Original subtitles

Of all the adversities in life, death is the easiest to handle.

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When I'm on the move, I can repress the memories.

But when I'm idling about, the images resurface.

For me, the image of the mountains has changed.

For a while, I saw mountains as my enemies.

There has been a really profound change in me.

The more often I climbed mountain summits, the better it got,

the more I could reconnect

and felt that the only option was to carry on.

The mountain helps you to process these things.

One of the most frequent questions people ask me is:

"Why? What's pushing you? Why do you climb these mountains?"

If these people climbed themselves, nature would give them the answer.

When we go out there and very often also expose our lives to danger,

it doesn't mean we don't cherish life. Quite the opposite:

In extreme situations,

when I have to be really focused and incredibly careful not to endanger my life,

this is when I feel the value of life.

Extreme mountain climbers like you, Mr Kammerlander,

can only feel alive when they are facing death.

I think I'd be too afraid if I felt that too strongly.

He has instincts that are quite unique.

And this is the foundation

that helps him to survive in critical situations.

Die early, but live a fulfilled life as a celebrity,

or reach an old age but live an anonymous and ordinary life?

I hope that I can live life intensively and reach an old age.

I like something you said:

"Goals are more important than memories."

Nevertheless, I would like to rummage around in your memories just for a moment.

Which one of your many mountains had the biggest impact on you?

The mountain that pushed me to my absolute limits

is without a doubt Manaslu.

Manaslu, the mountain of souls.

"Then the fifth angel sounded his trumpet,

and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth.

and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.

And he opened the bottomless pit

and smoke arose out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace.

And the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.

In those days, men will seek death and will not find it.

They will long to die, but death will escape them."

The smoke of the burning oil wells during the Gulf War,

had travelled all the way to the Himalayas and spread over the mountains,

so the air was really charged

and this caused spontaneous, heavy thunderstorms.

One of these storms took us by surprise.

It was an incredible inferno.

There was no escape from it.

Hans, do you copy me?

Hans, come in, please!

Come on!

A brutal storm...

Those were the most

difficult minutes of my entire life.

When I came back from Manaslu, I fell into a deep depression.

My expedition with my South Tyrolian friends had failed tragically.

Two of my best friends were killed on the mountain within a couple of hours.

I didn't know how to go on anymore,

because at that time, the mountain had become my enemy.

On K2, I decided to put my plan to do all the eight-thousanders behind me.

Because all I could see was Manaslu.

And because of the tragic accident more than 25 years ago, I said to myself:

"I don't want to ever go back, because it might be too painful."

During a preparation tour on Jasemba

my friend Brugger had a deadly accident: he fell during abseiling.

Our climbing rope fell with him.

In those first few seconds, I couldn't see a way out. It was over.

I thought: "I'd better jump after him." But I realised I had to make it somehow.

And when I got down,

it felt a lot like back then on Manaslu.

I shut myself away when I got back. I withdrew from people.

I wanted to get away from all the questions, because I could never switch off.

After a few weeks, Karl Unterkicher came to me and said:

"Hans, we should go back to the mountain

and finish the route, we should do it for Luis Brugger."

And in this expedition, we finally reached the summit.

When we were climbing up the last snow ridge towards the summit,

I felt really happy that I'd decided

to return to this mountain, where I'd suffered so much the previous year.

It was good to move on.

And then gradually this idea took shape

to go back to Manaslu one more time.

Hi, there. Hold on, son. Hold on.

Is this the route to Moosstock?

Yes, this way, along the forest and then turn to the right.

So straight ahead? - Yes, straight ahead.

Great. Thank you. - Thanks.

Now, sitting on the summit of Moosstock,

thinking back to how it all began,

then I realise, like in no other place,

how far I have come

since the day I trotted behind two tourists to this summit for the first time.

Isn't that the boy? There.

Come here. Come to us. - Come on.

Did you follow us all the way from the valley?

I wanted to see what it's like up here.

Do you want an apple? - Yes, please.

You must be hungry.

Thanks.

So many mountains.

The world looks different from here.

And I always thought the world ended at Peitlerkofel mountain.

The world is much bigger. - Yes.

