10:00:01.00: (SONG PLAYS)
10:01:42.16
TITLE: 40 DAYS AT BASE CAMP
10:01:53.02
SUPER: To know a people you must spend 40 days with them
Ancient Proverb
10:02:47.12
DR. PETER HACKETT: So, this is interest-- This is something you'd never see in the old days. This guy was doing well, he's up to Camp 3, strong, decided to take a break, so they flew by helicopter to Kathmandu, stayed in the Yak & Yeti for a few days, which is unbelievable, flew back by helicopter here yesterday and got really sick, not from the altitude, but from something he picked up in Kathmandu, and now he has got to leave.
10:03:22.12
DAWA STEVEN SHERPA: Yeah, this is what it all comes down to, you know. Two months at Base Camp-- 40 days for some people-- and then it's just that one day, you're looking for that one good day just to start to the top. You got to make the right call and choose the right day.
10:03:53.16
SUPER: DAY 1
10:03:55.13
DAWA STEVEN (CONT'D): An expedition on Everest, you know, all your equipment and your tents, your food, everything together can go up to 20 to 25 tons. One porter carries 30 kilos, so you're talking about thousands of porters carrying loads up to Base Camp here, so that's the first big part of it, you know. The getting everything ready, packed, and shipping it out to Lukla by plane by or helicopter and then starting to march it in, and it takes up to five to seven days to march it in, depending on how much the porter is carrying.
10:04:04.01
SUPER: DAWA STEVEN SHERPA
Asian Trekking Managing Director
10:05:16.21
DAWA STEVEN (CONT'D): As you can see now, the glacier's always moving. The glacier is rugged, so to make a camp, you have to have a flat ground, so then our initial staff come in, so the kitchen staff and some of the climbing Sherpas come in and they start breaking rocks and they start breaking ice and making a flat, solid platform for tents and so on, then that's the second big part of setting up on expedition.
10:06:29.00
HACKETT: I haven't been at Base Camp in a long time. I summated in 1981 with a medical research expedition and then I was back here in '86 and '94, not climbing, but visiting, so I've seen a change over 40 years, and boy, has it changed. It's a different type of person climbing Everest. It's a different ballgame. It's... There only used to be one expedition per season on the mountain, so when we were here in '81, we had the mountain all to ourselves, now there's dozens of expeditions and hundreds of climbers. And you know, Everest has become a symbol to some, a metaphor to others, a mark of achievement, it's always been that.
10:06:35.07
SUPER: DR. PETER HACKETT
Himalayan Rescue Association
10:07:24.08
SUPER: Commercial expedition companies charge up to $100,000 per client for a chance to summit Everest.
10:07:29.12
DR. ERIC NELLIS: A lot of very serious climbers with long climbing resumes, long climbing histories, and then at the same time, you have people who only climb the highest mountain in the world, who have really very, very limited climbing experience, actually, which for me is very interesting. I've never seen anything like this.
10:07:36.07
SUPER: DR. ERIC NELLIS
Himalayan Rescue Association
10:07:49.20
MARSHAL THOMPSON: They're a good-looking bunch, though. That's what's going to save this photo.
10:07:52.16
WOMAN: Really?
10:07:53.02
THOMPSON: The lighting's bad 'cause they're wearing hats-- no sunglasses-- but you're redeemed by the fact that there's some beautiful mountains behind you and that... Okay. Oh, this is much better. One, two--
10:08:06.00
GROUP: Cheese!
10:08:13.00
THOMPSON: My job at Base Camp is to do a number of things. Probably the most important is to take care of the radio communications. There's a lot of very competent Sherpa members here that handle all the radio communications between Sherpa. I don't speak Sherpa or Nepali, but when one of the foreign climbers calls down, they're usually going to call down in English, and so it's good to have me here so that I can answer in English and help them out in any way that they need.
10:08:20.01
SUPER: MARSHALL THOMPSON
Communications, Asian Trekking
10:08:42.16
APA SHERPA: My name's Apa Sherpa. I'm the mountaineer. Of course everyone knows who I am. I have already been there 19 times through this dangerous ice wall, but now I'm going to number 20, so I hope I get to number 20.
10:08:52.12
SUPER: APA
Asian Trekking's Lead Sherpa
10:09:05.12
THOMPSON: There's a lot of different climbers from different countries, which has been neat. I'm the only Yankie on the team, which is fun. There's Arjun from India and he's trying to be the youngest Indian to climb Mount Everest, and one of the youngest people to climb Everest, so that's really interesting. And then Meagan from Canada, which is great. That's not too foreign, but it's foreign enough that we have some interesting conversations. It's such an international crowd up here and it's just been really fun. I'm learning some Hindi because that's now the official language of our expedition because we have three members who speak Hindi and only two who speak Finnish and two who speak English, so...
10:09:48.00
THOMPSON (CONT'D): I think there's definitely something special about Mount Everest that draws everybody here more than every other mountain and it's sort of obvious, but it's the tallest mountain in the world, but there's something about that that if there's... I think in some ways it makes it... I think people feel an ownership for it, or an ownership of it even though they're not from Nepal. It's like everybody's mountain.
10:10:18.08
MEAGAN: Ah! I haven't washed these yet, so I don't know how they're going to turn out, these socks. Fine.
10:10:25.02
STEPHANIE PEARSON: So are you doing the Seven Summits? Is that your goal or...?
10:10:28.07
MEAGAN: Well, I've done them.
10:10:29.01
PEARSON: Oh, you've done them?
10:10:29.17
MEAGAN: Yeah, both versions, yeah, so that's all right.
10:10:30.21
PEARSON: Oh, my gosh. I'm not a climber. I have no intention of climbing Everest, and, um, you know, I've done a lot of research on the mountain, I've, you know, worked within an industry where it's held a lot of cache and people have criticized it, people have glorified it. It's taken me 14 years to get to Base Camp and now I'm here and I'm... I'm realizing that I have more respect for the mountain than I thought I would. It's as big and grand and hard to understand as everyone says it is from a physiological perspective and a... You know, people say it's not a hard-climbing mountain, but I look at the icefall and shudder, so it's pretty impressive to finally be here.
10:10:36.01
SUPER: STEPHANIE PEARSON
Contributing Editor, Outside Magazine
10:11:41.12
THOMPSON: All right, so right now we're looking for Brad Pitt. We heard a rumour on the way up that Brad Pitt might be here and I put it on the blog, so we... and then TMZ just reported that Brad Pitt might be up here, so we don't know if it's a feedback loop and we're just being completely silly here or if Brad Pitt's actually up here.
