Mount Everest Then and Now · 60 Years Climbing Everest

mount everest [Music] remote treacherous and with barely enough oxygen to survive a century ago no one had reached the summit this is what they came to see this is what they came to climb the highest mountain in the world it was there to be explored and hopefully there for the taking in this programme mount everest summiteers reveal how the mountain was conquered in a hundred years we discovered where it was how high it was what to climb it with the clothing the oxygen everything from staying alive in the death zone dan should definitely be dead to beating some of the world's worst weather brave pathfinders risked everything george mallory's body was lying spread eagles in the screen now hundreds of people stand on the summit every year okay i'm gonna have to be quick because it's actually quite chilly i'm standing on everest by the way from tragedy to triumph and from base camp to the top of the world this is mount everest then and now the himalayas stretch 1500 miles through northern asia this cold white world is home to the planet's tallest peaks here one mountain is king mount everest when you get out there you don't realize just how enormous this thing is everest is a monster at 8 848 metres it stands five and a half miles above the sea it's a hulking mass it really is head and shoulders above every mountain around it and now thousands of people have managed to achieve their dream of climbing to the summit but in the early 20th century mount everest was an alien world [Music] completely unexplored until british mountaineers stepped bravely into the unknown when i was 12 i met this cousin we called uncle hunch and he told me about this huge mountain this is howard somerville remarkable man he's a double first at cambridge he was a surgeon a musician a painter uncle hunch was also a climber in 1924 aged 34 he joined one of the first british expeditions to mount everest they really didn't know where the mountain was it was somewhere on the border between nepal and tibet in fact the summit of mount everest sits exactly on the border between the two countries [Music] the mountain has two main routes to the summit along the southeast ridge from nepal and the north ridge from tibet [Music] in 1924 uncle hunch and the british expedition trekked 200 miles through tibet and approached mount everest from the north they had hoped for an easy snow slope instead they saw a giant three-sided pyramid a rock and ice monster uncle hunch and the rest of the climbers were used to european mountains half the height of everest for those first climbers everest was a new world they're in a very exotic and unhealthy country half of them were suffering from dysentery they got frostbite it was a very very tough mountain to crack for those pioneers [Music] after weeks of climbing uncle hunch entered mount everest's death zone it's an area of the mountain higher than eight thousand meters they call it the death zone because people die simply because they are too high because there's not enough oxygen to sustain life when you get to everest base camp there's only about half the oxygen available that there is at sea level and by the time you get to the summit there's only a third the oxygen levels that are at sea level and those levels we know are absolutely at the limit of what human beings can tolerate one of the reasons that we went to everest was to explore what that level was in 2007 professor mike groscott wanted to know the effect of the lack of oxygen on the body so mount everest became his laboratory mike's team measured oxygen levels at various heights here at six thousand four hundred meters three quarters of the way up so we've um we've just analyzed dan's artillery gas sample and it's just astonishingly lovely you should be worried [Music] but the ultimate aim was for the team to take blood samples in the death zone at an altitude of 8 382 meters and with their oxygen masks removed the climbers were breathing some of the thinnest air in the world and there in a small shelter four of us took arterial blood gas samples blood coming from the heart is usually bright red the uncharacteristic color could only mean one thing severe oxygen depletion whoa po2 3.50 dan should definitely be dead the measurements we made of uh oxygen uh in arterial blood were really extraordinary there's no accounts of people with that sort of level of oxygen in the blood who aren't unconscious or immediately after cardiac arrest the death zone's atmosphere is so dangerously thin now most climbers carry extra oxygen to help them survive we are there as visitors for a very short period of time and most of us can't really go there without some form of supplementary oxygen but back in the 1920s many mountaineers dismissed the need to carry extra oxygen it was almost viewed as not cricket you know it is slightly cheating almost a a drug assisted a sense [Music] in 1924 howard somerville had climbed to 8570 metres he dreamed of being the first man to summit everest but he had to make it