Climbing Antarctica's Mt. Vinson | Full Mountaineering Documentary on Vinson Massif

this was the final challenge vincent massif was my last of the seven summits my decade-long self-imposed rat of passage in which i dared to climb to the top of the tallest mountain on each continent [Music] the other six were finished [Music] antarctica was the concluding chapter and final testing ground for gaining whatever wisdom these peaks would offer this is like a spiritual experience this isn't vinson's summit is the crowning point of the vast desert expanse of antarctica the coldest driest and tallest overall continent it's empty of life and then over here check this out that's it that's my vinson yeah baby not a bird not a critter no detectable bacteria nor fungus live this deep into the center of the frozen landmass this place is an endless expanse of white ice and black rock sitting beneath the crushing weight of a thinly veiled outer space oh my gosh this this is antarctica baby yeah it is just amazing here saying yes to vincent was a massive choice that not only required coughing up 42 000 but it also put events into play that would sever the relationship with the woman i thought i'd marry this mountain forced me to finally answer the question why do i climb it's easy to argue that climbers like myself are selfish you can make a strong case that i would rather freeze my ass off in the most isolated and hostile locations on earth then have a relationship a family that didn't all have beards or make a substantial down payment on a house these thoughts aren't foreign to me and i understand the arguments yet i find that line of reasoning to be shallow it misses the point if you'll join me on this journey to one of the most remote and hostile environments on our planet i'll share with you why humans like myself don't just want to but need to climb mountains like vincent massif all right enough of the melodrama let's go climbing i'm going to antarctica i'm going to antarctica antarctica hey john beatty here i'm the mountaineer and the narrator in this documentary if you'd like updates for the other six of the seven summits when i release those documentaries and the podcast episodes interviewing tentmates then please head to www.sevensummitsblog.com again that's sevensummitsblog.com enter your name and email and you'll get the updates of course if you enjoy this documentary please like the video subscribe to the channel and comment on the video or ask your questions all three of those things truly do help thanks so much and enjoy the show everybody calls this thing mount vinson but technically it's called vincent massif a massif is a displaced chunk of the earth's crust vinsen massif emerges from a 5 000 foot base layer of ice making the topography eerily similar to the surface of pluto it's so remote that it kind of felt like we might as well have been going there instead without question it was the hardest of the seven summits to physically arrive at and getting there is just as much a part of the adventure as the climb itself it all starts in puntarenese this is where we meet the team sort our luggage and rest up from travel this is also where ferdinand magellan and ernest shackleton used to hang no big deal my luggage including all of my expedition equipment had yet to arrive thank you american airlines somebody in asia was telling me that the bag with all this stuff in it was either in santiago chile or texas i was slightly stressed but i resigned to connecting with teammates as they started to arrive and getting my final phone calls into family back home ale antarctic logistics and expeditions is the company that manages our flights to antarctica because they get to say who goes they also get to say what happens this is why i was so grateful that when they sat us down in a room for our pre-flight briefing that they displayed an incredible leave no trace ethic basically saying this is the last pristine place on earth so we're going to take care of it and if you don't like it you don't get to go then we toasted over pisco sours and they gave us our boarding passes i thought these are my kind of people my luggage arrived at 11 p.m and at 6 00 am we got the call that it was time to get on the airplane the russian illusion is the only aircraft with the range and payload capacity to get us to where we were going so there's no video of this thing from outside but nobody said anything about from inside the bus we're about to board that sucker they showed us to our seats and gave us what seemed like a makeshift safety presentation and we were on our way to the bottom of the world the engine fired up making the reality of what we were doing palpable i'm looking back and forth everybody's in the down park as i'm going guys what is happening right now we're going to antarctica as i studied the weird stuff hanging from the ceilings and just grateful that there was insulation the reality of what was happening was punctuated by the loudest slamming door i had ever heard in my life it was final i was going we got a first timer here i'm afraid to fly a gopro fixed in the cockpit live streamed back what was happening from the pilot's perspective [Music] i was experiencing a mind blow to my sense of reality tantamount to the first time i sat in an airplane this was it the grand finale to a 20-year dream a decade-long adventure i was freaking out what are all these knobs for i can't trust oxygen that's spelled with an eye who's this guy they're talking to on the screen what do all these wires go to i took a deep breath of oxygen i got a visual on my very own luggage in the cargo hatch i saw that i was with my kind of people most weren't even going to climb with us but i could tell that they were the kind of people who would say screw you to ordinary living which made me feel at home and as i sipped on lipton black tea i began to ponder the life i'd have post 7 summits either way there is no way to turn back now i was going climbing i've climbed taller mountains in my life than most ever will and in this journey to go higher i've discovered that scarier and more treacherous is the simultaneous unavoidable journey within all mountains offer a path to their summit yet a mountaineer's true challenge is to let the mountain peel