ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE: From the rooftop of the world comes the story t

hat changed the perception of Everest forever.

NEAL BEIDLEMAN, Guide, Scott's Team: You feel your body start to come alive, and
you're climbing Mt. Everest.
ANNOUNCER: Three teams of climbers-
LOU KASISCHKE, Rob's Team: Few people have stood here looking out over this fant
astic sight.
ANNOUNCER: -an unexpected storm-
GUY COTTER, Pumori Base Camp: It was a very black wall of clouds coming in low.
LOU KASISCHKE: One minute, we could look down and we could see the camp below. A
nd the next minute, you couldn't see it.
ANNOUNCER: -and a journey that would test them all physically and emotionally.
LOU KASISCHKE: Rob wasn't leaving Doug. I don't think it's possible to get someb
ody who's incapacitated down the Hillary Step.
GUY COTTER: The rescue that would save his life was no longer coming.
BECK WEATHERS, Rob's Team: The storm, the wind, the snow, the cold- everything i
s just crescendoing. I don't want to die. I don't want to die.
HELEN WILTON: If you're stuck up there, you might as well be on the moon.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE, Storm Over Everest.
DAVID BREASHEARS: [voice-over] For over 25 years, I've been making the journey t
o Mount Everest. I've stood on its summit five times. The mountain has given me
great joy and close friendships. It's also been a place of hardship and tragedy.
In 1996, a fast-moving storm trapped climbers high on the mountain and people di
ed. Stories were told forever changing the world's perception, and my own, about
climbing Everest.
Now I've come back to Base Camp alone to remember and to reflect on what it was
like to be here on this mountain 10 years ago. We were all gathered at the mount
ain's base that year. We'd come with a common goal. I shared their energy, optim
ism and desire, all those hopes, all those dreams.
But most of all, I remember the climbers and friends caught in that storm. This
is their story.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN, Guide, Scott's Team: When we left Base Camp, we were all wary, o
f course, of mighty Everest in front of us. But this was it. This was our chance
. So we took off and it was a great feeling.
BECK WEATHERS, Rob's Team: Nobody can go there without thinking, "This is way co
ol, just to be able to climb on this thing." Just that idea that you're actually
going to put your feet on Everest, I don't care whether you're a climber or you
're not a climber, that's big stuff. That's exciting.
JOHN TASKE, Rob's Team: We went two thirds of the way through the Icefall, and I
was hooked. It was the most spectacular piece of real estate that I'd ever clim
bed on. It helps you to put yourself in perspective with what life's all about.
LENE GAMMELGAARD, Scott's Team: I got through the Icefall and started crying. An
d I thought, "Well, I'm probably hyperventilating because I'm really, really tir
ed." And then I realized that I was beginning to cry because it was so amazing.
It's just so beautiful.
DAVID BREASHEARS: I remember seeing them coming up the western Cwm. It was May 8
th. I was already on the mountain. We'd set out a day ahead of the other teams,
climbing up the Lhotse Face on our way to the summit. I was leading the Imax fil
m team, but we'd been held up by high winds and I was worried about the conditio
ns higher up. We needed clear weather for filming.
Looking down from Camp Three, we could see them climbing towards us. The mountai
n suddenly seemed crowded. We decided to go down and wait.
On the way down, I met an old friend who was leading one of the expeditions, the
New Zealander Rob Hall. We talked about the weather. I took his picture.
Further down, I met another friend who I'd known since we were young climbers in
Colorado. Scott Fischer was leading his team of clients. The day before, he'd t
aken a sick climber down to Base Camp. It was good to see him, but he seemed tir
ed.
The next day, I watched as Scott and all the others began the step ascent to Cam
p Four on the South Col.
[www.pbs.org: Explore a map of the mountain]
SANDY HILL, Scott's Team: When you leave Camp Three on the Lhotse Face, it's the
first time that you can actually see the summit. Your goal is visible. And that
's very thrilling. What blind faith it's been this whole time, climbing this far
without having your goal in front of you.
LOU KASISCHKE, Rob's Team: My very first view of Everest, it was a long moment a
nd a big, hard swallow. And the thought was, "I'm not so sure whether I can do t
his."
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: Leaving Camp Three, we donned our down suits for the first time
and definitely could feel the altitude and the strenuousness of the climb. You k
now, climbing above 24,000 and into 25,000 feet is really hard. It's- I don't ca
re who you are, it really is. It's challenging. It's hard work.
SANDY HILL: This was the first time that I remember registering the air is much,
much thinner here than anywhere else I've ever been.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Earlier that morning, there'd been an accident at Camp Three.
A Taiwanese climber had slipped and fallen into a crevasse, but he assured his t
eammates he was OK and would rest before going higher.
MAKALU GAU, Taiwanese Team: [subtitles] As we left Camp Three, Chen stayed behin
d to recover. He would wait a couple hours and catch up with us at Camp Four.
BECK WEATHERS: You move out of an area that seems familiar. There is this sense
of a desolate place. It's kind of like moving into Golgotha. This is a barren, h
ard, inhospitable, cold- and I don't mean that in temperature, I mean that in ju
st the sense of heaviness about the place.
DAVID BREASHEARS: In the afternoon, we got a radio call. The Taiwanese climber's
health had deteriorated. The Sherpas were bringing him down, and they asked us
to help.
We climbed fast up the Lhotse Face, but by the time we reached him, Chen was dea
d. The Sherpas, superstitious about death on the mountain, wanted us to bring th
e body down.
Chen's close friend and team leader, Makalu Gau, had just arrived at Camp Four o
n the South Col.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] David called to tell me Chen was dead. I was shocked. Al
l I could say was, "Thank you"
DAVID BREASHEARS: Sitting at Base Camp all these years later, I can still rememb
er my reaction, how upset I was by his response and his decision not to come dow
n.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] Chen had wanted to reach the top more than anyone on our
team. When he died, I felt I had no choice but to keep climbing. I must finish
his goal for him.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Only now, after hearing his story, do I know why he decided to
go on how little I understood about what it was like to be high on this mountai
n over the next few days.
BECK WEATHERS: The weather was so crummy that when we first got in there, I didn
't think there was any chance that we were going to climb that night.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: In our tents at Camp Four that night, it was living hell. It w
as absolutely crazy.
LOU KASISCHKE: It was bad weather, and the concern was, "Well, what if it's like
this tomorrow?"
BECK WEATHERS: We thought, "We may have struggled all the way up here, and if th
is keeps up at all, then the whole crowd is just going to get to head back down
and the party's over."
