It's a dream some say they're willing to die for. This year, Discovery Channel returns to Everest for another climbing season with legendary expedition leader Russell Brice and a new team of daring men and women taking on the world's highest mountain.
Last year, "Big Tim" Medvetz, the Hollywood biker, almost lost his life when summit fever left him exhausted 350 feet below the summit. "I wouldn’t wish Summit Day on my worst enemy," he said at the time.
Mogens Jensen, an asthmatic from Denmark, attempted the climb without oxygen and crashed out, blind and disoriented in the Death Zone, "I just thought, '**** I’m gonna die here.'"
But they're back with everything to prove and a backpack full of attitude that doesn’t sit well with Russell and his team of professional guides.
High-resolution Sherpa cams capture the action as Russell's elite team of Sherpas gamble on the weather as they attempt the earliest ever summit to fix three miles of safety ropes for the amateur climbers to follow.
Back at Base Camp, Brice pulls no punches as he realizes he's got his work cut out for him to get through this season without casualties. Along with Tim and Mogens, his team this year includes L.A. journalist Betsy Huelskamp, who hasn't climbed a mountain in 10 years, and a Japanese pensioner, Katsusuke Yanagisawa, who at 71 years old, wants to become the oldest man ever to summit.
London financier David Tait and Sherpa Phurba Tashi face almost impossible odds in their attempt of the world's first double traverse of the mountain – two summits back to back from different sides of the mountain.
As the Sherpas achieve a record-breaking early summit, the team members begin to realize what they're up against as they scan the mountain with telescopes and see two professional climbers from Kazakhstan fighting for their lives in the Death Zone. The climbers had followed in the Sherpas' footsteps, but it's late in the day and they're running out of time. Also, Russell finds out one team member hasn't been completely honest about their mountaineering experience.
PHOTO: Darius Vaiciulis (left) and Tim Medvetz scope two Kazakh climbers summiting early from ABC (Advanced Base Camp).
Guide Dean Staples is clear about the rules, and is shocked by Betsy's lack of experience. "I think she's quite underprepared because she didn't really know what she was letting herself in for," he says. "You've got to basically be able to get to the North Col in under five hours, and if you can't, then you're not on the summit team."
The climbers from Kazakhstan that the team saw fighting for their lives in the Death Zone the day before are still missing. They radioed for help at 3 a.m. and Russell sent a team of Sherpas to search for them, but there's been no word. Then just after dawn, the radio crackles into life. They've been found in one of Russell's tents, but they're in a bad way.
As Sherpas try to rescue the Kazakhs high on the mountain, the expedition climbers set off for Camp 1. Almost immediately, British climber Rod Baber is in trouble. He's struck by a crippling headache, which could be the first warning sign of acute mountain sickness or even cerebral edema – a swelling of the brain that can kill within minutes.
L.A. journalist Betsy Huelskamp is also struggling to make the five-hour deadline. By any normal standards she's incredibly fit, but the air at 21,000 feet contains less than half the oxygen at sea level and it takes a huge effort just to put one foot in front of the other. Betsy is already in the firing line after Russell discovered she wasn't as experienced a mountaineer as he'd thought, and he's assigned one of his guides to shadow her every move.
Rod Baber just makes Camp 1 within the deadline, but he's in a bad way and faces a very long, uncomfortable night at altitude. As night falls, the Kazakhs arrive at Advance Base Camp alive and aware of how lucky they've been to survive.
Two days later the expedition must climb even higher to acclimatize their bodies to the extreme altitude. Betsy has been allowed one last chance but is it a step too far?
PHOTO: Betsy Huelskamp during her practice climb. Hikers practiced climbing skills with rope support at ABC (Advanced Base Camp).
Betsy Huelskamp's summit dreams are left hanging by a thread after Russell's guides turn her around just below the Death Zone. The team members are at 24,500 feet – higher than anywhere outside the Himalayas – but the sun is beating down and it's incredibly hot. Even the fittest climbers are struggling with dehydration and exhaustion as they try to reach Camp 2.
