Tragic but true story about the disastrous mountain climbing expedition of Mount. Everest in the spring of 1996. Two teams assemble at the foot of Everest headed by world renowned mountain climbers Rob Hall and Scott Fischer with a group of armatures climbers who paid as much as $65,000.00 apiece for the opportunity to scale the highest point on earth; the 29,028 foot five and a half mile high Mount. Everest.
Slowly moving up Everest's snowy slopes the teams reach Camp #3 which is just under what is called the "Death Zone" 26,000 feet up where you can't can't survive without an oxygen mask for any long period of time. What these dizzying heights do is cause your lungs to work four times as hard pumping the same amount of air that they normally get at sea level.The brain then swells up causing unbelievably painful headaches with the lungs filling up with liquid, that if not immediately attended to, can drown you. Then your body becomes so starved for nutrients that it starts to literally feed on itself. This is what happens to a mountain climber reaching these heights, +20,000 feet, who's not fully aware and prepared for the reception that he'll get up there from Mother Nature.
Going towards the Everest summit in sub-freezing weather the men, and women, of the expedition scale the dangerous "Hillery Step" which is the last step to climb before reaching the very top. Told by Scott that if it's 2:00PM to immediately start back down, even if the climbers are within 50 yards of the summit, his words are ignored. The climbers instead of turning back after the dreaded 2:00PM deadline keep climbing and one by one they all reach the top of Everest between the 2;00PM cut-off point until as late as 4;45PM which turned out to be a fatal mistake on their part.
Earlier on the climb at camp #1 Sherpa guide Ang Dorge spotted two of the climbers, a man and woman, embracing outside their tent and got very upset feeling that they, not being married, were very disrespectful to the mountain and that it would lead to an angry response from Everest. Being told by climber and writer Jon Krakaur that it's not unusual for an unmarried couple to have relations back home in America. Jon is reminded by Ang Dorge that their in Napal not in America and what he's saying has nothing to do with native superstitions but that it's based experience and reality. Later when the climbers make their chilling decent from the mountain they find out just how real Ang Dorge's words really were.
Leaving late in the afternoon to climb down the mountain, after planting flags and taking photos on Everest's summit, an unexpected storm kicked up and engulfed the entire summit area in darkness with 70 MPH winds and wind-chill temperatures of under -100 degrees. A number of the climbers started getting lost in the snowstorm and then ended up freezing to death. Among those who perished in the snows of Everest were the two team leaders of the exportation Scott Fischer and Rob Hall.
The story of the climb is told to us in flashback by the author of the book "Into Thin Air: Death on Everest" writer Jon Krakaur who also was on the expedition but unlike some of his fellow mountain climbers lived to tell, as well as write, about it.
Slowly moving up Everest's snowy slopes the teams reach Camp #3 which is just under what is called the "Death Zone" 26,000 feet up where you can't can't survive without an oxygen mask for any long period of time. What these dizzying heights do is cause your lungs to work four times as hard pumping the same amount of air that they normally get at sea level.The brain then swells up causing unbelievably painful headaches with the lungs filling up with liquid, that if not immediately attended to, can drown you. Then your body becomes so starved for nutrients that it starts to literally feed on itself. This is what happens to a mountain climber reaching these heights, +20,000 feet, who's not fully aware and prepared for the reception that he'll get up there from Mother Nature.
Going towards the Everest summit in sub-freezing weather the men, and women, of the expedition scale the dangerous "Hillery Step" which is the last step to climb before reaching the very top. Told by Scott that if it's 2:00PM to immediately start back down, even if the climbers are within 50 yards of the summit, his words are ignored. The climbers instead of turning back after the dreaded 2:00PM deadline keep climbing and one by one they all reach the top of Everest between the 2;00PM cut-off point until as late as 4;45PM which turned out to be a fatal mistake on their part.
Earlier on the climb at camp #1 Sherpa guide Ang Dorge spotted two of the climbers, a man and woman, embracing outside their tent and got very upset feeling that they, not being married, were very disrespectful to the mountain and that it would lead to an angry response from Everest. Being told by climber and writer Jon Krakaur that it's not unusual for an unmarried couple to have relations back home in America. Jon is reminded by Ang Dorge that their in Napal not in America and what he's saying has nothing to do with native superstitions but that it's based experience and reality. Later when the climbers make their chilling decent from the mountain they find out just how real Ang Dorge's words really were.
Leaving late in the afternoon to climb down the mountain, after planting flags and taking photos on Everest's summit, an unexpected storm kicked up and engulfed the entire summit area in darkness with 70 MPH winds and wind-chill temperatures of under -100 degrees. A number of the climbers started getting lost in the snowstorm and then ended up freezing to death. Among those who perished in the snows of Everest were the two team leaders of the exportation Scott Fischer and Rob Hall.
The story of the climb is told to us in flashback by the author of the book "Into Thin Air: Death on Everest" writer Jon Krakaur who also was on the expedition but unlike some of his fellow mountain climbers lived to tell, as well as write, about it.