10:12:03.10
SUPER: For the next month, climbers will do rotations up and down the mountain, to acclimatize for their summit push
10:12:14.06
SUPER: DAY 9
10:12:34.08
MAN: Morning, Apa.
10:12:35.02
APA: Morning.
10:12:35.18
MAN: How are you?
10:12:36.05
APA: Fine, thank you.
10:13:04.12
CLIMBERS: (CHATTING INDISTINCTLY)
10:13:23.00
MEAGAN: Okay. Okay, I'm just going to throw this in my bag and then we'll be off, I guess.
10:13:27.12
MAN: Okay, yeah.
10:13:31.10
MEAGAN: (INAUDIBLE)
10:13:33.08
SUPER: Meagan summitted Mount Everest in 2007. This year she is climbing Lhotse
10:13:44.10
MEAGAN: When summiting Lhotse, or any mountain for that matter, you usually prepare a routine of some sort, a routine that consists of rotations, so I've already completed rotation one and I'm anticipating that I'll have three rotations. The next rotation will consist of me going to Camp 1, Camp 2, rest day at Camp 2, basically a test up to Camp 3, just kind of get a feel for the face, the Lhotse Face, come down and rest. The next day I'll go up to Camp 3 hopefully, sleep at Camp 3, come down, and then go down all the way to Base Camp the following day.
10:14:17.19
HACKETT: Well, I think the guides want to see that their clients have what it takes to get up to Camp 2, Camp 3, Camp 4, certainly, before going to a summit push, and doing these rotations gives each person a chance to see how they do, how fast or slow they are, how they handle the altitude. It's all about the altitude, and it gives people a couple chances and it also minimizes the amount of time that they'd spend up there deteriorating. They try to strike a balance between acclimatizing on the one hand and not deteriorating on the other hand.
10:15:28.19
SHERPA: (SPEAKING SHERPA)
10:15:42.18
THOMPSON: Learn anything good?
10:15:43.15
DAWA STEVEN SHERPA: Pardon?
10:15:44.15
THOMPSON: Learn anything good?
10:15:46.04
DAWA STEVEN: Yep. Apparently, women don't seek the same things in a relationship men do. (CHUCKLES, UNCLEAR)
10:16:00.13
ARJUN: I find it really funny when people say you start preparing yourself mentally when you go up the mountain. I think when I go up the mountain, like, in the morning I'm too lazy to think about these things. It's like, okay, we need to go up the mountain once more. Oh, shit.
10:16:06.08
SUPER: ARJUN
16 years old
10:16:41.14
MEAGAN: Some of the challenges a climber who climbs here at Mount Everest will face consists of the icefall. That's a big one. It's quite dangerous in there. There's ice falling. There's crevices that you can punch into, step into. There's avalanches off the west shoulder of Mount Everest. These are quite hazardous. Also just slipping anywhere and landing the wrong way on some of the ice pinnacles or something, these could be dangerous things.
10:17:36.20
HACKETT: So things, of course, have changed, but what hasn't changed is that Everest is still a physiologic and medical problem more than it is a climbing problem. The climbers have to climb 11,500 feet, that's all, from the Base Camp to the summit. But what makes it so unique is that the climber is putting him or herself in a low-oxygen environment that produces a lot of stress that normally you don't experience at lower altitudes and so acclimatization becomes crucially important, staying healthy becomes crucially important, and genetics becomes important. Not everybody has the genes that allows them to function at high altitude.
10:18:20.02
ARJUN: I'm... I'm tired today. I've never felt so bad before before Camp 1 and Camp 2, but today it's going not good. I'm very much low on energy. It's not a steep climb, as you can see, between Camp 2 and Camp 1, but it's just that it's monotonous and this heat starts killing you. You have to be hydrated really well for this. If you don't get hydrated, you don't drink enough water, it's not good for your body. You can start feeling the altitude also. This is Arjun between Camp 1 and Camp 2. I'll catch you later. Bye.
10:18:28.03
SUPER: VIDEO DIARY, ARJUN
ROTATION 2
10:19:48.03
SUPER: DAY 13
10:20:17.18
CLIMBERS: (LAUGHING, PLAYING IN THE SNOW)
10:20:46.20
THOMPSON: Today we woke up and there was a ton of snow everywhere and so it's really thrown a lot of kinks in our plans. A lot of people were going to go up to Camp 3 today, they can't, so they're going to stay at Camp 2. One of our members was going to come down because he was feeling sick and he's going to have to stay at Camp 2 now as well. And the weather forecast shows for more snow coming. We just got a new one this morning that showed that we're going to maybe have another five inches each day until Thursday and then we might even get some more. They're stuck at Camp 2, so they're losing energy, but they can't go up to Camp 3, so they're not acclimatizing. I'm just worried that the, uh... what is an uncomfortable situation today will become a very dangerous situation tomorrow, that sort of thing, so... So that's what I'm worried about right now.
10:21:57.16
SHERPA: Yak meat. Yak meat.
10:22:35.22
NELSON CARDONA CARVAJAL: Buenos dias. (SUBTITLE) My name is Nelson Cardona Carvajal. I'm from Colombia. The purpose is to climb Mount Everest with a physical disability. We are part of a great project, of a common feeling of the Colombian people. This is not just a project of a small team, but a whole country.
10:23:06.12
JUAN PABLO: Yes, yes.
10:23:07.12
COLOMBIAN CLIMBER: But if we got for the seventeenth, we have (INAUDIBLE). They go for the nineteenth.
10:23:11.18
PABLO: They go for the nineteenth. (SPEAKING SPANISH)
10:23:15.14
COLOMBIAN CLIMBER: 17 is becoming (INAUDIBLE).
10:23:19.07
PABLO: We are leaving today. We are going to Camp Two, and tomorrow we have a rest day and we will check again the information about weather. The forecast is not the best. Has some breaks, that's why the most of the commercial expeditions like Russel Bryce and the others, they are not going this time for this window because they have a huge number of clients and Sherpas working together, so in the case of Russel Bryce, for example, some 40 people. So for them, they need a very big window that they can move all that people up. In our case, it's a small expedition. We avoid the traffic jam.
10:23:23.02
SUPER: JUAN PABLO
Colombian Team Leader
10:24:04.07
CARVAJAL: (SUBTITLE) I was training at the Nevado del Ruiz one of the biggest mountains in Columbia, and I had a very bad accident. I started a long recovery process and fortunately after 2 years I recovered except for my right leg. The doctors said you can't go back to the mountains again, you are a disabled person. You can't train or ride your bike again, or anything that puts your leg at risk, because it's very fragile now. I decided to amputate my right leg so I could climb again.
