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- Still freezing.

Weather is beautiful.

Slowly but steady to the next camp.

It's worthwhile.

More than the hassle or the struggle

or the fights or the unification.

Everything has come together

to be at a place like this right now

and having the chance and the opportunity to be here.

- Face down in the snow for more than five minutes.

- I remember we had a really long journey

traveling via the UK, traveling via India,

and eventually, we arrived in Kathmandu.

- Hey, dude!

Tell me, what happened?

Why are you an hour late?

- Well, because Milan wanted to go to the bathroom

and make himself look pretty smart,

and that's the truth, actually, that is the truth.

But it's cool to be here, it really is amazing.

- And what's all this here?

- This is all our stuff.

This is 200 kilos of equipment, 200 kilos.

- I brought you something, you're welcome.

- Yes, Hawaiian, senior.

- And one for you!

- There's a strike today and tomorrow

and the day after as well,

so actually, it's quite quiet on the streets.

Most shops are closed.

Only by special permission,

we could arrange a car to pick you up.

It's not as nasty as it sounds.

It's just everything is shut down.

Maybe it's a good way to get used to Kathmandu

before hell breaks loose.

I received an email from Harry

and he explained to Kevin and me

that he was thinking or he just got a client

and he was thinking about

making a documentary about Everest.

So if we were interested in that

and if we could join as producer camera men

and could set up the whole documentary run.

- In our production, there was two of us.

We had to rely totally on each other.

Milan had certain skills that he could bring to the mix.

I had certain experiences and skills

that I could also bring to the mix, and together,

we just basically totally relied on each other.

And in a few hours time, we're gonna be picking up Thomas,

who's flying in from Abu Dhabi.

So that'll be really nice to see him.

- Hey guys, good seeing you!

You arrive safely?

Excellent.

- Yeah, it's a bit crowded. - Sorry for the delay, yeah?

I got a little bit grounded,

but other than that, it was perfect.

- Thomas is a German guy who lives in Abu Dhabi

and works in Abu Dhabi and he had a special eye condition.

Several years ago, he had a surgery.

Everything went well, the surgery was perfect,

and everything was healed well,

but he noticed that every time when he was climbing

after the surgeries, that he lost his vision

or everything went blurry or lost color

when he got above 4,000 meters,

so he always dreamt about climbing Mount Everest,

and thought, now I have this problem.

I still wanna have that challenge,

and so he contacted Harry, and eventually,

he got involved and we went together to the mountain.

- Oh, we got the crown points, which the air lines lost,

and so we're all set.

A nice thermos here to keep us nice and warm as we climb up.

- Hello, I want to welcome everybody

to this brilliant group we have here!

This is really a great group,

not just in numbers, but also in quality.

I would like to wish everybody a safe

and an especially joyful climb.

I would love to see everybody back here in two months

so we can sign the wall together,

and just have fun, and this is to a great climb, cheers.

- Cheers.

- And we were in a really nice restaurant in Kathmandu

and I leaned opposite the man who was directly opposite,

a man called Lincoln who was from Australia,

and I said to him, "You know what, Lincoln?

"There's 20 people at this table."

And he went, "Yeah, so?

"You can add up, wow."

I went, "Well, did you know that 10% of people

"that climb Everest never make it back?"

And then he just went gray and he went,

"So, two people at his table are gonna die?"

And I went, "Yeah."

And he went, "Thanks, Kevin."

- Hey, Thomas.

- The early morning hours.

- You can back out.

Run, run. - Back out?

Ready to go.

Bye bye, Kathmandu, welcome, Everest.

- You know, getting to Everest is almost half the journey,

because not only obviously do you have to fly,

you know, for hours and hours,

but you have to do a massive land journey.

Now, we were climbing on the north face.

We were climbing on the Tibetan side,

and that meant an incredibly long road journey.

We're currently heading towards the Chinese border.

I think we're about 50 kilometers

short of the Chinese border, and hopefully,

we will get there some time soon.

- A very nice shot.

You're practicing, huh?

- The ride was great, yeah.

Rough and great.

Scenery, superb and gorgeous.

- We are at the border post in Kodari.

We're filling out an embarkation card.

We're close to the Friendship Bridge,

just a few hundred meters more to the official border,

and a kilometer further down is the customs.

- We left early this morning.

No problems whatsoever, very smooth ride.

Also on the bridge, custom clearance, no problem whatsoever.

Friendly people in Nepal, in China,

so I hope it stays like that

and we will have a very good expedition.

- Harry accepted Thomas as a client

because he really felt the need to prove also

that even with the disease that Thomas had,

the condition that Thomas had, you still can do many things.

It's not like your life is stopping at that moment.

There are many things possible, even climbing Mount Everest.

We're in Ilam.

We just received the menu from this nice lady.

I'm still in doubts between the big bowl, the slow bowl,

maybe the nourishing chicken, or clip the sand meats.

Tomato fish sounds really nice.

The rice line of sands, but I'll probably

go back to the good old return to a pot of meat.

Yes, 14th of April, 16 hour and 20 minutes,

local time, Beijing time.

One country, one timezone.

We are here in Nyalam, 37,000 meters.

We're going out for a stroll now

to see everybody's a little bit fit.

Maybe acclimatize a bit, so we go up.

- On the one hand, we acclimatize here to really get

the body adapted to the altitude,

but even more, we try to test out

what's happening to the sight.

