Fourth Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In the fourth dispatch, the full IMAX team arrives and begins the trek to base camp, where Michael Brown continues filming the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release. For the complete story, download the PDF Update.

The full MacGillivray Freeman Films team arrived in Kathmandu last week, 13,000 feet and 100 miles away from Everest Base Camp. Led by Return to Everest director/producer Greg MacGillivray, the group included Greg’s son and co-producer Shaun MacGillivray, director of photography Brad Ohlund, assistant cameraman Robert Walker, Doug King of the Saint Louis Science Center, and John Caudwell, sponsor of the Caudwell Xtreme Expedition.

The team was also joined by Jamling Norgay and Araceli Segarra—stars of MacGillivray Freeman’s 1998 IMAX Theatre film Everest—who are reuniting for Return to Everest.

“Jamling and Araceli look just like they did in 1996,” reports Shaun MacGillivray. “It looks like they haven’t aged a bit. And Araceli still loves chocolate just as much as ever!”

After several days of scouting the city for locations suitable for filming next year, then trekked to Namche to meet up with cameraman Jack Tankard, who has been filming with Michael Brown at Everest Base Camp. Jack brought the IMAX camera with him, so the big screen could be filled with images of the trek up to Base Camp through the Khumbu Valley.

Setting Off For Base Camp
These days most people begin the trek to Base Camp in Lukla, at about 9,300 feet, following a brief but dramatic half-hour flight from Kathmandu. Barbara MacGillivray reports by email:

“We flew into the most gut-wrenching holy-moley airstrip that I’ve ever seen. We landed just short of the end of the world’s shortest uphill runway. We were late starting the hike because our baggage was delayed, but once on the trail the views just got better and better. The hike the next day lasted for about 6 to 7 hours going all the way to Namche through vistas that at times looked like scenes from Lord of the Rings.”

Arrival in the colorful mountain town, the capital of the Sherpa region of Nepal, allowed the film team to take their first shots with Araceli and Jamling overlooking the town, just emerging from the winter snows. Araceli, who became the first Spanish woman to climb Everest in 1996, has not returned to Namche since, but Jamling is a familiar figure.

“People are overtly deferential to Jamling here,” writes Barbara. “Everyone knows him and loves him and he makes things happen.” Things happen for him, too: in Kathmandu Araceli had followed her nose for chocolate to a bakery, and in Namche she pulled out a surprise chocolate cake for Jamling, in honor of his birthday.

Barbara also noted some of the images of the trek, people and landscape of Nepal that will make their way into the upcoming Return to Everest film. “Today was hugely successful with filming in IMAX a real Sherpa house, very old, part of the hotel here in Namche. Plenty of smoke, shafts of light, wonderful old wood, a Sherpa tea service and lovely old lined faces.”

“This is a visual feast,” she concludes...

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Caudwell Xtreme Pushes On To Camp III
As the MacGillivray Freeman Films IMAX team makes their way up the trail, the Caudwell Xtreme climbers continues to push their way above the Khumbu Icefall toward Camp III, acclimating to the altitude in preparation for their mid-May summit push. Yet the weather continues to be a concern. “The Icefall isn’t particularly safe this year,” Kay Mitchell tells us from Base Camp. “It’s been very unstable, and there are lots of avalanches higher up, and we’ve had lots of wind and snow, which has made communication quite hard.”

Return to Everest co-director Michael Brown is with the Xtreme climbing team on the mountain, continuing to capture the beauty and drama of climbing Mount Everest. “Mike Brown is like a kangaroo,” says Kay Mitchell admiringly. “When he climbs he just screams up there, it really is phenomenal. And he’s carrying that camera, it’s 45 kilos!”

Experience must count for something: this is Mike’s seventh time on Everest, and he’s obviously in his element. He tells us he’s paying particular attention to filming the Sherpas – “I think that the best we can do is honor and respect their role in our expeditions. They are the best climbing partners we will ever have.”

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Third Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In the third dispatch from the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition, the team makes their first forays into the Khumbu Icefall, first and in some ways most dangerous obstacle on the path to the summit. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release, and camerman Michael Brown tells us what it's like to return once more to the icefall. For the complete story, download the Expedition Update in PDF.

“Today was the day when we entered the Khumbu Icefall, and therefore started the climbing of Everest proper.” So writes Roger McMorrow, breathing systems researcher for the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition. “It felt good to put on the crampons, large climbing boots and harness. To hear once again the crunch of ice underfoot was a delight.”

But entering the Khumbu Icefall is never a delight, pure and simple. The climbers make practice ascents through the Icefall to test their skills, their equipment, and their commitment. This is the perhaps most dangerous obstacle on the path to the summit – aside from the extreme altitude itself. And this is the first challenge that faces those who would climb to the upper reaches of Everest, whether for personal accomplishment or professional need.

