(wind howling)
- I think a lot of people go
on Mount Everest to feel like,
"This is something
I'm gonna accomplish."
- It's like the metaphor
for all the goals,
you know, that people have.
- It's a quantifiable marker.
It's just like, it just is
the biggest, tallest thing.
- There is this badge of
honor that comes with it,
and yeah, a selfie for Insta.
- The summit of Everest
is just over 29,000 feet
above sea level, and it
so happens that there is
no other mountain which
does top 29,000 feet.
(whoop)
- [Narrator] That one
simple number has attracted
thousands of people,
willing to risk everything
to get to the top
of Mount Everest.
- For every 33 people who
make it to the top of Everest,
one person dies
trying. Not good odds.
- There must be 50 ways
to die on Mount Everest,
Hypoxia, hypothermia, ice falls,
avalanches, and bad
decision-making.
- I would die climbing
Mount Everest.
- I would immediately
die. I have no cardio.
- People who did climb Everest
definitely did not tell
their mom they were
climbing Everest,
because no mother would
ever allow their child
to do anything like that.
- [Narrator] For
a hundred years,
Everest has been a beacon
to scientists, geographers,
and adventurers, drawn
to the tiny point
where our planet brushes
against the stratosphere.
- There's something
rather special about
being totally alone
on top of the Earth.
- Dream fulfilled.
- It's thrilling, and
exciting, mentally rewarding.
- Truly a blessing.
- On the other hand,
you're in the most
dangerous place on Earth.
(rock music with
intense sound effects)
- [Narrator] Mount Everest
cast a spell across the globe.
Thanks to a few numbers,
Everest is more than a mountain.
It's a challenge to
the world, asking,
"Have you got what it takes
to conquer the big one?"
- Well, it's the highest
mountain in the world.
It's the third pole.
Mountaineers seek the height.
There's something about
getting to the highest point
that brings you closer to God.
(percussive clank)
- Mount Everest is
29,032 feet tall.
Its summit is almost five and
a half miles above sea level.
That's as high as 95
Statues of Liberty,
stacked on top of each other.
It sits in the Himalayan
mountain range in Central Asia,
on the border between
China and Nepal,
about 115 miles east of the
Nepalese capital, Katmandu.
- I can't help but think
that some of the fascination
with tall mountains
has to do with a bit
of phallic obsession, but I
think a lot of people climb
Mount Everest for
the bragging rights.
- [Narrator] Each year,
more than 500 climbers,
hailing from all over the world,
pay an average of $45,000 to
try and make it to the top.
- Cost me like three grand
to go backpacking in Japan
for like two weeks, so
like, that seems reasonable.
- That's some rich people
(bleep) right there.
- Even though you have
a lot of free time,
and a lot of money,
there's a chance to die,
and you sort of want to.
- Until really the 1990s, to
have a go at Mount Everest,
it was assumed that you were a
very experienced mountaineer.
When I went to the
mountain in 1988,
(wind howling)
I was actually the 203rd
person to reach the summit.
- [Narrator] 33 years later,
the mountain's been climbed
by well over 10,000 people.
In 2019 alone, 523
paying climbers tried
to scale Mount Everest.
398 of them succeeded,
along with 507 guides.
10 people died in the attempt.
- Certain humans are
attracted to sports
and competitions
that are considered
particularly dangerous,
and the corpses strewn up
and down Everest kind of add
to the cache for
some individuals.
(intense whooshes)
- [Narrator] For 100 years,
human beings have been
trying to climb Everest,
and 288 of them have
lost their lives.
So why would anyone
brave this peak,
and how did our obsession
with Everest begin?
These guys are the Everest OGs,
especially this
guy, George Mallory,
who tries to climb it
three times in the 1920s.
When he was asked why,
he simply answers,
"because it's there."
- "Because it's there" is
not a good enough reason
to climb Mount Everest.
- "Because it's there" is
kind of like the same reason
my cats have for
eating all the things
that they're not
supposed to eat.
- Heroin's just there.
- A lot of things are there.
(intense whooshes)
- [Narrator] So how exactly
did Mount Everest get there?
(intense whooshes)
50 million BC,
the tectonic plate that forms
the Indian sub-continent
collides with the Eurasian
plate, driving the rocky peaks
of the Himalayas up,
and into existence,
including Mount Everest.
For the next 50
million years or so,
that tectonic
collision continues.
So every year, Everest grows
about an eighth of an inch.
That's called being
an overachiever.
At some point, Everest slowly
became the highest point
on the planet, but no one
noticed for a really long time.
(lively trumpet fanfare)
Fast forward to 1802.
