‘Organic Action Sports’ on display in Vail

The sixth annual Teva Mountain Games took place during the first week in June, when the Adventure Beat was otherwise preoccupied. Last year we covered the TMG for Yahoo, under the Adventure Beat masthead for Yahoo. Check out the complete list of our blogs from 2006.

“The term ‘organic actions sports’ encompasses all of the competition and lifestyle featured at the Mountain Games,” states Joel Heath, president of Mountain Games, LLC. “As our society increasingly emphasizes healthy lifestyles, the outdoor industry has a perfect opportunity to grow the mainstream appeal of active lifestyle sports like kayaking, mountain biking and rock climbing.

“The Mountain Games is an ideal platform to broaden the audience for organic action sports,” Heath continues, “one that gives both amateur and professional athletes a chance to compete, and an opportunity for people to try out these sports for the first time.”

Among this year’s competitors was 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, in recovery from hip surgery, world-class kayaker Tao Berman, and Gunner, a yellow lab from Ripon, Calif., who leapt over 28 feet to win the Purina Diving Dog challenge.

In whitewater kayaking, the Jacksons again proved that the family that paddles together wins, coming up aces in Pro Freestyle with father Eric Jackson winning the men’s, daughter Emily Jackson the women’s competition. Other familiar names from last year include Nikki Kelly, winner of the Down River Sprint women’s competition, Brad Ludden scoring the victory in the Dowd Chute Men’s Kayak Paddlecross, and young Alex Puccio winning the women’s Volkswagen Pro Bouldering event.

This year’s Everest Award winners, for those who have reached the pinnacle of their sport, included Kiwi kayaker Tanya Faux (pronounced “fox”!) and Eric Jackson as Paddlers of the Year, Michael Tobin and Melanie McQuaid as Multisport Athletes, Karl Meltzer and Darcy Africa for Trail Running, among other categories.

All results from the competitive events can be found at this link here, and various media links, press releases and other stories pepper the pages of the official website at tevamountaingames.com.

Final Report from Xtreme Everest (1)

We wrap up over coverage of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition, with an interview with Greg MacGillivray and final thoughts from Kay Mitchell. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release.


End of the Adventure

The days are warmer now at Everest Base Camp, the ice of the Khumbu Glacier melting with spring and the beginning of the monsoon rains. Most of the climbing teams are gone – only an Indian group shares the site with Caudwell Xtreme’s scientific camp, where not long ago more than 30 expeditions crowded the glacial moraine. A feeling of remoteness, of wilderness, is returning to the Himalaya.

Just a few days ago things were livelier when the team celebrated at the foot of the Icefall. Kay Mitchell, the de facto camp supervisor and project manager, recalls the day the climbers came down through the Khumbu Icefall for the last time, three days after reaching the summit.

“Just on the edge of the icefall we set up a bit of a party – we got the music system going, and played ‘Eternal Flame’ by the Bangles, one of Mike Grocott’s favorites. Quite a few of the trekkers from the last trek group came over as well, and a few odds and sods, so we had a big gathering of about 40 people. When the climbers came over the last bit of the icefall together, there was a huge round of applause. It was great.”

But despite the spectacular success of the expedition’s climbing effort, the work isn’t over. The mountaineering doctors of Caudwell Xtreme face another two days of medical testing at Base Camp, to round out the months of biometric data they’ve supplied. And tons of scientific equipment and camping gear must be packed up and carried, by yak and by porter, all the way down the trail to Lhotse, then by plane to Kathmandu, then on back to London for months if not years of analysis. The hard work may be over, but the real work has just begun.

Returning to Everest
Back in California, Return to Everest producer/director Greg MacGillivray is effusive in his admiration for the climbing doctors. “The scientists were far more successful than I ever imagined they would be,” he says. “Not only were they successful in gathering a tremendous load of data that they’ll be evaluating for the next several years, but they were also able to get 8 of their 10 summit team doctors all the way to the top, with their Sherpa teams. I think as a whole they had 25 people summit, including our cameraman Michael Brown.”

Filming the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition was not originally part of MacGillivray’s vision for Return to Everest, the sequel to the award-winning 1998 IMAX Theatre film Everest. “With this film, I knew we would have a good follow-up story with Jamling Norgay and Araceli Segarra, because they’re just wonderful characters,” explains Greg. “They are so much fun, and they come across so well on screen. But when I found out about the medical expedition, it took the story up a notch.