CHARLOTTE FOX, Scott's Team: About 8:00 o'clock, the wind died off, and so we we
re able to snatch a little sleep, as much as you can up there. You just are basi
cally listening to your heartbeat and thinking, "Wow, the day has come. I can't
believe it."
LOU KASISCHKE: "Get ready. Be ready, 11:00 o'clock, we're going." I still rememb
er looking at the faces of the other people. Doug thought it was a bad idea. You
could just tell it in his eyes that he didn't want to go.
CHARLOTTE FOX: You had a little cover over your head, a little skullcap, and the
n you've got this massive thing like this. And you're trying to get your goggles
adjusted just right. And meanwhile, you can't see to put your gloves on. And yo
u've got your straps, "Oh, gosh, I got the crampons on the wrong feet. I'll be t
here in a minute!"
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] There was a good chance for me to reach the top. I was r
eady to go.
BECK WEATHERS: You get out, you stand up, and it's a different world than the on
e you saw when you came in because the night is gorgeous. The wind is still. You
can see more stars than you ever dreamed that a place could have, and they're s
o close to you that you feel like you can touch them.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: In front of us is this great silhouette, the blackness of Everes
t. And the Milky Way was just on fire. It was like a row of lights above us.
SANDY HILL: It was a vast open sky, but there on the mountain, I could see the h
eadlamps of Rob Hall's team, and I was worried that we might be behind before we
'd even started.
BECK WEATHERS: When you climb at night, much more so than the day, you feel like
you're alone. And as you look up and you look down, you don't see the vistas. Y
ou see these little cones scattered along in a line of the people that are all s
trung out as part of this silent progression of individuals, each one in their o
wn world, separated from everyone else on their team, separated from everyone el
se on earth.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: You start to get in rhythm with your oxygen. You get your headli
ght adjusted just right and jiggle your pack around. And you feel your body star
t to come alive and the blood flowing. And you know, you're climbing Mt. Everest
. It's a pretty cool feeling.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] I was climbing with three Sherpas. They had all reached
the summit of Everest before. One in front of me, two behind me. I felt safe. We
were a strong team.
CHARLOTTE FOX: Right before the Balcony, which was several hours out, after goin
g up fixed ropes in the dark, you started to see a little light out to the east.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: Within a few steps, you just walk right up into the sunlight and
everything changes. You can see what appears to be a thousand miles out across
the Tibetan plains. The sun is now over the horizon and just glittering off of t
he glaciers thousands and thousands of feet below you. It's an amazing experienc
e, and you know why you're climbing Mount Everest at that moment.
CHARLOTTE FOX: You look across at all these other peaks that were always way abo
ve you, and now they're tiny. They're like waves in the ocean.
LOU KASISCHKE: And you know that few people have stood here looking out over thi
s fantastic sight.
DAVID BREASHEARS: By dawn, the teams were just below the southeast ridge at 27,6
00 feet. It'd been five weeks since they'd first arrived at Base Camp. Each team
was its own small world. The clients were paying their way, and the professiona
l guides like Rob and Scott promised access to a dream.
HELEN WILTON, Base Camp Manager, Rob's Team: I felt like a part of something gre
at. I really- I really think that to do something with people for a common purpo
se is a wonderful thing, and to help people to achieve their dreams is something
that caught me, as well. So much emotion and experiences and demands of you hap
pen in such a short space of time, six weeks of intensive living. I never though
t I'd ever do this in my life.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: I think everybody has a place in themselves that mountains can f
ill. Mountains carry great respect with people around the world, so it doesn't s
urprise me at all that many people use mountains to find this. That's what I did
myself.
BECK WEATHERS: I'd spent most of my adult life in profound depression, and I Joh
n Wayne'd it, so that I never let anybody know about it. And I discovered that i
f you drove your body hard, when you did that, you couldn't think. And that lack
of thinking, as you punished your body and drove yourself, was amazingly pleasa
nt.
SANDY HILL: Other people, when they have- when their life is at a difficult spot
, turn to drugs or drink or credit cards. I go to the mountains. That's always w
orked for me.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: As long as I, or human beings, believe that by doing something
, the world is going to change - by doing this, I'm going to be more happy, by d
oing that, I'm going to be more successful, by doing this, people are going to l
ove me more - then I think there will be this fantastic drive behind it.
[www.pbs.org: More on why they climb]
CHARLOTTE FOX: Now that we could see the summit, you're just pulled in. You've g
one so far up the mountain, you've come so far from home, and you spent six mont
hs preparing for this goal, there's no way you're going to turn around unless th
ings are really going south.
DAVID BREASHEARS: They'd been climbing hard since midnight. It's vital to get to
the summit and back to Camp Four before nightfall.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: I felt very comfortable with the situation. We were inside of ou
r turnaround time. The weather's still good. There were certainly some delays th
at were unexpected, but that's how climbing is.
BECK WEATHERS: By the time that I get up to the Balcony, I realized that I prett
y much was out of the game. My right eye was not really usable because it was bl
urred over, and my left eye wasn't good enough yet that I felt comfortable going
forward.
And so when I told Rob this, he volunteered to send me down with a couple of the
Sherpa. I'd just climbed all night to get to this place. I didn't want to go. H
e said, "Beck, I want you to promise me that you're going to stay here until I c
ome back." And I said, "Rob, cross my heart, hope to die, I'm sticking." And it
never, ever crossed my mind that he'd never come back.
LOU KASISCHKE: Beck had a problem, and it was too bad. I didn't even think that
much about that because, you know, a lot of things happen and it could have been
me. It could have been anybody. It was sort of, like, "Tough break. And see you
later."
CHARLOTTE FOX: Upon arriving at the South Summit, there are a few people there,
and there seemed to be some confusion about ropes and who was going first, and w
ere we using old fixed lines or did we have enough new line to string across the
traverse to the Hillary Step?
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: Anatoli and I tied into the rope together and trekked off toward
s the Hillary Step over this very beautiful and very delicate knife-edge ridge.
And there was a steady enough wind that it would take the rope between us and ho
ld it out in this big arc. It would hold itself out for maybe 10 or even 15 seco
nds at a time and then drop down. And like a sail, it would bulge out again.