back your false layers and watch as it lays bare for you who you are at your core mashed between down feathers on all sides of me it became clear that the weight of that enormous pending task was the reason for my many panic attack i was scared scared that as i stood on top of the seventh summit that i would have a clear lens with which to look inside and i wouldn't like who i saw the four and a half hour 2000 mile flight would take us to the center of the ellsworth mountain range we would be surrounded by hundreds of miles of nothing some of us tried to rest but none of us really could the screen came back on a dark spot appeared on the snow that's awesome a few scattered rocks appeared in the snow and i realized those aren't rocks that's camp for anything to go wrong in the expedition this would be our closest civilization union glacier camp our landing strip is a two mile long natural ice runway antarctica is a desert but it's frozen year round so any snowfall gets stripped off of this 2000 foot deep smoothed glacier ice because of the winds yeah a buttery landing it would have made it too real as i watched my teammates exit the plane i pretended to fumble with my jacket i needed a moment to prepare myself to take those first steps on the final continent philippe was the last of my teammates to exit the plane and i knew i had to get myself into gear then i legitimately couldn't figure out how to put on my jacket everybody was dressed like they were going to war with nature once i had finally mentally ramped up i couldn't get outside come on come on come on out of the way the wind was nuclear i'd guess 40 miles an hour and this was a calm day the ice was as slick as a buttered bowling ball highly skilled adventurers were walking like penguins and dropping things everywhere img guide luke riley was cool enough to take this little photo shoot with the illusion in the background everything at union glacier camp including those 16 passenger vans in the background and these trucker terra cargo tractors arrive via that incredible aircraft once the zombie-esque stupor of excitement started to subside each of us had had enough of the blasting winds subfreezing temperatures and we were slowly driven into the van welcome to antarctica everybody with nine passengers leaving the blue ice runway if a storm intercepted our shuttle this is how comms would know to send a search party thank you very much leaving the runway with nine guests so we've got about eight miles to go the team was stoked we were suddenly on an episode of dangerous roads driving in antarctica along a heavily crevassed glacier have you ever been to a place so remote that it can't support year-round civilization that's where we were on the left here we have a christmas tree [Music] i was instantly drawn to the juxtaposition of the incredible bustle of activity amidst the endless nothing so you can see the red flags you don't have to ask me twice if i want to go fat tire biking in antarctica [Music] these moms are so cool man what a beautiful place my joyride was cut short by seeing the tractor full of our luggage arriving at union glacier camp after the gear was unloaded it was a lot of hurry up and wait until we found out we were flying out into 30 minutes to vincent space camp suddenly that illusion was in the sky leaving us even more isolated than we already were what do you think of this jose it's the best [Music] each teammate confirmed that his luggage had arrived and we walked onto the airfield with spirits as bright as our brazil smiles hello brazil are you going to complete your project absolutely vincent's going down boom notice the lack of wheels on this twin otter aircraft we boarded through the back door and saw that our luggage was already inside uh seat belts on for the flight please it's a little bumpy leaving here expecting a few bumps over by the uh by mount ventura as well and uh for more information there's safety freezing cars from the seat pockets in front of you there's also slip stacks and ear plugs in there as well there's a fire extinguisher underneath the front right seat in the crossfit and the rear badge compartment is full of survival gear there's also an emergency locating transmitter back there uh in the unlikely event we need to evacuate while we're on the ground i mean i'll evacuate three times and we'll tell you which side of the aircraft to leave from just look outside make sure there's nothing unsafe out there before you get out what could possibly be unsafe out there the 45 minute flight would take us 95 miles to vinson base camp a place so remote that even google earth doesn't have the colors right where something to go wrong and whether we're to prevent an aircraft from returning to us we were a dizzying 1283 miles to mcmurdo station over thickly crevassed glaciers in negative 40 degree temperatures anybody have any questions nope all right guys enjoyed height thank you the bungee cord keeping the door shut instilled confidence [Music] this was it the last leg of the journey to the southernmost continent's high point finally i was going back to the [Music] mountains the landscape looks reserved for mythology i welcomed the isolation's reprieve because everyday life had started to feel like this terrain broken and increasingly insurmountable the air time allowed me to reflect on my cascade of calamities which were nearly comical in number the sequence started with post-traumatic stress disorder onset by my close proximity to 16 deaths i caught a recurring strain of malaria which ravaged my body over the course of a year crippling me for days at a time i was in a rollover car accident that destroyed most my belongings in tow the concussion put me into a deep unsettled depression simply put life had kicked my ass i had to go because this place is where i knew i could kick ass back but mountains don't just give themselves up my decision to go was the catalyst for a heart-wrenching breakup i was homeless as i tried to figure out my next step just as i started getting back on my feet i ruptured both achilles tendons with equal doses of defiance courage and stupidity i hobbled to the mailbox and sent the check i upgraded from living out of my truck to living here i was a physical and emotional wreck then i saw the