British colonial influence
in India is in full swing,
and Mount Everest is still
living in blissful anonymity,
but that will soon change,
because the British East India
Company wants to reinforce
their control of the
Indian sub-continent,
so they decide to
map every inch of it,
beginning at the
country's southern tip.
(metal creaking)
- This is an extraordinary
feat of science and engineering
called the Great
Trigonometrical Survey of India,
and basically it was
a way of measuring
through a series of triangles.
- [Narrator] Hundreds of
people labored to create
an accurate map of
India, working their way,
1600 miles up the entire
country, one triangle at a time.
- It was a literal measurement
of a line of longitude,
the length of the
subcontinent of India.
This implied carrying the most
fine instrument of the era,
these theodolites that
weighed 1500 pounds,
and they literally marched
these incredible devices,
the lengths of the subcontinent.
- [Narrator] 42 years
after they begin,
the British surveyors reach
the Himalayan mountain range,
and notice, "Wow, these
mountains are big."
- In 1846, Andrew
Waugh is the director
of the survey of India,
when the Bengali mathematician
Radhanath Sikdar says,
"I've discovered the highest
mountain on Earth, Peak 15,"
and it's Andrew Waugh who
suggests that instead of calling
it Peak 15, we should name
it after my predecessor,
Sir George Everest.
So George Everest, as he
apparently pronounced his name,
actually rather
objected this idea.
He said, "Well, that's
not really appropriate,
and there must be a proper, a
local name for the mountain,
which indeed there
is, it's Chomolungma.
- And it was his misfortune
to have a mountain,
highest on Earth, named
after him for all time,
but also mispronounced
for all time as Everest.
(intense whooshes)
- [Narrator] The mountain's
stature is discovered
at a key moment, just as
Europeans are developing
a severe case of Alpine fever.
(lively Alpine music)
- In the mid 19th century,
there was a gradual change
of attitude in Europe
from thinking of mountains
as places of horror,
to thinking of them as
places of fascinating beauty.
- By the late 19th
century, climbing had been
one of the things
that gentlemen did.
There was a fusion of
literature and culture
that went with climbing.
- And that really
reaches its cl*max
with the first ascent
of Matterhorn in 1865.
(intense whooshes)
- [Narrator] The 14,692 foot
Matterhorn quickly attains
legendary status among
the European mountaineers.
- It is a very, very
striking, visual object,
and it has a kind
of aura and fame.
- [Narrator] When word
of Everest's impressive altitude
makes it back to Europe,
the tweed-clad
mountaineers inevitably set
their sights on conquering it.
- In the mid 19th century,
when Westerners first realized
that there were
mountains reaching
to nearly 30,000 feet in
height, they couldn't believe
that mountains could
actually be this high.
- The fact that Everest
is 29,000 feet high,
that is the equivalent of
looking down from an airplane.
- [Narrator] Everest
is twice the height
of the mighty Matterhorn,
and presents challenges
that European mountaineers
can't even imagine.
It's the early 1900s, and
Europeans are conquering
the final frontiers of
planet Earth one by one,
the North Pole, the South Pole,
and inevitably, Mount Everest.
In 1921, George Mallory, of
"because it's there" fame goes
to Everest for the
first time to scout it.
- George Mallory was
a fantastic climber.
He was also stunningly
good-looking, and in a way,
he became a symbol of the
great effort on Everest.
- [Narrator] In 1922,
he returns as part
of the first serious
attempt to reach the summit,
approaching Everest from
the north through China.
- The white men arrive with all
our extraordinary equipment,
including these steel
cylinders full of oxygen,
and the local Tibetan
people, they are amazed,
and they call it English air.
(whimsical musical sounds)
- At Everest base camp, the
air contains less than 50%
of the oxygen
present at sea level.
At 25,000 feet,
this drops to 39%.
At Everest's summit, the
air contains only 32%
of the oxygen we're
used to at sea level,
but Sherpas and many European
mountaineers at the time are
dubious about using English air.
- At this stage, there's
still considerable doubt,
A, about whether a human
being can actually get
to 29,000 feet, B, whether
supplementary oxygen is
actually going to help.
- [Narrator] These European
mountaineers had never tested
their abilities against
a mountain like this one.
Mount Everest challenges
the very limits
of human physiology.
- At nearly 9,000 meters,
there's so little air pressure,
that you've just got to extract
what you can out of the air.
Every step, it'd be three
very conscious, deep breaths.
- [Climber] Onward, gentlemen.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The first
expedition quickly finds out
how unforgiving Everest can be.
- They were really
climbing into the unknown.
