The North Face presents: Lhotse ft. Hilaree Nelson and Jim Morrison

Wow look at that thing God how much you're awesome a lot of now it's crazy how much the look they faced wash the car but he lowed says this mythical mountain right next to Mount Everest I've read about and learned about and thought about since I was really quite young as the 4th tallest peak in the world and it's got this splitter perfect cular right off the top of it there's probably been at least a dozen attempts to ski fill it a kawar and it just hasn't been done it's just you know it's hard to summit a twenty-eight thousand foot mountain let alone get your skis up there have the right conditions and be able to make the ascent I think anyone that's in in to riding big lines on big Peaks is taking a look at loads say I'm not willing to take that risk to make the first descent of load siku are such an iconic ski line in the throne room of Everest knowing Jim and Hillary they don't go there to talk about it they go there to do it [Music] in like four days time maybe five days time we're gonna go to Everest base camp we are going to try to ski from the summit of Lotte which is just under 28,000 feet it's never been skied all in one piece before so that's the objective [Music] hailer is just an extraordinary person a complete badass in the mountains being a mom and maintaining a professional ski mountaineering career it can't be overstated like how many challenges that comes with I always find that it's really hard for me to leave home and kind of switch that identity and go from mom family busy to climber I'm also like happy and living intensely in these moments and I have explained that to my kids we talk about all of this stuff and it means that much to me that it's worth it Jim is the machine you know and he's very motivated part of the game of trying to ski it really I out to do this we won't be up super high for another month it's gonna take a lot of patience and a little little whittle away higher altitude you know prior to Jim I never climbed with a significant other and so it was really different for me to take that on we've been on some pretty crazy expeditions together [Music] [Music] they're extreme here I'm running down the mountain trying to keep up with my climbing partner Jim Morrison but sliding off to base camp going up to Lotte without anyone else here is surreal primarily that's because we're here in the fall most people climb these mountains in the spring it's the popular time to climb Mount Everest and Lotte we're here right after the monsoon to try to ski the snow before the long winters winds blow it all off the mountain [Music] - climatological are you are essentially climbing the Everest route you're literally the next Mountain over so you have to go through the Icefall go through camp one you go up the western you spend the same time at camp - you go to camp three and then from there you basically go directly up the Losi face from there we'll ski the 2,000 feet that makes up the actual load say core itself and then another 5,000 feet on the let's say face in a minimalist sense you need a strong sharp a team to build that root and paladin's good luck 9 Tim's every scimitar summit now poor Tim's what's this emit only nine times yeah I mean the first major issue is this ice fall which you look at a photo of that and you go you should not be walking through that the fact that they're going to Everest out of season so there's not all these teams there that are helping put this route through the Icefall and I have to do it themselves that in itself is this massive challenge in the spring time on Everest there's a thousand people pounding in the path from Camp 2 to the summit of let's say we have to make the whole trail ourselves we have to figure out the route there's definitely bigger risk but our chances of skiing are better [Music] the tricks are hard now they're long they're hard and scary and there's just something in me that has to go figure it out [Music] and I try to get to camp two today when you go through the Khumbu Icefall there are significant hazards that you have no control over it's a little bit of Russian roulette it's literally where the glacier that's coming off down the western Combe is folding over and broken into all these different chunks you can hear it cracking and things collapsing and it doesn't matter how go to a climbers here you are you know it's it's it's very dangerous Wow it seems like a place you don't want to hang out in it's kind of gnarly we just caught up with chirp on the trail breaking really hard and they kind of got to the point where they're like this is as far as we're gonna go we can't see you or through the worst of the bread loaves camp twos like up there but we're not gonna go any further because you can't see anything so they turned around the Sherpa turned around and we're like no we're gonna wait it's just like a fleeting fog we're gonna stick with it and make it - can't - [Music] I had this like kind of sinking feeling that we were not on the right route to camp to that we're actually a little too close to nips a which is like a 7,000 foot vertical face that avalanches a lot you can start hearing these avalanches the cacophony of noise just pounding down be intense that's a big day your way through we did make it to camp two that night and the next day we were like very very very close to the nuts a face and it was a good thing that we moved because two days later at that whole internment camp got wiped out by a huge avalanche it's really amazed in my mind us like very much at those mountains mercy when it comes down to it sort of my mantra when I'm away and I have those bouts of guilt or just that desperate feeling of like what am i doing is this too dangerous I just tell myself that you know I mean it is it's what I love I'm so passionate about it and I just feel that if I can convey that to my kids then they see me as a person there's a passionate person not just their mom but their mom plus rushed she's really big you gloat say in the lips a face how many times you think people skinned up to the bertrand of the hands like this never [Music] headed up tomorrow [Music] got water [Music] I've been through lots of different phases of life and finding mountains has been a huge part of what's allowed me to like go on I lost my wife and children in an airplane crash in 2011 I had life by a string I had everything going in the direction that I'd worked hard to put it in and in an instant I sort of lost everything near and dear to me was crushed I think the mountains have helped keep me alive keep me going but just really be focused on this is what I'm doing right now [Music] we've been together three years I mean he's so good in the mountains he's so solid I just think it's you know the only place for him [Music] it's good basically rushed here try forward the summit tomorrow it's kind of the last day before the winds hit we have almost 4,000 feet above us Oh [Music] what was that holy life at 8,000 meters is very very tough there's no way to recover and build there you're only deteriorating and it's it's so much about mental fortitude at that point you can't sleep you can't eat your body starts to essentially eat itself alive that's why they call 8,000 meters the Death Zone [Music] ready for the sub now that sunrise that we saw that morning of going up let's say it was like that's the why it's like these little things that just speak to this big effort that moment was such a important special memory for me and just connecting with some parts of my life that I don't get to connect with in day-to-day life [Music] oh yeah I think that's what the deeper meaning is for me it's really going out there and suffering and getting into a really unique environment it helps me get to a place where I'm able to fully live in the now [Music] since three whoa we're just getting to the summary psycho over the world [Music] there's got to be running [Music] and it's only in that way where you've done everything you possibly can set yourself up for success and the universe grants you a moment and you take it searching for [Music] it's a chance to and here we were like doing these full consequential pop turns and side slipping and then going from like breakable crust to sugar snow and back and forth [Music] [Applause] completely and totally exasperated at breathing as hard as you ever have made a turn and I made another turn and was getting really tight and a little bit off camber and I was like there's I'm never going to be in this place in this moment again I should really make this next turn account even though I sort of want a side slip through here I'm gonna make two more turns because I'm never gonna get this opportunity again and I want I want these two turns to be with me if you can link three jump turns at 8,000 meters I mean you're badass if you think of all the thousands of little things that need to line up for that to happen and not only to succeed but get it in what I would call Himalayan like a plus conditions it's truly a mini miracle I wanted to focus on something new that was beautiful and special and full of life full of good things and else it really was that for me what just happened oh my god you just skied with mostly cool or no secrets I think it's important to take risks in life and not just wait for it to come to you because as far as you can ski today doing is done it's done I think there's so much aversion to risk taking I don't think that's the right direction we should be going like you have to take risks if you want to learn anything about yourself wanna expand the self-imposed walls we put around ourselves I think that is what's interesting to me about us as a species is if we can do that and that is how we move forward how we create things how we have ideas by taking risks and being a little different or being passionate about something you know you don't have to climb low say to do that [Applause] I was there I am Paulding nom de xalapa namaste my name is Elon Sherpa my name is pitaya Sherpa Green Zebra my name is Raja yoga I'm 20 years old and two time every summit and one time what's a it means four times it was obtained zero and him I am a breast nine time - Lu one time what's a 2-time arrest in Ghent M summit court support em summit - launch em from it show you two terms image I'm at home three times image and up on o1 on James image and you [Music] [Music]