Overall, vision, I could still see the rough shapes,

but I started to stumble the one or the other time,

but it is a good experience,

so we know what to expect as we climb higher,

and I guess it's also good for the overall team

so they know what impact it may have

by walking up, walking down,

as to the speed and the certain reactions.

- We're waiting to leave now.

We're waiting to leave this area, and to be honest,

I'm quite glad to get out of here now

and head on to our next point.

Quite interestingly, we actually drive to 5,200 meters,

and then we get out and take our tourist photographs,

but I'm sure when we get out of the bus,

we're really gonna feel the difference at 5,200,

even though it'll only be for like 10, 15 minutes.

- Since one day, I'm unable to keep any food,

so I had to vomit, so I'm going to

have to take steps slowly and easily.

I'm happy that no headache while being up,

but no food for a day is becoming an issue.

- We're at the gate of the Sagarmatha National Park.

Check our permits here.

It's now 4,400 meters, some sick people in the group.

Let's go get them to base camp

and then Doctor Andre can treat them.

He's a miracle doctor.

Once we give the patients to him,

they should be okay very soon.

I think we'll leaving, so apparently, everything is okay.

- I guess there's a few places on the planet

that I've been to where you arrive there

and you go, oh my God, this is Everest Base Camp.

We drove there in midst of a really heavy snow storm

and I got out of the bus, and I was thinking,

"My God, you know, this is real, this is Everest."

And just as I thought that, Alex,

our expedition leader from Russia,

come up to me as I was holding a camera

and went, "Welcome, this is Everest!"

- This is Everest, this is the real Everest!

You can see.

- And I thought, absolutely, it is, yeah.

You know, every cliche about Everest,

storms, winds, snow, this is what it was.

This was Everest.

- This is the doctor, our doctor.

- I used to be a doctor.

Now, I'm a professional mountaineer.

My name is Andre Selivanov.

I'm also the manager of ABC, that's all.

- But that first moment at arriving at Everest Base Camp

really, really summed up what we were gonna take on.

This was gonna be a true adventure on an amazing mountain.

Welcome to base camp!

- Thank you, you too.

- The weather is absolutely terrible.

It's a blizzard and it's about minus 10.

The problem is that we've all come from

sort of hotel environments, and all our main gear,

all our GORE-TEX, all our heavy down stuff,

all our sleeping bags, are all outside in this blizzard.

I think people were hoping

that we could kind of gradually settle in,

but this is a bit of a nightmare, this is.

It's nice and warm in here, though,

but outside, it's just about a blizzard.

Woo, what an arrival.

Is this a taste of things to come?

It's a big puzzle.

It's like, I don't know,

maybe 100 different parts of steel like this

that have to be fit together.

It's quite interesting.

- Hey, Kevin, how is it going?

- I'm good, how are you?

- Well, I'm on the improving slope, I guess.

The past two days were pretty bad,

so I couldn't eat or hold anything,

so things are improving and I hope it continues

like that over the coming days and so we're back to normal.

- I know for myself that I always

acclimatize two days later than other people do,

when I go to the Alps, which is me and my house.

I know it takes me more time than other people do,

so there was a big concern to me

that I didn't have that extra time.

I had to travel with the team to go to base camp,

and from there on, the team is climbing up the mountain,

so I had to join every step they take.

Tonight, I had another night of no sleep.

Yesterday, the doctor, he gave me two pills of diamode,

one pill for blood pressure, so that it would bring it down,

and one paracetamol for my headache,

so I took four pills in total,

and I couldn't sleep at all, so it's a bad time.

I just had a little breakfast, but I couldn't eat very well,

so the doctor just came here

and told me to go down a thousand meters

so I have a better acclimatization.

- Milan, we're going to send you down soon.

- Yeah, yeah.

- The place where we stopped yesterday.

Sergei is going with you, computer guy.

He speaks little English, but you will be going together.

- Okay.

- Just relax and we'll see you back in a few days

and you'll be happy and we'll be miserable.

- I hope so, to see that again.

- Yes, quite a sad day today.

Four team members actually left the expedition,

so we're quite hopeful that,

one of them is Milan from our team.

He's not really feeling very well,

so he descended approximately a thousand meters

to get some rest over the coming two or three days

and we hope that he recovers

and comes back and joins the team.

We're enjoying base camp and hope it continues

throughout the expedition.

- I just hope that he can do it,

that he can come back,

because as well as first thing this morning,

he was like, I might as well go home, you know?

I've come here to make a film

and I can't even get out of my tent, what's the point?

So I hope that he can.

For me, it doesn't matter.

I mean, I will just soldier on the best I can,

but I was thinking more for him,

because you know, he lost that opportunity,

especially if he does have to go back to Holland.

I know what he's like.

He's gonna be really upset, so.

How are you feeling today, Vince?

- I'm feeling really good.

Eating good and even able to relieve myself,

so it's good, everything's good,

and so we're going to head up to interim camp

and then up to ABC and back down again,

so hopefully everything will work out well.

- I wanted to film everybody,

everybody that was part of this trip,

and that obviously meant that we had a lot

of hours of material, but I knew that we could never

be certain who would be the focus of our story.

We didn't know what was gonna happen day to day.

You know, we were telling the film

about Thomas and his climb, but we knew that

we were intrinsically woven as part of a greater team,

and we never really knew

how those other players would interact with our story.

