K2- The Ultimate High

One of the first mountaineering movies that I saw. Its goes along the usual plot with two friends, one is a family man, the other a sort of playboy and they make a great team. Wonderful movie once they start climbing K2. It bores you a bit in between but the part about the trek to base camp is necessary to really show what an expedition is all about. It all begins with getting to the base camp and them taking one step at a time from there. Some sequences are really mind blowing. The one scene where he is running up the stairs of his office and then working out in his office while working shows how mountaineers really have to prepare to get in shape to be able to climb so high.

The Plot Taylor Brooks (Michael Biehn) and Harold Jameson (Matt Craven) are white-collar professionals by weekday, and accomplished mountain climbers on weekends. Though they share a love for scaling mountains, the two friends are somewhat opposites in their personal lives. Taylor is a thrill-seeking attorney and womanizer, while Harold is a married, level-headed scientist. On a climb, the pair encounter billionaire Phillip Claiborne (Raymond J. Barry), who is accompanied by a team of fellow climbers. They explain they are testing equipment for a major Himalyan expedition but don't reveal the peak. Brooks meets a climber he remembers from law school, Dallas. That night, two of Claiborne's team ignore Harold's warnings of an impending avalanche and are killed when snow careens down the mountain. Claiborne and the other survivors are rescued only thanks to the quick action of Taylor and Harold. With a hole left in his climbing crew, Taylor begs Claiborne to take him and Harold to join him on his next climb - K2, the second highest peak in the world. Claiborne finally relents and allows the two to join his team. The entire team heads to the Karakoram and starts the climb successfully, though Taylor butts heads with Dallas while Harold has guilt over leaving his wife to participate. As the ascent continues, the team runs into trouble when their Balti porters strike (mirroring the real-world experiences of several expeditions in the 1970s) and Claiborne becomes ill with altitude sickness. A four-man team (Taylor, Harold, Dallas and Japanese climber Takane) continue the summit with minimal gear. They are stopped when Claiborne makes the decision (talking via radio) to only allow two men to make the final summit, while two wait behind at the high camp. Dallas chooses Takane as the second man to go, and they leave, amidst protest from Taylor and Harold. Later, Takane returns to the tents after a bad fall, in severe hypothermia, dying soon after.

Taylor and Harold decide to try for the summit themselves. After a grueling journey, the pair finish the climb and celebrate. Their happiness is short-lived, however, as Harold slips on the descent and badly breaks his leg. The pain is unbearable and he cannot be moved. Luckily, Taylor soon comes cross Dallas' frozen body, as well as his supply of epinephrine (adrenaline) kept on hand. Taylor injects Harold with morphine and then begins to lower his friend to safety, several dozen feet at a time. Despite Harold's pleas, Taylor refuses to abandon him and continue alone. They continue to descend until they reach a ridge, where a helicopter comes into view. The men are saved and celebrate.

Director: Franc Roddam Writers: Patrick Meyers (play), Patrick Meyers(screenplay), and 1 more credit » Stars: Michael Biehn, Matt Craven and Annie Grindlay

You can watch the whole movie below

North Face and Toni Kurz

There have been numerous documentaries and movies on Toni Kurz. I am posting two of the prominent ones here. I am giving some background on Toni and his friend Andreas Hinterstoisser following which I will give you links to videos and the movie itself.

Toni Kurz (January 13, 1913 in Berchtesgaden, Germany – July 22, 1936) was a German mountain climber of the early 20th century who had many first ascents with his childhood friend Andreas Hinterstoisser. Both died in tragic circumstances in 1936 as one of the four-man team making a second attempt to scale the North Face of the Eiger.

During the ascent, his companion, Willy Angerer, was injured by falling rocks loosened by the warmth of the rising sun as they crossed the first ice field. As a result of Willy Angerer's worsening condition and their slow progress across the second ice field, they abandoned the attempt on the Eiger and decided to descend. A further challenge arose when Kurz and his comrades failed to retrace their route across the area now known as the Hinterstoisser Traverse and had to climb downwards. As the result of another avalanche, Hinterstoisser himself became disconnected, plummeted down the mountain, and perished. Later, Willy Angerer, now climbing below Kurz, was smashed against the wall, dying instantly. Edi Rainer, the climber who had been securing the other two, was pulled against the wall and died minutes later of asphyxiation. Kurz alone now remained, uninjured.

Later that day, amid worsening weather, a rescue team attempted to reach Kurz from below, ascending by means of the railway tunnel that ran through the mountain, the Jungfraybahn. They could not reach Kurz due to the severity of the storm and were forced to leave him dangling unprotected and exposed to the elements for the entire night. The next day, the team again attempted to effect a rescue; Kurz himself made the effort, despite a frozen hand due to losing a glove, to abseil down the face of the mountain and reach the team. To accomplish this, he first had to cut loose the dead body of his comrade hanging below him, then climb up and cut loose his other dead comrade. To increase the length of his rope, he unraveled it and tied it together again. This entire process took five grueling hours. He then lowered the rope to the waiting rescuers, who attached their own rope.

The mountain guides only had one long rope – 60 meters – with them. Hans Schlunegger just put it between his back and his rucksack (not into his rucksack) to save some time. This was not an unusual practice for them. Unfortunately when he made a sudden movement the rope dropped and fell down to the foot of the wall. As a result the team combined two shorter ropes to reach the required length; however the combined ropes still fell short. Kurz pulled up their rope, fixed it, and began his abseiling descent. He was stopped a mere couple of meters above his rescuers by the knot. To abseil any further he would have had to raise himself enough to release the pressure on the knot and let it pass though his gear. Desperately, Kurz tried to move himself past the knot, but in vain. Facing the futility of his situation, he said only "Ich kann nicht mehr" ("I can't [go on] anymore") and died.