up the treacherous north ridge in the freezing wind [Music] the technical area on the north side is when you've got the first step second step and the third step you're in a high altitude environment on tricky technical terrain so it's not to be underestimated 300 meters from the summit somerville was forced to turn back when coming down his larynx became frostbitten and the mucous membrane sluffed off blocked his airway and he sat down to die and he told me how he sat down and did a heimlich maneuver squeezed his chest and coughed up this frozen mucous membrane uncle hunch was able to breathe the icy air and staggered on down the mountain to the north coal there he met his friend george mallory george mallory was a passionate mountaineer who had tried to summit everest twice before now on this expedition he was determined to succeed his name will forever be connected with everest very strong temperaments a very driven individual mallory came up with his rucksack full of oxygen cylinders ready to have an attempt with the magic gas oxygen after somerville's failed attempt to summit mallory saw an opportunity to make history mallory said to him somerville i've forgotten my camera can i borrow yours and uh howard somerville unwisely he told me lent george mallory his camera and watched him as he headed up the mountain and that was the last he ever saw of him mallory and his climbing partner sandy irvin were last seen just 250 meters from the summit before the peak was shrouded in thick cloud so george mullery sandy irvine did they summits who knows howard somerville had given graham a tantalising opportunity to solve the greatest mystery of the world's greatest mountain he said to me age 12 if you could go and find that camera you could prove whether my friend climbed it or not was there a picture on that camera of george mallory standing on the summit waving his ice axe who knows next george mallory's body was lying spread eagled in the screen was mallory the first person to reach the summit and climbing everest from the south then a nightmare of spikes and chasms a wrinkled and ravaged face and now [Music] 50 million years ago mount everest was born [Music] the indian subcontinent collided with eurasia forcing land upwards and creating the himalayas for millennia the summit of mount everest was uncharted territory [Music] but in march 1924 george mallory and sandy irvine embarked on a historic mission to be the first people to summit the mountain mallory was carrying a camera given to him by graham hoyland's cousin howard somerville i became really obsessed by trying to find this camera get the picture developed and prove that mallory had actually climbed the mountain first graham began by retracing mallory's steps so here's the border between tibet and nepal here's mount everest the actual summit and mallory would have come from their base camp up here from the north through tibet around up to here to the north coal up the ridge and certainly got to this point just a few hundred yards really from the summit to this day the outcome of mallory and irvin's push to the summit is still disputed i think quite strongly if i had put money on it that mallory made it to the summit i just can't imagine him turning around short of the summit even in the worst weather if there was any chance in his mind that he thought he could get there like mallory decades earlier in 1993 graham climbed into mount everest's death zone i'm a very average climber and as i chopped up those last few steps up to the summit i thought you know if i can do this surely george mallory climbed mount everest graham became the 15th brit to reach everest's peak and at that point i thought he must have done it and i i set out wanting to prove that he had done it when graham returned to everest in 1999 there was a startling discovery george mallory's body was lying spread eagled in the scree it had been attacked unfortunately by birds but in his pockets were a bunch of strange things like nail scissors and a bill from his tailor but the one thing that i wasn't was a camera and so i started putting together what we knew and there was a one crucial clue that came up later which was the weather mallory and irvin were last sighted just 250 meters from the summit before they disappeared into a cloud howard somerville had taken readings down at base camp of the air pressure and these are eventually were unearthed at the royal geographic society somerville's record of the weather was fine still morning clouds began to advance up valley clouds behind and on everest from 11 o'clock onwards we realized that george mallory and sandy irvine had been climbing up into a perfect storm when i put the clues together the low pressure the perfect storm the limited oxygen the poor clothing and the lateness of the day i realized that mallory probably hadn't climbed to the summit it doesn't take anything away from their immense achievement this is the way humanity learns things by pioneers risking their lives for decades every attempt to reach the peak failed