“Everest was more or less a documentary of climbing with some great characters,” Greg says. “What Return to Everest will do is focus far more on the Sherpa culture—audiences will see the culture through Jamling and Araceli’s eyes as they return to Base Camp eleven years later. You’ll see the changes that have occurred with the Sherpa culture and how things have gotten better for the Sherpa since that tragic 1996 season.”

Though Sherpas have been part of Everest’s history since Jamling’s father, Tensing Norgay, joined Edmund Hillary as the first men to summit the mountain in 1953, it has only been recently that Sherpas have begun to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Hillary’s own Himalayan Trust and the American Himalayan Foundation have built schools and hospitals in remote tribal villages. More recently, the Khumbu Climbing School was started in the village of Phortse to train Sherpas in rope and ice climbing techniques, so they can contribute more than strength and tenacity to climbing expeditions.

The school, started by Everest climber Conrad Anker and Jenny Lowe, widow of climbing legend Alex Lowe, will be the subject of MacGillivray’s next IMAX shoot in Nepal sometime next spring. “Remember that most Sherpas don’t climb as a sport or hobby, they climb as a profession,” Greg emphasizes. “But no one had stopped to think and say, ‘These guys need training,’ until Jenny and Conrad started this school. As a result, a lot of Sherpas are now climbing more safely, and there are fewer accidents. It’s a great program.”

See the previous blog post for the second part of this final update. Or download the PDF for the whole story.

Final Update from Xtreme Everest (2)

We wrap up over coverage of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition, with this two-part presentation of the final update. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release.


Behind the Lens
Like most of MacGillivray’s IMAX Theatre films, Return to Everest will be a human story, focusing on individuals rather than spectacle. “The things that really lend themselves to the large format are outdoor emotional dramas where you can get in touch with a character and participate with them as they strive to reach a goal.”

After spending almost three weeks at Base Camp with Araceli, Jamling, and his film crew, Greg is excited about the visual quality of the material they’ve gathered so far.

“There’s a lot that is really quite beautiful, but a couple of the shots are just stunning,” he says. “We got one shot at the base of the icefall looking back to Base Camp, right at dawn, the sun wasn’t up yet. We filmed it in a way that’s kind of like a David Lean scene, or a shot that Stanley Kubrick would do. Mike Grocott and Denny Leavitt are leaving to go into the icefall for the last time to make their summit bid, and Araceli and Jamling are saying good bye to them.

“Half of the scene is dark because the sun is just rising over the mountain, and during the scene, even as the characters are saying goodbye, this red light is pouring onto them and the ice field, with beautiful ice formations 25 feet tall all around them. And in the background is the mountain Makalu, all lit up by dawn. It’s just gorgeous, it’s a stunning shot.

Last Days at Base Camp
Meanwhile, back at Base Camp, the last of the medical testing equipment is being packed up in the blue barrels used for transporting gear on yak-back, and the tents – home to Mike Grocott, Denny Leavitt, Nigel Hunt, Kay Mitchell, and so many others over the past three months – are being dismantled. A long trek awaits, but “it’s all downhill” as they like to say, down from 17,500 feet into the warm scented air of the forests, the wildflower meadows, and the timeless Sherpa villages tucked in remote valleys.

For Kay, who has been central to so much of the Base Camp organization and communications for Caudwell Xtreme, it will be a bittersweet departure. “You get more and more homesick the closer you get to going home,” she says.

“A lot of the people who have been involved in the research are going back to ‘day jobs’ so they’ll be trying to write up results on a sort of ad hoc basis. And then there’ll be a core group that’s employed on a research grant that will actually doing a lot of the work. And of course we’ve already started planning reunions, both for the trekkers and the core team.”

And what will she do? A rock climbing enthusiast who became involved in the Caudwell Xtreme project after she was swept away by seeing Everest in 1998, Kay may put off her medical career for a while. “I’m probably going to be doing some more rock climbing for the time being – get back out onto some real rock back in the UK.”

See the next blog post for the first part of this final update. Or download the PDF for the whole story.

Ninth Update from Xtreme Everest

In this dispatch, the second of two parts, the second wave of climbers from Caudwell Xtreme Everest reach the summit, but mountain photographer Michael Brown lets us know it wasn't easy. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release.

