IN 1996, when climbing Mount Everest was quickly becoming a “must-do” sport for socialites and rich people, the mountain took back its offer to be accommodating.
That was the year that an incredibly fierce “perfect blizzard” struck in literally five minutes as three teams of sport climbers started their descent.
The blizzard lasted two days and nights and caused the worst climbing tragedy in Mount Everest history. Many died, while several survivors lost hands, feet, arms and noses.
Those fatalities included two of Everest’s most legendary guides, who tried to save their clients, but died with them.
And, remarkably, much of the tragedy that was those two days was filmed by team cameras that had been set up to record the “adventures” and also by filmmaker David Breashears, who’d gone there to shoot for IMAX.
Tonight, “Frontline: Storm Over Everest” tells the story as it’s never been told before by Brearshears, who is himself a world-renowned climber and aided the rescue.
He not only goes back to film Everest – the spot where the worst tragedies of his life occurred – but he gets the survivors who managed through incredible odds to live through two nights of 88 mile-per-hour-winds and temperatures of 30 degrees below zero to speak to him on-camera.
It is a remarkable feat all around.
On May 10, 1996, three teams of climbers – probably too many for safety – were all attempting to reach the summit with enough “turn-around” time to get back to base camp before dark.
Because some climbers were slower than others, they either slowed everyone else down dangerously or simply had to stay behind and wait for their team leaders to reach the summit and then return for them.
The summit itself became like party central, with everyone who’d managed to survive the insane climb taking pictures and celebrating. Then, as Brearshears describes it, “A storm of unimaginable ferocity hit. And then darkness fell.”
It’s hard to know which is more harrowing and riveting, the footage or the stories told by survivors such as Beck Weathers, a man who’d suffered life-long depression and yet managed to survive and get down after becoming blinded and being left for dead.
His severe frostbite cost him his nose, most of one arm, and the fingers of his other hand.
The most famous climber, of course, was socialite Sandy Hill Pittman, the soon-to-be-ex-wife of MTV honcho Bob Pittman. She got a horrible rap after the accident for being simply a bored socialite who caused many of the problems on the mountain.
This documentary doesn’t present it that way, and while she wasn’t the strongest climber and collapsed a few times, she didn’t drag others down with her slowness, either.
This is one of the best documentaries about survival you will ever see. You won’t want to miss a minute of it.
“Frontline: Storm Over Everest”