mount everest seemed taller than ever sin paul's is 365 feet high 1 14 part of a mile the highest mountain in the british isles is ben nevis the highest mountain in europe is montblanc the highest mountain in the world is five and a half miles high [Music] [Applause] after the second world war nepal opened its borders to foreigners the 1950s offered an opportunity to plot an entirely new route to the summit from the south the scale of everest is so huge it's easier to think of it in three sections the first section starts at base camp rises up the kumbu glacier and into the western kim the second section rises sharply up the lotsy face and ends on the south col then the third section from the south col up the knife ridge and onto the summit in 1953 the most famous expedition in mountaineering history started its trek from the south through nepal the team included a kiwi called edmund hillary and tensing norgay a sherpa after weeks in the foothills the british-led expedition team laid eyes on the mountain for the first time so this is it this is what they came to see this is what they came to climb that spring they established a base camp now every year at the same spot base camp is home to dozens of tents from across the globe here climbers prepare for the ultimate adventure the first challenge is one of the most treacherous stretches of the mountain the kumbu icefall this advanced party must advance through a frozen but burning forest a forest is haunted by danger as any jungle in the world a nightmare of spikes and chasms a wrinkled and ravaged face but a face that is always changing for the ice is always on the move cracking rumbling roaring the ice fall is basically a 2 000 foot cliff with a glacier falling over it there's giant ice chunks the size of a tower block constantly moving it's a really frightening place you climb up through these moving blocks up some ladders tied together across huge crevasses the ice has got to be made as safe as possible though safe up here remains a competitive world one year an avalanche came down and nearly killed me and brian blessed the kumbu icefall is very technical and it changes almost on a daily basis and you need to really have an awareness of your surroundings to be able to negotiate that safely crossing a ladder and i'm punching in the background it's not about moving quickly do you want me to pull the ropes for you okay it's about moving safely through an ever-changing environment you think so you think i'm going to enjoy it here going over the chasm of death as well as negotiating ladders over deep crevasses climbers have to gently ease their way over snow bridges it's difficult to know with some of these snow bridges which is the strong part and where to stand and where to stop and where not to stop and that's a classic where you can see that you know where you put your left foot eventually that might get compromised so uh yeah oh lots of slack rope in 1953 the mountaineers hoping to be the first to summit mount everest had successfully navigated the ice four next they had to trek up the western comb a vast flat area of endless snow and deep crevasses only to be confronted by a giant ice wall the lotsy face it's a 1200 meter wall of blue glacial ice that rises at severe angles of up to 45 degrees the climbers spent nine exhausting days carving out a route up this icy face hillary and tensing partnered up into one of the assault teams they would now be climbing so dangerously high they had to use supplementary oxygen the 1953 expedition was based on months of painstaking research and preparation some climbers acted as human guinea pigs in decompression chambers to replicate the severe lack of oxygen his oxygen mask is off the air is getting thinner and thinner at such heights when you're lacking oxygen you may think you're normal but you're not you're moving in a dream a dream that deludes and debilitates pew is now as it were at the very summit of everest he's approaching unconsciousness the modern oxygen system is delivered through a very low volume mask in the old days there was the russian fighter pilot the old mig musk and it was a big womble mask and these days this is a very close-fitting mask from the tornado pilots actually unfortunately you do lose a little bit of the ability to talk even now supplementary oxygen is still a limited resource if it runs out then very quickly your body will deteriorate and acute massive sickness will be quickly followed by life-threatening situations in a very challenging environment you don't want to be incapacitated above 8 000 meters [Music] at 8 000 meters lies the south carol it's a pass between mount everest and the fourth highest mountain in the world lotzee [Music] the south carl is the highest camp on the mountain it's a final opportunity to rest and recuperate before the assault on the summit the south kong camp 8 26 000 feet a very hard place to get to and a very hard place to live in this is [Music] when you get higher you have a feeling of extreme vulnerability you are two or three days away from