peak and for the first time in a long time i felt hope when the skis of the plane landed on that snow one thing settled into my bones it was comeback time i decided that this was not a finishing chapter this was a starting chapter from the bottom of the world with nothing in my name i would hit the reset button i'd begin again right here right now vincent base camp this is it baby last of the seven summits got the sweet vinson ice v looks a little bit sad just landed in this twin otter here i didn't yet know what brought my teammates here but that's what took me to the bottom of the world so we set up tents set up sharps pile we got the sleeping bags in got the solar panels out this is base camp i'm just kind of organizing gear after seeing it for the first time in a few days how do you feel so far oh very good yeah you happy oh i prepare that's the whole thing that in fact is the summit of mount vinson right there and so what we're gonna do is head up that track go up to where it flattens out and then we'll follow that ridge line all the way along here we'll hug right up against the cliff and then we'll get to low camp or camp one but then after that we continue up on the other side of that mountain hit high camp and then we'll uh do a bust on up to the summit we had 14 days scheduled for the expedition but if weather prevented that plane from getting back to us it's not unheard of for teams to be stuck at base camp for three to six weeks then the plane's about to leave that'll be it we knew that we might not see it again for a month the silence took over and dictated our pace i was standing on snow and ice that was hundreds of thousands of years old this ice falls insane really cool looking ice fall look at that so sweet just pristine it's all white crevassed section over there it's just gnarly look at that let me introduce you to the team how was your day guys it was good it was good there's joelle philippe and elon also known as the brazilians bloody amazing antarctica it's incredible here isn't it americans mike and rick and from the dominican republic jose this is the cook tent there we go this is uh what's this bucket for what it's used to filter the food scraps so that no contaminants into the environment but we had other jokes about it we had an awesome team and awesome teams are created by awesome leaders these are two of the best in the industry head guide for the trip was the man the legend greg vernovich greg has a major hand in the mount everest climbing world he led my 2013 everest expedition what's up greg [Music] i chose this specific vincent climb because i wanted to climb with and learn from him he's as good as they come not only as a guide but as a human there's also luke riley great attitude top-notch skills tough as nails and as handsome of a mountaineer as they come i couldn't snap a shot of him without it looking like he was on the cover of an eddie bauer magazine the sun won't set it's ten o'clock at night the sun has dipped enough to give us a bit of a shadow got here in about six hours today from punta arenas greg said it was a record for him i crawled into my sleeping bag with a newfound glimmer of hope it's day two and it is go time we got the sleds about set to go rick's looking solid you've been ready for a while haven't you born ready yeah that's the best attitude born ready rick a surgeon from san diego smart driven and taciturn my mother didn't like it though because he was wearing crampons that's awful in perfect contrast was always joking mike a doctor from salt lake city who put up many first ascents in red rock canyon also on a rope team is jose an engineer from the dr they're all tied up to the rope lines you run the rope underneath the padding of the uh of the backpack and then you tie your kind of equalized anchor which then you tow from your pack that way like if you go into a crevasse you need to get rid of it then you can get rid of both the sled and the backpack at the same time sun only goes down behind this hill here between like three in the morning and ten in the morning so i woke up in the middle of the night it was silent bright as could be out about two o'clock and i thought everybody had left without me i woke up in a panic i missed vincent so we're just going to drop off some of the stuff that we need up at high camp i'm about six hours up and then two hours down and it is just a beautiful day to climb we're gonna be going in front of that avalanche it's down there we are in route and it is cooking i had to strip down i'm not even wearing gloves anymore [Music] in this uh endless ice field they're just cliffs of ice and crevasse huge ice fall number one and then over here we got huge ice fall number two all this runoff all that right there yeah that's all dropped down from this mess of a collapse of ice so these things could be as fresh as yesterday as old as a thousand years it's kind of cool that's my educated glaciologist guest anyway and then this thing is just enormous it's just the coolest prettiest ice pole set of crevasses i've ever seen it's super steep as well i'm gonna get 60 to 70 degree slopes there on average easily one of the prettiest places i've ever been to in my life and last i heard were a little over halfway [Music] we're gonna drop stuff off head back down probably tomorrow come back up and then once we do we're gonna be heading up here up these fixed lines still warm as can be i'm just in this one layer this base layer god bless costco they're 32 degree thermal current time 616. that means we've been out for four hours 45 minutes and man there's nothing better than the side of pulling into a camp like this yeah really cool spot for a camp we get to unload all the gear uh that's meant for the stash turn back around and uh go back down look him going down is certainly faster and easier and going up is the added benefit of getting to see a totally different view you can't conquer a mountain the very idea is dumb but for those who have ever looked at a peak and thought i don't know if i can make it up that thing but i'm gonna try my deepest respect goes out to you as the other team fell behind i became humbled and in awe of how small we were in this place we got some reports about wind soup as they called it down low coming down