- [Narrator] On June 7th, 1922,
George Mallory, two teammates,
and 14 sherpa are attempting
to conquer Everest.
- They weren't really
prepared for what they saw.
They got onto the
Northeast Ridge,
and then there was
a huge avalanche.
(wind howling)
- [Narrator] The avalanche
tosses the expedition
145 feet down the mountainside.
Seven sherpa are k*lled in the
first major climbing disaster
on Mount Everest.
(wind howling)
It will be two years
before George Mallory makes
another attempt at Everest.
- In 1924, many of the
same team come back
for a second full-scale
attempt on the mountain.
- [Narrator] George Mallory
sets out once more to reach
the top of planet
Earth, this time,
with a young climbing
partner named Andrew Irvine.
- They sort of knew
what to expect.
They've had all the pieces
in place to actually make
an attempt to climb the summit.
- [Narrator] Mallory and Irvine
leave the rest of their team
at the camp, striking out along
Everest's Northeast Ridge.
- June the 8th, a member of
the climbing team looks up,
and he thinks he sees
two figures somewhere,
possibly up on that crest
of the Northeast Ridge,
and then the clouds
moved back in,
and he doesn't see them again.
- [Narrator] It's the
last time anyone sees
Mallory or Irvine alive.
- And it was never
determined whether or not
they reached the summit
before they met their end.
- [Narrator] Mallory's
disappearance was
international news,
and remains a subject of
public fascination to this day,
but his disappearance
into the mist
of Everest does not
discourage further attempts
to conquer the mountain.
- During the 1930s, there
are four more attempts
to try and get to that summit,
and then after the w*r,
there are more attempts,
because people desperately
want to complete this journey.
- [Narrator] In 1953, the
British make another attempt
under the leadership of an
Army Colonel named John Hunt.
- [Hunt] Right, here we go.
- [Narrator] The large
expedition includes
Edmund Hillary,
a beekeeper from New Zealand.
- [Edmund] There won't be any
bees at the top of Everest.
- [Narrator] And Tenzing
Norgay, who was a member
of the climbing team in
addition to leading the sherpas.
- [Tenzing] I can
help you, Edmund.
- Ed Hillary was
very, very driven.
He was intensely ambitious.
It was wonderful that he was
paired with Tenzing Norgay,
a man who'd almost
got to the summit
with the Swiss the year before.
- [Narrator] Tenzing Norgay
has been a porter and guide
on Everest for nearly 20 years
by the time Edmund
Hillary arrives.
- [Stephen] Tenzing Norgay,
technically a citizen of India,
but born in Tibet, and
also a citizen of Nepal,
and was in a way a
representative of the
sherpas he headed.
- [Narrator] The 1953
expedition establishes a path,
approached through
Nepal, that is now known
as the South Col Route.
A col is a low point in a
ridge between mountains.
This route winds its way
up the southwest face
of the mountain, and is now
dotted by four rest stops
along the way, starting
with Camp 1 at 19,500 feet,
up to Camp 4, which sits in
the South Col at 26,300 feet.
- The start of the climb is up
the infamous Khumbu Icefall,
a great cataract of ice on the
south side of the mountain.
It's changing from week to week.
Sections are
collapsing constantly.
You've got to climb
through over 2000 feet
of chaotically-fractured,
tumbling blocks of ice
the size of skyscrapers.
It's just a very,
very dangerous place,
and it always will be.
- [Narrator] The
Khumbu Icefall is part
of the 10-mile-long
Khumbu Glacier,
the highest glacier
in the world,
with its source at an
altitude of 25,000 feet,
moving down the mountain
at an average rate
of three feet per day.
If you could stand it on end,
it would be 53,000 feet tall,
almost twice as high as
Mount Everest itself.
The two-and-a-half-mile
long icefall is filled
with towering seracs
up to 30 feet high,
and crevasses up
to 145 feet deep.
It's the first major
challenge on the ascent.
Climbers must cross
a 2000-foot stretch
of the Icefall to get to Camp 1.
- Part of what's impressive
is all the logistics
to get them there.
The plans for having regular
drop-off points for food,
for oxygen, how they're
gonna get all their equipment
up and down that mountain.
- [Narrator] In preparation
for their summit attempt,
Hillary and Norgay must pass
through the icefall
several times.
During one attempt, the
dangers of the icefall strike.
Descending the glacier, Hilary
lands on an icy outcropping
above a crevasse, which
collapses beneath him,
and he plunges towards
the darkness below.
- [Edmund] Help me!
- [Narrator] Luckily,
he is tethered
to his climbing partner, Norgay.
- And I set off
down the crevasse.