help and assistance in a high altitude remote environment and psychologically that can really get to home [Music] the south pole is no place for thought most of the time on the call a man hardly thinks at all when he does he usually thinks what bliss it would be to get down again you need to make sure that you don't just lie down and go to sleep because you need fluid you need to get a drink on the go because if you get dehydrated you're much less likely to summit so you need to visit yourself in the tent and get on some energy the final push to the summit starts in the dead of night at 8 000 meters climbers are at the mercy of the weather making a decision to go for it is the difference between life and death it can take up to 16 hours to reach the peak so climbers need to ensure they have enough time to return safely the south cold takes away everything it also takes away his sleep unless he's using oxygen worst of all it takes away his judgment hillary and tensing will need all their judgment tomorrow when they set out up that ridge if the storm subsides so why didn't we go for summit last night uh we arrived in the storm we set a storm out entire night yeah massive gusts and snow coming in the tent yep snow like and winds blowing in the porch we couldn't melt water did you get any sleep i think i got about five ten minutes at one stage oh riley all right so that's very generous what shall we do now 11 15 11 and when are we hopefully offering tonight about 9 30 tonight yeah we've got about nine hours to just chill rehydrate eat and play cards play cards we had a lot of fun you know you're living in 8 000 meters oh look at that beautiful oh he drops it i think that sense of camaraderie was probably quite important in in the 20s and the 50s yes you've got those people with quite big egos who want to be the first but at the same time you're all working for the greater good by 11 a.m on may 29 1953 hillary and tensing had begun their final push to be the first to reach the summit and were already out of sight everyone's thoughts are on what is happening on that knife-like ridge running up to the summit but the climb today is beyond the reach of human eye almost beyond imagination a hundred meters from the summit hillary and tensing were confronted by mount everest's final obstacle the knife ridge it's a dangerous section of steep sharp exposed rock with perilous drops of more than two thousand meters on either side [Music] i cut down the back of one ridge and round the back of another ridge and the summit never seemed to be coming any closer and but finally i cut around the back of another one and saw that the red ahead dropped steeply away so i looked up and there was a little rounded cone above us and i knew it was a summit all that was needed was a few more blows of the ice axe and hillary and tensing would be the first people to stand on the summit of mount everest [Music] okay i'm gonna have to be quick because it's actually quite chilly i'm standing on everest by the way this is the peak of mount everest at 8 848 metres it's the highest place on the planet as hillary and tensing celebrated in nepal the news reached london on a very historic day june the 2nd 1953 [Music] people in london were excited and with good reason a queen had been crowned [Music] and to add to the cheers the newspapers gave an extra extras men had climbed mount everest britain as a whole was absolutely delighted as a nation we have always had an adventurous spirit you know we've explored the world all over i think that law of the highest mountain in the world it was there to be explored and there for the taking next after the triumph then the tragedy now the deadliest day in mount everest's history it was just utter utter destruction [Music] the foothills of mount everest are home to the sherpa people for generations sherpas had little contact with the outside world as buddhists they believed a goddess lived in the mountain not wanting to disturb her many did not set foot on mount everest then there was no sherpa word for summit but now climbers call their sherpa porters and guides kings of the mountain there have been an absolutely integral part of climbing on everest from the very beginning you can see that they're faster and stronger at altitude than certainly i am most westerners but little is known about their apparent superhuman physiology we're starting to see evidence that their genetics have altered through evolution that they are naturally adapted to perform well at high altitude where there's not much oxygen in 2013 professor mike grocott's extreme everest team returned to the mountain on their first expedition in 2007 they had already witnessed the superhuman sherpas in action we couldn't have done the expedition without the sherpas they were climbing alongside us but carrying substantially larger loads and apparently effortlessly so it was great to be able to come back in 2013 and really try and answer from a scientific perspective why that was at a height of 5 300 meters mike's team built the world's highest