So many mountains.

And that moment awakened a passion in me.

Around the same time, three climbers from Saxony had set off on a winter ascent

and climbed the Tre Cime di Lavaredo in 17 days. In winter!

At home, we didn't have a TV set back then, only a radio.

And we only had electricity for about an hour every evening,

because there wasn't enough water in the hydropower plant.

From down here they look like two tiny dots.

Peter Siegert, the boss, is 26 years old,

Reiner Kauschke, 24, and Gerd Uhner, 23.

... constant belaying and tying.

Flying past, we see for a short moment the three tiny dots that are the climbers.

They are busy belaying and tying...

The vertically hanging rope shows...

Isn't it too cold on the face in winter?

As long as they keep moving, they'll be okay.

What do they do at night?

They must be a bit crazy, or they wouldn't do this.

Don't they have to go to church on Sunday?

If they're on the mountain on Sunday, they won't be going to church.

So I won't have to go to church if I become a climber, too?

If you're on the mountain on Sunday, you won't be going to church.

The Lord is everywhere.

That's much too dangerous.

Down in the valley, people are gathering to stare in wonder.

Hundreds and thousands of people from Sexten, Cortina, Toblach and Bolzano.

There are even onlookers and journalists from Austria and Bavaria.

Everyone is taking pictures or filming.

It's like a little expedition.

Resting and sleeping in a hammock...

Who'd have thought Saxons had it in them. - What are Saxons?

Germans.

It's certainly exciting.

That's what happened to the camera on the first day of shooting.

From a height of 200 metres, it fell into the deep snow and...

Why did the power cut now?

It's a long night. Here.

Can I listen to it tomorrow? - Yes, just come.

Boys, time to go to bed.

How are they doing during the cold winter night on that face?

It really impressed and fascinated me.

And it definitely was one of the reasons why I started seeking this adventure.

When I was a kid and looked out of the window of our farmhouse to the south,

I saw Peitlerkofel at the end of the valley.

I couldn't see any further, so I thought that the world ended there.

That's much too dangerous.

On 26 January 1963 the time had come:

the summit of the Cima Grande di Lavaredo, at 3,000 metres is nigh.

It's not working.

Only a few metres left to go through a steep ditch of soft, powdery snow.

They're so brave.

They have reached the summit of the Cima Grande after 17 days.

I want to be a climber, too. - Nonsense.

That's just what we need.

Everyone wants an autograph,

or a photo with them.

And why not? The three are stars. Everyone has come to celebrate them

and honour them for days and nights. As long as they can.

The passion had been awoken, but the reality

of life on our farm was completely different.

Are you okay? - Yes.

Always downwards.

Look, like this. And... There you go.

We had to gather enough feed for the cows for the long winters.

And the more feed we had, the better the chances were

that we could keep another cow, and that meant a lot.

This period and the work on the farm made me very strong-willed.

We couldn't just say:

"We've got half the hay in the barn, let's call it a day."

No, your work wasn't done until all the hay was in the barn.

And this attitude helped me later on with climbing.

While you're hanging on the rock face, you can't just say: "Now I'm tired. I quit."

I used to carry the Alpine hay down to our farm.

It was amazing, because the scent of the mountain flowers was really special.

The cows couldn't get enough of that hay.

They wanted more and more.

They could smell the hay from far away and they'd get really greedy.

The Alpine hay is just made up of herbs and that's a real feast for cows.

So in summer, we always made sure

that we kept an eye on the weather

and only went out to cut the hay when we were really sure

that it'd be sunny for the next two days.

Then the hay would be dry when we brought it into the barn.

I remember one day we were out on the field

and we saw dark clouds approaching, so we quickly went back to the house.

But then I realised that I'd left my jacket on the fence outside the house.

I went to fetch my jacket and also a bucket of fresh water for the kitchen.

And right at that moment, lightning struck our farm.

Hans! Hans!

What happened? Hans!

Hans, let's go inside.

You'll be fine, Hans. You'll be fine.

That day I really felt the force of nature.

That experience was also helpful later on, when I was on the mountains:

When I saw dark clouds, I knew what I had to do.