10:24:59.05
CLIMBERS: (SPEAKING SPANISH)
10:25:08.00
PABLO: Our idea is that we will be moving from Camp 4 to the summit the night of the 16th, to reach summit hopefully the morning of the 17th.
10:25:31.10
CARVAJAL: Ready?
10:25:39.04
CARVAJAL: (SPEAKING SPANISH)
10:25:45.12
PABLO: I would say that the icefall is very unsafe anytime, I mean, the 24 hours, but of course, always we know that nothing's safe in mountains.
10:26:32.10
SHERPA: (SPEAKING SHERPA)
10:26:37.10
SUPER: The Himalayan Rescue Association provides free medical services to locals, and charges foreign climbers to offset the cost
10:26:45.23
SUPER: All the doctors are volunteers
10:26:55.09
NELLIS: (INAUDIBLE)
10:27:30.12
THOMPSON: Meagan, Meagan, Meagan, this is Base Camp. Do you copy? Over.
10:27:42.18
MEAGAN: Base Camp, Base Camp, Base Camp--
10:27:46.12
THOMPSON: Okay. Meagan, this is Base Camp. We did not copy. Could you repeat? Over.
10:27:53.00
MEAGAN: Base Camp, Base Camp, Base Camp, this is Meagan. Over.
10:27:56.20
THOMPSON: Hi Meagan. How are you doing?
10:27:59.06
MEAGAN: I've got to tell you, I'm, um... I'm pretty bagged from yesterday's effort. We went from Base Camp to Camp 2, which isn't a big thing normally, but I had a lot of weight in my bag. I always carry more than I think a lot of typical commercial climbers just to kind of get in training for... just in case something happens on the mountain. You want to be strong. But I was really hoping for a rest day today. It doesn't look like that's going to happen, so uh... Had a long night, a fitful night, actually. Kept waking up. Just kind of straining, not strained the muscles, but the muscles kind of worked themselves out and coughing a bit, actually, which is a little bit of a concern, so I guess we'll see what tomorr-- well, what today brings, 'cause I really have no idea. I'm not sure if we'll make it to Camp 3, and if we do, I'm not sure if we'll go beyond. Anyway, I'll keep you updated. Bye.
10:28:02.06
SUPER: MEAGAN, VIDEO DIARY
CAMP 2
10:28:54.19
HACKETT: Some people are made to go... you know, to do okay in the mountains and some aren't, so what really matters in terms of bringing out one's genetic predisposition is how much time you take, so the rate of assent up the mountain becomes critically important. I mean, a basic illustration. If I have a group of people at sea level and I take them to the summit of Mount Everest in a huge helicopter or in a chamber, they'll all go unconscious within two minutes, and yet there's all sorts of climbers gonna go up to the summit this time, some with oxygen, some without. They're not going to go unconscious. In fact, they're going to continue to walk and talk and talk on radios and do blogs and function fairly well, although of course, not feeling 100%. So that process of the body's ability to adjust to low oxygen is called acclimatization and the key is genetics and time.
10:30:13.20
SHERPA: Hello.
10:30:14.12
DAWA STEVEN: Hello.
10:30:18.10
SHERPA: (SPEAKING SHERPA)
10:30:55.04
SHERPAS: (SPEAKING SHERPA TO EACH OTHER)
10:31:55.23
SHERPA: I'm going to shower. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay?
10:32:03.10
SHERPA: (SPEAKING SHERPA)
10:32:13.20
MEAGAN: Hi everyone, and we're at Camp 3 and we made a really good time to Camp 3 today. It was gusty, though, gusty as heck. I would not be out of whack if I were to say the gust were about 80 kilometres an hour.
10:32:15.16
SUPER: MEAGAN, VIDEO DIARY
CAMP 3
10:32:48.16
CAROLINA: I talked to Pablo this morning, the leader of the team. He was saying that the wind yesterday was not so bad when they were going to Camp 2. So they're just waiting for the last report that I just received. It seems that the window is getting very tight.
10:33:02.09
SUPER: CAROLINA
Communications for Colombian Team
10:33:12.04
CAROLINA: Seems it's very windy. Snowing up there.
10:33:21.08
CAROLINA: (SPEAKING SPANISH)
10:33:33.20
ARJUN: This is Camp 2. I'm on my third rotation, third and final rotation. We were supposed to go to Camp 3 today, but as you can see, the weather's really packed, the winds are really strong, and we could not go up today morning, and we are going to see the weather tomorrow and then plan our next moment.
10:33:33.20
SUPER: ARJUN, VIDEO DIARY
CAMP 2
10:34:06.12
THOMPSON: Okay.
10:34:48.15
SUPER: DAY 18
10:35:01.12
THOMPSON: A Russian climber died, they said he died of exposure. They found him outside of his tent, dead.
10:35:08.10
SUPER: According to the Sherpas there are 250 bodies abandoned on Mount Everest
10:35:42.00
ARJUN: You can see one body when you go from Camp 1 to Camp 2.
10:35:46.22
THOMPSON: When I was in Iraq, they... everyone would share... not everyone, but a lot of people would have really gruesome photos that they'd share, usually on a memory stick. It was really weird. I don't know how it started, but you'd meet somebody and they'd say, you know, you'd chat for a while and they'd say, "Hey, do you want to trade pictures?" and they'd have all these pictures of, like, blown-up bodies and stuff, and I never kept any or traded, but I always looked at them, and Meagan and I were trying to figure out why that was. But I think I looked at them because I wanted to know what could happen to me and come to terms with it. You know, like I could see this guy blown up and I'd think, okay, that's the worst that could happen. That's it, you know. So... Is it the same way with... is it the same way on the mountain when you see a dead body?
10:36:30.16
ARJUN: Oh, it's so fascinating. I zoomed it and I took pictures, but that night, it came back to me and it wasn't good. Like I couldn't sleep. I kept seeing... the climber, then I deleted the picture. I didn't find that too good.
10:36:48.00
HACKETT: The death rate on Everest has been remarkably stable over decades. It's one in 40. That is one in 40 people who go above Base Camp. You know, you hear higher numbers like 10%, well, it's higher if you compare the number who have summitted to the number that have died, but that's not a fair comparison. Of everybody that goes on the mountain, it's one in 40. That's still higher than most people would want to accept for a holiday.
10:37:21.01
SUPER: To Hindus and Buddhists, Everest has always been known as Chomolungma, or "Great Mother of the Universe"
10:37:37.22
DAWA STEVEN: Mount Everest is also a holy mountain for us, so when I say us, I mean the Sherpas, but a lot of foreign climbers, they also buy into this. They understand how much of a spiritual place this is.
