ngawang Topshe, who had to be urgently evacuated from a height using a Gamow bag*. All this reduced the oxygen supply for the ascent to a critical minimum, which was not enough for clients and guides to descend from the summit, as soon as things went wrong.
* Gamow's bag is a special chamber in which the victim is placed. Then the bag is inflated, thereby increasing the pressure in it and increasing the concentration of oxygen, which creates the effect of lowering the height.
Insufficient level of customer training
In the early 1990s, the first commercial expeditions began to appear, focused solely on making a profit, everyone could take part in them. Professional guides took on all the responsibilities: delivering clients to the base camp, organizing accommodation and meals, providing equipment, escorting to the very top with insurance. Capitalism is a cruel thing, so in an effort to line their pockets, most organizers of such expeditions do not tend to pay close attention to the physical condition and high-altitude experience of their clients. If you are willing to pay $65,000 for a non-guaranteed climb attempt, then you automatically become broad-shouldered like Schwarzenegger, hardy like an Ethiopian marathon runner, and experienced like Edmund Hillary himself (first summited Everest in 1953), at least in the eyes of the one to whom you pay money. Because of this approach, commercial expeditions often accept people who are obviously unable to climb to the top.
Neil Beidleman, the guide of the group “Mountain Madness”, confessed to Anatoly Bukreev even before the start of the ascent that “…half of the clients have no chance of reaching the summit; for most of them, the ascent will end already at the South Col (7.900 m).” This approach endangers not only the lives of the clients themselves, but also the success of the entire expedition - there is no right to make a mistake at the height, and the whole team will pay for it. This is partly what happened to Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness, when some of their clients used up exorbitant amounts of oxygen, delayed others along the route, distracted guides from serious work, and, ultimately, could not organize their own rescue.
Harvest of death
In addition to the tragedy with the Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants groups, on May 10, Everest reaped another harvest of death. On the same day, an expedition of the Indo-Tibetan Border Guard Service of 6 people led by Lieutenant Colonel Mohinder Singh climbed the northern slope of the mountain. This group was the first in the season to climb from the North Slope, so the climbers themselves had to fix the rope railing to the top and tread the road in deep snow. Quite tired participants got into a snowstorm on May 10, being just above Camp IV (the last camp before the summit assault). Three of them decided to turn back, and Sergeant Tsewang Samanla, Corporal Dorje Morup and Senior Constable Tsewang Paljor decided to continue climbing. Around 15:45, three climbers contacted the expedition leader by radio and reported that they had managed to conquer Everest (most likely this was a mistake). At the top, the climbers set up prayer flags, and Sergeant Samanla began the religious rites, sending two of his comrades down. He didn't get in touch anymore.
The Indians who were in the fourth camp saw the lights of lanterns slowly descending in the dark (most likely they were Morup and Paljor) - approximately at an altitude of 8570 m. But none of the three climbers ever descended to the intermediate camp at an altitude of 8320 m. Found later the corpse of Tsevang Paljor was never removed from Everest and still marks a height of 8500 m on the northern slope of Everest. Climbers call him "Green Boots".
But these victims were not enough for May 1996 on Everest.
On the morning of May 9, one of the members of the Taiwanese expedition that had climbed with Fischer and Hall climbed out of the tent to go to the bathroom. Cool sunny morning, landscapes of incredible beauty around, slight jitters before the upcoming ascent - it's not surprising that Chei Yunan forgot to put on his boots with crampons. As soon as he squatted a little further from the tent, he immediately slipped and, tumbling, flew down the slope right into a crack in the glacier. The Sherpas managed to save him and bring him to the tent. He experienced a deep shock, but his comrades did not notice any critical damage and left him alone in the tent, while they themselves went upstairs, following their schedule. When, a few hours later, the head of the Taiwanese expedition, Ming Ho Gau, was informed by radio that Chei Yunan had suddenly died, he only answered: “Thanks for the information,” and, as if nothing had happened, continued climbing.
On September 24, Russian screens were released, telling the story of the 1996 tragedy. Now it will be easy for you to figure out where is the truth and where is fiction in this story.
