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The Summit Film tonight 21.35 RTE1
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06-01-2014 6:15pm#1
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hi,
Saw the summit during the week.
Even though it was a tragic story, a compelling one all the same.
Is there any other documentrays similar to this out there - about climbing (doesn't have to be tragic) as I though it was just fasinating the footage of them on top of that mountain.
Not the same as Lug on a Sunday
Thx
oh, and I don't mean Cliffhanger with Silvester :rolleyes:
K0 -
Join Date:Posts: 30759
karltimber wrote: »hi,
Saw the summit during the week.
Even though it was a tragic story, a compelling one all the same.
Is there any other documentrays similar to this out there - about climbing (doesn't have to be tragic) as I though it was just fasinating the footage of them on top of that mountain.
Not the same as Lug on a Sunday
Thx
oh, and I don't mean Cliffhanger with Silvester :rolleyes:
K
You've probably seen it already but if not then Touching the Void is probably the best one there is, great film. The book is also well worth a read.
Into Thin Air, about the Everest disaster, is also another great read, may have been made into a film too but not sure.0 -
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karltimber wrote: »hi,
Saw the summit during the week.
Even though it was a tragic story, a compelling one all the same.
Is there any other documentrays similar to this out there - about climbing (doesn't have to be tragic) as I though it was just fasinating the footage of them on top of that mountain.
Not the same as Lug on a Sunday
Thx
oh, and I don't mean Cliffhanger with Silvester :rolleyes:
K
Try "The Last Great Climb". It follows Leo Houlding + team attempting the unclimbed NE ridge of Ulvetanna in Antarctica. No tragedy just a great climbing film.
E11 is also a good watch. Follows Dave MacLeod over two years as he attempts to climb the worlds first rock climbing route rated at E11. Climbing on tiny fingertip holds and taking huge 80 foot falls.0 -
Deleted User wrote: »it was the style that for me was the let down. There seeemed to be a lot of reconstruction, which any documentary maker can churn out these days.
The reconstructions in this film were technically brilliant, difficult and overall, very expensive so it's neither true nor fair to say that any documentary maker can churn them out. For the Summit, crew and actors spent time in the Alps shooting the reconstructions, and then these were meticulously composited into 3d representations and photographic likenesses of K2.
I spent a bit of time with Pat Falvey in Oct 2010 and his accounts of shooting the reconstructions are epic. Mind you, most of Pat's stories are epic …
Reconstructions aside, I found the non-linear way of telling the story in the doc a bit confusing, and despite the fact that chronological telling of stories has gone out of fashion (anyone see the ROG doc?), I think the Summit would have benefitted from a more chronological storyline. I must admit, I've read "No Way Down" and this doc left me none the wiser, and with a slightly negative impression of climbers in general. Apart from Cecilie Skog who is both an amazing athlete and incredibly cute
It's a positive thing though that such a (mostly) fine piece of film making comes out of this country.0 -
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karltimber wrote: »hi,
Saw the summit during the week.
Even though it was a tragic story, a compelling one all the same.
Is there any other documentrays similar to this out there - about climbing (doesn't have to be tragic) as I though it was just fasinating the footage of them on top of that mountain.
Not the same as Lug on a Sunday
Thx
oh, and I don't mean Cliffhanger with Silvester :rolleyes:
K
The BBC had a documentary on Peter Haebler and Reinhold Messner climbing Everest without oxygen in '78 the day after the summit was on RTÉ
It was interesting watching the two docs, that the angle of K2 was much steeper than Everest, like 70 vs 45 degrees0 -
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It was definitely around Lough Tay. Also more recent than that .. a couple of years ago was season 1 which is what they're showing on RTE now, they just finished filming season 2 last summer. The lakeside village was still there in August/September IIRC.The TV series, 'The Vikings' started on RTE2 last night. A good bit of it was shot on location at Lough Tay up at Luggala in the Wicklow Hills, the summer before last. At least I think that's what they were making there, had a settlement built on the shores of the lake etc. You'd recognise some of the terrain in the close up shots, deep bracken and scattered pine trees etc. Also some of the distant shots had views of the valley and cliffs but there seemed to be a lot of digital manipulation going on. Same again next week, RTE2 2130 - standard Hollywood material..
They used many of the same locations for The Tudors and Camelot as well. There's a lot of CGI involved ... the foreground may be 'real' but there's often a lot of extra scenery inserted in post production. For Camelot they filmed a lot of the castle scenes at Ardmore Studios just behind where I live, and if I were to believe what I saw on the TV apparently I live at the bottom of a massive cliff overlooking the sea
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Yes, extraordinary how reality can be morphed and bent these days - you just can't believe what you see I think there were shots of the cliffs of Carrigminnaun above Lough Tay with waterfalls pouring over them. There's a very notable overhang high on the crag which gives a good visual cue. 0
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I enjoyed this doc. It was certainly imperfect, I think it was the first production by the director, and could have benefited from a good editor. For instance the Bonatti angle was completely superfluous and there was also a doubling up of part of the story (the joy of them arriving at camp 4 as I recall).
I actually thought the reconstructions, in digital terms, were very good, the only naff bits were where acting was involved. Most of it I actually think was original footage as I've seen a good bit of the footage from youtube. Not sure if Pemba participated in some of the reconstructions.
By far the most disappointing thing was the failure to properly articulate the evidence for Ger being a hero. To be honest, leaving aside the fact that his family would like to think that, I think that evidence is quite strong.
