Tonight we find out if Tim’s mutinous refusal to abort his summit attempt on Mount Everest costs him his life. If the climb doesn’t kill him, the expedition leader just might, and we know somebody dies. The teaser at the end of last week’s episode told us that.
If you’re still with me, you’ve been watching the Discovery Channel’s six-part documentary, “Everest: Beyond the Limit.” And if you’re like me, you can’t wait for tonight’s final episode.
The series chronicles a guided expedition on Everest’s North Face last spring. I think it’s the greatest achievement in television on Everest since Denver’s David Breashears transmitted the first live pictures from the mountain’s summit in 1983.
Having been on an Everest expedition in 1985 and possessing the deepest regard for what that mountain represents, I was predisposed to loathe the series, fearing it would devolve into reality TV at its most banal. I feared it would trivialize the world’s tallest mountain and its history with a maudlin and melodramatic portrayal of mountaineering that would turn the transcendent into the vulgar. What else could we expect from “reality” TV?
But that’s what makes “Everest” extraordinary television. This is reality on Everest. The obstacles and dangers that confront the Himalayan Experience team aren’t concocted in some Hollywood production meeting. They come from the random “objective dangers” Everest throws at them and from traffic jams on fixed lines that have become a curse on the mountain. The team members weren’t cast like those losers on “Fear Factor” or “Survivor.” They just happened to be the people who paid Himalayan Experience $40,000 to guide them on Everest.
Expedition leader Russell Brice is a crusty Kiwi who wants to see his perfect record on Everest – 137 on the summit with zero fatalities – remain intact.
Client Mark Inglis of New Zealand becomes the first double-amputee to reach the summit, 24 years after he lost both lower legs to frostbite when stranded on Mount Cook. Guide Bill Crouse of Breckenridge leads Oregon emergency room doctor Terry O’Connor to a poignant summit moment when the client recalls his late father.
The greatest tension comes from bottlenecks on fixed ropes, where climbers from other teams who don’t belong there jeopardize the lives and summit dreams of those who do, and from the weaker members of the Himalayan Experience team.
Brett Merrell is a firefighter from Los Angeles who mortgaged his home a year earlier to attempt Everest. Now he’s back again – this time a friend paid his fee, which carries its own pressure – but Merrell is forced to give up his childhood dream at 24,000 feet.
“You can’t even put into words how tough it is when you’re up that high and your body just gives out,” Merrell says. “It has nothing to do with who’s more of a man, who’s more physically fit, who’s more mentally tough….The genetic ability to be able to do it is a baseline factor. I don’t have it, and I accept it.”
Tim Medvetz is a California Harley guy who provides comic relief early but creates a crisis as the series approaches its climax when he refuses Brice’s order to abandon his summit bid at 28,000 feet. Time and oxygen are running out, but Medvetz is defiant.
“You’re standing right beside a dead body of a man who didn’t turn around,” Brice says at one point via radio from Advanced Base Camp. “He died because he did not turn around in time.”
Tonight we find out what happens to Medvetz and the others still high on the mountain.
I have only one criticism: We don’t know enough about the climbing credentials of many clients on the team, so we don’t really know whether they belong on Everest or not.
But the story is suspenseful and spine-tingling – I found myself out of breath, squeezing the armrests of my recliner – and the high-altitude footage from cameras mounted on Sherpa helmets is fantastic.
Discovery will re-run the entire series in a marathon Dec. 31 beginning at 4 p.m. If you haven’t been following along, don’t miss it.
