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.