We know that the three Koreans were stuck in the ropes. Both Wilco and Marco report encountering them there. Both of them also describe observing Ger helping them before each of them left. Marco says he left after Ger began climbing back up the slope, apparently not responding to him shouting (probably leading to the stories about him 'losing his mind)'.
So as I say, we know they were hanging there all night, some of them upside down, some of them bleeding. One of them lost gloves, Wilco giving him a spare pair. There's also a photo, taken as it happens on Ger's camera by Pemba, given to him on the summit by Ger, where they can be seen caught in the ropes.
We also know that they didn't die there. There's a later photo where they're gone, and Pemba climbed back up, made radio contact with another sherpa who told him that the three had been freed and were completing the traverse. Asked was there anyone else there this Sherpa said there was another climber and described his down suit, which Pemba believes was Ger's, but this climber was knocked off the face in an ice avalanche.
This sherpa, and the Koreans with him, were killed shortly afterwards in another ice avalanche.
Now here's the bit which might have been articulated better in the doc. The Koreans died in a fall more or less at the top of the bottleneck having completed the traverse. Whatever about people's memories at 8000m we know this is the case because Pemba took photos of their bodies (as an aside this is apparently the done thing in the mountains, rather than being macabre it provides hard evidence for families back home, insurers etc). Where those bodies were photographed is nowhere near the fall line of where they had been trapped earlier.
So we know that the Koreans were freed from where they had been tangled and had managed to make their way to where they fell to their deaths.
Now anyone who knows anything about the mountains, and about being above 8000m knows that the three Koreans, having spent the night out in the open, upside down and tangled up, didn't manage to free themselves and cross the bulk of the traverse. Its just not realistic. And the distance they had to travel, between the point at which they are photographed caught in the ropes (the same point at which Marco and Wilco record them being at, and record Ger helping them) and the point at which we know they died, is about 100m (I'm guestimating this from the photos). Either way, this is a very significant distance at that altitude, at least it is if you've spent the night out, hanging upside down, at 8000m. Moreover it involves relatively technical climbing across an ice traverse.
These unfortunate climbers weren't able to help themselves. They hadn't been able to free themselves in the previous hours. Nor had Wilco or Marco succeeded in helping them. Someone got them free. And the only person who could have done that was Ger, who we know spent time helping them, and was last seeing helping them (one of the Pakistani High Altitude porters is also unaccounted for this point so in theory it is possible it was him, but there is no evidence it was, whereas there is evidence that Ger was helping them).
And the last thing Ger is reported doing is climbing back up the slope.
Now Marco's account led to the belief that he had lost his mind which the media seized upon at the time, desperate, as they often are, for quick answers without really knowing the questions. But another, quite feasible possibility is that he actually realised that in order to free them he had to climb up and cut the ropes that were tangling them. This is actually quite logical and may have been the only way in which to free them.
We know in any event that Marco, understandably, wasn't in the best of shape at this time himself. This is hinted at in the doc, and Pemba gives an account of it. Marco it will be recalled collapses at the bottom of the bottleneck and falls asleep. When Pemba finds him it takes him ten minutes to rouse him and when he does Marco is angry with him because he is giving him bottled oxegen (to save his life) therefore depriving Marco of the claim to an oxegenless ascent (again this is a not unheard of reaction in the world of high altitude climbing where people develop a somewhat myopic perspective of the value of life and of perceived achievements in climbing terms).
Marco also gives an account which is somewhat inconsistent with the narrative I'm setting out here in that he claimed to have seen Ger falling, and claimed to have come across his body parts, which in terms of their respective movements, doesn't coincide with Ger having helped free the Koreans. He gave a pretty graphic description of this but to be honest his account seems more like the high altitude halucination noted by another poster above. We know that Pemba was anxious to account for Ger and try and find him and he didn't. If you youtube Norit K2 you will find footage of Pemba the day after these events, i.e., two days after summitting K2, having spent the previous day climbing back up to help, climbing down and finding Wilco, and helping him down, his mental state is actually very good, clearly an impressive guy and I think his memory is to be trusted.
So the Koreans are freed, manage to climb across the traverse, Ger is last seen helping them, having helped them (in Marco's account) for as much as two hours, having climbed upwards and having then been reported by the deceased sherpa as being hit by icefall shortly thereafter.
I think the evidence is actually pretty strong that Ger McDonnell died having rescued those Korean climbers.
If we add to that what we know about Ger from other people, the testimony of Pat Falvey who recalls that Ger in effect saved his life high on Everest and also the fact that Ger had previously participated in a similar rescue high on Denali in Alaska, that evidence becomes stronger.
I didn't know Ger and don't know his family or have any connection with anyone involved in this incident. I'm just an armchair mountaineer. But I think a pretty strong impression of Ger comes across from that film. And he seemed to me a larger than life character, a fantastic ambassador for our country, and a person of deep principles and commitments, precisely the kind of person who wouldn't have it in him to climb past those Koreans knowing he was leaving them to their deaths. And he seemed like he was great craic too.
There can be no proof at that altitude, in terms of people's recollections, but the camera doesn't lie. Those Koreans were freed and managed to climb a decent way across the traverse before they too were hit by icefall. They didn't do it alone and Ger was the last person left who could have helped them.
I think there is very strong evidence that Ger McDonnell is a hero, a true Irish hero, whose memory should be honored by all of us. And if each of the people who head into those altitudes, and perhaps each of us in our own more mundane worlds, could take a bit of the way Ger lived his life into our own, the world would be a better place.
He who saves one life saves the world entire
*that took a long time, I should go to bed, but if it changes anyone's perspective or honours Ger's memory appropriately, its worth it 0 -
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