- I'm not feeling the best.

I picked up a cough, which is very easy to do

at these dry, high altitudes,

and it might be a bit of infection there,

and I've also got an upset stomach, which is not going away.

I've decided to have some antibiotics,

which I very rarely do, so I'll give them a day to work

and then I'll head up with the others.

It's early days, so I'm sure

I'll feel better tomorrow anyway.

Yeah, it's a beautiful day.

Can't go wrong down here.

- I can't believe it.

Just behind me, Everest has just appeared.

It's been snowing heavily for the past two days,

and yet now, there's a picture postcard view

of our destination, Everest.

I can't believe I'm here.

This is such a beautiful evening.

Beautiful.

- The big truck arrived.

The first that's coming out is some dead animals,

so maybe, Kevin, you wanna look the other way.

But what's more important, inside is our oxygen.

I ordered I think a bit more over 200 bottles.

Without oxygen, we're just not going to summit.

We're not telling people to go without.

It's very dangerous, you will freeze,

and you might stay on the mountain,

so it's perhaps the most important

parts of equipment that we have, so very glad they're here.

- How much does it weigh, Lincoln?

- 12 kilograms.

- So how much bottles should be in there?

- Four, three, for 12?

- Four, I think.

- Four, so three kilos each.

- We're getting ready to do a little hike, you joining?

- Yeah.

- Good.

- Part of the process of acclimatization

means that you have to go up and down.

Up and down the mountain,

then up and down the mountain,

and then again and again and again,

and it's why the Everest expeditions take months.

If you were to just be dumped

on top of Everest in a helicopter,

you would be dead within minutes.

You have to acclimatize.

Come on, you lazy bugger.

This isn't a pediatric institution.

It just goes to show that

this whole attitude game is so strange.

Yesterday, I couldn't have scratched my head

without wanting to rest, and today,

if we were going to North Col,

I'd be, yeah, come on, I feel so good.

I feel so strong, I was singing back there.

Complete, as we would say, chunk of cheese.

Yesterday, I felt so, so weak, really weak,

and today, I feel, yeah, no problem, nothing at all.

I could be walking to Scotland,

as far as my body's concerned.

Crazy, tomorrow, I'll probably feel totally weak again,

but today, yeah, nothing.

We've come all this way to make a film and I'm drunk.

I've been higher than this.

I can go higher than this, and I'm slowing people down.

I'm letting Harry down, I'm letting Thomas down,

I'm letting everyone, 'cause I am,

because I should be able to go ahead.

I'm pissed off, it's not hard.

It's just hard.

- You're not letting me down.

- You're here, and I can't walk up there.

My legs let go on ice.

- Well done, man.

- I couldn't have done it without these two.

- Well done, and welcome to intermediary.

- I couldn't have done it without these two, honestly.

Thank you so much, Thomas.

I felt really, I'll tell you later,

but I've never felt so ill.

- Really?

- And then Thomas helped me so much and Harry helped me.

- Well, it's not their job to, but they did.

- Yeah, no doubt.

- We're a team and we go as a team.

Everybody has ups and downs.

- Where's the women?

Where's the beer?

Tomorrow, I will go down.

I don't know how long it will take me.

All I can do at the moment is sleep.

But tomorrow, I've gotta go down.

It's the altitude, it just makes me sleepy.

- Vince.

Vince was having problems.

He was, you know, probably mid-sixties,

and he wasn't looking so good.

He was looking very gray

and he was sat there with an oxygen mask on,

and I thought, oh my God, this is a man

that has dedicated his life to climbing big mountains,

and in the end, we decided, look,

this man has got to go down.

How do you feel, Vince?

- I feel good.

This oxygen really seems to help.

I think that pulmonary demon really,

it's just in the beginnings, is what the doctor said,

but that really takes it out of you,

and I know from last time, it really takes it out of you,

so it's really helping, as far as my breathing goes.

I'm struggling, but we're gonna make it.

We're gonna get back,

so I appreciate the support of all the folks here.

- Now, a bit better?

- Yeah.

- Yes? - Uh-huh.

- Cheers, mate, all the best.

We're gonna go down to Tingli,

and spend the night, and then we're gonna go to Zengmu,

and then cross the border, get down to Kathmandu,

and arrange transportation home from there.

- Today's April 22.

This morning, 12 in the afternoon I think.

We left our guest house, Alex called,

and he told us that there was no jeep coming,

so we will wait here for two more days.

We felt well, so we decided, okay,

let's walk to base camp.

- My God, a part time camera man.

- Where did you come from?

We're happy to have you.

- How are you?

- Did you run down?

- Yeah.

- Yeah?

- Does Harry know you're here?

- No, of course, surprise party.

- Really?

- Hey!

- Yeah, like this, but don't be squinting.

- Oh, but now it's too dark in your face.

- Is it better like that?

- Yeah, that's good.

Now, you say something.

- One, two, three,

everything okay like that, with the sound?

- A little bit more.

- What's happening, Kev?

- Like this one.

- I'm gonna get plastic surgery on my nose.

Nah, we're interviewing Thomas.

We're trying to find out his life story.

- The life story?

- Okay, everybody ready?

- Everybody ready.

- Okay, from five, four, three...

- Okay, could you introduce yourself please?

- My name is Thomas Weber, I am 41 years old,

originally from Germany and currently

living and working in the United Arabian Emirates.

- Are you married?