10:37:50.20
THOMPSON: I'm a very religious person and I just love the Sherpas' belief that Mount Everest is a goddess, and I'm just very thankful to spend some time here at the foot of the goddess.
10:38:31.00
DAWA STEVEN: When I first came here in 2007, like if you walked around here, everywhere you could see tin can, bones, you could see like discarded gas bottles, you know, just all sorts of garbage because there was no incentive for new expeditions to clean up the garbage of old expeditions, and it really was quite sad at the time, to see this. And over the last three years since I've been doing this clean up, you know, you can see a notable difference in the amount of garbage, and of course, doing the monsoon after the spring season, the ice melts and then the glacier moves and old garbage, more old garbage comes out, so what garbage we couldn't see last year has come out this year.
10:39:24.12
PEARSON: Well, Base Camp is a fascinating microcosm in itself. I mean, you've got the Sherpa culture and the climbing culture and people trying to, you know, summit the mountain and cycling up and down, and so it's this constantly changing environment, both literally-- we're on a glacier and it's moving-- and metaphorically-- you know, people are moving in and out of here and they're from all over the world-- and just really interesting perspectives on the mountain and their own personal stories and, you know, what people are trying to do on the mountain.
10:39:58.00
ROBERT HILL: Hi. My name is Robert Hill. I'm from Nanaimo, British Columbia on Vancouver Island. I'm here at Everest Base Camp in hopes of summiting Everest. I'm with Seven Summits Awareness Campaign with is Seven Summits are the highest peak on each continent and it's in order to raise awareness for intestinal disease as well as living life with an ostomy. I personally have Crohn's. Crohn's Disease is a painful inflammation of the digestive tract. I was here in 2008. While we were waiting for the ice wall to be open, I ended up catching some kind of bug and originally we thought it was actually a Crohn's flare up. It turns out it wasn't, but whatever I had ingested or whatever I had picked up was enough with my compromised digestive system to send me home.
10:40:46.18
JOHN O'SHAUGHNESSY: Camp 2 to Base Camp, over.
10:40:50.16
HILL: Communication guy, John O'Shaughnessy, a good friend, he's Base Camp Manager for us as well as communication, so a huge strength there. He was here in 2008. He's a fellow ostoman as well, so it's amazing to have him here.
10:41:05.04
O'SHAUGHNESSY: I read about Rob's story online. I thought, wow, I need to find a way to get connected and support Rob's quest, and so I just reached out to him and it was kind of interesting. I think I sent him an email and the next day he phoned me and it was like I was talking to an old friend.
10:41:24.00
HILL: And then John Furneaux, who's our lead guy here, he's been up Everest in 2008, guides all over the world.
10:41:36.09
HILL: Darrell who has, we've been on the same Seven Summits quest for a while, so we share a lot of climbs.
10:41:42.02
DARRELL AINSCOUGH: My name is Darrell Ainscough. I'm from Richmond, British Columbia, the flattest place in Canada. So here we are from the flattest place in Canada up onto Everest.
10:42:13.04
ARJUN: We're just waiting.
10:42:14.03
SUPER: DAY 28
10:42:14.10
MEAGAN: Waiting, yeah, to go up. A wider period, less congestion, hopefully and make it safer.
10:42:22.00
JOHN FURNEAUX: Well, we're waiting for a summit push. We've been down for about nine days now and weather reports are conflicting so the conservative forecast they're saying high winds. The jet stream's still over Everest and it's going to split off the next few days. Little lower summit winds, but still above 30 miles an hour. Anything above 30 miles an hour you're really risking the chance of frostbite.
10:42:25.01
SUPER: JOHN FURNEAUX
Canadian Team, Guide
10:42:48.12
HILL: Patience is a virtue. You know, you get what you're going to get. I would rather wait on decent weather and have a few days that we have to play with some of the dates rather than trying to rush and perhaps get caught in something that's going to be particularly nasty.
10:43:10.19
CAROLINA: Last night I talked to expedition leader Juan Pablo and he said that they were in Camp 3. They will get up early today to go to Camp 4. Well, the plan is to, um... getting to the summit around 5:00 or 6:00 am so they can start going down before the wind gets...
10:43:55.12
DAWA STEVEN: Climate change is a very big issue because I make my living from the mountains, as do the Sherpas, and the mountains, as you can see with your own eyes, are literally melting, and they're becoming more and more dangerous, not only for mountaineers who are here, you know, who are subject to the threats of avalanches and rock falls and serac collapses, but also to down valley people, local people who depend on the glaciers for water and also the threat that the melting glaciers pose when they become big lakes that burst and then come down and flood the whole valley and can wash away infrastructure, houses, farms, and even people and livestock.
10:44:40.17
CHUNA: (SUBTITLE) I think we should stop (climbing) Everest just one, two three years. Just stop -- not going for the summit push. Just cleaning. Take out dead bodies, just cleaning. I think it's difficult, you know. We are feeling so sad. Because this is God. It's big, Top of the world. It's melting. We need this fresh water also. This fresh water go down and it take lots of people their life.
10:44:40.18
SUPER: CHUNA
Nepalie Women's Expedition 2007
10:45:22.06
SUPER: More than a billion people get their drinking water from melting snow and ice from the Himalayas
10:45:28.10
DAWA STEVEN: In the past three or four years we've been noticing that more bodies are coming out of the glacier. Many of them are mountaineers who died either in the icefall or a little bit higher up in the Western Cwm. Basically, whenever they died, whether it was in the '60s or whether it was recently, the glacier swallows it up and as the glacier moves down towards Base Camp, you know, the bodies start popping up again, and part of the reason the bodies start popping up is because the ice melts, and so the bodies come out. This year, we knew where all the dead bodies were when we first came into camp, but it took more than a month before we were all ready and before we were all motivated enough to say, "Forget the paperwork, you know, forget the official procedure," because that's not practical at this altitude in Base Camp where even the police have said that they can't make it up here. So we've had to then get as many prominent members of civil society together, Nepali society, and we wrote out an entire paper, I suppose, as witness to say that, you know, we have found these dead bodies and something has to be done. If anybody's going to have any issues with this, then they'll have to talk to all of us, and 41 people signed on this paper. So that made it much easier for people like myself, you know, who have the manpower, who have the resources to do this, that I was not the only one who was going to be in trouble if anybody was going to cause trouble for us.
10:48:07.08
THOMPSON: The thought of the body kind of being trapped, I don't know, something about that just really, uh... really creeped me out, I guess and I'm going to have to work through that one probably for a while.