His body was later recovered by a German team.

The movie North Face (2010) is one of the most wonderful movies about climbing I have seen. I would rate it to be better than movies like K2- the ultimate dream and Vertical limit. Toni and Hinterstoisser are really likable characters and I love the way the movie has been filmed.

Director:

Philipp Stölzl

Writers:

Christoph Silber, Philipp Stölzl, and 3 more credits »

Stars:

Benno Fürmann, Florian Lukas and Johanna Wokalek

The Beckoning Silence

Its a documentary which was made for TV. It is a documentary comparing one extraordinary escape by Joe Simpson after falling into a crevasse while descending Siula Grande(Peru) and the tragedy on the North Face of Eiger which involved Toni Kurz and Andreas Hinterstoisser.

Joe Simpson who talks about the whole incident and about his own fight for survival has himself made 6 unsuccessful attempts on the North Face of the Eiger which Toni and Hinterstoisser had set out to climb with equipment half as good but determination that would probably be a lot more than Joe.

I am posting the first part of the movie here. Once you are done you will get related links to watch the whole movie from there onwards.

Reinhold Messner and Nanga Parbat

Reinhold Messner (born September 17, 1944) is an Italian mountaineer and explorer from South Tyrol "whose astonishing feats on Everest and on peaks throughout the world have earned him the status of the greatest climber in history."[1] He is renowned for making the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and for being the first climber to ascend all fourteen "eight-thousanders" (peaks over 8,000 metres (26,000 ft) above sea level). He is the author of at least 63 books (in German, 1970–2006), many of which have been translated into other languages. Background of the movie In May and June 1970 Reinhold Messner took part in the Nanga Parbat South Face expedition led by Karl Herrligkoffer, the objective of which was to conquer the as yet unclimbed Rupal Face, the highest rock face in the world. His brother, Günther, was also a member of the team. On the morning of 27 June, Reinhold Messner was of the view that the weather would deteriorate rapidly, and set off alone from the last high-altitude camp. Surprisingly his brother climbed after him and caught him up before the summit. By late afternoon, both had reached the summit of the mountain and had to pitch an emergency bivouac without tent, sleeping bags and stoves because darkness was closing in. The events that followed have been the subject of years of legal actions and disputes between former expedition members, and have still not been finally resolved. What is known is that Reinhold Messner descended the Diamir Face, thereby achieving the first crossing of Nanga Parbat (and second crossing of an eight-thousander after Mount Everest in 1963). He arrived in the valley six days later with severe frostbite, but survived. His brother, Günther, however died on the Diamir Face - according to Reinhold Messner on the same descent, during which they became further and further separated from each other. As a result, the time, place and exact cause of death is unknown. Messner claimed his brother had been swept away by an avalanche. In the early years immediately after the expedition there were disputes and lawsuits between Reinhold Messner and the expedition leader, Karl-Maria Herrligkoffer. After a quarter-century of peace, the dispute flared up again in October 2001, when Reinhold Messner raised surprising allegations against the other members of the team for failing to come to their aid. The rest of the team consistently maintained that Reinhold Messner had told them of his idea for crossing the mountain before setting off for the summit. Messner himself asserts, however, that he made a spontaneous decision to descend the Diamir Face together with his brother for reasons of safety. A number of new books (Max von Kienlin, Hans Saler, Ralf-Peter Märtin, Reinhold Messner) stoked the dispute (with assumptions and personal attacks) and led to further court proceedings. In June 2005 after an unusual heat wave on the mountain, the body of his brother was recovered on the Diamir Face, which tended to confirm Messner's account of events Director: Joseph Vilsmaier Writers: Reinhard Klooss, Sven Severin Stars: Florian Stetter, Andreas Tobias and Karl Markovics The shooting in the mountain area was filmed with two 35mm cameras and one 70mm camera. See here for the Novamov link for the movie:-

George Mallory and the Wildest Dream

“Summit fever” is a term which has sprung to prominence especially when we talk about Mount Everest. Members of the public and establishment minded mountaineers take a dim view of the irrational and sometimes maddening drive to get to the summit of a mountain when the chances of a safe return are virtually nil. A prominent Australian mountaineer said Alison Hargreaves’ death on K2 was due to summit fever. When Michael Rhineberger reached the “third step” at 8,700 m on Everest’s North ridge at 4.00 p.m., his decision to carry on to the top surely cost him his life. in 1996 Doug Hansen, though sick kept on pushing to the summit reaching it as late as 4pm and on the return did not have the energy to push lower than the Hillary step. Just days later Bruce Herrod made the same mistake and did not return to the summit camp. Out of all these stories, the story of George Mallory is one which will live on until people talk about Tenzing and Hillary. Did Mallory and Irvine climb the mountain years before Tenzing and Hillary even made it to South Col camp? Mallory is famously quoted as having replied to the question “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” with the retort: “Because it’s there”, which has been called “the most famous three words in mountaineering” The documentary The Wildest dream recreates his story. Using similar equipment and climbing the same route that those two brave men took to recreate the last few moments of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine.

What is Summit Fever?

Summit Fever is the heightened anticipation to reach the peak of a mountain. No matter if you are tired, thirsty and hungry, and know that difference between life and death is wrong step; yet still you are excited about the time when you can finally set your foot on the top. Summit fever can be blamed for the loss of more lives in mountaineering than the terrain and the weather itself