- I am single, not married, no kids,

so that leaves all the possibilities

to enjoy the adventures world-wide.

- Okay, Thomas, can you tell us a little bit

about the charity called CureBlindness.org?

- Yeah, after we came to the conclusion

that we do a mini-expedition within the expedition,

we also wanted to raise awareness

to the cataract blindness in Nepal and Tibet,

as a lot of these projects, helping out with local people,

are suffering from financial support.

So Harry came up with a very great idea

that we could actually dedicate

this climb towards this organization

to help them expand their facilities

and also provide surgery to the local people.

- Why did you agree to be part of this documentary?

- As I said, we started with the charity project.

If we can actually contribute to the charity project

via this documentary, then it would be

my and Harry's and I guess everyone's pleasure

to be part of the documentary.

- There was us with a team of four

and about 20 other people, and I felt that Thomas,

though he always kept his distance,

you never really got to know the man,

interacted very, very well

with all the other team members.

You know, he'd chat about various things,

but you never really got to know the man.

- Are you going to make tea?

- Oh, good morning.

Hello, morning.

Your tea.

- Hey, how are you guys?

Good morning.

- We're weighing all our climbing gear,

like all the gas bottles and all the mattresses

and all the personal stuff

that people are sending up to ABC.

It should be okay, we have a lot of yaks.

We're going to load them soon.

This is interesting to try to get everything up to ABC,

where we'll meet our stuff again,

and then get to the next part of the expedition.

- Stuff has suddenly become more interesting

with the exit of Lincoln Hall.

- How are you feeling?

- I'm feeling pretty good, but I had to put this on

because otherwise I might be recognized.

Yeah, a lot of us are suffering from

sort of what's called the Khumbu cough,

Khumbu being the other side of Everest.

The cold air just hurts your respiratory system

and causes you to have this chronic cough,

which people can actually, you know, break ribs

and just not be able to breathe well enough to climb,

so the best treatment is just to try to

limit the amount of cold air that you're breathing in.

- We are staying for a long time now in base camp,

so I'll really enjoy going up,

and hopefully, we'll make it to the North Col.

So you're joining?

Let's go. - No.

- You have to, you're one of us.

- It's hard.

- Why is it hard?

- Physically, it's not hard, it's not that difficult.

It's just, uh...

Even sitting down now talking, I'm having to take my breath.

- There's no physical difference between.

It's all mental.

How many days have you spent in base camp already?

- Yeah, but it doesn't matter, does it?

- Yes.

- No, you're having a go.

You're having a go.

- You were walking around base camp

without a problem, and the moment you leave the perimeter,

you're having trouble.

- Yeah, so what are you saying?

- It's mental.

- It's not mental, it's not mental.

- This is very hard for Kevin.

And I said it's better to come up,

and even if you stay for three days in middle camp,

you can do some filming there, but come up.

- If he goes back,

he should go home and find another job.

I'm serious. - Yeah, yeah.

- Like the leader of the Girl Scouts.

- Well, it's very hard for him.

You can not force somebody to go faster, it doesn't work,

and he doesn't believe in the mental thing, so.

- I'd like to hear from you what happened yesterday,

and also what your plans and feelings are

about the rest of our team and expedition

and the team within the expedition.

- Yeah, I mean, yesterday, I knew that

if I ate anything, Harry, I'd probably

within about 30 seconds bring the whole thing up,

because I felt, so I wanted to just

let my heart rate go down.

Two minutes, and then I was gonna tuck into my apple,

which I was looking forward to,

but then you said to me, "Sit up and eat."

- I've seen people like you on a rock, sleeping for hours.

- I wanna sleep for hours.

- You don't know, I know.

- On that little rock, you must be joking.

- Well, I've seen people, trust me.

Ask Lorenzo, we were together.

We have seen people as well.

- I know.

- Just lying on the trek, just for a little snooze.

I've seen people dead on the summit of Everest

because they went for a little snooze.

- Yeah, if I wanna lie down, I don't need permission.

I wasn't gonna have a sleep, Harry.

I just wanted to let my pulse rate go down

before I stuffed something into my mouth.

- Don't be oversensitive, Kevin.

- No, I was--

- You could have said, "Fuck off, Harry."

I mean, just say--

- Well, I wouldn't say that.

- Just be angry with me, yeah?

- Yeah, but that's more to me.

If I start saying that, then that's not nice.

- Okay, you walk away, we don't know what you are doing.

We don't know whether you're gonna fall in the next crevice.

- If you don't go above here today,

you won't be with the team.

The team is going up.

And so you need a wake-up call, and I'm direct.

I will be direct, that's my style,

and if you don't like it, you can call me a big bastard,

but sometimes, it's needed.

- Shall we get moving as a team?

- Yes.

What do you think?

Can you carry your stuff or is it too much?

- I think I can.

- I can take the camera again if needed.

- Let's see, 6,000 meters.

I can't breathe.

I've just been hyperventilating,

and Milan has brought my breathing down,

but I can't breathe, I can't...

It's like my lungs are half there.

I can't breathe and I can't concentrate.

And I'm not happy.

I wasn't worried that I was gonna suddenly collapse.

I don't think that occurred to me.

I don't think so.

It was five years ago now, but I don't think

that I was worried that I was gonna drop dead.

I mean, I was just out of breath

and I was having problems breathing,

but it's not like I was suffocating.