laboratory to compare sherpas to lowlanders how's it grieving there's some striking differences that start to explain why they perform so much better at high altitude the sherpas physiology is suited to producing the energy to power their bodies even when oxygen is scarce in a sherpas muscles the parts of their cells that generate energy are more efficient at using oxygen and at high altitude whilst lowlanders blood flow slowed down the sherpas circulation was less affected extreme members was almost entirely comprised of doctors and scientists many of them who had a background in critical care intensive care so looking after the sickest patients in in a hospital lack of oxygen in the bloodstream is a major contributor to deaths in intensive care patients as a critical care expert mike is hoping the sherpa's superhuman ability to adapt to altitude could have benefits far beyond the slopes of everest the real joy and challenge of the next few years is looking at the huge set of data that we've accumulated and trying to work out from those what it is that identifies the people who've adapted well and if we could get our patients to do that then maybe uh if you like we can turn them into sherpas [Music] now the superhuman sherpas are the backbone of every successful expedition up mount everest in the old days i think people were probably a bit more purist and they would probably be carrying their own gear and nowadays tents are set up for us by the sherpas some people have all their gear taken up to camp two and you see people actually without even carrying a rucksack on the mountain a sherpa in front of them with their every need sherpas prepare the mountain by setting ropes anchors and ladder bridges and they used their expert knowledge of its twists and turns to help guide climbers to the top i couldn't possibly have climbed everest without them you know me quite seriously without saying cami cherry not a many years in 1993 rebecca stevens became the first british woman to climb the world's highest mountain it was a tremendous feeling of togetherness i mean i remember it you know until i breathed my last breath that year the nepalese and chinese authorities had begun to increase the number of climbing permits i think through the 90s and into the 21st century we are now in the commercial area on everest in the 1970s just 562 people climbed mount everest over the last decade nearly 4 000 people have reached the summit nepal is a poor country and it desperately needs foreign exchange so it has to try and make money out of the himalayas and in particular mount everest which is a real cash cow so to climb mount everest would typically cost anything from uh 35 000 us dollars all the way through to 120 000 us dollars or more throughout the 21st century climbing mount everest allowed the sherpa people to flourish now the climbing industry is worth over one and a half billion pounds to nepal every year but sherpa livelihoods and lives are at the mercy of the mountain [Music] on april 18 2014 warm weather triggered a series of avalanches near mount everest's ice fall the ice fall is a very dangerous part of mount everest and whereas we westerners might only go through it two or three times the sherpas have to carry the tents and equipment and food and everything through dozens of times [Music] sixteen sherpas lost their lives when 16 die in one event for the sake of looking after westerners on the hill i think it it struck a very uncomfortable chord about the dangers that they were being exposed to during the 20th century brave sherpas were at the heart of mount everest success story now there was a grim realization that being a mountaineering sherpa was one of the most dangerous jobs in the world on april 25th 2015 a huge earthquake hit nepal it's one of the worst natural disasters in the country's history tim mosdale was one of hundreds of climbers on mount everest when the earthquake struck we arrived at camp one and we radioed down to base camp and we heard that you know the middle of base camp had been obliterated the earthquake had also triggered avalanches on mount everest one of them swept down the mountain and thunders towards base camp [Music] 359 people were waiting to climb the mountain when you're at the base camp you think of everest as being safe but the forward draft from the avalanche just swept through the camp you know rocks flying everywhere and if you were in its path you know that was it it was just utter utter destruction nearly 9 000 people died across nepal at base camp 19 climbers lost their lives three of them were sherpas on tim's expedition they left behind nine kids and they were working on the mountain to provide for their families the 25th of april 2015 is the deadliest day in mount everest's history people were questioning really what was going on and was everest really [Music] a century ago the summit of mount everest was an unknown wilderness untouched by human hand now the highest point on the planet has been transformed into a tourist trap on may 22nd 2019 this