Channel: The North Face

Views: 3,567,038

Rating: 4.9304347 out of 5

Keywords: The North Face, North Face, TNF, Snow, Adventure, Ski, Skiing, Mountain, Epic, Athlete, Lhotse, Everest, Climb, Adrenaline, Hilaree Nelson, Jim Morrison, Skiiers, Mount Everest, Explore, Exploration, Never Stop Exploring, Mountains

Id: wPXSFVruIHI

Length: 23min 0sec (1380 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 15 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/DrCaligari1615]

Ummm...that last Sherpa. What an absolute beast. He just kept naming them off. I'd love to see a good documentary about his life.

[u/Bear_Scout]

Wow that was pretty impressive. It must have been surreal being at base camp with virtually no other thesis there (from what it looked like). Glad they hit a sweet spot in the weather and accomplished their dream line. Good on them.

[u/bran_daid]

impressive on many levels. the climbing, skiing, and production value is so high.

[u/[deleted]]

Amazing footage and achievement. I can’t even imaging what their legs must have felt like in those first few 100m.

I wish every video the North Face made didn’t have to be wrapped up in this BS about how deep and meaningful and profound the whole thing supposedly was. It gets pretty tired when everything has to be related back to a dead friend and a life changing experience, even when they have very little to do with the event in question.

[u/85gaucho]

That was really good, thanks for sharing!

[u/Thedeepergrain]

I literally just turned over to this while watching a bunch of youtube videos a few minutes ago it is epic

[u/c1utch10]

Wow thanks for sharing, just watched it.

[u/bedazzledsapper]

Hilaree and her partner Tim had a solid interview on the Totally Deep Podcast. https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cDovL3RvdGFsbHlkZWVwLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz&episode=YmNiNzEzZDljNWJkNDVlYmI1MjMxMDJkMDg5ODY1NmM&hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwjE7Lym9KDlAhVBCKwKHWH0CDMQjrkEegQICRAG&ep=6&at=1571233384871 or look them up on wherever you listen to podcasts.

[u/FieldDayStudio]

Thanks so much for posting this!