- It's Tuesday, the ninth of May, we're at ABC now.

As you can hear, my voice is

a little bit different from normally.

I've had some rough days, actually.

I didn't feel well at base camp,

but Thomas and I went up anyway.

The first part was accompanied by Kevin and Milan.

Today, we have a rest day at ABC.

Tomorrow, we'll try to go back up to North Col

and then stay two nights, with a day in between

we will try to use to go as high as possible.

Preferably at least to 7,500 meters,

to really train our body and mind

to get used to the altitude,

before we go all the way down,

to about 4,000 meters to have a longer rest period.

Yesterday, Milan also came up.

Kevin didn't make it.

He might try again today.

We're not quite sure at the moment,

but I hope he gets up as well,

because it would be a good mental boost

for him to go to ABC.

So, one more head up the mountain,

and then we all should be ready for the summit push,

which for now, is planned between

the 20th and the 25th of May.

So, looking forward to that.

- Never again.

I'm not made for this.

Don't look so angry.

- Huh?

- Don't look so angry, I'm just filming you.

- Is there a reason why?

Today's the 12th, Friday the 12th.

We're at the North Col now, 7,060 meters,

and I am feeling very sick.

I have no strength or no power left to do anything,

so even a short interview takes a lot of energy.

We're going down today to at least ABC,

and hopefully, we can make it to middle camp.

Hopefully this feeling will go away

very soon after leaving this place.

- Good to see you.

- Good to see you, man.

I've lots to say, but no volume, so sorry about that.

Good to see you over here.

- Hi, Kevin, my voice is totally gone, I'm sorry.

Nice seeing you here.

Kevin, I made you a promise.

This was my last time on North Col.

I didn't like it up there.

Jesus Christ, I don't feel well.

How do you feel?

- I feel fantastic.

- Yeah, great to hear, nice.

- Can someone do my voiceover please?

- Sorry?

- Can someone do my voiceover?

I had a little bit of voice this morning,

but with the cold wind, it's gone now.

But I'm still okay.

It's good to have the team together again, very nice.

We got Milan down in one piece, that's good.

- So which piece?

- The entire piece over there.

Chocolate?

- Don't worry about it, Kevin, we need him.

Don't worry about here, okay?

50 days from now, do whatever you wanna do.

Don't worry about now.

Nice and comfortable.

Our final rest.

- Hi, Kevin, we're going on a holiday!

- Well, say something, you miserable lot.

- Okay, today, it's the 14th of May,

and we are leaving to Teshizum for better acclimatization.

We have three days rest there

and then we come back on the 17th, I guess.

Then we stay here in base camp for two days

and then we go up again.

So, this is only for a resting period.

Three days of rest, sleeping,

eating, having fun, writing stories.

- Drinking. - And drinking.

- Rest days, rest days before the final, final attempt.

- There have been some things

that have been worrying me a lot,

especially with you, Thomas,

and yesterday or the day before, at least,

in the night, I received an email from your friend,

which is I think Fulker Helgan, Helgan Fulker,

one of the combinations of names.

Same guy who left comments before on the website.

In his email, he sent me a piece,

which was written by Doctor Kristof Hurgaret,

your expedition leader in Antarctica,

and he replied to me with one of the things.

When you came to him, you said that you had no

climbing experience whatsoever, you said to him.

You told me that you've been climbing amongst others

at snow level peaks more than five years ago.

So something is not right.

- It is as I told you.

I respect and I accept, yeah,

you believe it is in a different way.

- I need to get back that trust,

and not just for my life, but also for your life,

and also for the Sherpa's life, because Everest is serious,

and that's why I asked you about your climbing experience,

but also about your vision, because you've seen things

that I know that you couldn't see

if you see what you told me you see.

- Sometimes, I had doubts.

Sometimes, I thought, how is it possible

that he should not see above 4,000 meters

but I was with him on 7,000 meters,

and still, he could walk there

and he was just a normal guy, like he was on 5,000 or four.

- I am not here to end my life in two weeks.

Trust me, trust me in that aspect, yeah?

If I want to do suicide, I can go somewhere else.

That is not what I want to do over here.

The problem I'm having is,

and I can not give you more information about that,

even the doctors don't know what it is

and what it causes, in that aspect, and I have fluctuations.

I have tremendous fluctuations,

the way how I see and when I see.

- And I remember looking at Milan on that roof.

I was filming Thomas and Harry talking,

and Milan was behind me, and I could see he was getting mad.

He was thinking, oh my God, I've come all this way.

I'm telling the story of a blind man

that's gonna climb Everest, and you know what?

He might not even be blind.

Someone has somehow fabricated this whole thing.

- Someone comes and accuses me of whatever.

The minimum I request is that someone talks

face-to-face and directly to me, not through third parties.

Eventually, we come to a point,

everyone has to come to a conclusion,

and we're gonna say, is it still a team?

And is there any...

Trust in each other?

- This is the official Seven Summits transportation.

- Is there a petrol finish, petrol?

- There's nothing there. - It's empty?

- As you can, this one is...

- This is a big mess, but it's all starting to gel.

- This Australian climber that we'd met,

a guy called Lincoln Hall,

inevitably became part of our story.

- So, I'm just counting down on our food

for the next two years

or however we're gonna be spending up here.

That should get us through, I think, four of us.

- He was a very experienced climber.

He planned to climb Everest

and put the Australian flag on the summit of Everest.