Well, Tenzing, he was following,
had the rope tied to him
a very short time,
and pulled me out,
so I didn't go very far.
- [Narrator] Tenzing
Norgay's expert skills save
Edmund Hillary's life,
and they form a friendship
that will last for decades.
Hillary and Norgay are the
B team on this expedition.
After another pair of climbers
fails to reach the peak,
they are chosen to
make the second try.
- [Stephen] So we get to
the morning of May the 29th.
Hillary and Tenzing in
this tiny little tent,
perched on a ledge.
- [Climber] What a view!
- Higher than any
human has slept before.
They break trail
up the steep snow,
leading to the south
summit, and then they come
to what is now known
as the Hillary Step,
and it's a sort of
steep rise in the ridge.
It's about 40 feet
high, and finally,
Hillary gets to the top
of this awkward step,
brings up Tenzing or the rope.
Finally, there's
this wonderful moment
where it's a beautiful morning,
hardly of breath of wind,
and it's just perfect.
- [Narrator] Edmund Hillary
and Tenzing Norgay become
the first human beings to stand
on the summit of Mount Everest.
- In the 1950s, we have not
left the atmosphere yet.
We've not been to the moon,
so Mount Everest at that
time was the farthest
or highest anyone has ever gone.
- It wasn't summited, as
the British had imagined,
by Oxbridge boys.
No, it was a humble beekeeper
from the far reaches
of empire, and a sherpa of a
humble origin in Kharta Valley.
- Ed Hillary was
offered a knighthood.
Tenzing Norgay was not
offered a knighthood.
It would have been nice if
they'd given the knighthood
to Tenzing Norgay as well.
- Those two dudes
worked as a team.
It's not fair that only one
person gets recognition.
- You know the the saying,
behind every great
white man is an Asian?
That should be a saying,
guys. I should be a saying.
(whoosh)
- [Narrator] Since
Hillary and Norgay blazed
the trail up Everest,
10,271 climbers have
successfully summited,
and 6,554 of them have done
it on the South Col Route.
(intense whoosh)
The South Col Route has
also paid witness to some
of the mountain's
other famous firsts.
In 1970, YkichirM Miura of
Japan becomes the first person
to ski down Everest, but
Miura doesn't stop there.
43 years later in 2013, he
becomes the oldest person ever
to summit the
mountain at age 80.
In 1975, Junco Tabei of
Japan becomes the first woman
to summit Everest, barely
surviving an avalanche on route.
And then in 1980,
Reinhold Messner of Italy,
and Peter Habeler of Austria
become the first people
to summit Everest without
supplemental oxygen.
(upbeat music)
By 1980, Reinhold
Messner is already
a legendary mountaineer.
- He's one of the best,
fastest climbers in Europe.
He does some extraordinary
Himalayan climbs,
and he is a phenomenon.
- [Reinhold] I'm the
king of the world!
- [Narrator] Messner invents
the ultimate
mountaineering challenge,
climbing the highest peaks
on all seven continents.
It becomes known as
the Seven Summits.
(wind howling)
The Seven Summits are Mount
Kosciuszko, Vinson Massif,
Mount Elbrus, Mount
Kilimanjaro, Denali, Aconcagua,
and finally, the gargantuan
Mount Everest in Asia.
(intense whooshes)
Hillary and Norgay
proved it was possible
to reach Everest's summit,
but only elite mountaineers
dared to attempt it.
Only four more people made it
to the summit in the 1950s,
and 17 more in the 1960s.
- In the 50s, and the
60s, and into the 70s,
they were really
experienced climbers,
and so Everest was the
pinnacle of their career.
- [Narrator] Until one
man decided to use numbers
to tackle Everest, the
numbers in his bank account,
with lots of zeros at the end.
- Round about 1980, a
wealthy American businessman,
Richard Bass, he liked
dreaming up great plans,
and he thought, "Well,
how about climbing
the world's seven highest
continental summits?"
(adventurous music)
- [Narrator] Bass
has only four years
of climbing experience,
but he realizes he can pay
more experienced mountaineers
to help him climb
the world's highest peaks.
Bass conquers six of the
seven summits in 1983,
spending a whopping
125,000 U.S. dollars
just to reach the top of
Vinson Massif in Antarctica.
(whimsical boing)
It takes him two more
years, and three attempts
before his odyssey
concludes on the summit
of Mount Everest on
April 30th, 1985.
(people cheering)
- It's a bit of a game-changer
when this wealthy
businessman says,
"Well, I've got the
money. I'll pay someone.
I can get to the
summit of Everest."
- [Richard] Help
me up there, buddy.