"It was like walking in a sauna and wearing a down suit, too," admits Danish triathlete Mogens Jensen. Only one climber makes Russell's deadline and there are serious questions about who'll be allowed to try for the summit.
Betsy knows she's in trouble but remains determined: "I never give up; I just don't know how," she says. But others take a harder view. British financier David Tait argues that if Russ sends Betsy up, "he's asking for a dead person."
The team is in need of rest and recuperation at Base Camp where the air is thicker and their appetites should return, but they're all aware their fate will shortly be decided by Russell and his guides. It's crunch time for Mogens Jensen, Tim Medvetz and Betsy Huelskamp. Can Russell let any of them go? "It's my challenge to try and let them go as far as they can without actually killing themselves," he says.
David Tait's plans for a world record double traverse with "super Sherpa" Phurba Tashi get off to a difficult start when Russell is forced to gamble on a 12-day weather forecast. Weather patterns dictate they must leave earlier than planned and the enormity of what he’s trying to achieve hits David hard as he leaves Base Camp for the summit.
Meanwhile, Russell calls a meeting with the climbers to let them know who will be allowed to go for the top. Russ tells Tim, "Get your s**t together man," and orders him to stop being so arrogant. Mogens, who is determined to summit without bottled oxygen, faces some hard truths when Russell tells him: "I don't think you can make it without oxygen."
Then, Russell makes a tough and final decision. For Betsy, the dream is over.
PHOTO: Phurba Tashi (left) and David Tait (seated) talk to each other at ABC (Advanced Base Camp) before setting out for the double traverse.
David Tait and Phurba Tashi are on their way to the summit of Everest on the first leg of their world record double traverse attempt. "Mentally, I back myself with everything I've got," he says. "It is the main driving incentive to do something for the first time. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that very reason."They decide to skip the normal overnight stop at Camp 2 and carry on to Camp 3 because of changing weather. If they can speed up by a whole day, they may make the summit.
Back at Base Camp, Russell announces his two summit teams, and theres a surprise for Mogens Jensen when Russell Brice puts him in the slower second team, alongside 71-year-old Japanese climber Katsusuke Yanagisawa, who hopes to be the oldest person to climb Everest.
This is it. The training and the acclimatization climbs are over, the expedition leaves Base Camp and heads for the summit.
High above the rest of the team, David Tait and Phurba Tashi are within hours of the summit, but even if they make it, they're only a quarter of the way through their extraordinary challenge.
Lower on the mountain, the rest of the team wakes to news breaking on the radio. David and Phurba have made it, but it's not all good news. As the team watches events unfold through telescopes, a Japanese climber becomes the first of many deaths on the mountain this year. "We may be passing him on the ropes," says Tim with a shudder.
Then, other casualties begin to stumble into ABC – a British solo climber arrives frightened and confused with high altitude pulmonary edema and a Japanese climber staggers into the medical tent with frostbite.
The team members watch with mounting concern as the death toll grows. In five days' time it’s their turn to take on the world’s deadliest mountain and conquer their own fears. "Of course people are worried that they will not come back down in one piece," says Rod. "If you are not worried, there is something wrong with you."
On the summit, David and Phurba are in unexpected trouble. The bad weather has meant no one has been able to climb the mountain from the south side, and therefore no safety ropes have been fixed for their descent. They'll have to break trail themselves and rope themselves together in the hope they can save each other if one of them falls. To make matters worse, neither of them has ever been on the south side of Everest. As they drop behind the summit onto the South Face, they fall into the shadow of the mountain – and radio silence. They are on their own.
PHOTO: Gavin Bate, a Briton, is given oxygen by Dr. Monica Piris Chavarri at ABC (Advanced Base Camp) after being rescued near the summit.
David Tait and Phurba Tashi are descending on the south side of Everest. There are no safety ropes and no climbers coming up to meet them. They're on their own and out of radio contact. Russell waits anxiously by the radio, trying to contact them directly and calling expeditions on the south side to ask if anyone has seen the two climbers. The rest of the team listens in nervously at Advance Base Camp as they wait their turn to try for the summit.Finally, word comes from the south side that David and Phurba have been spotted making their way down toward the highest camp and relative safety. Russell relaxes for the first time in many days.