- We went to welcome the people

who are coming back from the summit later,

but you know, one already lost his feet

to frost bite years ago,

and then the other two are now headed,

so you know, it's a very serious thing.

And it's a very big goal

and you've gotta be ready to turn back,

which sometimes doesn't happen.

- I guess preparation time is over.

So, as you can see, everyone is struggling

a little bit health-wise, but I guess that is something

that we have to break through

and just take it step by step.

The weather is beautiful today,

so hopefully, it stays in the coming days,

and if we are lucky, then we may get a chance

to make a summit bid.

- Sometimes, it's useful to take it off.

Just check it every now and then if it's fixed.

If it's fixed, you should be okay.

- Okay, whenever you do something here,

then you put in the first step, this one.

Let's say, if we are maybe half an hour from the summit,

I don't know what you think.

Maybe we should try to push

with the Sherpa or something like that.

If you think, no, it's too risky, then we turn around.

- I don't have to go to the summit.

I've been there.

I will try to push you up as high as possible,

but I won't get us killed getting there,

because I want to get us down first.

That's the most important part,

and we'll see, and I know even before this year,

there's plenty of dead bodies there.

You will be awake when you see those.

You will see it.

21st of May, let's climb a mountain.

We'll start with the first step.

- It's just a mountain.

Okay, guess I'll see you in three days.

- It's snowing.

We're about one third of the way up to the North Col.

Thomas is going a bit slow but steady,

as you can see behind me.

Milan is joining as well.

He's doing good.

- It's so nice to be on the North Col.

Okay, we have no sleeping bags and no tents,

so we have to find some.

- Okay, Thomas, how do you feel?

- Okay.

Lower than entry level.

Kind of burnt out.

So I'm just gonna take the night to recover.

We'll have some porridge in the morning, and, uh--

- It's the 23rd of May.

It's about15 in the morning.

I tried to get up.

The weather is amazingly beautiful.

There's hardly any wind, there's no clouds.

Let's try to get to 77 today, tomorrow to 83,

and then we'll see, and for the rest, we just do our best.

7,600 meters.

A few more steps to the summit.

We did well.

How was your day, Thomas?

- The day was actually okay.

I mean, I have to confess, it was a great help

having the oxygen coming up.

- It is.

- It made life much easier.

I think what's very good, what we are doing,

is we're gonna take one step at a time,

and we're not going to rush it.

If the weather stays okay, I don't know what you think,

but we may have a really good shot on the summit,

so hopefully, we don't end up making any stupid mistakes,

and so far, I think it goes more or less along plan.

- Yes, everything goes as planned.

Okay, enjoy your dinner.

- Thank you very much.

- I will be in my quarters.

If you need me, I'll be in a jacuzzi.

- In a jacuzzi?

- Yes.

- We're just looking for the Pringles and all the other--

We have to have a word when we are back with the others.

- Okay, I have to get ready

in the jacuzzi so I'm clean for the massage.

- Okay, great, enjoy the Thai massage.

- Thank you.

- Harry, Harry, this is Milan at the ABC, over.

Can you read me?

- I'm here.

- Good morning, Harry, how was your night, over?

- The night was okay.

It was very windy and it was quite cold, actually,

but the worst seems to be over.

- And Thomas, how is Thomas doing, over?

- Thomas is doing all right,

but he also started oxygen and is feeling reasonably strong,

so we're preparing now to go up, over.

- Good morning.

- Good morning, Thomas.

- How are you today?

- Oh, good, and you?

- I had a good rest, no sleep.

Very windy this night.

Hopefully we reach our high camp later this afternoon,

and if everything goes well,

we can go for the summit push.

- About 7,800 to 7,850 meters.

Still freezing, the weather is beautiful.

Slowly but steady, so let's go.

How does it feel to climb

to the highest camp site in the world?

- It's good.

- Do you relate this effort of today

back to all those hours

walking between base camp and ABC?

- Well, you see, it's almost like building up a pyramid,

and I'm happy to be here.

Not happy to be back one month, starting the pyramid.

So, hopefully we can put the last cubicle onto the pyramid.

In a few hours, we will be lucky.

The mountain welcomes us.

We can send a big message out to the world

to a lot of people, and that's worthwhile.

All the hassle, all the struggle, all the fights,

all the unification, everything has come together

to be at a place like this right now

and having the chance and the opportunity to be here.

Sight is deteriorating.

Still seeing a little bit.

Not too much.

I guess it will be the longest night of my life.

- For sure.

Lincoln has arrived.

24th of May,30.

We're supposed to go to sleep now

because we're at the 8,200 meter camp,

which of course, is impossible.

It's light.

I just ate two persons' worth of spaghetti bolognese,

and we're all quite nervous

to see what the night is going to bring,

but we'll try to take a few hours of rest,

and then try to leave at30 at night

to walk through the night

and see if we can get to the highest point on Earth.

At the moment they arrived, it was the 24th of May.

- I was in ABC.

I was joining Kevin again,

and we were constantly being in contact by radios

with Harry and Thomas, who were already on 8,300 meters.

- What time will you be leaving

for the summit tonight, over?

- The plan is to wake up at30 at dinner time

and leave one hour later at30.

- At the moment they start climbing, Kevin and I slept,

or at least, we were already in our tents,

and we both had radios with us

so we could follow the whole journey during the night.

- How far are you from planet Earth?