- He pulls it off.
(whimsical boing)
It obviously makes people think,
"Well, if him, why not others?"
(wind howling)
- [Narrator] And so
it doesn't take long
for commercial pressures to
change who climbs Everest.
- It's quite lucrative.
You can charge 70,
$80,000 to climb Everest.
- [Narrator] It
starts as a trickle,
but soon becomes a flood.
Between 1990 and 2005, more
than 2200 climbers attempt
to summit Everest
for the first time.
(festive organ music)
The climbers who make it
to the very tippy top,
also known as the summit,
will discover that it measures
approximately 10 feet
long by three feet wide,
the size of a large
dining room table.
- Hidey-h*!
- [Narrator] Most climbers
remained on the summit
for just a few minutes.
On May 23rd, 2019, a total
of 354 climbers reached
the summit, the most
ever in a single day.
(intense whooshes)
The Nepalese government wants
to keep those visitors coming.
They collect a fee
for every climber.
- So they just start
dishing out these permits
for more and more
climbers, and that starts
hundreds of people
arriving every April
to throng the mountain
for the spring season.
- [Narrator] These
newer climbers are not
necessarily accomplished
mountaineers,
and many of them aren't prepared
for the most hostile
environment on the planet.
(wind howling)
The last camp on
the South Col Route
before reaching Everest's
summit is Camp 4,
perched on a rocky
flat devoid of life.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have
now entered the death zone.
- I bet the death zone
is where most people die
when they're climbing
the mountain.
- A tourist attraction to the
death zone sounds like a ride.
- Not a great way to
appeal to a person like me,
but like anyone who drinks
Mountain Dew probably loves it.
- I think you need to
rebrand a little bit.
Maybe if you call it
the pleasant zone.
(intense whoosh)
- The altitude above 26,000
feet is known as the death zone.
The air contains
less than a third
of the oxygen
present at sea level.
The human body is
using oxygen faster
than it can be
replaced by breathing,
and simply can't
acclimatize to the deficit.
The chance of brain
swelling increases,
digestion efficiency declines.
Climbers are advised
to spend no longer
than 48 hours in the death zone.
- It's about trying to live.
Been here too long.
- Human beings were not designed
to operate at 29,000 feet.
The trick on Everest is
to try and get up and down
so quickly that your
body doesn't quite
know what's hit it.
(wind howling)
- [Narrator] The most important
number on Everest could be
the length of time your body
can operate in the death zone,
because once there, you've
still got more than 3000 feet
to climb to get to the summit.
(wind howling)
- Your body is just wasting
away, and that's because
there's just not enough oxygen,
even for you to
keep blood flowing.
- Individuals start
to experience hypoxia.
They're not getting
enough oxygen.
They experience such high
blood pressure in the brain,
that they are disoriented,
and it really have impacts
on their decision-making skills.
This is part of the
danger of the death zone.
- There's so little
air pressure,
and you really have to feel
your diaphragm pulling down,
and desperately trying
to fill the lung cavities
with as much air as
you possibly can,
and you just become
weaker and weaker.
You are dying.
That's what you're doing
up there, you're dying.
- [Narrator] And you're
battling these symptoms
in an environment that
gets more hostile weather
than anywhere else on the
surface of the planet.
The six-and-a-half mile
layer of the atmosphere
that supports all
life on earth is known
as the troposphere, and above
that is the stratosphere.
- When you fly in a plane,
you're usually flying
in the stratosphere.
There's almost no place on
the surface of the Earth
that actually reaches
into the stratosphere,
except for really
high mountains.
- [Narrator] The summit of
Mount Everest is on the border
of these atmospheric layers,
which is also occupied
by the jet stream, with
prevailing winds that move
upwards of 100 miles per hour.
- Everest is in this region
where actually it can be slammed
by these very, very high winds.
(wind howling)
- [Narrator] Temperatures
can drop as low
as minus 40 degrees, with
the wind chill making it feel
more like minus 94
degrees Fahrenheit.
While the overall speed of the
jet stream can easily reach
100 miles per hour,
bands of intensity
called jet streaks can achieve
speeds of 183 miles per hour.
- If you're not careful, it
could blow you off the mountain.
There are records of
people being blown
off of Mount Everest.
That can happen.
(wind howling)
- In 1996, the death
zone unleashes its fury,
during the climbing
season that results in one
of Everest's most
notable tragedies.
In the early hours
of May 10th, 1996,
three expeditions leave Camp 4.
New Zealander Rob Hall and
American Scott Fisher lead
a combined total of 33 climbers.
- The goal is to get to the
summit as early as possible.
