Word: mountains
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...climb to the top began not from the lower campsite but from the last of four ascending camps, just 3,000 ft. below the summit. Teams preparing to make their final climb usually bivouac there for a few days to allow their systems to become acclimatized to the wispy mountain air. Other teams slowly ascend through Camps 1 through 3 until they too are ready for the final push. On the night of May 10, the filmmakers slept at Camp 2, a mile below the summit, while the 33 other climbers trekked out into the darkness...
...hours later, matters started to look worse. Paula Viesturs, Ed's wife, had been making potato soup in the cook tent at the 17,600-ft. base camp and stepped outside for a moment. Looking down, she saw a bank of huge, bruise-colored clouds rolling up the mountain. Clouds like that were almost certainly carrying a storm, and this storm appeared to be climbing fast. Before long, a high-altitude blizzard would lash one camp after another, until it finally reached the unprotected climbers clinging to the peak...
...clouds continued to rise, the situation got worse still. According to radio traffic, Doug Hansen had collapsed, and Hall--who knew better than to linger near the top of the mountain in weather so ominous--was staying to help him. Five of Hall's other clients, including Weathers, had turned back. Where they were now no one knew. Guides Fischer and Harris were unaccounted for too. In all, 19 of the 33 people who had set out for Everest's top 16 hours earlier were stuck outside...
...rucksack. When the team reached Camp 3, they were joined by Breashears and a group of Sherpas bringing Makalu Gao down. Together they trekked to Camp 2, where they learned that a helicopter--which could never have stayed aloft in the tenuous air near the top of the mountain--would now be able to meet them and evacuate the wounded. Before long, the climbers heard the whap-whapping of blades and saw a dark green chopper struggling up to them. When it landed, the able-bodied loaded first Makalu Gao, then Weathers aboard, and the pilot flew off, dropping gratefully...
...accepted] practice to drop it in a crevasse or gather rocks to pile into a grave. With Rob and Scott, we couldn't do either, so we simply had to leave them as they were." The IMAX climbers did just that, finishing their filming and descending the mountain, all the while aware of what they were abandoning. If there was any consolation as they headed for home, it was that within a year the snows of Everest, in a final act of mercy, would provide the lost climbers with a proper and permanent burial...