the hill made the corner around that elbow that is a gorgeous base layer of clouds down there that uh i guess it's just engulfing base camp and then over here is that beautiful sub-peak that's just reflecting that light off the sun in the best possible way and then over here the third and second highest mountains in antarctica when you acknowledge that there's something in the world that's bigger than yourself mother nature will reward you by dancing with you we are at the lip of this cloud layer diving straight into it we are just flirting with this lapping wave so cool and when we get into it it is going to be cool it's going to suck away like 20 or 30 degrees of warmth from the sun now it's gone over here that's so freaking fun nothing it just retreated like we're walking at it and it's ran away by like a third of a mile off in the distance you can see there's some mountains poking out which is really amazing islands in the sky up there just like that this cloud washed on us like a wave one second you're in the sunshine and the next second you are under the cloud the temperature just dropped right now like 25 degrees as that cloud came over us yes this is sweet there it is base camp after uh eight hours and ten minutes we have made the round trip journey from base camp to camp one you can see the sun is nowhere to be seen we're that deep into this cloud 300 400 feet of visibility this is more like the antarctica that i expected so we're gonna pull in camp here put on some layers get some food and get in the sack and then we'll see about whether we're gonna go tomorrow depending on what this weather does with any luck we'll move on up we crashed immediately trying to get some rest for the next day's work a few hours later it was deja vu we climbed on the previous day to split the load we'd carry and kick start our bodies into processing the thinner air now we would move the remainder of our gear and our newly acclimatized bodies up to camp one okay it's day three and behind me you can see the cloud that we came out of it stayed still the entire night it's another great day for an expedition unfortunately we lost julianne he decided that uh he wasn't up for the up to the climb mountains push us to our limits i've certainly been bitch-slapped by a mountain or two in my day so i had nothing but compassion and encouragement for the guy as he debated his decision to stay or go but ultimately the choice was his he caught a plane out and we were moving can't wait to hang out at camp one catch some rays a little bit of sun tanning a little bit rest for the lakes mountains are measuring sticks not just of strength and endurance but each foot of elevation somehow seems to quantify your ability to dig deep your ability to be a team member your leadership skills your ability to listen and to follow mountains measure your gratitude when conditions are miserable your cheer when people piss you off your ability to apologize when you've offended someone they measure your emotional maturity which i clearly have little of they measure your wisdom and your willingness to turn your back on mountains that aren't for you all right we just passed the last big hill not too mountains magnify who we aim to be if you start your climb as an you're gonna come back a bigger if you start as a teammate seeking connection humility and inner strength rooted in compassion like these guys then you'll come back with a greater degree of those qualities so approach mountains with the intent of becoming your best self and the mountains will show you where you're at now and then chisel you until that better self settles in if the question of every person is am i enough then mountains make us enough and they give us something to point at and say well i was enough for that you guys doing well yeah way to go mike how you doing man feeling good that's what i like to hear this is the final moment coming in hello can i pull this cash out that's good we joke that we go into the mountains to get high but there's truth to this and that we gain a mind-altering connection to nature and to being a part of a team he's good rick greg i think we're moving into low camp on a perfect day nice great job the building blocks of these wind barriers are sawed straight from the ice because we were one of the last expeditions of the season we got to poach the hard work of other teams the boon was a great kickstart to our rest days keep that mountain behind us that pretty mountain we're going up that sucker in a place like this i couldn't help but feel compelled to allow the quiet to speak its mind [Music] but [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] if humans took care of the earth in the same way that we take care of antarctica would the entirety of the planet be this beautiful some people wonder what it's like to use the restroom all along the mountain you got these yellow flags periodically and uh at every camp so here i am at low camp and as you can see this is a well-used uh piece platinum so that's how we keep it all pristine everywhere else's it's the only spot that gets uh urinated into nowhere else on the mountain except it's one of these yellow flags so that's for number one and for number two here you got this little baggie it's got decomposting material chemicals inside of it sit down right there and uh it's quite the quite the place to take a poop if you ask me that's what that block is i'm not just being gross mom a couple of pounds lighter i crawled into my home and tried to rest in the sunlight of the night people say that mountaineering is a bunch of badass adventurers but this is actually what it is [Laughter] this is what we do you have any input no agrees shut the hell up and let me sleep he said there you have it without any mirrors nearby i actually forget what i look like so i take pictures how you doing after a night's rest in full sunshine mother nature started the day off with an unforgettable show the wind had whipped ice crystals up into the sky creating an optical phenomenon that was formerly called the parhelion in meteorology man this is the best in the world right here look at it got sun dog a little moisture up there but luke is doing my jazz hands that i love so much with this kind of beauty in front of us he can