Thoughts from
San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture

 
Everest DVD
By Tom Smith

I watched this one over the weekend. The Imax production values are great, and the story of the 1996 disaster is covered to some extent. There is the usual amount of self-congratulation typically found in mountaineering flicks. But the real reason to rent or buy this DVD is the almost unwatchably intense interview with Beck Weathers, the Texas M.D. climber whom Jon Krakauer et al. left to die on the mountain. Weathers somehow awakened himself from a hypothermic coma, walked through perhaps minus 75 Fahrenheit temperatures back to camp, lived through the night and another storm, and, finally with the help of some other climbers, including some of the Imax crew, made it down to Camp 2. From there he was helicoptered out in the highest helicopter rescue, as far as I know, in history. Weathers lost his hands and much of his face to frostbite. His face now looks pretty good; his reconstructed nose looks almost natural. Watching him brush away tears with his reconstructed flipper-hands is pretty wrenching stuff. Watching the Imax film with its amazing photography and soaring music, then the interview, which probes the very bottom of courage and regret, makes for a striking contrast. I would be the first to admit that Into Thin Air is a swell book and a compelling read, but the fact remains that Krakauer sat shivering in his tent while others (such as guide Rob Hall) died trying to save their rope-mates, or just died alone in the freezing wind, wishing they could see their families one last time. It is ironic that Krakauer made a million bucks on the disaster while others who were better and braver climbers and men lost everything. Beck Weathers now has his own book out; if it's anything like the interview, it will be well worth reading.

There is a picture in David Breashears' Everest: Mountain Without Mercy that says it all to me. It shows climbers walking past the "partial cadaver" (the lower half of a frozen body with climbing boots still attached) on their way up the mountain. (p. 189) Whether this is consistent with the 'code of the mountains' or not (I have debated this with other climbers), I think the code needs an amendment to the effect that you do not leave the dead at the side of the route. You at least pack them off to crevasse and say a few words. Maybe if that were the code, high alpine climbers would be a little less casual about death. (After several years, the body was finally disposed of in a crevasse.) Like Krakauer, if the chance presented itself ($60,000 and 45 days of spare time would have to fall from heaven) I would go to Everest in a second, even though I kind of sort of disapprove of the commercialization of the mountain. But I like to think I would at least ask in similar circumstances, "Where the hell is Beck?"
posted by thomas at 11/17/2003 08:52:00 AM