The Second Summit Story

A two-team summit offensive is not uncommon in climbing — Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the second summit team of the 1953 British expedition, sent up after the first failed to reach the top — even though it was not the original strategy of the expedition. But the life-saving rescue of Usha Bisha (see previous post) proved only to delay the summit success of the entire group, not prevent it. After time to recover from the exertions of rescue, the second team left their Camp Four tents in the darkness of night and reached the summit on May 24 as the sun rose over the Himalaya, bathing the world’s highest landscape in light. Among the earliest to arrive was mountain photographer Michael Brown, of MacGillivray Freeman Films.

Celebration in Base Camp
“Everyone goes wild when someone summits,” recalled Kay Mitchell a couple days later. “You tell your cook boys and your Sherpas and they go outside and bang gongs and dance around. It’s very noisy. And the reaction for the second group was even greater than for the first, because you worry so much about them being up there. Knowing that there are going to be no more sleepless nights is such a relief.”

The twin team summit successes were each marked by their own personal successes, such as that of BBC cameraman Dave Rasmussen, who reached the top with the first wave. “Dave’s been on Everest a couple times before but never made it to the summit,” Kay tells us. “So he was absolutely thrilled to bits that he made it this time.”

Pema Tharki Sherpa, the expedition sirdar or head Sherpa, made it to the top for the first time. “It was special because he did it with three of his brothers, all of whom have summitted before, and a nephew,” pointed out Kay. When he returned to Base Camp, he confessed to Kay that it was a lot harder than he thought it would be. “I said now you’ll have to show more respect for your brothers!”

For Michael Brown it was his fourth time to the top of Everest, but by his own admission the most difficult because of the long time in the Death Zone – altitudes above 8000 meters, or 26,250 feet, where there simply is not enough oxygen available to sustain human life for an extended period of time. Michael was part of the first team who set out for the summit, but turned back at the Balcony after waiting an hour for his Sherpa who was having trouble and fell behind. On his descent back to Camp Four, he helped another Sherpa from a separate expedition who had become disoriented. “The second night was much colder and windier than the previous,” he wrote. “We couldn't stop moving or we would freeze. I was overtired and kept falling asleep between steps. I couldn't help it. I was also getting very cold and hallucinating. I kept thinking I was somewhere else.”

Despite his subjective confusion, Mike and his teammates made it to the South Summit in a quick six hours, and a short time later he stood on the summit as the sun rose above Makalu to the east. With his professionalism intact, he did the job. “I got the camera out while on the top. The tripod didn't work so I just did some shots with the camera balanced precariously on top of it. At first the camera didn't work so once I got it working I just let it roll.”

Michael’s own account of his suffering was borne out by the data from his heart monitor, which showed that his heart rate was abnormally low, rarely rising above 50 beats per minute, and at one point dropping to 29. “To me it is just scary in what it implies – I was just barely alive while on and near the summit.”

He continues, “I remember little of the descent. I kept falling asleep at every rest. The battery on the heart rate monitor quit shortly after the summit so I don't know what happened there. Once I woke from a deep sleep and a dream of being at home. It was quite a surprise to open my eyes and see the South Col positioned 2,000 feet below between my feet.”

He adds, “Without the heart rate data I might just be remembering a tough morning. Either way I feel like I have shared what the Native Americans or Aboriginals call a 'vision quest.' I feel changed by this experience even more than any previous trips to the top – they were all much easier. I feel like I have been through a profound experience.”


Back in the USA
News of the success of the expedition was greeted with special appreciation back at the Laguna Beach headquarters of MacGillivray Freeman Films. Return to Everest producer/director Greg MacGillivray, and his wife Barbara and son Shaun had just returned from filming in Nepal, where they trekked to base camp and met many of the climbers and Sherpas who had such success.

“We are overjoyed that Mike Grocott, Michael Brown and the others made it safely to the summit and back for the benefit of medical science,” said Greg. “We are in awe of their accomplishments and extremely proud of their heroism in assisting those in trouble on the mountain.”

But this extraordinarily successful expedition, in which 25 members made it to the summit, is not over yet. The research stations at Camps Three and Two must be disassembled and their equipment returned to Base Camp, then everything packed up and trekked back down to Kathmandu. Then there’s the research, at least a year and possibly much longer, to catalog, analyze and evaluate the large amount of data the three month-long expedition accumulated – a mountain of data, as huge a challenge as the peak they have just climbed.

To view these last two postings, the Eighth and Ninth Updates, download the PDF.