hardly blame the guy for throwing his hands in the air and celebrating these clouds in this halo there's a rainbow around the entire sun the mountains all of it there makes this just gorgeous gorgeous scene man this is just so pretty this is what a day that is perfect in antarctica looks like it's a rest day so we do nothing but recover and relax and put on sunscreen and drink water and tell jokes and read books and let our bodies heal and we acclimatize climbing antarctica is not hard enough for felipe so he has to do sit-ups one two three come on four yes phillipe the friendliest guy on the mountain we'd like to show you around so this is our camp yes my uncle joey would you like to join the tour where [Laughter] they are climbing to high camp to hike on the fixed ropes right in the center of the frame right now above that crack those four flecks are the climbers yes and they are they are suffering suffering yes you can see you can see in there and they're walking they're walking very very very very slow [Music] [Laughter] so they suffer we are going to do this tomorrow there's another team that just took off as well they're still down here in the glacier glacier field my lips were so cold i couldn't pronounce words you can see the trail they go up to this kind of interchange point which is when they get onto the lines they go up across this crack in the ice continue on up those ropes to where they are and then they're going to continue climbing up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up until they finally at some point are going to cross over those rocks in the lower left hand of the frame you've got the group of two and then the upper right hand of the frame you've got the group of four so if i zoom out do a little looney tune style that's it let's be invasive we're going to invade the tank show me a tour of your tent yeah this is our tent i'm splitting with my uncle joe and this is our mass and today is the rest time so time to put all these things in order you have your solar panel exactly yeah everything that we need sunglasses so they don't get uh cracked yeah and it works kind of mirror i like it i like that you have the socks right on your head look my hair it's your what i can do right now that's salt grease right there we're gonna sell it we'll sell antarctic salt greens why not yeah we'll make millions make like uh [Laughter] and then i need to take care of my blisters oh yeah let's see those blisters man those are nasty so here's some sweet antarctic boots these are double over boots they're called so underneath the first big boot is this little boot there's the little boot and then you have to unlace all of those now the sock and you can see the steam coming off the sock because it's so cold this is a good shot of the toe this is not a good show but yeah but it shows what's real so he's got a blister on the side blister over there man you got him everywhere you're taking it off [Applause] [Laughter] gross does it feel okay though yeah no don't worry not too bad no it's kind of bad right now well thanks for the tour without a cellular signal the natural pace of life settled in one thing i love so much about it here is the total silence no animals no insects when there's no wind it is just quiet that crew's a little bit higher now up by that black rock there right dead center of the frame man does that make a nice frame the other teams were an ever-present reminder of our objective greg and luke called the group together to review rope skills i rarely rarely ever use my ascender on the fixed line okay you're going to slide this up and luke it was funny this morning he says uh he put on his he put on his get up he said here's the ascender i used on everest that i never really used and it's kind of funny but it's exactly that you get it on there all it is is a backup so we've got my safety line the ascender for the fixed ropes tomorrow we'll be going up with ski poles ice axes everything there's our fuel cache for boiling water the next day was another rest day with temperatures around minus 10 to minus 20 centigrade we basked in the sunshine you hear that that's the party 11 p.m saturday night mount vinson low camp yeah they were calling for higher winds up high with a low temperature on the summit of 32 degrees centigrade below zero meanwhile we stayed here we thought man if we're gonna do this thing we're gonna sum it might as well do it on a good day so we're thinking on monday it's gonna be the day to go up because the winds start to subside if we can get up to high camp on monday that should give us a good shot at the summit on tuesday when ideally the the winds continue subsiding down to nothing a couple of the guys got uh quite excited by the fact that three ladies rolled into camp shows you what mountaineers uh get a kick out of while they're out here hanging out with a bunch of guys for a week and a half let's see how it goes we're going up the fixed one our day's worth ahead you got this one to reduce one joke at a time mike one joke at a time we were like sled dogs strapped to the ropes barking for some action day six so here's the team with crampons on the boots ascenders on the rope and safety systems in place the real climbing had begun here's the fixed lines we're coming up to this very first crack in the ice a sender safety both of those connected to my harness so at any point really we have two points of failure so far so good i'm feeling super strong i think everybody in the team does as well this was the day i had come for the day i'd face the steepest terrain and the darkest part of my own shadow way down though walnut the coolest thing here is you can see the route our former home had become a tiny and insignificant scab that we etched into the snow field within days the wind would wipe out all evidence of our presence this is just spectacular we just passed these guys they summoned it feeling good yeah i was star struck it was lock parrida sherpa the guy's got 17 everest summits under his belt and now we're going to follow in their footsteps enormous footprints to fill in already i had been reminded of how tiny we are in relation to the world and while we may be microscopic amongst the meaninglessness of it all we are not separate from the expansiveness