“And in the West, after last year’s tragedy, I don’t like a lot, because people make big, crazy money on this, presenting events the way America wants, and not the way it really happened. Now Hollywood is making a film, I don’t know what they will make of me - with some kind of red star, with a flag in my hands - and how they will present it to American society. It is clear that it will be completely different ... "
Anatoly Bukreev, died in 1997 during an avalanche during the conquest of Annapurna
A few weeks before the tragic death of Bukreev, the American Alpine Club awarded him the prestigious David Souls Award, given to climbers who rescued people at risk in the mountains. own life, and the US Senate invited him to become an American citizen. Despite John Krakauer's attempts to put him in a bad light in his articles and book, Anatoly Bukreev remained in people's memory as a real hero, a great climber, a man capable of sacrificing himself for others.
We went to the movie "Everest", an ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, it's just great that another film about mountains and Everest came out, with high-quality footage. On the other hand, there is a share of negativity due to the fact that the expedition "Mountain Madness" is shown somehow not very correctly and one-sidedly, and specifically: Scott Fisher and Anatoly Bukreev.
Anyone who has not read the books and just wants to romanticize a little about high-altitude ascents should like the film.
For an unbiased perception of the film, I advise you to read both books and “The Ascent” by Boukreev and “In rarefied air” by Krakauer before watching, then you will be able to more adequately and fully perceive the events shown in the film, form your own point of view.
I like it:
1. Shooting in the mountains is great. There are simply fantastically beautiful shots, to goosebumps. The greatness of the Himalayas will never cease to amaze.
2. Technically, the ascent is shown somehow simply, but with taste. I do not pretend to be objective, there are many people who have climbed the Mountain more than once, and my maximum limit on the track is 5000 meters.
3. Line about the Beck family. I have repeatedly felt that when someone thinks about you, prays, really wants everything to work out, it gives strength and sometimes leads to miraculous salvation. I always remember how in Namibia on the Skeleton Coast, we got stuck in a jeep in the sand out of sight from the road. Considering that the places are deserted, and only 20 cars drove through the park in just a day, two of them agreed to help us. I am sure that only mother's support mentally, invisibly and powerfully pulled us out of trouble then.
4. The fact about the salvation of people by Anatoly Bukreev is present in the film, although there is no emphasis on it. Of course, it is much easier to spin the line with Rob Hall and his pregnant wife or Beck, who was not physically ready for the ascent.
Did not like:
1. Expedition "Mountain Madness" and, specifically, Scott Fisher was presented in a shabby, unfavorable light. The manager himself, some kind of nutcase who behaves eccentrically and treats his work irresponsibly. The guide and leader drink right before the ascent. At least out of respect for the climber, it was possible to simply technically identify the shortcomings of the expedition, where does such rapture and desire to denigrate come from? To be objective, it should be noted that Scott Fisher was a competent and professional climber, the first American to climb Lhotse, he repeatedly participated in rescue operations in the mountains, and this was not his first commercial expedition. Why is he so subjectively presented in the film? Why did they make him a frivolous boss who only pursues fame?
In addition, analyzing the outcomes of the expeditions, it becomes clear that Scott could have even more secure clients, but, in principle, there are practically no victims in their team.
Extract from Wikipedia:
“The outcome of the expeditions was as follows:
On the expedition of Scott Fisher, only Fisher, who fell ill, died, freezing during the descent (his body was found a day later by Boukreev), and all six clients (also Dane Lin Gammelgard and Klev Schening, who were brought out by Beidlman), two instructors - Beidlman and Boukreev - and four Sherpas climbed to the top and returned alive.
On the expedition of Rob Hall, Hall himself and his old client Doug Hansen, who froze during the descent from the peak, died, instructor Andy Harris, who returned to help them from the South Summit, where he had already accompanied Krakauer, and client Yasuko Namba (47 years old), who fell behind groups in pitch darkness and snowstorms near camp IV (Bukreev found her a year later and apologized to the Japanese that he could not save her). The instructor Mike Groom, two Sherpas, who visited the peak, and the climbing journalist Jon Krakauer, who wrote a book about this tragedy, remained alive. Also alive was client Beck Weathers (50), who was twice left on the side of a mountain, believing he was cold, but he survived, remained disabled and then wrote the book Left for Dead (eng. Left for Dead, 2000).
It is clear that the point is the hired guide Anatoly Bukreev, who did the impossible: after storming the summit, without the help and support of the Sherpas, he was able to pull three of his clients from the mountain.
I liked the phrase from Wiki:
As the well-known American climber Galen Rovall said later (in May 1997) in an author's column on the pages of The Wall Street Journal: once went upstairs. At night, at an eight-kilometer height, he walked through a raging snowstorm and saved three climbers who were already on the verge of death ... "
2. Boukreev in the film is just a set of Hollywood clichés of a Russian person. He is strong, taciturn, drinks a lot and speaks poor English, plays the accordion ... A look distorted by stamps, so the viewer will believe more.