Then, that night, David drops a bombshell — he's decided to give up and go home. The traverse from north to south has exhausted him, but more than anything he's realized he's completely dependent on Phurba to succeed. "I was continually being confronted with evidence that he was superior in pretty much every way," says Tait. "We'd done the traverse equally, but from that point on, if we had gone back for a second time, he would have had to defer to me at some point." Any record Tait subsequently claimed would be meaningless to him he says, so he might as well stop now.
Russell is stunned and takes out his frustration on the rest of the climbing team. In his eve-of-summit pep talk, he lays on the line how dangerous the climb will be and how he won’t tolerate anyone disobeying his orders. L.A. biker Tim Medvetz disobeyed him last year and comes under withering attack for being arrogant. "I don't care if you die," Russell tells him.
But Tim hasn't been listening. As Team 1 sets off for the summit, Tim is last out of camp and taking his time on the first leg to Camp 1. He's in no rush, but Russell is furious. He wants Tim to play by the rules and stick closer to the other climbers. When Tim eventually arrives at Camp 1, Russell tears into him over the radio and threatens to throw him off the team. But Tim's in no mood to take it lying down and is furious at Russell. "If anyone talked to me the way he did this morning, back in L.A., he'd be on the ground, period," rants Tim.
PHOTO: Russell Brice on the radio coordinating from ABC (Advanced Base Camp).
Tim leaves the North Col and heads up the North Face with Russell’s words ringing in his ears. If he doesn't get his act together, Russell will order him off the mountain for the second year running.But Tim is so determined to prove Russell wrong that he pushes himself too hard and runs out of steam halfway to the next camp. He's struggling badly and no one's in a mood to give him a second chance.
Twenty four hours behind Tim and Team 1, the second summit team, including Danish asthmatic Mogens Jensen and 71-year-old Japanese climber Katsusuke Yanagisawa, is also on its way to the summit. Mogens is still determined to summit without bottled oxygen, but Russell doesn't think he's strong enough and worries that the hugely increased risks of climbing without oxygen might prove fatal.
As Mogens and the others get ready to leave Advance Base Camp, they're confronted with yet another reminder of how dangerous climbing Everest can be. An Irish mountaineer is brought to see expedition doctor Monica Piris with excruciatingly painful snow blindness. He went blind just below the summit and it’s taken days to get him down the mountain. He never thought he’d make it back alive. "Scariest thing I did yesterday coming down from 8,300 [meters] to North Col," the climber says. "I passed a few dead bodies, rolled over a few actually because I couldn't see them."
Tim eventually makes it to Camp 2 at 24,500 feet and decides to go on bottled oxygen a day earlier than everyone else to give himself the best possible chance of summiting. His tactic works and the next day he storms up the mountain, leaving his teammates wondering why they aren't on oxygen, too.
Mogens is left agonizing over the same decision. He's made it to Camp 2 but he suffered a bad asthma attack during the climb and his confidence is at rock bottom. Russell tries yet again to persuade him to use oxygen, but Mogens needs time to think. He's failed three times already. "It's my job to let people like Mogens go as far as they can without actually killing themselves," says Russell, "but it makes me pretty nervous."
Team 1 fights their way to Camp 4 at 27,500 feet inside the Death Zone, where their bodies are slowly dying from lack of oxygen. It's a grim place at the best of times, but as they arrive, they're met with the sight of a dead climber lying in the snow. "Oh dear, there's a body there," agonizes Rod. "I've just seen a body — I want to go, it's bad karma. If he can die, we can die."
They'll leave Camp 4 at midnight to begin an 18-hour Summit Day. But as they prepare for the toughest day of their lives, another team is in dire straits. A team of climbers has become separated from each other high on the mountain. It's chaos — their teammates don't know where they are, but they want Russell to help. Russell pulls a Sherpa off the summit team to search for the missing climbers. Eventually one is found, but the other remains missing and is presumed dead.