climbing reminds us that we are connected and a part of something that's bigger than any displaced chunk of the earth's crust i don't know what in life can be mountaineering which is why i keep doing it this is pretty awesome the message of the mountains is that we are woven into the fabric of infinity so freaking cool so he switches over first the safety carabiner and then the ascender so this is also called the jumar it's one directional it goes up the rope but when i pull on it it bites on the rope and stops me from falling anchor it each step higher is a simultaneous step deeper into the topography of the unknown sure there's untouched rock rarefied air and increasingly lethal terrain but more significantly climbers have an insatiable desire to hear the mystery of a mountain's message to each of us individually [Music] up here we're halfway up to the place we call lunch ledge fuel up get some water no wind perfect temperature i'm having a great day how about you it's a good looking team here climbing is the simultaneous suppression of the physical body and the forced reliance on the human spirit each excruciating step peels back yet another layer revealing the inner wilderness to climb is to crawl from the cocoon that you didn't even know you were in the wind kicked up it's getting kind of cold this is just insanely cool easily one of the most beautiful lines i've ever had the pleasure of climbing it's like i don't even know where to look yeah this is red could not be happier with this climb this team if you've ever pushed yourself to your limits you may know the inner wilderness i'm speaking of perhaps you've run a marathon or run from an abusive relationship cycled 100 miles or reached 100 days of sobriety you backpacked across a continent or battled your way through chemo that's what we came up for me the immense exertion of climbing up a 3 000 foot 45 degree slope with 50 pounds in my back draws out the devil in my mind i hear its pathetic little voice taunting me with my own worst fears you don't have what it takes it says you're not good enough and you'll never be enough who are you to think you can go higher what makes you think you're worthy of this peak worthy of love or even worthy of a team the voice tells me i'm only worthy of being deserted it tells me i'm dead weight that's the voice of the devil in my mind it may speak to you in different words but we all have that voice the inner verbal abuser we'd be awful people if we talk to anyone else with this voice yet most of us let it run rampant in our own minds climbing draws this demon in your mind out into the open once it's fully exposed you can see how puny and pathetic that self-critic really is you prove it wrong with each step and its toxic presence is choked dead by the light not the light of the sun being reflected off of the glaciers but from the infinite wellspring of the soul a bit of exposure the common thread for the greatest struggles that each of us face is that there's some part of us within that thinks there's no way in hell i can beat this thing those very moments are our chisels when our backs are up against a wall we're forced to grab that chisel and use the very thing that threatens us as a tool to carve out a better self i tell the devil in my mind that i'm leaving it behind frozen into the ice for me that's exactly when the mountaineer enters the state that we call beast mode beast mode is when you suddenly find yourself unstoppable beast mode is when endless energy comes out of nowhere it's when your determination is larger than any mountain on earth i found that state and suddenly the inner beast was unleashed i was living in the now the state of total presence and flow beast mode makes you feel like you're living with in and as a god or maybe it's just a sugar rush yeah that's hitting the spot right now each mountain has taught me that the deeper i'm forced to dig the larger the reservoir of inner strength that appears and that view is just insane endless nothing this huge mountain range is bursting out of it everybody's feeling strong i think if you want to go far in the mountains pace yourself so we rested and recovered even on this 45 degree 3000 foot ice slope and that's when i started thinking in the mountains i am the overcoming of fear my fear of falling my fear of failing of not being enough my fear of dying alone here it is top of the fix line in this place and with these people i exist as passion i am perseverance i am not the regrets of my past or the anxieties of my future i'm not just enough i'm more than enough i am complete i'm at once nothing and i'm a part of everything i climb because mountains are the terrain where my spirit has a chance to speak louder than my shadow couldn't be much better than that take that devil in my mind what you looking at we topped out the fixed lines and the wind kicked up strong we scrambled to put on layers as the temperature in this exposed place dropped dramatically to boost our spirits greg told us one of his favorite stories the story of sue's pyramid it's story time kids back in the day the director of international mountain guides phil urschler saw this perfect pyramid in the distance and he said to his wife sue sue there's nothing in the world as perfect as that pyramid except for you it's a beautiful story but my heart was raw as i looked down on what we had come up and considered what was ahead the thoughts and memories of my ex flooded back to me in full force they say that after a breakup you got gotta get your space i think it's safe to say that i went overboard now we're on the last final stretch till we get to hogs here what's wrong with me i thought as i took these agonizing steps further to nowhere i loved her fiercely i had found something in life that i thought to be more perfect than sue's pyramid and i blew it to come play in the snow with eight dudes i barely knew the devil in my mind was back challenging me to round two what an idiot it said fortunately places like this have a way of giving perspective you can see the curvature of the earth not just literally but figuratively as well [Music] ironically i dreamt of bringing her along i had this grand vision of proposing down on one knee at the top of the bottom of the world before this was