Storm Over Everest: The David Breashears Story
February 24, 2008
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On May 13, 2008 PBS will be broadcasting a 2 hour special titled Storm Over Everest. This program will be taking a look at the infamous 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest that claimed the lives of Scott Fisher and Rob Hall.
This is David Breashears’ story. David was on Mt. Everest trying to film the second highest grossing IMAX film of all time, “EVEREST,” when the tragic events started to unravel.
Many of us are familiar with this story. Quite a few books have been put out on the subject by those that were there, often with conflicting viewpoints of what really took place.
Storm Over Everest will take a look at this incident while following three seperate expeditions on that fateful day.
People who have all run out of oxygen, some of them really start collapsing, and those of us who are still able to walk try and pick them up, make them keep walking,” recalls climber Lene Gammelgaard. “This is survival.”
In the next 48 hours a battle would ensue. Rob Hall and Scott Fisher were trapped in the storm. Two of the world’s leading Everest guides were facing the threat of dying. Climber’s argued. Should they attempt a high altitude rescue? Was it worth risking more lives to save a single person?
In the ensuing hours that followed, A tragedy of historic proportions would encapsulate the world–
This is David Breashears’ story. Storm Over Everest. May 13, 2008 on PBS from 9pm to 11pm. Check your local listings.
Sources: www.climbing.com, www.pbs.org/frontline, www.abc-of-mountaineering.com
From The Adventurist Vault:
Written by Jason A. Hendricks · Filed Under Uncategorized |
A tragedy of historic proportions? Come on, we’re not talking about Sudan here, let’s have a little perspective! These are people that willingly put themselves at great risk. It’s not like someone forced them to go up there and then this “tragic” event happened. Lives were lost and that’s always sad, but this is not even close to a “tragedy of historic proportions”.
Speaking from an Everest standpoint, this tragedy was of historical proportions..Rob Hall and Scott Fisher, two of the best guides of their time died tragically. It began the debate over the crowds on Everest, whether Everest was getting to commercialized, and whether or not high-altitude rescues could be initiated on Everest.
The ensuing years would prove that high-altitude rescue is feasable and can occur under the right circumstances.
I am not going to sit here and argue about my use of words, they stand on their own, and time has told us that this one event has probably shaped Everest more than anything else in the modern era.
Jason A. Hendricks
Editor
[...] in the New York Times. For different perspectives on the subject, check out this post at the Adventurist. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Breashears’s new film on Everest and the [...]
I do think it is a tragedy of historic proportions. When Robert Falcon Scott reached the south pole only to find Amundsen’s flag and then for the members of his expedition to die a few miles from a safe place after having traversed hundreds more miles, it was a historic tragedy. The note left by Scott that ends “take care of our people” can be very closely linked to the phone call made by Rob Hall to his pregnant wife as he lay freezing to death on the South Summit. The great mountains of the world have been the backdrop to many historic tragedies…
I do think however that the use of language can sometimes be gratuitous (not in this circumstance but generally) and that words lose or alter their meaning when moved from one context to another.
Historic, in this instance, simply means “will go down in history” - and if for nothing else than the reams of writing that has been devoted to it and spawned by it. Tragic in the sense that no other single night has killed as many people as that one night did.
The Sudan is a historic tragedy of epic proportions. Move the word historic from one context to another and the meaning changes…
Victor,
Thanks for deciphering my words, or at least understanding the context. You hit it on the nose. Perhaps it takes a song writer–cool stuff on your site.
[...] Scott Fisher was involved in those tragic events during the storm of 1996. If you recently watched Storm Over Everest, you should have the background on this situation. Christine Boskoff was involved in an incident [...]