- If you haven't made it
to the summit by 2:00 PM,
you're not going to make it
before the sun goes down.
- I think it's kind of hard
for people to understand
how difficult it is to
climb at those elevations,
and so typically when
you climb Everest,
it takes you about an hour
to go a hundred meters.
- [Narrator] At that
pace, the final push
to Everest's summit is a
race against the clock.
In the death zone, any
delay can be the difference
between life and death.
When Hall and Fisher
arrive at the Hillary Step,
the fixed rope
hasn't been set up,
and they wait for an hour.
Three climbers return to Camp
4, fearing they will run out
of oxygen on the summit.
- What happens is that people
who don't have a lot of skill,
they come to the Hillary
Step, and they slow down,
and only one person can
go up to the Hillary Step
at any point in time,
and so what happens is
the kind of backup occurs.
- [Narrator] The 2:00 PM
deadline comes and goes.
Rob Hall, and a handful of
others reach the summit,
but there is still a traffic
jam of climbers below,
determined to get to the top.
- If this is your
goal to climb Everest,
you've just spent $70,000
of your money to do it,
and so you're gonna try
to make it to the summit.
- [Narrator] By 3:00
PM, the sky darkens,
and snow begins to fall.
A second jet streak
brings a terrifying storm.
Rob Hall remains at the summit,
trying to protect
a trapped client.
Scott Fisher is struck
with altitude sickness,
and sends his team
down without him.
By 5:00 PM, a blizzard hits,
and everyone on the
mountain is in deep trouble.
- Fearsome winds,
whiteout conditions,
driving snow in your
face, and that storm blew
all afternoon, and
continues through the night.
- [Kent] A lot of the
people who got trapped high
in the mountain were
not very skilled,
and they climbed
essentially into a blizzard.
- [Narrator] The death
zone claims both Rob Hall
and Scott Fischer, as well
as several other climbers.
- Well, eight people
died in that storm
during those days May the
10th and May the 11th.
- At the time, it was
the most fatalities
in a single day on Everest.
- [Narrator] When news of
the 1996 disaster reaches
the rest of the world, well,
you know what they say
about bad publicity.
- After the great disaster
of 1996, apparently,
instead of bookings
dropping off,
bookings double, maybe quadruple
for the companies organizing
Everest expeditions.
- [Narrator] In 2019, a total
of 398 paying climbers
summited Everest,
along with 478 support climbers,
making it the busiest season
in the mountain's history.
- It isn't 500 people going up
over the course of 12 months.
It's 500 people going
up in a six-week window.
- [Narrator] The mountain's
future holds the same problems
as the rest of the
world, but higher,
too many people, too
much garbage, and
warmer temperatures,
and they're no easier
to solve at 29,000 feet.
- In the past, people
weren't so concerned
about leaving waste,
because they assumed
that they are one of such
a small handful of people
who are going to be up there.
That's really changed now.
You have so many people
going up every spring.
- [Narrator] On average,
climbers and guides generate
about 26,000 pounds of waste
on the mountain each year,
approximately the same weight
as eight full-grown hippopotami.
(intense whooshes)
- Once you're up there,
you're very like,
"Well, there's no garbage
bins, so, I guess I'm gonna,
I guess this snow
will cover it up."
- Like, littering, I'm not
down with, to be clear,
but like, I get
it, like, you know,
like, you've
surmounted a mountain,
you've done a thing which
everyone said is impossible.
At that point, you're just,
you don't care about anything.
(intense whooshing)
(upbeat music)
- On Everest, there's these
ubiquitous blue barrels
that are used for everything.
So all the food goes up the
mountain in the blue barrels,
and all the poo comes
out in the mountain
in the blue barrels.
- [Narrator] These barrels
weigh up to 150 pounds each
when they're full, and
sherpa porters carry them
on their backs for over five
miles back down the slope.
In 2019, the Nepalese
government staged
a 45-day cleanup
operation that removed
more than 24,000 pounds of
waste from the mountain,
and there is likely much more
frozen beneath the surface.
The skills and
generational knowledge
of the Sherpa people
make expeditions
to Mount Everest possible.
- How many people would
make it up the mountain
without the help
of a sherpa guide?
- My guess is that 0% of
the people could make it
to the top without the Sherpas.
It started with Tenzing,
and it goes on today.
These incredibly talented
people who live in the region,
the contributions that they
make hasn't been recognized.
- The Sherpa where an ethnic
group that had found their way
to the Solukhumbu
Valley in Nepal.
They became deeply
associated with the mountain.
And of course, once Tenzing
Norgay summited Everest,
the position of the Sherpa
in mountaineering lore
is absolutely secure.