10:48:16.05
SUPER: MARSHALL THOMPSON
Communications, Asian Trekking
10:48:28.16
SUPER: COLOMBIAN TEAM, VIDEO DIARY
SUMMIT
10:48:36.13
COLOMBIAN CLIMBER: (SUBTITLE) Dedicated to all the Colombian companies that believed in this. This is it!
10:48:49.11
CARVAJAL: (SUBTITLE) There are things in life that make you fall down. So you have to stand up and climb to the top, Everest, where we are now. Long live Colombia!
10:49:30.09
DAWA STEVEN: Now, the point to remember here, actually, is you will not be required to do any of this. Your Sherpa will do it for you. But having said that, it's still important that you know how to do it if you do need to change your oxygen in case of an emergency. Okay, so Russian regulator, it's a Russian oxygen cylinder, but the mask we have is a British mask. It's called a top out mask and it's the best one on the market at the moment. First things first, before you ever do anything with your regulator, hook it up to your mask, okay, so that it's not attached to your mask, so even if it falls, you still have something to hang onto.
10:50:22.08
MEAGAN: (INAUDIBLE)
10:50:23.20
ARJUN: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
10:50:28.00
DAWA STEVEN: Okay, so now no hissing. That's probably on, and you can see the pressure's at 30.
10:50:37.04
MEAGAN: Yeah, you have your hands right on the...
10:50:39.00
DAWA STEVEN: At the end. Okay, so keep it with you. Make sure you don't forget it when you go up tomorrow, and in the meantime, now that you're comfortable with the size of the straps and so on, feel free to just tape it, 'cause it can move a bit, so feel free to tape it and it won't shift as much when you're climbing. Here, pull this one here. And then there's one on the other side as well.
10:51:08.05
BHAGYASHREE: Ah, I spoke to Meagan because I don't know anything about mountaineering. Only thing she told me that you are very light and wind would be a problem for you. Yeah, but I'm not worried about anything. It's like, it's my own choice, you know. If anything goes wrong or anything goes right, it's on my own risk and no one else.
10:51:13.06
SUPER: BHAGYASHREE
18 year old first-time climber
10:51:27.13
MEAGAN: When I was here in 2007, a woman, a Sherpa woman named Pemba, the day that I summitted and was coming down, a woman named Pemba fell down the Lhotse Face and died, and at the time it didn't strike me so much, but now that I'm doing the same climb, it's hitting me more and more. You can't be unconfident, that's the problem, and so you have to be totally, totally confident with every single step when you're coming down there. There's no room for error. No room for error when you're coming down. 'Cause it's not like Everest where it's a fixed line the whole way. It's... the steeper sections may or may not be fixed, we're going to find out, and even then, you just got to be so confident in every step. So that's where I have to get my headspace to.
10:52:17.12
MEAGAN (CONT'D): Oh, that's better.
10:52:21.16
SUPER: Summit push 3:30 a.m.
10:52:27.04
SUPER: DAY 32
10:52:39.00
MEAGAN (CONT'D): (CHUCKLES) Okey dokey. Bye.
10:52:43.18
DAWA STEVEN: Bye. You take care.
10:52:44.20
MEAGAN: Yeah. Thanks a lot for everything. For real, thank a lot. I appreciate it.
10:52:48.00
DAWA STEVEN: No problem. I'll be on the radio and let you know about the conditions up there after I speak with the Sherpas.
10:52:52.00
MEAGAN: Okay. Well, we'll probably just call when we get to Camp 1 or something. We'll check in.
10:52:54.13
DAWA STEVEN: Cool.
10:52:54.19
MEAGAN: But thanks for everything, for real.
10:52:55.22
DAWA STEVEN: All right.
10:52:56.08
MEAGAN: Okay, we'll see you.
10:52:56.20
DAWA STEVEN: All right. All the best. Be safe.
10:52:58.09
MEAGAN: Yeah.
10:52:59.07
DAWA STEVEN: Enjoy it.
10:52:59.18
MEAGAN: Yeah.
10:53:11.17
SHERPAS: (CHATTING IN SHERPA)
10:53:55.04
DAWA STEVEN: All right. All the best. Thanks. You, too. All the best. (SEES THE SHERPAS OFF, SPEAKING SHERPA)
10:54:56.08
DAWA STEVEN & SHERPA: (HAVE A CONVERSATION IN SHERPA)
10:55:16.00
DAWA STEVEN: You're late. You should not be late. Yeah.
10:55:21:00
BHAGYASHREE: I'm bad.
10:55:21:20
DAWA STEVEN: On the mountain, punctuality is very important.
10:55:24.04
BHAGYASHREE: Can I keep this with you?
10:55:26.00
DAWA STEVEN: This one?
10:55:26.18
BHAGYASHREE: Yeah. Push it down.
10:55:36.18
DAWA STEVEN: You do everything they say, okay? You did deep, okay.
10:55:38.10
BHAGYASHREE: Yes.
10:55:40.08
DAWA STEVEN: All right. All the best. Be safe.
10:56:18.02
THOMPSON: Apa Sherpa, he's such an amazing guy. I think... I keep thinking of him in contrast of Tiger Woods. You've got two Buddhist athletes, I guess you could say, and one we know full and well what he did. He got the dues, the best in the world, and he's feeling sort of privileged, entitled, and then you have Apa on the other hand, who I don't think he's ever felt entitled to anything in his life.
10:56:44.20
DAWA STEVEN: Apa came from a background, he had nothing, and then, he's not the most amazing athlete, he's not. He's-he's actually a man that was very lucky. A man that had the opportunity to go to the top of the world so many times.
10:56:53.17
SUPER: DAWA STEVEN SHERPA
Asian Trekking Managing Director
10:57:03.14
APA: Okay. Okay, see you, yeah.
10:57:06.00
DAWA STEVEN: Okay. The man is not excessively more talented than any other Sherpa, but what a perfect person to be the world record holder. There are some Sherpas who are super ambitious and will try to step over anybody, will step over anybody to get there, and imagine if those people had been the world record holder. What a sad thing that would be. You know, that's why he's well respected not only in the Sherpa community, but also in the whole country. He's a hero in our country.
10:57:57.00 (FESTIVE CHATTING, MUSIC)
10:58:02.00
COLOMBIAN TEAM MEMBER: (LAUGHS HEARTILY)
10:58:14.10
O'SHAUGHNESSY: Coffee. (CHUCKLES) Colombians are having a bit of a celebration. Two of their climbers made the summit yesterday, which is fantastic. Congrats to those guys. And it looks like Juan Valdez is one of these guys' sponsors, so they're plying us with some coffee delicacies. There's actually iced coffee, which is... I haven't seen this since Canada, so...