- No, we are in the...

We were getting there, and suddenly,

Thomas is very bad, over.

- Harry, you said Thomas is very bad or not, over?

- Yes, he can not see,

so I think we take him back, over.

- At this present moment, over 8,000 meters up,

is Harry and Thomas and Lincoln,

and also, of course, their Sherpa support.

We're pretty sure that their expedition is over.

Apparently, Thomas, to quote, is as blind as a bat

and is having real problems negotiating

the rocky outcrops that are just below the summit.

There is, of course, a remote chance

that our information could be wrong,

but it looks pretty much as if

Thomas's summit bid was unsuccessful.

I remember hearing commotion coming from the radio tent,

and I quickly grabbed Milan and said,

"Something's happening, something's happening."

And I ran into the radio tent

and there's all this dialogue going over the radio.

- He's having trouble breathing.

- The next I heard was, in a very kind of...

Muffled sound was something like,

"He's face down in the snow."

- He's been face down in the snow

for more than five minutes.

He's not breathing, over.

- He's not breathing, but make massage.

Make an artificial massage of heart, over.

- I'm also falling down the slope myself now.

- And then I looked at Milan, who'd just gone gray,

and I went, this man's dead.

Thomas is dead on the mountain,

and yeah, I could honestly say

it was the most memorable event in my life

for all the wrong reasons.

You don't have to say anything, Milan, it's just...

- No.

It's a crazy world.

It was like a bomb was exploding there at that moment.

I could not believe what I'd heard,

because before I went to the tent with a feeling

that they were coming down, and the expedition,

although we didn't make it to the summit,

it was still a good expedition, and now, this happened.

- I don't think Thomas is dead.

I think he's just having a sleep.

- Oh, really, no.

I think this mountain is really, how do you say, ruthless.

- What happened when you were filming

and you took the camera from me?

What happened on the radio?

I went outside, but what happened?

- Alex said that he had to make a choice,

and if he was sure that Thomas isn't breathing anymore,

he had to go down and take care of himself.

- This is the story of a man who set out

to fulfill his dream and never came back.

This is a story of a hero that never came back.

This is it.

- You know, that's all right.

- Lincoln, do you copy?

- Did you say, do I cough or do I copy, over?

- Just keep on going.

You've got four Sherpas there who respect you a lot

and are doing everything they can,

so do you want to talk to me some more, over?

- I'll be fine.

It's just, um, I'll be fine.

Thanks for your well-wishes.

Well, especially everybody,

but I'll talk to you when I can.

Okay, thanks, bye.

- Thomas is dead.

Lincoln is at 8,700 meters,

having some kind of mental hypoxia,

starving of the brain of oxygen.

He doesn't know what's he doing.

He's talking gibberish.

There's four Sherpas in a blizzard,

trying to get him down from 8,700 meters.

He's such a nice man.

I just hope that he comes down okay.

I've just spent the last half hour talking to him

and his friends back at base camp,

and hopefully, we've jeered him up

mentally and physically to come down

and just really blackmailed him with thoughts of his family,

and I just hope that he comes down.

Harry, we haven't heard from Harry in forever.

Five hours on the radio.

He's probably in some kind of mental wreck at the moment.

He's been up for over 48 hours.

His friend has died.

What is the end of today gonna bring?

What's gonna happen in the next 12 hours, I don't know.

- We sent another Sherpa,

who will now go up and help these Sherpas come down.

- He's calling about the Sherpas.

- Your message is received, over.

- The decision that has to be made

to save the Sherpas lives and that's to leave Lincoln.

- If he wouldn't bring the Sherpas down alive,

he had four people dying there,

so we had to leave Lincoln on the mountain,

and Lincoln didn't react on anything anymore.

The Sherpas poked him in the eye

and they felt if he had a pulse,

but there was nothing anymore in Lincoln, so probably,

Lincoln was in a kind of stage that he was dead,

that his body was not reacted on life anymore.

- I've gotta be quick because the battery is low.

It's just hit me what's happened today.

I can't sleep.

I just can't believe we've lost

Thomas and Lincoln in the same day.

I tried to get Lincoln to come down, but he just couldn't.

And I can only imagine the night that that whole family

had in Australia that night, with two sons and a wife,

knowing that their husband, the really decent man.

He really was a decent man.

He was dead on Everest.

- Hey.

- Why do you sound so out of breath?

- Trying to keep up with you.

- Good to see you, dude.

- This is Milan.

- Hello, hello.

- How was it up there?

How do you feel?

- Okay. - Good to be back.

- I've been better.

- Yeah, happy to be back.

- Crazy mountain. - Yeah.

- He totally saw me, like-- - It was a tough day.

- He tumbled from second step down.

It's been maybe six, seven hours, it's crazy.

- Yeah, if you're feeling good.

- Yeah, reasonably.

Ay-ya-ya, too many dead people up there.

- You saw them all? - Too many.

- And you can't believe Thomas is gonna die.

- Not really, it's not in my hands.

- No, I really wouldn't believe it.

- Suddenly, he was stepping towards me.

He was already on the ropes I was holding

for him to keep his balance,

and he looked at me and he said, "I'm dying."

And then he slipped, he just slipped away,

on the steep part where I was holding onto the ropes.

I grabbed him by his jacket, tried to keep him upright,

but he's quite a heavy man

and he was sliding downhill on the snow and on the rocks,

and on one hand, I tried to pull the two ropes

which were there while I was on the slope myself.