photograph revealed the reality of climbing the mountain waiting for hours in a queue too many people stood for too long in a very challenging environment that picture was taken on one day and it would be like that on one day in 365. [Music] for the rest of the year one of the elements can make a summit impossible wind at 8 848 metres the summit of mount everest is exposed to the extremes of earth's weather at the top of the world the wind is wild so being nearly 9 000 meters everest hooks up into the jet stream which is a force unto itself freezing winds batter mount everest at speeds up to 175 miles per hour on the south carl the last stop on the route to the summit the wind can be so cold and so strong climbers are trapped in their tents [Music] but every year in late may the approaching monsoon brings a rare window of opportunity the monsoon is such a massive weather system effectively it nudges the jet stream slightly and that might displace it upwards or put a fold in it or it might just alter the jet stream across everest and that means that we're then not subjected to the huge winds that we would otherwise experience when the wind drops there are weather windows it might be anything from a 12 hour window to a 4 5 6 even 11 or 12 day window where you're looking for benign conditions where we can then operate safely on the mountain [Music] for decades climbers had little idea when a weather window would open now most climbers only summit during weather windows one of the great things that we've got nowadays is the the weather forecasting that comes in and it's getting more and more accurate when a weather window does open hundreds of climbers converge on the summit people are opting for that optimum day so you do get this problem of overcrowding you're moving fairly slowly anyway and if you're in the queue and so you are moving even slower and the oxygen is still flowing your life is basically being jeopardized and you could find yourself very high on the mountain becoming extremely exhausted and hypoxic which is lack of oxygen to the brain and you could die as a result [Music] 2019 was one of the deadliest years in mount everest's history 11 people lost their lives many of the deaths on everest occur high particularly high on the southeast ridge when climbers have to wait in queues they risk running short of oxygen and may not have enough left for the journey down we do have that problem of being somewhere where as human beings we're not naturally supposed to be without artificial support of oxygen and people die i think the overcrowding has made mount everest actually more dangerous than it was before how might that be resolved could there be a code of conduct or even if there should be a rescue service on everest which is an asthma to the traditional mountaineering way of thinking that you know you're self-supporting and the last thing you'd want to do is get on a mobile and ask for help i think something has to be done to try and regulate this otherwise people are just lambs to the slaughter mount everest's epic tale from tragedy to triumph has come full circle in this program we've discovered how brave pioneers died because they lacked the scientific knowledge to climb the mountain but by the 1950s mountaineering had evolved climbers had learned how to breathe how to stay warm and how to find a safe way to the top i think mount everest is an incredible symbol of human progress in a hundred years we discovered where it was how high it was what to climb it with the clothing the oxygen everything by the end of the 1980s just 284 people had stood on the summit now over the last decade nearly four thousand climbers have made it to the top and it's become now so simple that a 13 year old boy can climb mount everest it's more accessible that's not a bad thing more people have the opportunity to climb it that's not a bad thing but it is a very very different experience we can never turn back the wheel now from natural disasters to overcrowding mount everest is still one of the most inhospitable daunting and dangerous places on the planet but the mountain will always stand proud a breathtaking symbol of our spirit of adventure our need to explore and our desire to conquer mount everest hasn't changed itself it's still the highest mountain in the world it's still a beautiful wilderness now people just pour up it in hundreds but essentially itself it's indifferent to humanity it's still the same mountain [Music] you

Channel: David Snow

Views: 634,078

Keywords: everest expedition, Everest Summit, Everest climbing expedition, everest climbing, best everest documentary, everest documentary, climbing everest, everest film, everest deat zone, everest deathzone, everest gear, everest documentaries, best everest films, everest climbing footage, everest death rate, best everest stories, everest hiking, trekking to everest base camp, failing on everest, summit of mt everest, lhotse face, camp 4 mt everest, khumbu icefall everest

Id: Idf1OkBBykc

Length: 44min 29sec (2669 seconds)

Published: Tue May 11 2021