CHARLOTTE FOX: It was definitely not a place that you wanted to fall. You had a
rope to sort of guide you that was probably staked in pretty well, but the snow
wasn't that great for holding stakes. And the fact that when you sunk your ice a
xe into the snow, you could look through the hole as you pulled it out and see T
ibet, and over here you could see Nepal. So you wanted to be very careful about
staying right on the border, so to speak. People were stacking up behind us like
crazy, and I was feeling lucky to be one of the first people across.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: Lots and lots of people were so slow getting up the Hillary St
ep, and you sort of had to wait your turn in line before you could climb that pi
ece of rock face. And loosing one hour just more or less standing still on a mou
ntain, that is really the stupidest thing you can do because speed is the same a
s safety.
LOU KASISCHKE: I looked at my watch and I had a sick feeling inside of myself. T
his is the way I was feeling, I was feeling sick at that point because I knew- I
knew it was impossible to get there by the 1:00 PM turnaround time.
JOHN TASKE: And I thought, "If I keep going now, I'll be out of oxygen, get to t
he summit, but I'll be coming back down to the South Col in the dark and without
oxygen and more tired than I am now." The risks were escalating.
LOU KASISCHKE: My heart was beating so hard, I felt like it was going to jump ri
ght out of my chest. I was almost shaking as I was struggling inside of myself w
ith, "What am I going to do? Am I going to keep going because I'm so close, or a
m I going to turn around?"
JOHN TASKE: At that stage, Rob came up past me. And I said to him, "Rob, I'm goi
ng down." And I could even see behind his oxygen mask, he was visibly disappoint
ed, probably for me because he loved to get people to achieve their goal of gett
ing to the top. But he said, "It's your call, pal." Didn't say "mate," like an A
ustralian. "It's your call, pal. I'll see you back at the South Col." And that w
as the last time I saw Rob alive.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] In front of me, I saw many people climbing up the ropes.
Wow! There were so many ropes! People looked like they were pulling and pulling
, but they weren't going anywhere. I was at the back of the line, wondering why
they were so slow.
CHARLOTTE FOX: And it's not difficult climbing by rock-climbing standards, but y
ou have to imagine you've got these massive boots with little rock holds for you
r feet, massive mitten hands with little rock holds for your hands, and you're a
ll puffy, like the Michelin person. And you're trying to execute these moves at
28,000, 29,000 feet, and an oxygen bottle and your pack. And it's just very awkw
ard.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] Then it was my turn on the ropes. But when I tried, I fe
lt so weak that I had to crawl. And the ropes were spinning. It was so difficult
to climb. Then I understood why others had been so slow.
NIMA GOMBU, Taiwanese Team: [subtitles] We were late because the teams were mixe
d together and we were slow. The weather was also deteriorating. We had to wait
at the Hillary Step. We lost a couple of hours there.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] Suddenly, I saw flags and people. People were posing for
pictures. I realized that was the summit! It didn't look far. I knew I would re
ach the top today, no matter what, even if I crawled on my hands and knees.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: I arrived at the summit at 1:25, and for about five minutes, I r
eally enjoyed the summit of Mount Everest for myself. Then I started watching th
is stream of people come over the rise above the Hillary Step.
CHARLOTTE FOX: Finally, we came to one rise. And I looked to the next, and there
were a group of people on top. And I knew that was it.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: In any other circumstance, you would think that somebody could c
over that distance in 10 or 15 minutes. But it took some of these people much, m
uch longer than that.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: It's not very far, but it's just so hard. And even though ther
e are not that many paces, it just takes very, very long time from there to actu
ally get to the summit.
CHARLOTTE FOX: And soon enough, we were joining the celebration up there, lookin
g down the north side, and looking down the west and the east and the south. And
we could see it all. We were on the roof of the world.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: You can almost see the curvature of the Earth. I know you can't,
but you can feel that you're up high enough that you're looking down on the sph
ere. All the hardships that you've gone through and all the discomfort you've be
en through is completely worth it at that moment.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: What I really felt was a massive, massive contentment and sort
of a feeling of everything falling into place.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] At that moment, I was overwhelmed. Then I remembered I h
ad to get a picture! I gave my camera to one of the Sherpas and asked him to tak
e one.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: It was just this cluster of people. I couldn't believe how many
were there. But everybody is perched onto this little ridge, so it just looked l
iked this sea of colors. It was hard to even recognize who was who out of all th
ese colors.
CHARLOTTE FOX: It was my feeling that we celebrated a little too long. We were w
aiting for Scott to come up so we could descend as a team, but he was taking the
longest time. And people were enjoying the day. The day was beautiful. There wa
sn't a cloud out there.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: Finally, I was just, like, "We've got to go. It's getting late n
ow. This is no more. We've got to go." So I remember walking back up to where ev
erybody was, and you know, getting up close into everybody's face, each person's
face that was there, and telling them, "Look, get yourself ready. We've got to
go down now."
HELEN WILTON: When Rob called me from the summit at 2:30, it was those familiar
words, "Base Camp, this is Everest summit." Oh, and he sounded sort of hale and
hearty. He sounded really good. And he told us who had just started descending,
and he said that Doug Hansen was- "He's just in sight." And he said as soon as D
oug got up to him that they'd do a really quick turnaround, and he was intending
to descend straight away. And I said, "What's the weather like?" And he said, "
Cold and windy, cold and windy."
MICHAEL GROOM, Guide, Rob's Team: Rob and Yasuko and I, we stayed on the summit
for an extra five or ten minutes and then took some photographs, and then Yasuko
and I headed back down.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Yasuko Namba had just completed the seven summits. It had take
n her 16 years, but she was now the second Japanese woman to climb the highest m
ountain on every continent.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: And then finally, we started descending. Getting down over the
Hillary Step, I meet Scott, who's on the way up, and I sort of really hug him.
SANDY HILL: We high-fived. We hugged. And it was just obvious from his movement
that he was intending to continue going up.
MICHAEL GROOM: The first thing I noticed about Scott Fischer was just how badly
he was traveling. Of all the people I saw that day moving up and down the mounta
in, he was the most unlikely person to be in that situation, still going up the
mountain.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Now hours behind schedule, 14 climbers were still high on the
mountain. At the summit, Rob Hall waited for his client, Doug Hansen.
NORBU, Rob's Team: [subtitles] Ang Dorjee, Rob Hall and I waited at the top for
an hour, but Doug never arrived. Finally, we all went down to meet Doug.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Doug Hansen was a postal worker from Seattle. The year before,
also climbing with Rob Hall, he'd collapsed at the South Summit and had to be h
elped down. He'd worked two jobs to save enough money to return to Everest. Fina
lly, he was almost there.