I tried to hold him with another hand

and ask for help from other people,

but he just kept on slipping and slipping.

He was attached to the rope.

At one moment, I had to let him go

to hold on to the two ropes,

and to keep him from slipping too far.

So I went down when he was not responding at all.

He wasn't breathing.

He probably already had died the moment he slipped down,

and it was really sudden when he told he was going to die.

- It was early still and there was an expedition

from an American group.

They were going, I think,

it was the last expedition group going up the mountain,

and they radioed in to our camp

and they said they were at 8,700 meters

and they found out that Lincoln was still there,

sitting on a ridge with one leg on one side, 3,000 meters,

and one leg ot the other side, 2,000 meters,

and he was waving with his hands in the air,

and explaining that, yeah, he thought he was on a boat

and he was sailing there

and there were beautiful women everywhere

and the first thing he told those people,

he said you will be surprised to see me here,

because he was also sitting there with his down suit off

and he had no oxygen mask, no hat on.

He had the gloves off.

He was looking like a tourist,

climbing in Kilimanjaro or something, sitting there.

- It's a beautiful day and Lincoln is still alive.

He's on the radio.

He spent the night at over 8,000 meters

in extremely cold temperatures, but he's alive,

so now, on the mountain behind me,

up to 18 Sherpas are launching a rescue,

and hopefully, they can reach Lincoln,

give him some food, give him some water,

give him some warmth,

and then tie him into a sledge and lower him down.

- All the Sherpas who were available

were ascending up and all the everything,

there was so much energy suddenly,

that it's possible to get Lincoln down.

It's not over yet, he's not dead, he's still alive.

Lincoln, he's coming down

and he's already three days on the mountain,

so yeah, it's a very long rescue,

and he's coming down to ABC now.

I see him coming in the distance with a lot of Sherpas

who helped him, and hopefully,

he has not too much brain damage.

So, everything will be fine.

- Good day, mate.

Always the bloody film makers, anywhere you need them.

I'm glad you came.

I wouldn't have lasted this long

because I ain't got much strength left.

It's so dry up there.

My name's Lincoln Hall, I'm all here.

I was on Everest in '84, climbing without oxygen,

and deciding to turn back

because I may never come back

if I didn't turn back at that point.

My three friends reached the top of the north face,

and I turned back below there,

and this time, I was here for a different purpose,

but suddenly, I hoped to get to the summit, and I did,

and I think the original reason

that I didn't get to the summit

was because I was very, I made the right decision.

I mean, I'm all over now.

I've got some more frost bite to attend to.

It's good, really, because my kids

have never seen fresh frostbite, so.

- And it was while I was at this advanced base camp

that I picked up a satellite phone

and called his wife, Barbara,

at their home in Sydney, and I said,

"Barbara, you don't know me.

"I'm a documentary film maker on Everest.

"Your husband Lincoln is alive.

"Do you want to speak with him?"

And her first words were, "Is this a joke?"

And then I passed the phone to Lincoln

and he said to her, you know,

"Have you found yourself another husband yet?"

And that's when she knew that, yep, that's Lincoln.

He's alive, my God, and I was surprised.

Anything you'd like to say, Lincoln?

- Yeah, let's go.

Time to leave this place.

- He came yesterday.

Really, he improved so much, so he's doing,

yeah, he's doing fine, and today,

he's going towards Kathmandu.

He will drive for two days

and then he's going to get to the hospital,

where they are gonna check his fingers and his brain.

They're gonna make a scan,

if everything is all right,

but I'm really pleased to see he's doing really fine

and the man is back on Earth, so yeah, I'm very happy.

29th, officially, it's a Monday,

but on the mountain, the days really don't count.

Now we have to wait,

and then we need one or two days to pack up here,

and then we move back down,

and find some place to relax,

and I know the filming guys that are filming me right now

wanna get back to their wives and do the loving kissy-kissy,

so let's try and get home soon.

- I guess it's just a human story about two film makers

who went up a mountain to tell a story

of a man who had real drive and ambition,

but never achieved his dream.

- Everybody knows who is going there.

Everybody knows that it's a potential risky place.

So yeah, I think you are courageous

to go there and climb the mountain.

- I just want to tell his story

and just put closure on our story

so that we can then move on from this project,

not just in a physical sense,

but also in an emotional sense.

That's why I wanted to make this film.

- It happens many times

when I'm thinking about Everest.

It left a special place in my heart

and, of course, in my mind as well,

because so many things happened there,

and despite everything that was going on,

it's one of the most beautiful places

I have been to on Earth,

and especially the places where you were alone,

climbing the mountain

and feeling the power of all the mountains around it.

- We're leaving for Kathmandu in a few days,

back to civilization, back to normality,

except we're missing someone.

We're missing Thomas,

and I went in his tent today and it's just strange.

It's like the man should be coming out at breakfast

or something like that, but he's not gonna be.

It's been a very rollercoaster ride for us.

I mean, quite normal expedition,

and then the expression, it hit the fan,

but it's good to see Lincoln,

and it's good that he's going home,

and his wife, Barbara, is going to meet him in Kathmandu,

and hopefully, we can meet up with him there,

but it's been an experience.

Certainly as a film maker, I didn't expect to lose Thomas,

but we've made some good friends,

and I'll be glad to be going home.