10:58:19.15
SUPER: JOHN O'SHAUGHNESSY
Canadian Team, Communications
10:58:36.20
COLOMBIAN TEAM MEMBERS: (CHATTING, CELEBRATING)
10:58:45.19
ANTONIO HENAO: In 7,400, I don't feel my left body, and in this moment I decide to go down because I risking my life, my team, too, because tried to help me and I decide to go down. Well, I'm a little bit disappointed because I don't stay on the summit, but my life is the more important thing, no? When I come back, I'm going down the country and I see a Russian guy dead and in this moment I understand my decision is a really good decision.
10:58:49.09
SUPER: ANTONIO HENAO
Colombian Team
10:59:26.14
COLOMBIAN TEAM MEMBER: Hola! Whoo!
10:59:29.02
COLOMBIAN TEAM MEMBERS: (CHATTING, CELEBRATING)
10:59:31.18
O'SHAUGHNESSY: Rob, Darrell and John the guide left this morning, pretty early. I think it was about 3:30. 3:30 or 4:00 that they got out of Base Camp and headed up the icefall. And they were saying that they were taking their time, conserving energy on the way up, and when they got to the top of the icefall, the sun was just beating down. There wasn't much wind, so it was really, really hot. Rob was starting to run out of water, so he decided to stay put in Camp 1 for the night.
11:00:01.17
HILL: I'm just chilling at Camp 1. I decided to stay. A few reasons. Just a little bit mental. Been around the guys for a long time. Kind of felt it wouldn't hurt just to chill out by myself and... plus I kind of like Camp 1. It's comfortable and it's a really short jaunt up to Camp 2 and I didn't really want to do it in the heat of the day.
11:00:06.14
SUPER: ROB, CANADIAN TEAM, VIDEO DIARY
CAMP 1
11:00:29.08
DAWA STEVEN: There is Arjun's dad. I'm going to go outside. Hello?
11:00:37.12
THOMPSON: Arjun's dad calls a couple times a day now. Yeah. It's fun. We were joking we should have sent a cell phone up with Arjun 'cause he might be able to get coverage up there.
11:00:54.12
ARJUN: This is Arjun. I'm crossing a ladder between Camp 1 and Camp 2. Oh, shit.
11:00:56.16
SUPER: ARJUN, VIDEO DIARY
ICEFALL
11:01:09.17
COLOMBIAN SUPPORT TEAM: (SCREAMING, SHOUTING HAPPILY)
11:01:12.20
SUPER: DAY 33
11:01:23.02
CAROLINA: Salud! Salud! (SPEAKING IN SPANISH)
11:01:37.16
CARVAJAL: (SPEAKING SPANISH)
11:01:38.16
COLOMBIAN SUPPORT TEAM: (SPEAKING SPANISH)
11:01:46.00
CARVAJAL & CAROLINA: (SPEAK IN SPANISH)
11:01:52.07
COLOMBIAN SUPPORT TEAM: (SPEAKING SPANISH, CHEERING)
11:02:03.20
CARVAJAL: (SUBTITLE) When we got to the summit, I felt many mixed feelings. I started crying. I remember the time that I spent in the hospital, when I had to leave my leg in order to reach my dream. And I believe this is a very nice message, a lesson learned, that sometimes you need to let go of material things in order to reach the highest ideals in your life.
11:02:45.18
HILL: Being at the base of Lhotse Face, moving up the Camp 3. So I want to push. Not sure where John and Darrell are. They're moving a little slower than me today. I'm sure they're doing fine, just down the valley a little bit.
11:02:46.18
SUPER: CANADIAN TEAM, VIDEO DIARY
NEAR CAMP 3
11:03:20.18
CARVAJAL: Namaste. Thank you very much.
11:03:24.00
CAMERAMAN: Thank you.
11:03:44.20
SHERPA: (MAKING NOISE AS HE SHAKES DICE)
11:03:52.00
SHERPAS: (CHAT AS THEY PLAY GAME)
11:04:13.16
DAWA STEVEN: I'm a little bit worried about the snow, because you know, with the cyclone, there's a lot of precipitation. Then again, you know, it's not a beach holiday. It is Everest, so you know, you got to expect a little bit of, you know, adverse weather.
11:04:35.16
MEAGAN: We're at approximately between 7,000 and 7,100 meters. It's a beautiful day today, aside from the wind. The trail is really good. Trail, right. The route up was... there's snow on it is basically my point, and that made it really good for travel. The last time we did an acclimatization run toward Camp 3, not reaching Camp 3, it was very icy, a lot of blue ice, so the fact that there was snow on the trail this time made a world of difference.
11:04:42.08
SUPER: VIDEO DIARY, MEAGAN
CAMP 3
11:05:13.00
VOICE ON RADIO: (SPEAKING SHERPA)
11:05:34.15
SUPER: ARJUN, VIDEO DIARY
CAMP 3
11:05:45.08
ARJUN: Hey, guys. We reached Everest Camp 3 today. We lost a very tough trek, Camp 2 to Camp 3. They will all be tired. First, as you can see, the oxygen level has really dropped out here and we have been given oxygen so that we can act normally here.
11:06:28.03
SUPER: DAY 34
11:06:43.03
CLIMBER: Oh, fuck!
11:07:03.08
HILL: Camp 4, Mount Everest.
11:07:03.23
SUPER: ROB, CANADIAN TEAM, VIDEO DIARY
CAMP 4
11:07:15.15
O'SHAUGHNESSY: It's the first time in a few days, anyway, that anybody from our team has been at Camp 4 since they did the original oxygen drop, and so when they did their inventory, as they would, Ten Dorjee found that they were missing five bottles, so it looks like another team probably ran out of Os and decided to borrow or take, I guess would be the more correct term. We have no way of knowing.
11:07:37.18
O'SHAUGHNESSY (CONT'D): Rob, we're missing five bottles. I'm filling it out now. I might have six bottles inside.
11:07:44.12
O'SHAUGHNESSY (CONT'D): What's really unfortunate is that the mountain's not, I don't want to call it equal or whatever, right, but there's a lot of people here that came underprepared and they did it because of money. And they think that they're okay.
11:07:59.16
SUPER: ROB, CANADIAN TEAM, VIDEO DIARY
CAMP 4
11:08:03.12
HILL: Typically people move up and will, probably in about three hours be doing your summit push. I decided that I am going to chill up here, wait for the boys to catch up and then we'll go through the process. I don't think the Sherpas are too happy 'cause they don't like spending the time up here.