ANG DORJEE, Rob's Team: I was in front of Rob Hall. I told Doug Hansen, "OK, it'
s late. It's now bad weather. We're going to go down." But Doug Hansen, he didn'
t talk to me. He just shake his head, and then he's pointing his finger at the s
ummit.
NORBU: [subtitles] Ang Dorjee and I offered to take Doug up ourselves.
ANG DORJEE: Rob told me, "OK, I don't want to leave clients behind. You guys go
ahead. You go ahead. Leave oxygen bottle at South Summit. Go down."
MICHAEL GROOM: From the South Summit, I recall looking back along this razorback
ridge to the Hillary Step. I saw Rob Hall standing up and Doug Hansen leaning i
nto the slope, resting on his ice axe. I remember giving the normal thumbs-up si
gn, like that, and I got the same response from the person I thought was Rob Hal
l. And it indicated to me that everything was OK and it was time to continue the
descent.
CHARLOTTE FOX: We were headed down from the South Summit when I saw Sandy laying
in the snow.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: There's this person in a yellow suit laying face down, head down
the hill. And Charlotte- I recognize Charlotte standing above this person.
CHARLOTTE FOX: I'd try pulling her to her feet, and she was just a load of dead
weight. She just- she couldn't go any further.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: She collapsed. She literally collapsed and there was absolutel
y no more power in her to move down.
CHARLOTTE FOX: And then I remembered I had that injection of dexamethasone, kept
it warm inside my suit all this time, just in case something like this happened
.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: She kind of gives me the nod as she's got basically both hands o
n the syringe, that, you know, "Is this the right thing to do?" And I'm, like, "
Yeah, go for it."
CHARLOTTE FOX: So I unzipped the rainbow zipper to her rear end and knew she had
layers of pile on, but that the needle would go right through that. And I just
took a wing back and-
SANDY HILL: And she smiled this crazy, wonderful, maniacal smile and jammed the
dex into my leg.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: There we also realized that Sandy was running out of oxygen.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: I asked Lene to exchange bottles with Sandy, and she kind of loo
ked at me, like, you know, "You're crazy. I'm not giving up my oxygen." And I ce
rtainly don't blame her for that. But I was, like, "YouÕve got to do this because
you're walking right now and she is not."
CHARLOTTE FOX: From then, I believe Tim and I moved together and left Sandy with
Neal. And we were just a little in front of the rest of the gang on our way dow
n to the last fixed ropes.
LOU KASISCHKE: John Taske was just right in front of me. We basically came to th
e Balcony together, and there was Beck.
JOHN TASKE: So we said, "Beck, come on down with us." And Beck said, "No, no, I'
ve basically given the word I'll wait for Rob. I'll stay here and wait for him."
BECK WEATHERS: They clearly wanted me to come down. But they didn't have the con
versation with Rob. They did not promise Rob that you'd stay there.
JOHN TASKE: In good weather, that would have been obviously the right decision t
o make because Rob was more experienced. Rob had a rope so he could have short-r
oped Beck down. We'd have had all sorts of trouble.
LOU KASISCHKE: Beck said he felt more comfortable if we had a rope, and we didn'
t have a rope. And he said he thought he needed to be short-roped, and that was
the end of it.
BECK WEATHERS: I could have gone down with them. And obviously, I should have. B
ut I really didn't want the day to end, even then.
LOU KASISCHKE: There wasn't any sense of being left behind or abandoned or almos
t dying or anything happening at that point.
HELEN WILTON: When we got the 4:15 call, Rob was asking somebody else on our tea
m, who may have just been below the South Summit, for more oxygen. And he was ob
viously with someone in trouble.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Rob was on the radio to one of his guides, Andy Harris, who wa
s waiting for him at the South Summit.
MICHAEL GROOM: Rob was obviously distressed and concerned about something that w
as going on. There was something wrong.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Andy was last seen climbing back up the ridge to help Rob and
Doug.
GUY COTTER, Pumori Base Camp: What really started to concern me at this point wa
s that I started to see some bad weather coming in from down the valley. It was
a very black wall of clouds coming from behind Towichi further down the valley,
coming in low. Unlike a lot of storms that start high, this storm was coming qui
te low and it obviously was very fast moving, very intense. In a few minutes, I
saw the mountains of Towichi disappear.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: Down below, what was sort of benevolent puffy clouds has now got
more of a sinister look to it. It's really- it's starting to look like it's, yo
u know, a real storm, and we're walking right down into the storm.
DAVID BREASHEARS: The climbers nearing Camp Four on the South Col were the first
to run into trouble.
JOHN TASKE: A rock came hurtling down the face and knocked Lou's glove from unde
rneath the piece of rope, and it went cart-wheeling away with the wind. Followin
g the rock, we didn't know who it was, but it was obviously Anatoli Boukreev rac
ing down, who went straight past us without talking, heading off towards the ten
ts on the South Col. At that moment, as I looked up and saw the tents, I could s
ee the storm coming behind it.
LOU KASISCHKE: One minute, we could look down and we could see the camp below. A
nd the next minute, you couldn't see it.
JOHN TASKE: Within the space of five minutes, it changed from really a good day
with a little bit of wind to desperate conditions, something I'd never experienc
ed the ferocity of before.
[www.pbs.org: An interactive time-map of the drama]
MICHAEL GROOM: And then I came across Beck Weathers, which caught me completely
by surprise because by this time, snow had started to fall very lightly. Beck ha
d obviously been sitting very patiently and very still, completely covered in sn
ow. And as he turned to me, all the snow fell off his climbing suit, and suddenl
y I could see it was someone in front of me. And I think he said, "Is that you,
Mike?" And I said, "Yes." And I think he said, "Well, I've got a bit of a proble
m. I can't see."
BECK WEATHERS: So Mike put me on a short tether, and it was a good decision beca
use I'm coming down and I do make some pretty good missteps. I put down and actu
ally shift my weight onto the down foot, and it's nothing there.
MICHAEL GROOM: And then to my surprise, still in the gully, I came across Yasuko
sitting in the snow, completely and utterly exhausted. So I really had my hands
full now because here's Beck Weathers, who's totally blind, and Yasuko, who can
't walk.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: There was no more thought who was on whose team. It was just peo
ple.
MICHAEL GROOM: Fortunately for me, Neal could see my dilemma and took over the c
ontrol of Yasuko.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: I could feel when I grabbed her at first, her arm was limp. But
once we got her up and started walking, I could tell she was hanging on tighter
because she had hope and she knew that she was heading down.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] After leaving the South Summit, the wind blew harder and
the snow fell thicker. I realized we were not on the same trail that we had fol
lowed on the way up. We were just following footprints. At that time, the Sherpa
s started using their ice axes to find the trail.