3. Too many melodramatic conversations with Base Camp. The filmmakers didn't do it very well.
In general, the film is on the subject of "5" points, on the implementation of "3" because of the one-sidedness and denigration of the deceased Scott Fisher, it somehow turned out dishonorably.
I discovered an interesting thing for myself that there are still some books by expedition participants in English about those events, I wrote it out in my search list:
Beck Withers "Left for Dead"
- Lin Gammelgaard "Climbing High"
- book by writer Robert Birker "Mountain Madness", dedicated to Scott Fisher.
People should not die in the mountains, but still, death on Everest is not the worst fate....
When Beck fell exhausted, his comrades left him to die. Lying in the cold, at the unthinkable height of the slope of Everest, he was conscious, but his body was shackled by frostbite and fatigue. He was considered dead, thereby starting the countdown of the victims of the terrible tragedy on Everest in May 1996, in which 15 people died. But in spite of everything, Beck survived, and when he suddenly appeared in the fourth base camp AFTER A DAY AND HALF, it was a real shock - Beck Withers was resurrected from the dead.
After graduation, he began a medical practice in his state of Texas, and in 1996, Beck, who was then 49 years old, became one of the many climbers who climbed Mount Everest. He went as part of a group led by an experienced New Zealand climber Rob Hall (Rob Hall), who, alas, never returned from this expedition, as well as 14 more people who became victims of a capricious and formidable mountain. The expedition was purely commercial, and climbing to the top was very important for many people - Withers was one of them. So, when a strong storm arose, it was clear that it was better to postpone the ascent, but people simply rushed to the top, and when the wind deceptively weakened, Rob Hall decided to go up. This was a huge mistake.
Beck Withers began to suddenly go blind - this was the effect on his eyes of height and rarefied air. It was incredibly cold, oxygen was running out, and the ascent turned into a real hell. When he became exhausted and fell, they left him - at that time people no longer had the strength to take care of those who could not move on their own. Lying in the snow and freezing, Beck still lived. His body seemed to be frozen - he could hear how later someone found him, examined him and said: "He is dead." The climbers left, but Beck remained lying - he could not even blink his eyes, and, nevertheless, life still glimmered in the frostbitten body.
He lay in the snow a day, a night, and another day. Later it was called the "Medical Miracle on Everest", but at that moment Beck did not feel any miracle. He just lay there, realizing that, it seems, this time he was very unlucky. And then he said to himself something like: "I don't want to die. I have a family, I have to think about them."
And he just got up and went downstairs. The doctors puzzled over how he succeeded with the frostbite that he had at that moment - according to all medical indicators, this was impossible, especially considering how long Beck lay in the snow.
But it happened - he stumbled into the tent of Ken Kamler (Ken Kamler), the expedition's only doctor, and said: "Hi, Ken! Where can I sit here? Will you accept my insurance?". Camler was simply dumbfounded at the sight of Beck, it was simply impossible, because everyone had known for a long time that Beck Withers was dead!
He had terrible frostbite - one arm was completely white, the same was with Beck's nose and face. And yet he was alive.
Evacuation down was still impossible - the snowstorm continued to rage, and it was impossible to even think about descending. In truth, when Beck was still alive the next morning, many were surprised to themselves - no one believed that he would pull it out. He screamed in pain at night, but the wind drowned out these cries, and his tent was torn off by the wind, and he again remained on the snow.
And again he was mistaken for dead, but Krakauer found that Withers was conscious and on May 12 he was prepared for urgent evacuation from Camp IV. Over the next two days, Withers was lowered to Camp II, part of the way, however, he made his own, and later he was evacuated by a rescue helicopter.
Later, he wrote a book about this - "Left For Dead" (note "Abandoned to die"), where he described everything that he had to endure, and what a person who was left to die feels when there is no hope for help and you know for sure that your life is completely in your weak frostbitten hands.
Withers underwent a long course of treatment, but due to severe frostbite, his nose was amputated, right hand and all the fingers of the left hand.
In total, he underwent more than 15 operations, he was reconstructed from the back muscles thumb, and plastic surgeons restored the nose. Beck lives in Dallas, Texas and continues to work medical practice, gives lectures in his specialty and mountaineering ... And when asked how he managed to survive, he replies that he was helped by love for his family and God.
