Meru Page #5

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Those are real personal decisions.

It was kind of a, All right, you have to

get back on the horse mentality.

Five, four, three, two, one.

- Xavier de Le Rue.

- [ Beeps ]

Dropping!

[Jeremy]

The general mood was pretty light.

Our objective for the day

had been reached. Good vibes.

Our conversation before dropping in was...

go one at a time,

make sure everyone's in a safe spot.

Dropping!

[Jimmy]

So, Jeremy made a couple turns.

Cut up on the side of this safe zone.

Called me in,

and I make a turn right next to his turn.

And then- And then I feel it-

The whole slope shift.

[ Rumbling 1

[ Jeremy]

I yell, Avalanche.

Just screaming, Get out,

get out, get out.

[Jimmy]

For a moment, it looks like slow motion.

And the next moment,

everything went to fast-forward.

And it just- I got swept.

I'm airborne.

Totally weightless.

And I lost sight of him.

That was the last I saw of Jimmy.

And the slide just kept

going and going and going and going.

[ Rumbling 1

[ Jimmy] I just got crushed under

an ocean of car-sized blocks.

Probably going 70, 80 miles an hour...

down 2,000 vertical feet.

And in my mind, I heard this voice...

having this conversation that was like...

Wow, I- I always wondered

how I was gonna die...

and now- now I know.

I was just expecting to get

torn to pieces.

But after a while,

it started to slow down.

And this weird undercurrent

started pushing me up through the snow.

And at the last moment...

I popped out of the toe of this thing...

buried up to my chest.

I was in that moment being like,

Oh, my God. I'm in one piece.

Like, I coughed up this huge chunk

of snow, and I took this huge breath...

and I was like-

[Gasping ]

And I looked at my arms,

and I was like, I mean...

I couldn't even believe

they were still connected to my body.

And then, um-

Yeah, it was a lot.

[Jeremy] it was really difficult to

descend and felt like forever.

But I come around the corner...

and way out at the very bottom...

of the biggest debris fields

I've ever seen...

is Jimmy sitting upright.

[ Exhales Sharply]

[Jimmy] I haven't seen a f***in' slide-

[Chuckles]

[Jeremy's Voice ] This avalanche has

trumped all avalanches I've ever seen.

I couldn't help but think, Jimmy's dead.

I just can't believe that he survived it.

Oh, boy!

- [Whines ]

- Whoo!

[ Jeremy]

We just saw a miracle.

[Xavier]

Yeah, they saw a miracle.

Or I saw superhuman effort.

I saw somethin'. I don't know.

[Jimmy] Most people don't survive

those kinds of avalanches.

People die in a lot lesser avalanches.

So I got really lucky.

Took off for a while.

I disappeared off the map...

and I needed some time

to really contemplate.

[Grace]

After Renan's near-death accident...

Jimmy was extremely shaken.

And then the avalanche four days later.

It really contributed to him

reexamining his life.

He'd been given a second chance, and so

what do you do with a second chance?

[ Krakauer] So, Jimmy survived this thing

that people don't survive...

and he was really messed up.

He was in a bad way psychologically.

And this makes you doubt

your judgment about everything.

He bailed from various commitments.

He's not goin' anywhere.

He's certainly not goin' to Meru.

Renan can't go to Meru.

He's crippled, maybe for life. Seriously.

You know, no one knew

if Renan was gonna come out of this.

[ Exhales]

[Conrad ] Renan and I got together.

He had his neck brace on...

and he was in his La-Z-Boy chair.

And he was kind of like this.

[Typing 1

I'm offering encouragement.

I'm like, Yes, we can do this.

This is- This is good.

Yet, in the back of my mind,

I knew that I might have to be-

it might be, Renan, you're just physically

are not prepared to go back to Meru.

[Jenni ] I think Conrad was

the driving force for the entire trip.

At first I didn't want him to go back,

but it was just that loyalty to Mugs...

and wanting to fulfill that shared dream.

Having climbed mountains myself,

I understood that.

Especially if it's a first ascent.

No one's been there before you.

[ Jimmy] After some time off and-

and some serious contemplation...

the idea of not skiing and not climbing

and not being in the mountains...

um, was- was too much to- to imagine.

I just wasn't ready to give it all up.

[ Panting ]

[ Renan ] There was only five months

until we were supposed to leave for Meru.

It was a pretty serious

point in time where...

I didn't care that I was injured.

I just cared that I wasn't going to be

able to join the team again.

Can I have you bring your arms up like so?

[ Renan Continuing ] And I'm sure, to

my friends and family, that was really hard...

because they just wanted to see me okay.

I just feel bad to put them through that.

[ Doctor] One of the fractures

is this thing back here...

which is so far displaced

that that's not gonna really heal.

This is the second fracture.

[ Renan ] One of the biggest question

marks was the vertebral artery.

I'd lost half the blood supply

to my brain...

and climbing at altitude,

there's a high risk of...

some sort of blood clot

getting through that artery...

and giving me a stroke during the climb.

But for me, it was worth the risk.

It was something that I had to do.

It was worth possibly dying for.

I mean, in my mind, I thought it was-

I thought it was crazy

that he wanted to go back.

But I realize that Meru for him

was something to hold onto.

For him, it was like, This is my dream.

To come back and climb Meru...

and prove to himself that he had

the capacity to make a comeback.

And I- I understood it as well...

because, in a way,

I needed the same thing, you know.

[ Grunting ]

- The bike.

- [ Exhales Sharply]

[Jimmy] Renan had put his heart

and mind into recovering.

And the way that he had progressed was...

almost inhuman.

[ Panting ]

Conrad and I were gonna go back to Meru.

But we still had to make

a decision about Renan.

And Renan was...

pretty adamant about going.

It was this moment when

the three of us got together...

and Jimmy made the case

for Renan to come along.

[Jenni]

I was against Renan going on the climb.

I just confronted Jimmy

and I said, You know...

I am not keen about this.

You know, you can't take Renan up there.

I mean, what if he dies?

But I couldn't talk Jimmy into

throwing Renan off the trip. [ Laughs ]

It's like he was totally dug in.

He just said, flat out, lf Renan feels

he's ready, I trust Renan.

[Jenni]

I was worried about Renan.

[Groaning ]

[Jenni Continuing ] But I was also worried

about the well-being of the entire team...

because... just to go up onto a face

like that with a weak partner...

where, what if they got

into another big, bad storm?

- [ Cracks ]

- [Jenni Continuing ] Or what if one of 'em...

got wacked in the head with a rock...

and they had to get him

down off, and they-

You need to have your partners

be sound and strong.

You know, when our friends heard about it,

they were like-

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