NIMA GOMBU, Taiwanese Team: [subtitles] We said we'd find the ropes and then com
e back for him. We went farther and farther down but never found the ropes. We c
ouldn't go back up for him, so we went to the tents.
DAVID BREASHEARS: The Sherpas never came back. They left Makalu Gau more than a
thousand feet above Camp Four- alone.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] I sat and waited, wondering what to do. Then I heard som
ething behind me and I saw a light. I looked back and saw Scott.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Scott soon collapsed on a ledge not far from Makalu Gau, too w
eak to descend further. Now both teams were without their leaders.
GUY COTTER, Pumori Base Camp: On the top of the Hillary Step, which is about as
far away from anywhere in this world that you can get, Rob was in a situation wh
ere he had somebody incapacitated, that he could not pick this guy up and carry
him. That's impossible up there.
HELEN WILTON: At 5:15, he called and he said that Doug was weak. And yes, I coul
d tell things were very serious.
GUY COTTER: My feeling was that Rob should descend to the South Col and at least
look after himself, to be in a position to effect a rescue the next day, as har
d as that might be.
HELEN WILTON: When Guy was talking like this, I think Rob sounded a little annoy
ed that- you know, like Doug might be listening to this.
GUY COTTER: At the time, I was effectively being the devil's advocate. I mean, I
was trying to give him the option to decide that what I was saying was a good i
dea. And he might have been thinking it in his own head but yet not being able t
o come up with that decision himself.
HELEN WILTON: I recorded at that time that it sounded like Rob wasn't leaving Do
ug, and that was kind of, like- we didn't hear for another 12 hours from Rob.
DAVID BREASHEARS: As darkness fell, the storm was nearing full force. It swept o
ver the South Col, engulfing Camp Four.
LOU KASISCHKE: When I got back to camp, I crawled inside the tent. And the next
thing I remember was the feeling like somebody was shoving me. But the thoughts
were, "Why isn't anybody here? Why am I alone?" And I could hear nothing. I coul
d hear nothing but the wind. It was the wind that was moving me around, was shov
ing me and pushing me. And it was terrifying.
I felt lonely. I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to say "I love you" one more ti
me. I didn't want to die alone. It was something that I never knew about myself
would be important to me, to be dying separated from the people I love and who l
ove me.
DAVID BREASHEARS: The storm, which began as a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, surp
rised everyone on the mountain as it surged higher, gaining in energy, power and
ferocity, overwhelming the exhausted summit climbers as they searched for camp
on the hard rocks and steep cliffs of the South Col.
[www.pbs.org: An interview with David Breashears]
CHARLOTTE FOX: We would walk, thinking, "Wow, the wind's going to want to blow u
s toward the Kangshung Face, so let's overcompensate by going the other directio
n and we'll probably hit Base Camp."
BECK WEATHERS: And as you move further and you become more disoriented- and the
entire time that you're doing this, the storm, the wind, the snow, the cold- eve
rything is just moving. It's crescendoing. And now it's the noise level that's s
tarting to overwhelm you, and you've got to yell at each other to be heard at al
l. And I don't know whether- we're getting a sense of just being led like sheep.
MICHAEL GROOM: And then we just became hopelessly lost. And I recall the ice and
the snow stinging my face, freezing my eyelids together, to a point where I hav
e to sort of break the ice off my eyelids to be able to see, and tripping over r
ocks on the South Col, picking up Beck when he did the same because he fell over
quite a lot.
BECK WEATHERS: I had no idea where we were going. I knew enough, though, to keep
 track of Mike Groom's arm because I thought if I let go of him and I got three
feet away, I wouldn't have any idea where anybody was.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: People who have all run out of oxygen, some of them really sta
rt collapsing. And those of us who are still able to walk try to sort of, you kn
ow, pick them up, make them keep walking. This is survival. And surviving in the
mountain is to keep moving. Never, ever stop.
CHARLOTTE FOX: We all felt that camp was close, and we couldn't figure out why w
e had not stumbled upon it. We had passed discarded oxygen tanks, pots and pans,
ripped fabric of tents. We knew we were right there.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: We could be 40 meters from the tents and people could die ther
e, but there was no way that we could find our way back to the tents.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: On both sides of the South Col, it's this big, expansive flat. B
ut at the edges, it becomes precipitously steep.
SANDY HILL: One side's the Kangshung Face, and the other side is straight down t
he steepest section on Everest on the Nepal side, so- and it was literally- it w
ould have been walking off a cliff.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: I just had this strong, strong feeling that we had to just stop
and sit down and just wait for a little bit for the storm to abate before we mad
e a decision we couldn't get out of.
BECK WEATHERS: We were beginning on a downward slope off the Kangshung Face. And
Neal sensed this. I don't know how he did it. That's the reason Neal's a guide
and I'm not. But he made that decision that we were going to stop. And then we s
tart to come together, this odd lot of individuals, and we become the huddle.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Most of us knew nothing of what was happening that night. We k
new only that many climbers were missing and that Rob and Doug were still high o
n the mountain, unable to get down.
HELEN WILTON: I don't think it's possible to get somebody who's incapacitated do
wn the Hillary Step, let alone along the knife-edge ridge between the Hillary St
ep and the South Summit, let alone in a storm. Unless some sort of amazing thing
happened and somebody came charging up with a pile of oxygen bottles, Rob was i
n really deep trouble with Doug.
BECK WEATHERS: As time passes, each one of us becomes more and more absorbed in
our own world. You can know the other individuals are there, but you're beginnin
g to lose that sense of contact with them. Charlotte says, "I don't care anymore
. All I want to do is die." And Sandy is about to come unglued. "I don't want to
die. I don't want to die. My face is freezing. My hands are freezing."
SANDY HILL: I remember thinking, "I don't want to die. I don't want to die here.
"
BECK WEATHERS: Yasuko was next to me, and I was pretty much trying to shove her
and pummel her and try to keep it going. And at some point in there, though, I h
ad this sense of just gently moving away. I wasn't giving up, I was just becomin
g unaware.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: We knew that going to sleep was the wrong thing to do, and it wa
s too easy to do. You just suck yourself back, you draw yourself back as far as
you could into your down suit hood and just close your eyes and take a few breat
hs, and it was too easy to want to let go.