- We suspect that
people have been living
in the Tibetan Plateau
for 40,000 or more years.
- [Narrator] The Sherpa aren't
just skilled mountaineers.
They've physically adapted
to life at high altitudes.
- They're going to breathe
more rapidly, and more deeply.
Some of them are
developmental, like ending up
with a larger
chest circumference
from living at high
altitude all their lives,
and needing larger
volume in their lungs,
and some of them are
through multi-generational,
natural selection.
They have a gene that allow
them more efficient use
of hemoglobin when they're
in low oxygen scenarios.
- [Narrator] So it's no
surprise that Sherpas hold
some of Everest's
greatest climbing records.
(high-energy rock music)
Kami Rita has summited
Everest 24 times,
including two successful
climbs within the space
of a single week in 2019.
The fastest ascent from the
south took just under 11 hours,
and was accomplished
by Lakpa Gelu.
Babu Chiri, who was at the
summit for 21 and a half hours,
holds record for the most
time spent on top of Everest.
(high-energy rock music)
- They're carrying all of
the stuff up the mountain.
- I think being a
sherpa guide isn't
the worst job in the world.
- It's like, "Yeah, no problem.
Just gonna go up and down,
I do this on the daily."
That is a tough job.
- [Narrator] Everest is an
important economic asset
for Nepal, the 43rd poorest
country in the world.
In 2019, expeditions
earned the nation
more than $300 million,
a huge incentive
for the sherpa guides
to return to Everest
each climbing season,
despite the dangers.
(intense whooshing)
Just how risky is it to be
a guide on Mount Everest?
The most dangerous industry
in America is hunting
and fishing, with an annual
fatality rate of 144 workers
for every hundred thousand.
Sherpa guide on Everest?
Between 2000 and 2010,
their annual death rate was
1,332 per a hundred
thousand, 10 times greater
than the most dangerous
job in America.
The riskiest part of Everest
guide work is creating
the infrastructure through
the Khumbu Icefall.
- The 1953, keeping that
icefall open was the job
of an English climber.
He had the expertise, and
it was the sherpa employees
who helped him.
Nowadays, the expeditions
on Everest are largely run
by the local Sherpa people.
- [Narrator] The sherpas
secure climbing ropes,
carry oxygen tanks, and
a special team known
as the Icefall Doctors
creates a path each day
through the Khumbu Icefall
using simple aluminum ladders.
- Every day, they've got
to go up and readjust
the ladders, 'cause the
glaciers will have moved
a meter or two,
and that can cause
these ladders to
become less stable.
People have to walk across
these ladders in their,
with their crampons,
and literally,
they are just ladders, and
they're pretty rickety.
I wouldn't trust them,
but people do it.
- [Narrator] An average
climber may have to cross
the icefall six to eight times
during their time on Everest,
but a sherpa guide must
do it 30 to 40 times
each climbing season.
- The more often you go up
and down through the icefall,
the greater the statistical
odds on you being unlucky.
- [Narrator] Of the 176
deaths that occurred
on the southwest face
between 1953 and 2016,
44, about 25%, happened
in the icefall,
making it the deadliest
part of the South Col Route.
Of those 44 deaths, six
fell into a crevasse,
nine were k*lled by a section
of the icefall collapsing,
and 29 died by avalanche.
(avalanche rumbling)
- The climbers always tend
to die high on the mountain,
whereas the sherpas tend
to die low on the mountain.
- In 2014, the big disaster
whichever everyone has always
been dreading, happens.
- [Narrator] It's April 18th,
first thing in the morning,
and the sherpa are working
in the Khumbu Icefall.
Unseen above them, the
glacier gives a tiny shrug,
and unleashes a
massive tragedy below.
- A huge chunk of ice breaks off
the western shoulder of Everest,
and develops into an immense,
great, airborne avalanche.
- Probably about 15
million tons of ice,
and the avalanche occurred
exactly in that region
of the icefall where
they were working.
(helicopter blades whirring)
- [Narrator] 16 People are
k*lled in the avalanche,
13 of them Sherpas.
In the aftermath, the Sherpa
community ceases work,
and the mountain is closed
to visitors for the year.
- The disaster in
2014 was probably
the worst single disaster
to the Sherpa people.
It did sort of highlight that
they're paid very good money
by the standards of Nepal,
but they're doing very dangerous
work to earn that money.
(foreboding music)
- So the whole world is
warming, and we think
that's what caused the
avalanche in 2014 was
these hanging glaciers are
becoming more unstable,
and there'll be more avalanches
occurring in the future.