11:08:25.05
O'SHAUGHNESSY: He's bummed. You can hear it in his voice. He said to me earlier today, he's like, I never thought I'd be sitting here alone waiting, you know, and I understand, but I can't just sit here. You know, if I sit here for 24 hours it could cost me the summit, so... I think he's battling his own personal demons tonight.
11:08:49.12
SUPER: Camp 4 is higher than 8,000 meters, where there is not enough oxygen in the air to sustain human life. They call it the death zone
11:08:51.14
ARJUN: Man, it's.... It's getting very...
11:08:56.18
SUPER: ARJUN, VIDEO DIARY
CAMP 4
11:09:40.18
DAWA STEVEN: This is Base Camp. Do you copy? The weather's not the best, but it's just like, he's actually predicted the higher range to be a little bit higher than he had previously thought. The lower range is about the same. So that's not good news for me considering my guys are already up on the mountain.
11:10:16.01
DAWA STEVEN (CONT'D): Camp 2, Camp 2, (SPEAKING SHERPA) (SIGHS)
11:10:17.12
SUPER: DAY 35
11:10:29.00
O'SHAUGHNESSY: Camp 2 from Base Camp. Over. John from Base Camp. Go ahead, John.
11:10:56.16
SHERPA: (SPEAKING SHERPA OVER RADIO)
11:11:01.15
DAWA STEVEN: Copy that. Copy that. 633 (SPEAKING SHERPA)
11:11:07.10
SHERPA: (SPEAKING SHERPA OVER RADIO)
11:11:09.00
DAWA STEVEN: Congratulations. (SPEAKING SHERPA)
11:11:24.16
DAWA STEVEN: Hello, Captain Vajpai? Good morning, Sir. This is Dawa Steven. Do you hear me? Congratulations. Your son is the youngest Indian to have summitted Mount Everest. He just summitted two minutes ago. Congratulations. The team is now... the rest of the team is on its way. Arjun, as predicted, is the first one on the summit today from our team. He is there with Nima Tshering and Tshering Phinjo. He'll be there for another 10 minutes on the summit taking pictures and so on and then he'll head down. Okay, Captain Vajpai, bye. Bye-bye. Congratulations again. Makes it all worth it. Camp 2, Camp 2 (SPEAKING SHERPA)
11:12:22.00
SHERPA: (SPEAKING SHERPA OVER RADIO)
11:12:23.14
DAWA STEVEN: (SPEAKING SHERPA)
11:12:29.18
SHERPA: (SPEAKING SHERPA OVER RADIO)
11:12:34.07
DAWA STEVEN: Copy. Apa summitted 8:34 a.m. Okay, thank you. Congratulations. Everybody summitted.
11:12:42.18
THOMPSON: Apa has summitted Mount Everest 20 times. New world record! Exclamation mark. Lots of caps. That's great.
11:12:53.10
DAWA STEVEN: That's a new world record. 20 times. I shall be telling my father about this. Bhagyashree was meant to go up, try again to go to Camp 3 today, but she had difficulty even getting from her tent to the dining tent. She's very, very weak and she's still dizzy, so it doesn't look good for her. She'll be heading down today. (SPEAKING SHERPA)
11:13:29.20
SHERPA: (SPEAKING SHERPA)
11:13:30.12
DAWA STEVEN: (SPEAKING SHERPA)
11:13:32.12
MAN: Oh, that's good.
11:13:33.02
WOMAN: What time?
11:13:34.04
SHERPA: (SPEAKING SHERPA OVER RADIO)
11:13:47.00
DAWA STEVEN: Meagan, Meagan, Meagan, this is Dawa Steven. Do you copy?
11:13:59.10
DAWA STEVEN (CONT'D): Meagan, Meagan, Meagan, this is Dawa Steven. Do you copy?
11:14:16.10
DAWA STEVEN (CONT'D): Marshall?
11:14:18.00
THOMPSON: Yeah.
11:14:19.00
DAWA STEVEN: Uh, can you give her a shout from the Base Camp there?
11:14:23.12
THOMPSON: Yeah.
11:14:27.12
DAWA STEVEN: I'm going to try to go a little bit further away to the altar.
11:14:31.06
THOMPSON: Meagan, Meagan, Meagan, this is Base Camp. Do you copy? Over. Meagan, Meagan, Meagan, this is Base Camp. Do you copy? Over.
11:14:51.00
DAWA STEVEN: It's not going well. Something's wrong with the radios, that's what I'm thinking.
11:14:57.00
MEAGAN: (INAUDIBLE)
11:15:00.12
DAWA STEVEN: Meagan, I just heard you. Can you repeat yourself?
11:15:05.12
MEAGAN: Yes. We are just below the Col and we have run out of rope. We need to rope the area to make it safe. Over.
11:15:14.18
DAWA STEVEN: Basically, Pemba and Meagan and Kami, they went up and they went to the edge of the Col wall just below the Col wall. Unfortunately, they ran out of rope about 40 meters of unroped section and they deemed it too dangerous, so they've decided to come back and wait in Camp 4. The million dollar question is can they make it that 40 meters to the fixed line, because right now from Base Camp I can do nothing. You know, the problem solving has to be done up there, so all I can do is give them the information I've got.
11:15:59.04
SUPER: DAY 36
11:16:00.12
THOMPSON: So is Apa somewhere like right there then?
11:16:02.12
DAWA STEVEN: He's somewhere over there.
11:16:04.08
MAN: Where?
11:16:09.08
DAWA STEVEN: There.
11:16:14.12
THOMPSON: Yeah, and there's Arjun with his red boots.
11:16:16.20
DAWA STEVEN: Oh, yeah, his gray trousers and his long shaggy hair.
11:16:30.23
DAWA STEVEN (CONT'D): Oh... congratulations! Oh, good job, good job. I'm so happy for you. I spoke to your father yesterday. He's so proud of you. Call him in 20 minutes, okay? Call him. You tell him
11:16:53.08
SHERPA: Congratulations, Arjun.
11:16:55.12
SHERPA: Arjun.
11:16:56.12
ARJUN: Thank you.
11:17:04.16
DAWA STEVEN: Whoa, look!
11:17:08.08
SHERPAS: (CHUCKLE, SPEAK SHERPA)
11:17:14.00
ARJUN: Oh, it was so awesome. You... like, as I told you before, you can't catch it by any camera. It's just what you feel. You have to be there. It's, like... (SIGHS) like... Thank you. You have to see that whole... whole thing. For a few seconds, for a few moments you just feel like you are at the top of the world. Like you a command of... like no one's above you. Like everyone's, like, below you and it's... such a great feeling.
11:17:57.12
WOMAN: They cut?
11:17:58.14
ARJUN: (SPEAKING HINDI)
11:18:00.02
WOMAN: (SPEAKING HINDI)
11:18:03.18
MEAGAN: Couldn't be any better. Over.