CHARLOTTE FOX: And that was the point where I just said, "You know what? I don't
know if I'm going to make it through the night. Maybe it's just easier to just
go under that sleep before hypothermia takes you, and just go on and get it over
with because this is too much."
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: Certainly, these were real feelings that people were having. But
it was, like, "Well, you know, we just can't go there." It's- you know, "We're
going to be OK. We've just got to figure out how to get through the night." It's
just about living hour by hour, minute by minute.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Makalu Gau was caught by the storm far above the climbers on t
he South Col. He was alone with Scott Fischer, who lay helpless only a few feet
away.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] I told myself not to sleep and to keep moving, but it wa
s very hard to do. I shouted to myself, "Makalu, don't sleep! Makalu, don't slee
p!" I shouted so hard that my body shook.
I thought, "I should do disco. I should dance disco. I should move myself to kee
p warm." So I kept hitting myself and kicking my legs.
I moved around slowly. Suddenly, I touched something. It was big and cold. It wa
s Scott Fischer! He was slumped down and groaning, "I'm sick. I'm sick." His voi
ce was small and weak. I knew he needed help, but there was nothing I could do.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: This is a situation where people die. This was the real deal and
there was no mistaking the danger of the situation that we were in. We were on
knife's edge.
CHARLOTTE FOX: I could almost objectively watch what was happening to me. And th
at was fairly eerie, not so much as being an out-of-body experience, but monitor
ing myself for my downfall.
BECK WEATHERS: You're in this little, tiny world of incredible noise and cold. A
nd you're going past- you're shivering and shaking uncontrollably, where you hav
e no ability to stop your body from trying to generate enough heat. You can't ge
t it to stop.
MICHAEL GROOM: I think it was Neal who spotted the upper slopes of Mt. Everest.
And once he spotted them, he yelled out something and I saw the same sight. And
quickly, like Neal, were able to figure out where we were in relation to Camp Fo
ur.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: I associated Camp Four and the tents as our salvation. If someho
w we could just get there and alert people to our position, that to me was how t
he situation was going to go from extremely bad to better.
CHARLOTTE FOX: There was hope again to get up and walk back to camp. But I had a
lready let myself get so cold, and mentally so detached, that every time I stood
up, I just fell down. Finally, people had to keep moving and go save themselves
.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: Yasuko I had on my arm the entire time in the huddle. And when I
grabbed her to try to stand her up, she kept falling to the ground. You know, I
tried to drag her and help her along, but I couldn't do it.
SANDY HILL: Trying to get up, trying to get on your feet with a pack on your bac
k on unstable ground and in the condition that I was in, was not possible in the
amount of time that I needed to stay with Neal.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: We were staggering about like really drunk people, absolutely
no resources left to even try to move. But as it was everybody's only chance of
surviving, we did it anyway.
MICHAEL GROOM: And I tried to go with them, but I had Beck and Yasuko and I lite
rally had- I think I had one person on each shoulder. But after 20 meters, Yasuk
o had fallen over twice. And it was just a hopeless situation.
CHARLOTTE FOX: So everyone moved off, and though we tried a few times to get goi
ng, and we could see people getting further and further away from us. I remember
Lene on Klev's arm, shuffling along slowly but moving, and me wanting to be wit
h her but just not able to physically go.
DAVID BREASHEARS: We'll never know what happened to Rob that night. It must have
been a desperate struggle as he tried to move Doug along that ridge only a few
feet at a time, so far from the safety of camp.
And what happened to Doug? Did he still have enough life in him to reach out to
Rob and say, "Don't leave me," or did Doug ever look at Rob and say, "Rob, just
go. Save yourself"? And where was Andy Harris?
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: We were so lucky that the direction that we went in led us to Ca
mp Four because we could have missed the tents by, you know, just a few degrees
and kept walking past. We could have been wandering on the South Col forever.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: Eventually, we sort of just staggered into the tents and more
or less collapsed.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: Anatoli was, like, "Where's Scott?" He kept asking, "Where's Sco
tt?" And I remember telling Anatoli that he wasn't with us. "No Scott, not here,
not here. But people." And I remember turning around and pointing.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Anatoli Boukreev, a strong Russian climber, was one of Scott F
ischer's guides. He'd climbed to the summit without bottled oxygen and had desce
nded to Camp Four on the South Col hours ahead of his teammates.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: Anatoli gathered some thermos with hot tea, whatever could be
utilized to really revive people for at least a little while. And then he set ou
t into the snowstorm.
NEAL BEIDLEMAN: And at that point, I really felt like I had passed this baton to
Anatoli. And I just assumed that this same set of actions was happening for Rob
's team and that Yasuko and Beck would make it back, as well.
CHARLOTTE FOX: There was certainly a great deal of hope when I saw the group mov
e off towards the tents. That meant that somebody would know where the rest of u
s were. Surely, someone would come out and find us.
BECK WEATHERS: That clearly was what needed to be done. I thought, "It's not goi
ng to be very long. We'll have help come back out here, and we'll be back in the
tents. It couldn't be more than half an hour, and folks'll be back."
SANDY HILL: We could see a headlamp coming vaguely in our direction, but certain
ly not striding purposefully. But it was a light, and with a light was a glimmer
of hope. And soon it became clear that it was Anatoli.
CHARLOTTE FOX: He just grabbed me and said, "I'll be back" for the rest of the g
roup, and Sandy and Tim. And he hooked arms with me, and assisted me to my feet
and we started to walk back. I tried once again to sit down every few feet and r
est, but he told me not to do that, that that was impossible, we had to keep mov
ing.
Finally, I came into a tent, and there was Neal with a huge, hot, hot, hot cup o
f tea. And I remember him handing it to me, and I couldn't hold it because my ha
nds were shaking so violently that he had to feed me the first few sips. And the
n I could put my hands around that cup and warm them enough to be able to stop s
haking as much and drink myself.
SANDY HILL: Anatoli had promised me that he would be right back. At a certain po
int, I lost hope that he was going to come back because it seemed like it was ta
king so long. It was a glorious sight, seeing that little tiny headlamp in the d
istance, growing larger and coming closer to us. He came back.
LENE GAMMELGAARD: Anatoli spent the whole night trying to rescue those people. H
e would have wanted to bring back both Beck and Yasuko at that point, but if he
had done that, he probably would have died himself.
BECK WEATHERS: The last part being there, I couldn't see anybody. I could still
feel somebody next to me, and I remember thinking it was probably Yasuko. At tha
t point, there was no pain left. There was just a sense of just this detachment
and calm. And I didn't feel uncomfortable. I didn't- nothing hurt. It just was s
liding away, gradually fading to black.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] I am really going to die here. I had tried everything to
stay alive, but it wasn't working. I had to face death. It made me so sad. I di
dn't want to die, not here, not like this.