In my opinion, thunderstorms are your biggest enemy on the mountain.

Back then, I'd never have thought that many years later,

on Manaslu,

at an altitude of 6,000 metres, just a few metres from me,

a stroke of lightning would kill my best friend.

When we had to transport heavy things,

my father would borrow a horse from a neighbour.

We'd go into the woods with the horse and carry logs back to the farm.

We were young boys. Today, that's unthinkable.

Because it was child labour. But we were not exploited.

We had learn to become independent.

As far as I can remember, my mother was an extremely anxious person.

If we climbed on a fence on our farm,

a second later my mother would shout:

"Get down, you'll hurt yourself!"

I never heard things like that from my father.

I had a very uncomplicated family.

When we got up, no one said "good morning" or anything like that.

We didn't know those phrases.

We simply got up and then our mother called out to us:

"Breakfast is ready. Come to the table and hurry up!

You have to be on time for church and then go to school."

Shit.

Did the cows give enough milk today?

Yes. Why?

Why is there so little in the bucket?

Because there wasn't more.

The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women,

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

My parents were very religious, my father in particular.

Every evening, we had to join him in the living room to pray the rosary.

We'd much rather have played outside than sit there praying for 15 minutes.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us;

and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Amen.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Enjoy your meal.

My mother had been a bit sickly for some years,

so she had to go to hospital.

She just said goodbye to us.

But two weeks later, she died in hospital.

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

In this spirit, let us pray in remembrance of the deceased,

and for all who are bereft of their loved one.

Lord Jesus Christ, you showed us the path to thy Father

Lord, have mercy on us.

You bestowed life to the world through your death,

Christ, have mercy on us.

After Mother died, I went through a wild phase,

because there was no one who could really stop me.

It was the most dangerous time of my life.

I climbed every mountain. Nothing could stop me.

And most of the time, I didn't even realise how dangerous the situations were.

You've had a lot of work on your hands since Mother died.

It's okay.

I can handle it.

But I'm worried about Hans. - What do you mean?

He's crazy. He's climbing every mountain and I can't hold him back.

Is that necessary? It's too dangerous.

I'll take him climbing with me and teach him the basics.

And it really meant a lot to me

when a couple of years later, I was 16 by then,

I climbed the north face on my brother's rope, who was 10 years older than me.

It was my first proper climb

and I did it on the mountain which was the end of the world to me as a child.

To be exposed for so many hours. It was very challenging.

And I was just climbing after my brother.

And when I looked to the north, in the direction of my home village,

it was a tremendous moment.

The moment we got to the summit, everything was fine. I was so happy.

It was a fantastic experience and I was incredibly proud.

We came up from the north face and it was a tremendous feeling...

And that was also one of the reasons I thought to myself:

"If I really pursue this hobby and buckle down,

I might be able to make it my profession and become a mountain guide."

We let you do it the way you think is best.

We just say what we think is wrong or right.

Tie the rope around his back.

Pull the rope nice and tight and then you can carry him on your back.

Not too bad.

Very good.

What do you think? - It was great.

I'll just say: congratulations. - Am I a mountain guide now?

You are a mountain guide. - Thanks.

Congratulation. - Well done, Hans!

And so I became a mountain guide and was very happy.

But unfortunately, despite my training as a guide, I barely had any clients.

People didn't know me. No one found me.

So I kept working on our farm and also on construction sites.

And in my spare time

I trained with a huge passion.

I went running, mountain jogging.

I sometimes ran until I dropped.

My favourite route was my "backyard mountain": the Moosstock.

That's an altitude of 1,600 metres.

And my record time running up there was less than one hour and eight minutes.

Back then, I had no idea

that this training would be so helpful later on in my life

when I set off to climb the highest mountains on earth.

Over time, I got more and more bookings as a guide,

but still not enough.

So I had to return to my actual profession, which was a crane operator.

But the truth was:

the only thing I had on my mind was climbing.

My first couple of years as a climber were really wild years.

Breaking off a climb would have been a disgrace.

I even didn't care if I had a rope or not.

All the mountains I was technically able to climb,

I could also climb without a rope.

I was very strong-willed.

