The Summit Page #2

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- Down.

- Yeah.

- Down this.

- Yeah.

- Chhiring says he's moving.

Wow.

He's still alive.

We have to do something.

Is everybody coming down?

Ask the question.

Chhiring, do you know if...

if everyone

is coming down at this point?

Over.

Of course, we had a discussion.

Should we turn around,

you know, to try to help?

We talked about it,

and then we said,

"Listen. The Serbian guys are going down."

"We know the Americans

are there, you know."

"I think it doesn't make sense,

you know, to go down."

There is a not big conversation

each other about the accident.

After three, four minutes,

they start climbing again.

I was like,

"I'm gonna save this guy."

"I'm gonna save him."

"There's no way he's gonna die,"

"not this day, no way."

"It's not gonna happen."

I just shoot up.

He hit on the rock,

lose control,

keep falling

for 200 more meters,

and stopped.

And then I started coming down.

There were maybe two guys

below me,

so I came down pretty fast,

maybe 'IO minutes.

He was wrapped in rope

and just giving no signs

of life.

Already very pale and gray,

cuts on the head,

black nose, broken,

blood from mouth.

- Finish.

- Totally finished, almost.

If I knew that Dren was dead,

I would not have gone up.

The Serbians,

they want to take him

down to base camp.

I said that that's impossible.

"What we can do is that we can"

"at least bring him

down to Camp Four"

"and give him

a proper burial there."

Honestly, what's the point

of lowering a body

from 8,150 meters to 7,800?

8,000 meter,

you're in the death zone.

Every step is a burden.

But when you have a dead body,

it's a hell of a load.

Okay, we have to go down

like this, guys.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Whoop.

You have to stay not so close.

Yes.

If you do fall,

you release, okay?

It's-it's-it's-

it's our lives too, okay?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Remember.

Jehan Baig, from Pakistan,

suddenly started acting

really weird.

He's coming down

on my right side,

holding onto the rope,

which goes around my lower legs,

and we are crying out...

Release the rope!

Release the rope!

He did not make one single move

to stop his fall.

Jesus Christ.

Instead, he just let go,

and he shoots off like a rocket

straight out to the open air

and just disappears.

Oh, K2,

it was full of surprises.

The conquest in '54

was much more complicated

than we

could ever have imagined.

But believe me,

we came prepared.

We were 11 climbers.

With us, 13 Hunzas

and a battalion of Balti,

the humble,

extraordinary local porters.

After endless months

of preparation,

it began with a fantastic march

to the foot of the peak

through an exotic,

timeless landscape.

We laid siege to the mountain

for two grueling months.

We established base camp

and then started building camps

all the way up the mountain,

acclimatizing our bodies

to the altitude,

the unknown,

preparing ourselves

for the summit attempt-

anything to help us survive.

In memory of Art Gilkey,

Dudley Wolfe, Pasang Kitar.

1954. Unbelievable.

'94.

There are many people

who just died on their way down

from the summit.

Yeah.

Dying on... died on descent.

Almost on everyone

you can read it,

"Died on descent."

Yeah.

Here's the original cross.

Everybody saying,

all Western people,

even our Sherpa community,

they say to me,

"Why are you going on K2?"

"Because it is too dangerous"

"and the accident rate

is too high."

"Why you are going there?"

If you climb on K2,

you have to trust each other.

Fully for 200%.

Gerard said, "Hey, listen."

"It would be lovely

if I can bring Pemba."

And Pemba is a Sherpa,

but a lot of people

are thinking about a Sherpa

that he's just an ordinary guy

who is bringing up stuff

up the mountain.

But Pemba was a really...

a different guy, you know?

He was a professional climber

like we were.

You had a good trip, Pemba?

Yeah, yeah.

- Fantastic.

- What's your question?

Do we have

boil-in-the-bag rice?

Take care of it.

You know, yeah,

it's the one thing

that I'm concerned about

is that Pemba

mightn't be too used

to freeze-dried food.

Oh, no, but we have

the original rice too.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Action.

Hey.

I found a good companion

in Gerard.

He was a climber who had

the same ambitions as me.

Then you are pushing the limits,

you know, higher and, yeah,

and then it ends up

in the Himalaya.

Whoa!

- Hey.

- Whoo!

Hey!

Ger was a very qualified climber,

and next to that,

he is a very social boy,

more-more social

then the average climber.

The most important thing

for all of these expeditions

is to have a good time

and have a good laugh

with your friends.

Thank you.

There's two people

I've met in my life

who could walk in a room

and fundamentally change

the energy in a room,

and Ger McDonnell

was one of them.

He did lots of things,

and he did it 150%,

anything he chose to do.

I had my sights set

on climbing Denali,

and Denali

is the tallest mountain

in North America.

I was curious how I would react

to the altitude.

Me and Mike up at top.

Minus 20.

Denali had

that kind of certain mystic,

magical power over Ger.

That was the start of the-

the big boys,

the big climbs.

2003, I was the expedition leader

on Mount Everest.

We had a small team.

Ger, he had a huge passion,

and he burst full of energy.

Ireland!

My Ireland.

He knew how dangerous,

actually, mountaineering was.

He knew over 8,000 meters,

it's not called "death zone"

for nothing.

Every blood cell in your body

is being deprived of oxygen,

which numbs your brain cells.

Making logical decisions

become harder.

The longer that you're

up at high altitude,

the more prone you are

to your whole body

disintegrating from inside.

It creates mucus.

It creates fluids.

It actually starts to swell

the brain, the lungs,

till, eventually,

you won't survive.

Within high-altitude

mountaineering,

there is an unwritten code.

If it's a case

that someone is dying,

and you know you're gonna put

your own life at risk,

you should leave them.

This 8,000-meter stuff

was alien to me at this point,

so I was just following

direction, you know.

Descending, Pat was in a bad way

and seemed to be moving

exceptionally slowly

and stopping to rest.

And when I saw the look

on Pat's face...

ah, sh*t.

I was getting pulmonary edema,

cerebral edema, thrombosis.

I was being deprived of oxygen,

and I started to die.

There was... there was no energy there.

And more than a lack of energy,

there's...

actually, I think

there was an awareness

of a lack of energy,

and I think there was

also a knowledge

that he knew that himself

that he was in trouble.

Pemba Gyalje

and, in particular, Ger

were the people

that were encouraging me down.

Yay!

If my team members

hadn't helped on that day,

I may very well myself

be encrusted onto the rocks

of Mount Everest for eternity,

never to come back home

to see my family.

They say

that the most important thing

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