When I turned to my left, I saw a faint light. It was a strange light. It looked
blue, white and red. I panicked and turned away. I was afraid these were the li
ghts you see on the way to hell. After a few seconds, I rolled back. Although it
wasn't very bright, I thought it might be dawn. I told myself, "You have to kee
p going until the sun comes up because when the sun comes up, then you will have
a chance to live."
HELEN WILTON: When Rob called in the morning, I scrambled out of my sleeping bag
and I just remember climbing over bodies to get to the radio. I just had to get
there. And I picked up the radio and I said, "Rob, where are you?" I was really
hoping he was going to say South Col. And he said, "I'm at the South Summit." A
nd my heart just hit the floor. Rob once said that if you're stuck up there, you
might as well be on the moon.
GUY COTTER: Rob called, saying he couldn't move and "Come and get me." And when
we asked Rob about Doug, all Rob could say was that Doug is gone. At that stage,
he asked about Andy Harris. He said, "Andy was with me last night. Does anybody
know where he is?"
ANG DORJEE: In the morning, we went through looking for Namba and Beck, and 350
or 400 meter from South Col, Beck was lying down. I pick up Yasuko Namba, but sh
e wasn't respond to me. And then I told them, "OK, Namba is dead here. You guys
go down. Look Beck."
NORBU: [subtitles] When they found Beck, his cheek was stuck to the snow. They c
ouldn't see his face and thought he was dead.
ANG DORJEE: They went down, they look, they thought totally not moving. They tol
d me same like Namba, he's total lie down.
DAVID BREASHEARS: At Base Camp, they called the United States and told Beck's wi
fe that her husband was dead.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] I heard someone calling me. I could hear it, but my eyes
were frozen shut. It was like a dream. Then they gave me oxygen. I took a deep
breath and cold air rushed into my body.
NGAWANG SYA KYA, Scott's Team: [subtitles] Makalu kept moving, so he wasn't froz
en. Scott froze because he stopped moving.
TASHI TSERI, Scott's Team: [subtitles] When we found Scott, he was sitting with
his down suit open. We rubbed his hands, but we couldn't get him to respond. We
opened his eyes, but still got no response.
NGAWANG SYA KYA: [subtitles] I hoped Scott would live, but his condition was ser
ious. Makalu was alive.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] I had no feeling in my hands. They were just like frozen
pork. When they hit each other, they made a sound like "clack, clack."
NGAWANG SYA KYA: [subtitles] I gave soup to the Taiwanese climber. He was very g
rateful. I told him to come down slowly.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] As I was leaving, I saw two Sherpas with Scott Fischer.
They were kneeling beside him, giving him CPR, but I didn't know if they were ab
le to save him or not. At that time, my thinking was clouded. I followed my Sher
pa step by step back to the South Col.
GUY COTTER: During the morning, the winds became so strong. The Sherpas tried th
eir hardest to get to Rob. They had to turn around somewhere up on the southeast
ridge. There came a point that they realized it was too dangerous for them to c
ontinue.
ANG DORJEE: It was still blowing and hard to see, hard to find the path. We both
decide we may not reach there or we may- something going to be happen for us, t
oo.
GUY COTTER: They were very upset that they had not been able to get up to Rob. T
hey tried their hardest, but these guys were very exhausted.
ANG DORJEE: I was so sad. I came all the way up there to help Rob, but I didn't
met him. I have to return, close to by him.
HELEN WILTON: They were about a hundred vertical meters below him, and they had
to turn around. And they left some tea in the hope that Rob might possibly get t
o it. But when I heard that news, I was in tears, and Guy had to speak and tell
Rob.
GUY COTTER: That was a very hard call to make, to have to tell your friend and l
ong-time climbing partner that the rescue that would save his life was no longer
coming.
ANG DORJEE: Nobody can come that day. It's already late. He has been out already
one night he spent outside there. And then, yeah, I already thought when we lef
t, he's going to die.
MICHAEL GROOM: I was now the person responsible for the survival of the team. An
d I was certainly in no condition to even mount a rescue for those who were stil
l outside or get the survivors of our team down to safer ground.
JOHN TASKE: The decision to leave Beck and Yasuko where they were was not really
a difficult decision, with probably partly my medical background but also what
we'd been through the night before. This was horrific to see Mike come in very c
lose to death. My estimate would have been half an hour and Mike would not have
been able to move. And here were these other people exposed to phenomenal winds,
at least 80 miles an hour, 20, 30 below zero all night. We thought it was kinde
r to leave them rather than cause them pain, even in a semi-conscious state, by
dragging them over to where we were. They were basically dead.
BECK WEATHERS: When I initially began to come around, I thought I was in my own
bed. It was pleasant. It was warm. I was not the least bit uncomfortable. There
was nothing to hurt because all the parts that were exposed were dead, and dead
flesh doesn't hurt. And it wasn't until I got far enough along that I opened my
eyes and could see the ice in front of my face, and then I managed to look over
and I saw the claw that was my frozen hand, that I really- at that point, I knew
exactly that I was somewhere on that Col, somewhere on that mountain. I was on
my own. I was as good as dead.
Then I saw my wife and children just directly in front of me. That's what drove
me. And that got me up. And that got me moving. I fell down a bunch of times. I
was just trying to keep from going in circles.
I remember one thing that was pretty unsettling. I can see the sun, not the rest
of the stuff around, but I can see that big yellow ball up there. And I'm looki
ng at it and it's about there, as I'm looking above the horizon. And as you well
know, when that sun goes down, the place changes rather dramatically from somet
hing which is survivable to something which is just horror on earth.
I'm shuffling along, aware that I'm hallucinating. And as I was getting closer t
o these blue objects, I'm really not aware yet that these blue things are the te
nts. It rolls through that they might be, but I don't really know that. And it's
only when somebody stands up in front of me and we look at each other over one
of these blue rocks, do I realize that I'm back. I'm in the tent, I'm in a sleep
ing bag, and they know that I'm here.
GUY COTTER: An hour before dark, I radioed Rob to tell him that his wife, Jan, w
as calling from New Zealand on the satellite telephone at Base Camp and that I w
as going to patch him through to her. And he said, "Hold on a minute, mate. I've
just got to put some snow in my mouth to moisten it. I'm a bit dry," before he
could talk to her, which, you know, was Rob just wanting to make sure that when
he did talk to Jan, that he came across sounding good and probably to reassure h
er that he was OK and this was just a bit of a fix, but he was going to get his
way out of it.