But what I was doing was still very dangerous.

I was often climbing on crumbly terrain where you can easily lose your grip.

And if you're climbing without a rope, that mistake would be your last.

But then, the incredible feeling you get on the summit,

reaching the top without a rope,

something no one had ever accomplished before me.

You do the most dangerous stuff before you become famous.

Over time, there were hardly any challenges left in the mountains of my home region.

I'd already accomplished a lot of first ascents and solo climbs.

And of course, I'd climbed all of the major faces, such as the north face of the Eiger.

Yes, he is here. He's feeding the cows.

Hold on, I'll get him on the phone. He'll be happy.

Hans!

Hans, telephone for you.

What is it? - It's Reinhold Messner.

What? - He wants to take you on an eight-thousander.

He said something about Cho Oyu... - Are you kidding me?

Reinhold?

I didn't know what to say. Of course I wasn't going to miss this chance.

I also knew that I was going to embark on a journey,

where I had no experience at all.

So I set off on this journey and discovered a whole new world.

Are you friends?

I wouldn't say that. We know each other quite well.

I chose Hans for this expedition

because of all the people I know well, the mountaineers I know personally,

who I've been through difficult situations with,

he's the only one I think is capable of seeing this through.

You did something that was quite new in alpinism.

Traversing an eight-thousander was nothing new,

but no one had ever dared to traverse two eight-thousanders in one expedition.

And I think no one has dared to do it since.

To be honest, I'm really proud of this achievement.

But on my following grand expeditions, I found it easier to acclimatise myself.

We have no radios, they're too heavy. No one here can help us anyway.

And it would be irresponsible for us to expect someone to rescue us on this crazy climb.

We bear the risk and if we die here, then we die here.

This rope looks strange to me.

It's not a real climbing rope, it's an accessory cord.

We double it up when we belay.

But we'll hardly need it, we're climbing without ropes.

Each of us is responsible for himself.

We'll only use this to abseil, if necessary,

and to belay when crossing crevasses.

I'm very glad that I had the opportunity to do that expedition with him.

Because a young alpinist hardly ever has the chance to climb with a master like him.

If we don't turn up after two weeks, it means that

we were buried by an avalanche or died of exhaustion.

So it makes no sense to come and look for us. You wouldn't find us anyway.

Hans, what would happen to your belongings here in the tent?

The pictures and...

Well, there's not much here...

I think you can throw it all into a crevasse.

You have to be careful not to let too many negative thoughts into your mind.

They'd take too much space. You have to be free.

It's very important to start with a clear head.

When we arrived up there, our feeling of relief was beyond description.

Because you know that the laborious ascent has come to an end.

I saw you two when you were leaving.

When you came back, you were different people.

Yes, it was...

It's not healthy. We were...

For the last two or three days, we were really close...

in fact too close to our limits.

We were very, very close to the edge.

The lack of oxygen was really bad.

During the descent, we spent another night up there. It was almost too much.

And you can't just stop there. You're descending, so you have to go down.

I realised afterwards

that there were times up there when we were hallucinating.

I heard voices outside the tent

and I also heard the sound of an aluminium shovel.

Don't you recognise...

... and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Hans!

Friedl and Hanspeter.

Don't dream. Move on.

If the wind rips the tent up, then we've had it.

Do you hear it?

They're shovelling snow.

The second tent isn't far. - What?

The second tent isn't far. There's another group here.

It's a good thing we took the big tent.

We were well into the danger zone.

We had to get down as fast as possible,

or we'd never make it down, because we were so exhausted.

We had to get away from the dangerous altitude.

And you didn't have a real rope, just a thin cable...

What was that?

It wasn't a real climbing rope. It was an accessory cord. Six millimetres.

We had to keep our gear light. And we took turns to lead.

When I was leading, I kept saying: "Reinhold, hold the rope tight."

He'd do it for a minute, but then he'd get too close to me again.

Hans!

I was hanging there, the rope throttling me.

And my problem was that I hadn't put on my crampons.

They were attached to my backpack.

Undoing the crampons from my backpack while I was being throttled was almost impossible.

And then I had to put them on.

If I didn't succeed the first time, I wouldn't have the strength to try again.