voiced she voiced that vincent or any solo adventure contradicted her understanding of a healthy relationship on its surface the choice looks easy what do you want in your life passionate true love or a pair of ratty old sweaty boots but it's what the boots represent slowly realized that more painful than ending a great love would be to end my own sense of identity all these things i express that i get from climbing that i am indeed enough that i'm complete one with the world one with god that i'm a valuable member of a team that i'm bigger than my own demons these are all truths that i'm reminded of in the wilderness mountains are the only place i've found where i can see the world in a grain of sand in heaven and a wild flower more foreign and isolating than spending two weeks in antarctica would have been to kill off a 25 year old dream i took the hard stance that i don't want to be with someone who just tolerates my time in these cathedrals i want to be with someone who celebrates it this is antarctica for every penny that definitely was a haul up those things it's colder up here for sure i guess it's uh 15 below we're going to take this immediate right hand turn and then there's going to be a dip and in that depth is where high camp is going to be [Music] high camp pals to the s bam way to go jose way to go mike team supreme crushed it yeah great work rick yeah i think that mountaineers celebrate like this when arriving at places like this as an unspoken way of honoring each teammate's act of digging deep to find more strength at highcamp everything was right with the world i smiled as i again made the mountains my home with the technical climbing behind us it became clear that this was the time to have some fun we have to get brazilians the end was in sight and this was a special moment more special for some than others luke joked that he was not in fact a mountain guide but rather a high altitude underpaid gourmet chef your meals were great man don't worry about what jose said once the team had settled in hydrated and been well fed i caught sight of luke and greg making sat phone calls back home they caught sight of me being mountain paparazzi they may not like the camera but man can they strike a pose i couldn't not go explore look at how weeny camp ends up looking like that's where we live guys that's our home and then compared to the vastness of the rest of antarctica like we are just little nuggets of nothing up here look at this giant glacier field over there and as it starts to head downhill it starts breaking up and all that nasty crevasse stuff there and then over here check this out that's it that's mount vinson yeah baby that's probably tomorrow we're gonna go get it this is mount shin so i don't know the name of that one what a spot you can see why we once thought the world was flat this felt like the edge of the earth oh my gosh look at this oh so sweet these these clouds are just ridiculous they're so cool islands in the sky just popping out of nowhere there's that straight line right there that's what put us all the way up into camp two so uh in reverse going back down here shhh straight line behind that spiny ridge and then uh connected with it way down here on this guy i'm so glad we came up today too because we'd be all socked in that nastiness if we didn't um that point there that marks the end of the fixed lines and then the fixed lines go they go 3400 feet below us to camp one the cloud is just blanketing right over that mountain we climbed to be in awe i was in it so i set up shop filming a little time lapse right now keeping power going to the time lapse unbelievable man this is like a spiritual experience this is insane [Music] it was like i could feel the breathing of the earth i could hear its heartbeat i seriously can't believe how pretty this is oh my gosh this this is antarctica baby yeah if there's such a thing as enlightenment this moment is the closest i've ever come and it is just beautiful [Music] yeah mount vincent hi cam the buddha sought the wilderness for his wisdom in this moment i understood why i understood why moses and jesus climbed mountains to be with god why hindus and indigenous tribes have named mountains to be holy why greeks and romans said that mountains are the dwelling places of the gods why muhammad said that mountains stabilized the earth good grief this is just beautiful just insanely beautiful if there's a god out there who wants us to better care for our families to love our neighbors humble ourselves admit our mistakes treat our teammates as though our lives depended on one another and experience both the wrath and the beauty of the universe then my church will always be the mountains god's cathedrals this place is my home [Music] suddenly i felt like i was gonna my pants it was so majestic that my stomach did somersaults all night i did mad dash sprints in and out of the tent i got about 45 minutes of sleep i was exhausted dehydrated and literally drained and it was time for the summit all right it's summit day we got the call about nine o'clock it's time to shoot for it i'm not feeling so hot i woke up with my wrist just killing me mountains don't take excuses when the weather's good you gotta go there's the summit there a little break time these guys are doing well feeling strong we were an hour in and my strategy was fake it till you make it i could stand still all day we actually couldn't stand still all day the temp being at minus 20 this dangerous place required movement for warmth we've taken [Music] the only thing that drained faster than my legs were the camera batteries in this cold extremely difficult to film with how cold it is this won't be very long every photo video and battery change was a risk for frostbite on my bare fingers each shot you're seeing had a 90 second window of safety the wind sure does strip off the heat man when that was blowing it was cold but everybody seems to have hit sweet beautiful view downstairs it's gorgeous that's it hands cold terrain is changing a little bit got up here into this blue ice definitely makes the crampons required the hours passed by and i was just spent that's a little bit of diversity with each breath i could feel the moisture in my throat and lungs freezing the centrifugal force