HELEN WILTON: And I guess nobody wanted to admit it to themselves that it was go
ing to be their last call. It was something that was just never said. And as I p
ut the call through and held the microphone of the radio against the satellite p
hone, I was almost doubled up, holding my hands up with the phone, because I was
crying so much. And I felt that in some ways, I- you know, it was terrible to b
e doing, it was a terrible thing, as well as a really good thing.
It nearly broke my heart, but I was glad that I could do that for them. And ever
y time he spoke to Jan, he lifted. And so that's the most important thing I thin
k I've ever done.
JOHN TASKE: On the second night, the winds blew up even more than the first nigh
t. And at one stage, the moorings that were holding the tent to the rocks starte
d to give. I didn't realize that Beck was alive. And what surprised me more was
when I heard that the whole night, he had been in a tent no more than 10 feet fr
om where I was.
BECK WEATHERS: During the night, I woke up and realized that I was completely al
one. And I'm incredibly thirsty. So I call out enough until finally, one of the
Sherpa comes over and he has a thing of hot tea. He's right outside the door of
the tent. And I try to get him to come into the tent, and he won't come in. We s
it and stare at each other for a while. I can't get out, and he's not coming in.
And eventually, he wanders off. I think there was something about me that had a
n air of death.
[www.pbs.org: Watch this program again on line]
GUY COTTER: On the morning of the 12th, I tried to raise Rob on the radio from B
ase Camp, but there was no response. We tried repeatedly through the day. We wer
e monitoring the radio. But we didn't hear from Rob again. There were so many pe
ople needing assistance and help from South Col that there was just no possible
way to initiate another rescue effort.
LOU KASISCHKE: In the morning of the 12th, still laying there, thinking about wh
at we're going to do, Mike Groom unzipped the door of the tent and said, "We've
got to get out of here." "Hey Mike, how're you doing? Boy, good to see you." You
know, I thought Mike was gone. But all of a sudden, Mike made a miraculous surv
ival and he's back. And he said, "Twenty minutes, we're going."
MICHAEL GROOM: I did the rounds of the tents and said, "We're going to leave in
half an hour. Make sure you've got your oxygen and whatever personal belongings
you want to take back to Base Camp and be ready to leave in half an hour time."
And I passed one tent, and what caught my eye was the fact that the front door w
as open and the back door was open and a pair of climbing boots sticking out the
end of the tent. And I really didn't think much of it except to think, "Well, t
hat's one unfortunate person that didn't survive last night." And because- I did
n't recognize the person because on the upper part of their body, there was a sl
eeping bag draped loosely over the upper part of their body and the head, which
you know, you sometimes do with a dead body.
And people have asked me, well, why didn't I look to see who was underneath it?
But I've seen enough dead bodies in my life not to want to have to do that. So I
just dismissed it as someone who didn't survive the night. But I didn't know at
the time that that was actually Beck Weathers.
DAVID BREASHEARS: No one had told him that Beck had come back. Beck had been put
in a tent alone, left for dead once again.
BECK WEATHERS: I really don't know what the time is. I've lost sense of how much
time has passed. It's daylight. I'm yelling out to try to get some connection a
gain, some attention, to see another person. That's what I really wanted.
DAVID BREASHEARS: Incredibly, one of the last people leaving camp heard Beck cal
ling out. The news traveled down the mountain. The man everyone thought was dead
was coming down.
JOHN TASKE: After descending the Lhotse Face, I came across David Breashears, wh
o was holding out a water bottle to me. And as I was drinking, he said, "You kno
w, Beck's alive." You could have slapped me in the face and not surprised me as
much as that. And I uttered some expletive deleted and said, "That's not true."
And he said, "Have a look for yourself." And I looked up across the Lhotse Face
towards the Geneva Spur, and there were two people helping this fellow down in a
suit which was obviously Beck's suit.
BECK WEATHERS: I was alive again. I was coming back. Even if I just fell apart a
t this point, I was going to get off the mountain. And the hardest part, the dan
gerous part, the part where you're going to get wounded, is all behind you. And
now it's simply a matter of getting home.
LOU KASISCHKE: For days, people have been dying all around me, and I'm having no
emotion. My emotions were as frozen as my body almost. But what's in fact happe
ning is they're all storing up inside of me for this moment. It wasn't until I g
ot through the very last section of the Icefall and I could see people up ahead
from our Base Camp, and I sat down and I cried and cried and cried. I'd never cr
ied like that in my whole life, I don't think.
JOHN TASKE: When we got down to the Base Camp and I walked in for the first meal
into the mess tent, that was probably the second biggest shock. The enormity of
it all hit me in one fell swoop, looking around and seeing all these spaces. Ha
lf of the people that I knew weren't there anymore.
HELEN WILTON: That leaving was so hard, and I remember being so slow, as I could
n't stop turning around to look. It was so hard to turn your back on the mountai
n with- with Rob and Andy and Doug and Yasuko and Scott Fischer all lying up the
re.
MAKALU GAU: [subtitles] If I had known the cost of climbing Mount Everest, that
it would cost my fingers, my nose, my toes, I would not have done it. I would ne
ver have imagined it could be worth it. I carefully prepared for this climb. I w
as both physically and mentally ready. Unexpected things happened, things I coul
d not anticipate. Now I accept the price.
BECK WEATHERS: Everybody always says that the definition of character is what yo
u do when nobody's looking. And when we were up there, we didn't think anybody w
as looking, and so everybody did pretty much what their inner person, the real t
hem, the exposed them, would do. And some individuals come out of that, I think,
justly proud of their actions. Others would probably never want anybody to know
.
I was fortunate I got to be witness to those acts, the good ones, the bad ones.
And the individuals that came through, that did well, that were selfless, I mean
, they- every one of those people, every one of them, is to me a hero, even if n
obody knows that.
DAVID BREASHEARS: For as long as people are drawn to Everest, this line of memor
ials will continue to grow. The mountain doesn't care whether we're here or not.
It doesn't compete with us. It isn't burdened by our hopes and dreams.
Everything it means to us is only what we bring to it. It's what the mountain re
veals about us that has any lasting value.
[The bodies of Doug Hansen and Andy Harris were never found. Anatoli Boukreev di
ed in October 1997 in an avalanche while climbing in the Himalayas.]
FOR FINN