PHOTO: Tim Medvetz at North Col. Hikers use ropes put up by Sherpas and must use ladders to cross a dangerous crevasse along the way.
Five miles high in the Death Zone, Team 1 sets off for the summit at midnight in temperatures of minus 30 degrees F, filmed by high-intensity, infrared Sherpa Cams. But before the sun rises, Tim falls and snaps two bones in his left hand. He's in big trouble. Any accident in the Death Zone is potentially fatal, but Tim has decided not to radio expedition leader Russell Brice because he knows he'd be ordered to turn around. He's now gambling with his life, hoping he can make it up and down with only one good hand.British climber Rod Baber makes it to the summit in record time and watches the sun rise over the Himalayas before making the world's first mobile phone call from the summit. Sitting on the summit for 20 minutes, no one notices he's not wearing his protective goggles, a potentially fatal mistake at this altitude.
U.S. doctor Fred Ziel also makes it to the summit. The last time he tried he had to be evacuated off the mountain with severe frostbite. And mobile phone mogul Darius Vaiciulis from Lithuania makes the summit but is having problems with his oxygen. Finally, Tim struggles up the summit ridge to fulfill his lifelong ambition. But now he has to get back down with a badly broken hand. Eighty percent of climbing deaths happen on the way down and Tim is a long way from safety.
Guide Woody Woodward ties himself to Tim and lowers him down, but it’s an exhausting process and Woody is getting dangerously dehydrated and tired. Eventually they reach the comparative safety of Camp 4, where Team 2 has arrived ready for their summit bid the next day. Tim's alive, but he still faces a mammoth struggle to descend all the way to Advance Base Camp.
PHOTO: Rod Baber makes the world's first mobile phone call from the summit of Mt. Everest.
It's midnight on Summit Day 2. Asthmatic Mogens Jensen leaves Camp 4 on his fourth attempt to climb Everest. This time he's breathing bottled oxygen, "This is my last try at Everest," he says. "It's now or never." Conditions are perfect, and at 6.45 a.m. the Danish mountaineer finally makes the summit.
Also on his way to the top is 71-year-old Japanese climber Katsusuke Yanagisawa, who will be the oldest person ever to summit Everest if he makes it. He's moving well and before long he summits to the cheers of everyone at ABC.
But it's not over yet ... They've all got to get down.
Big Tim is still struggling down with his badly broken hand, which is so swollen he can't remove his glove. He's in extreme pain and to add to his difficulties he must use his broken hand to hold on to the safety ropes.
Mogens Jensen is thrilled to have summited and has passed the most dangerous parts of the downward climb when everything suddenly goes horribly wrong. An anchor point for the safety ropes gives way and Mogens is left dangling over an 8,000-foot drop. His Sherpa hauls him to safety, but Mogens is badly shaken and clings to the rock face before summoning up the courage get moving again. "If it wasn’t for the rope, I'd be dead now," he says. "I tell you I almost crapped my pants."
As the rest of the team wait at ABC, watching Team 2 through telescopes, Tim finally arrives. Expedition doctor Monica Piris cuts off his glove and it becomes clear how badly broken his hand really is.
Rod Baber is also suffering. He took his goggles off at the summit and is suffering the consequences. He's gone snow-blind in one eye.
Russell is also becoming increasingly concerned about Katsusuke Yanagisawa. He's moving very slowly and it looks like he might have suffered a stroke. He's so exhausted he can only come down one camp at a time and it's three days before he finally makes it back to Advance Base Camp to wild applause and congratulations.
Another climbing season is over and everyone on the expedition who tried for the summit has made it, but seven other climbers died. Once again, questions are raised about the wisdom of letting amateurs try to climb Everest.
"When it's vicious here it's terrible," says Russell, "and I think we've got a lot of people around who have absolutely no idea just how bad the weather can be, and how vicious Everest can be."
PHOTO: Dr. Monica Piris Chavarri must use scissors to cut the glove off Tim Medvetz's broken hand post summit