For Michael Brown, mountain photographer and co-director of MacGillivray Freeman’s film Return to Everest 3D, it’s a bit of both. “Our team is carefully planning our trips through the ice fall, to keep them at a minimum,” Mike tells us, who has already climbed Everest three times. “All told I have been through this ugly place on 22 adrenaline-filled journeys. And this year there are three or four places that make me really nervous.”

The route through the Icefall changes every year – and even within any given climbing season, since it is created by ice from the highest ridges of Everest spilling over sheer mile-high walls, tumbling in slow motion that can, at any time, turn catastrophic.

“The places where avalanches have been are sometimes marked by huge ice boulders making the debris flow,” continues Mike Brown. “The boulders are big enough to stick above the fresh snow, as big as refrigerators or TV sets.”

“As we climbed I could clearly see the routes of my three previous climbs of the mountain. The wind was tearing at storm clouds that tried to cover the summit again and again only to be ripped away. Everest is huge and defies the imagination with its vastness. It is not an easy climb, and we are about to try it again.” ...

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Movies to match the mountains

But it’s not all suffering and deprivation for the trekkers at Base Camp. The first evening after they arrive, Kay sets up the DVD player and shows them a movie – Everest, the IMAX film produced by MacGillivray Freeman in 1997. “It’s a great way to show them just what the climbers are going to be going through without having to stay up late, or concentrate, or interact. We’re planning to do it for every single trek group.”

Ironically, as Kay tells us, “The reason I’m involved in this project is because of that blinkin’ movie!” She saw Everest in London when it came out, and the next morning told a colleague at the hospital where she worked, “I went to this movie last night, and it was brilliant, and I’d really like to go to Everest.”

Her colleague told her he was going to organize an expedition there, and if she was really interested she could be his base camp manager. “I said oh, yea, that’s really going to happen – so I pestered him for about three years, and there years later here I am!” Her colleague? Hugh Montgomery, the research leader of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition.

“So it’s all the fault of IMAX,” sums up Kay Mitchell, “that I’m standing in the snow in the middle of base camp!”

But that's not all... download the Expedition Update for the complete dispatch from Xtreme Everest 2007.

Second Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In the second dispatch from the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition, the research team sets up at Base Camp, and prepare to begin their climb to the summit. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release. For the complete story, download the Expedition Update in PDF.

EVEREST BASE CAMP: If your idea of fun is getting up at six in subzero temperatures, chronicling your every physical symptom before breakfast, enduring a day of medical tests – arterial blood sampling, stomach tubes, demanding excer-cycle routines, unknown fluids dripped on your tongue, and various pokes and prods – all at an attitude so high nothing but lichen and headaches grow, then welcome to the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Base Camp of 2007.

“Oh, I tell you – it’s unbelievably cold. It’s horrid.” So says communications director Kay Mitchell, via satphone from Base Camp. “It warms up a bit during the day, and then it starts snowing again — right now it’s absolutely freezing. Temperatures are dropping to –20˚ at night, and I am getting extremely cold feet despite my boots which are supposed to cope with temperatures down to –40˚....”

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... Soon, the actual climbing will begin, with the Sherpas carrying tents and research equipment above the Icefall to Camp One, at 19,000 feet. Research labs are also planned for Camp Two at the Western Cwm (21,300 feet) and possibly as high as the South Col at 26,000 feet. At this point there is even talk of hauling a research exer-cycle up to the south Col, though it seems hard enough just to climb that far, let alone ride a bike once you get there!

But before the climbing can start, the Sherpas must hold their traditional Puja, a ceremony asking Sagamartha, the goddess of Everest, to bless their efforts. Mountain filmmaker Michael Brown of the MacGillivray Freeman team describes the scene: “We had the cameras rolling at 8:00 am, just as the sun came up over Everest's west ridge. The Sherpas propped up a tall pole on top of the chorten [temple] to support long strings of colorful prayer flags. These flags flap in the breeze, presiding over all of the various camps and add a festive atmosphere to Base Camp. For the Sherpas, Tibetan Buddhists, these flags are also sending prayers into the wind across Mount Everest and around the world.”

Although it’s an important ceremony, the Puja is not an altogether solemn one. “It is also okay to have a lot of fun,” continues Brown. “It’s all part of the bonding necessary to start an expedition properly.” As the ceremony reached its conclusion, the Sherpas and team members tossed handfuls of tsampa (barley flour) into the cobalt blue sky. Then Nigel Hart from the Caudwell Xtreme team brought out a guitar, shakers and a kazoo, and someone else a stack of song books. Lots of chang (rice beer) made the rounds, and the Caudwell Xtreme team and the Sherpas took turns singing songs and dancing. Said Brown: “In my eleven Himalayan expeditions I have never seen a Puja quite like this one!”

But that's not all... download the Expedition Update for the complete dispatch from Xtreme Everest 2007.