of earth's rotation causes the atmosphere to cluster towards the equator to me it already felt like we were at lots of twenty we don't use supplemental oxygen the human body can acclimatize to 23 000 feet all right break time [Music] everybody's in pain city another two hours or so to the summit sweet about 15 000 feet above sea level maybe some change on top of that just had a nice long break revitalize the soul what's going on i just got another ship into the straight away i'm going to start the switchbacks up to the summit ridge feeling pretty tired but definitely have what it takes this is it yeah uh i've never cried on top of a mountain i've balled my eyes out on the way up and the way down but the top the top is an arbitrary rock that happens to be at altitude and it's usually buried under snow and ice so this is the point that i started getting weepy about half hour to our next stop 45 minutes to summit after that i knew that most of the work was behind us everybody's hustling and tossing feeling good feeling the pain soon we'll be heading up that summit ridge greg's leading the pack luke's killing it for a minute i thought that was vincent and i was about to my pants again i don't want to go over there that's vincent up there i see the summit not as something to be conquered but rather as a fulcrum that can act as a pivoting point towards the next era of your life if you ask them to be mountains can be about moving on moving on from childhood moving on from selfishness from expectations of others moving on from love from injuries and from deaths mountains are how we put each chapter of our life to bed they're how we open our hearts to the next chapter that's to come mountains are about letting go the climbing itself is art the summit is just gravy all right here's the summit ridge this is pretty phenomenal we got a little exposure so it's time to get movin the plastic pieces were falling apart in the cold i couldn't help but bust up laughing when luke said don't bring crampons from walmart to antarctica they got him sorted out for how tough fast and experienced he is he was incredibly patient with us hopefully he got it worked out unbelievable place dangerous place time to move i accidentally set my knockoff gopro to film in 4k resolution that and the temperature sapped the batteries in seconds this is the last clip i was able to film the final steps leading to the culminating moment of a decades work and the battery was dead and i didn't care instead i felt immense pride for my teammates in those final steps i committed the memory of that moment to just be one for me fortunately i could also count on my teammates specifically philippe and his iphone as he captured the moment [Music] a few minutes later i found some juice in my backup camera this is it top off mount vincent about 30 below as our guest came into it cumulatively here's the team hell yeah guys thanks very much congratulations to all of you as well that's the true summit right there that mound we all got some photos on it real quickly but because of the exposure came back down to this safer ground check that out here isn't that amazing what a spot what a way to live a life by the time stamps on the photos we spent a total of 14 minutes at the summit much of it spent fixing gear to maximize warmth and then it was done and the next phase of my life began are you both john are you okay i'm good am i cold when do i get cold we did it mount vinson in the bag we're on the descent the way down down my tears were freezing on my face let's try that again down matters most there it is with some composure fortunately i've got the mask on did it seventh summit getting down is more important than going up so i committed to descend well as i looked at this gorgeous landscape choking back tears i realized that it's not being perfect and having our acts together that defines our humanity rather it's our proverbial crevasses bird shruns and years of underground tectonic plate collisions that make us who we are pretty cool pretty pretty gorgeous sure i had a rough patch vincent didn't fix everything all at once but it made it loud and clear that the best is yet to come we left the high camp came down these fixed lines and we're heading back to low camp and hopefully the base camp and with any luck we'll catch a flight out and uh all right we descended back to lokia here comes the second team on in yeah yeah yeah everybody nice work packed with sleds at low camp and pretty much immediately dropped into this cloud you can't have all summer days in antarctica much different scene around here without the sunlight if this cloud drops or burns off we might be able to get on a flight out tonight in my book the top is not the goal getting home is the goal as uh i think ed biester said that the summit is optional for getting home is mandatory so this is a pretty cool moment with that being said there it is base camp we've done it successful safe round trip journey made it back what's this stuff champagne what is this champagne cheers cheers thank you guys yes sir thanks to you guys thanks for the mountain being here [Music] then jose busted out a bottle of smuggled caribbean rum so he spent the next two nights organizing gear partying and waiting for the clouds to clear [Music] after getting in and having two days of waiting and the crappy crappy weather fogged in finally flights are arriving we're going back to union the last time i saw a plane here i said it was comeback time well thanks to these guys and thanks to this guy i was back mountains galvanize humans they're grander and wiser than we'll ever be maybe it's because they put us closer to god maybe it's because of how little they make us amongst the infinite nothing it's really not our place to say but simply to trust the truth that mountains can heal us yeah you

Channel: John Beede

Views: 59,956

Keywords: mountaineering documentary, climbing documentary, mountaineering film, climbing film, climbing antarctica, antarctica mountain climbing, vinson massif, antarctica film, antarctica mountains, antarctica mountain ranges, mountaineering movies, climbing movie, mt. vinson, mt. vinson summit

Id: 8SW5um2wkj0

Length: 77min 41sec (4661 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 16 2020