- [Narrator] Global warming's
strongest effects occur
at the extremes, and Mount
Everest is no exception.
- Regions like Mount Everest,
which are high regions,
are actually warming
at a faster rate than
the rest of the Earth.
- [Narrator] Average global
temperatures increased
by 1.3 degrees
between 1914 and 2014.
In Nepal, the average
temperature increase was
more than twice that.
Each year, the glacier
coverage in Nepal shrinks
14 square miles, and
when glaciers shrink,
they turn into water,
a lot of water.
- There's a very large glacial
outflow lake near Everest,
which is constantly growing
in size as the glaciers melt,
and there's a real concern
that this will eventually burst
through the moraine
and cause a flood.
There's a couple of
towns downstream,
so it's a really big problem.
- [Narrator] Global
warming is destabilizing
the entire glacier
system on Everest.
- [Climber] It's coming
over the hill now.
- And the way they
recede is they avalanche.
(avalanche rumbling)
- That makes some of the
icefalls more dangerous.
(climber grunting and
exclaiming indistinctly)
It's also revealing more of
the corpses that have been left
up on the mountain.
- [Narrator] More than 200 of
Everest victims never made it
back down the mountain.
They remain in the
world's highest graveyard.
As the snow and ice recede,
Everest is beginning
to reveal its secrets.
- When Edmund Hillary and
Tenzing Norgay finally reached
the top in 1953,
they do actually say,
"We looked around just in
case there were any signs
of Mallory and Irving
having been there."
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] For decades
after his disappearance,
climbers hoped to solve
the George Mallory mystery.
- 75 Years later, an
American research expedition
on the sloping screes
of the north face,
at a point a few hundred
feet below the crest
of the Northeast Ridge.
- [Climber] Here, wait,
this George Mallory.
- [Climber] Oh, my
God. Oh, my God.
- Finds George Mallory's
body, and it's obvious
the broken rope tied
around his waist,
and the bruising of his
body, and a broken leg,
that he's been badly injured
and a fall, and at some stage
has died alone on the
mountain from those injuries.
- [Narrator] The 1999 discovery
of Mallory's body solved
the riddle of his disappearance,
but the question remains,
if he was one of
the most skilled
mountaineers in the world,
why didn't he survive his climb?
Scientist Kent Moore
believes he found the answer.
- I was really intrigued by
the Mallory and Irvin story.
They disappeared into
a cloud, essentially,
and then they were
never seen ever again,
and so what I decided to do
was go to London one day,
and go to the Royal
Geographical Society,
and access the original
expedition reports.
(whoosh)
I came across these
pressure measurements
that they had made.
What the data showed is that
on the day they were climbing,
there was a huge
drop in pressure,
and the pressure drop
that Mallory recorded
at base camp was about
the same magnitude
as the pressure drops that we
saw in the really bad storm
in 1996, where
eight people died.
So from this data, we were
able to quantitatively show
that Mallory and
Irvin probably climbed
into a really bad storm.
- [Narrator] Numbers
may solve more mysteries
from Mount Everest's past,
but the mountain's shrinking
glaciers raise questions
about its future.
- The future of Everest, I
think, as the planet warms,
I think it's becoming a
more dangerous place to go,
but still I think the
magnet of Everest is
a pretty profound one.
(wind howling)
- You could say
that Everest is just
one more sight-seers' tick.
It's like seeing the
pyramids, or the Taj Mahal.
It's one of those things you do.
You can't deny there's this
sort of cheap thrill in saying,
"Oh, well, here I
am, I've done it.
This is the summit of Everest."
- [Climber] So what do you guys
have to say for yourselves?
- I can't believe it.
- Thanks for the opportunity.
- On the other hand, there's
something rather special
about being completely alone,
higher than anyone
else on Earth.
It's a strange,
mesmerizing feeling.
(wind howling)
- What's the next thing
after Mount Everest,
when people get tired of that?
- It's been done.
It's kind of passe.
- People are gonna
start trying to conquer
the moon to up the ante.
Like, we're going
into space, right?
- We're gonna try to go to Mars.
- Gonna go like, bottom
of the sea, like,
James Cameron did
it, but only briefly,
and he still hasn't
seen even half
of the weird-looking
fish that are down there.
- I think it'll just
keep being a thing,
because it's been a
thing for so long,
and people continue to do it.
(whimsical music)
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01x02 - Everest
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This series is loaded with mind-blowing factoids and stats, entertaining expert interviews, and infographics injected with cheeky humor.
This series is loaded with mind-blowing factoids and stats, entertaining expert interviews, and infographics injected with cheeky humor.