11:18:06.20
DAWA STEVEN: All right, copy that. Good, good, good. Now don't stay up there too long. Take your pictures, enjoy the view, and come back down as soon as possible and keep your wits about you because the way down is more tricky than the way up, so be careful on your way down, all right?
11:18:24.08
MEAGAN: Yeah, I think we'll take our time on the way down because I can see how it'll be very tricky. Over.
11:18:30.00
DAWA STEVEN: All right. Well, enjoy. Congratulations once again and we're all waiting for you down here for a party.
11:18:36.12.
MEAGAN: Yeah. Party. I will. Yay! Getting down there. Whoo! And hi, I'm here at the summit of Lhotse and it was ass-kicking and I have Pemba to thank for getting here all the way.
11:18:41.15
SUPER: VIDEO DIARY, MEAGAN
SUMMIT OF LHOTSE
11:19:04.07
O'SHAUGHNESSY: The cyclone that everybody's been really concerned about is nowhere near us and not headed anywhere towards us and it's only getting weaker. In fact, it's not a cyclone anymore. I think they've categorized it as a tropical depression, and so it looks like we're going to have four or five good days of weather.
11:19:26.06
DAWA STEVEN: It'll be snow. Like last year we had, last year we had Cyclone Aila and apparently this one's called Cyclone Laila, so if it's like last year, it's going to dump about four feet of snow in one day.
11:19:32.23
SUPER: DAY 37
11:20:02.10
BHAGYASHREE & MEAGAN: (SPEAK, INAUDIBLE)
11:20:13.11
MEAGAN: It'll always be Mount Everest and you'll always have the danger associated with is, and you will always have to be... anyone who comes here, especially who steps into the icefall, will have to be humble, and I think that's what's kind of cool about it. You can commercialize the crap out of it, but for anyone who's up there, the mountain doesn't care who you are, if you're with a commercial expedition or a hardcore, full-on spirited person, you got to be humble in the mountains.
11:20:43.12
O'SHAUGHNESSY: The weather went sideways. I don't think anybody was anticipating this kind of snow. I think what's happened is the remnants of the cyclone that was supposed to miss us, actually, is overhead right now. The guys were all in Camp 4 yesterday. Long story short, they've managed to get enough food and fuel to stay up there another 24 hours. If this weather doesn't clear up for them tonight, then we're done.
11:21:13.09
HILL: Kicking myself there now, obviously, for waiting, but lot of little things added up to me spending the night, an extra night up here, so I might be spending three nights in the South Col, which isn't healthy, but you know, I'm feeling pretty good. If I take a push now and there's a bad storm, that's it, it's our only chance, and I've been in worse, but not at 80,000 meters.
11:21:16.23
SUPER: ROB, CANADIAN TEAM, VIDEO DIARY
CAMP 4
11:21:42.11
SUPER: DAY 38
11:21:56.04
O'SHAUGHNESSY: The story of the last 24 hours. It's been bad, bad. Trying to get through.
11:22:04.08
MEAGAN: Hi, Mom. It's Meg. Okay. (CHUCKLES) Well, like I say, I never want to call until I know I'm actually pretty safe. Safe and sound. So, um, I'm pretty safe and sound.
11:22:20.01
HILL: Sitting on the South Col just below 8,000 meters. We had hopes of going last night for the summit. Just got hammered. Other teams that went turned around so we're happy we didn't. Took a rest day. We're hoping to go tonight if it stays the way it is. We'll be happy to be moving.
11:22:21.11
SUPER: VIDEO DIARY, CANADIAN TEAM, ROB
CAMP 4
11:22:41.03
HILL: We've got everything sorted out. We've got enough Os to last us up and down and safety. We're all going together tonight at 7:00 hopefully.
11:22:49.10
SUPER: DAY 39
11:22:51.06
FURNEAUX: We're on the South Summit. Rob should be coming up any minute.
11:22:52.04
SUPER: CANADIAN TEAM, VIDEO DIARY
SOUTH SUMMIT
11:22:59.12
FURNEAUX: Here's Rob Hill approaching the South Summit of Mount Everest. 8,750 meters. Pretty much the roof of the world. We're on oxygen and it's one step, three or four breaths, one step, three or four breaths.
11:23:27.08
HILL: How you going?
11:23:28.12
FURNEAUX: It will be missed.
11:23:55.02
SUPER: Rob turns around 88 meters from the summit
11:24:01.04
O'SHAUGHNESSY: You know, it was pretty apparent getting into the South Summit that Rob had slowed right down and that he was pretty hammered and, you know, he just said, you know, "I've been through a lot up here and... I'm okay with this." (CRIES) I know on some level he's going to be disappointed, but I think it's going to be short lived. And I'm fucking proud. These are not... I'm not feeling a disappointment, I'm feeling just a sense of awe and amazement that... there's been a lot lesser people that have gone up that mountain and made stupid decisions. This guy did it right. Yeah.
11:25:10.03
ARJUN: I want to leave tomorrow, maybe.
11:25:12.00
INTERVIEWER: Oh, with us?
11:25:13.00
ARJUN: Uh, chopper.
11:25:14.10
INTERVIEWER: No!
11:25:18.16
ARJUN: My father said, "Why you wasting time? Come by chopper." I said, "Okay. No problems."
11:25:25.06
HACKETT: The ropes are fixed to the summit. For a true climber it doesn't feel like climbing. but for these other folks, it's a tremendous achievement. It's a great goal for them. It's just different.
11:25:39.04
SUPER: DAY 40
11:26:00.20
THOMPSON: Base Camp has reminded me a lot of Iraq in several ways, and I think it's just here Base Camp and, like, on a base in Iraq you have a group of people that are very high risk. They're not averse to risk at all, and that's usually why they've joined the military. That's usually why they've become a mountaineer. And so you have that same sort of, there's that machismo and there's that same sort of mentality there. And there you're basically surrounded by death, so you have to have sort of coping mechanisms, and I think a lot of those mechanisms are very similar.
11:26:38.11
PEARSON: This place isn't a place that humans necessarily belong, you know, and that's another, that's another thing. We don't belong here and I respect that.
11:26:56.06
FURNEAUX: As soon as we all get down safe it's going to be a good deal of stress off.
11:27:04.08
THOMPSON: That feeling is shared down here, John. And there's 24 beer down here for when you get here, too, eh. That's the Canadian way. (CHUCKLES)
11:27:41.10
SUPER: In spring 2010, four climbers died attempting to summit Everest
11:27:44.18
SUPER: 512 were successful
THE END