Hans!

Reinhold,

if you carry on being careless,

we'll both be dead next time.

I didn't climb with Reinhold for long.

In the short period we were together, we climbed seven eight-thousanders.

When Messner ended his career on the high mountains,

I decided to carry on by myself.

Then, all of a sudden, the path was clear for me to follow my own goals.

Even as a young boy, my greatest passion was skiing.

Long before I started climbing.

But I had to earn money to buy myself my first skis.

So I collected mushrooms and sold them.

In the summer, I was able to earn and save so much money

that I could buy a new pair of skis in the autumn.

I've got mushrooms for you. - Very good. I'll buy them.

Whenever you have some, bring them here. I'll buy them. You're a good boy.

Go, Hans, go!

My new skis, my pride and joy, were broken.

I felt so terrible.

It almost felt worse than the death of my mother, two or three years earlier.

That was how tragic it was to me.

My skis are broken. I worked all summer for this.

I'm going home. - Bye. See you.

In my career,

particularly in those years when I was still part of the Alpine Race,

I was always looking for new challenges.

Hi, Simon. - Hi, Hans.

Did you fix your skis? - Yes, Alois did.

Let's go. - Okay.

I discovered an area

where I was ahead of my sporting rivals.

Those who were very good at Alpine mountaineering were not very good at skiing.

They couldn't ski down the mountain.

And those who were really good skiers

couldn't climb the steep mountain faces.

And I found it fascinating to carve out this niche for myself.

My first idea was:

My next project is, of course, Mount Everest.

My biggest dream back then was to climb the world's highest mountain

without supplemental oxygen in record time.

And then to become the first person to descend on skis.

I'd tried and failed to climb Everest twice.

And when I got there for the third time,

several people had died there just a few days earlier.

There had been a race on the northern face

between an Indian military expedition and Japanese climbers.

Their only goal was

to be the first people that year to get to the summit via the north face.

The Indians were an industrious lot. They were young men from Ladakh.

They were on the route and then they radioed that they didn't have enough oxygen.

But their expedition leader told them

to reduce their oxygen to the minimum and continue.

It was like an order.

They were about 150, 200 metres away from the summit.

They were very close to death.

They had no chance without oxygen, not even for the descent.

When everything gets out of control,

there's a big danger that people will just give up.

They think: I'll just take a break.

If you're in that condition and at the end of your tether,

then everything happens pretty fast.

A situation like that can break your will quite quickly

and death can seem like the easy way out.

The Japanese were coming up right behind them and they had enough oxygen.

But they just went past these hopeless men and continued their ascent to the summit.

Reaching the summit was much more important to them

than helping those three poor souls.

That is intolerable.

If they had stopped on their way up

and given the Indians some oxygen,

they would have had enough oxygen to climb down with the Indians.

The Indians would have survived, and they wouldn't have reached the summit.

But what's more important?

A very short time after that, on the north side again,

a group of East Germans were going up.

They were already quite high up when they found a Japanese climber.

He was confused and disoriented. He had altitude sickness.

He wanted to continue, so they had to force him to come back to the tent with them.

They gave him oxygen and climbed down together with him the next day.

The Japanese man survived and the East Germans, a very good team, didn't make the summit.

So morality does exist at high altitudes.

I hadn't planned to set off in the evening.

But the mountain offered me this chance and you have to seize it.

It's much better to trust in your own strength

than to fill your backpack by the book, as it were.

If you're too concerned with safety, you'll take too much stuff with you.

And a heavy backpack is a risk factor.

Every gram you take with you counts.

I knew one thing for sure:

when I planned this expedition, speed would be my top priority.

And I was fit enough to count on my speed.

I'd been training for six weeks at an altitude of between five and eight thousand metres.

You can't be better prepared than that.

I knew that the loneliness at night would be a huge strain.

But if you have faith in yourself, you can handle that.

It was important to take in some liquid,

because at high altitudes, the air is very cold and dry

and you lose a lot of liquid through respiration.

And I knew I was heading into a very lonely night.

At daybreak I was at 8,300.

There were a couple of tents.

There was a dead man in the tent, an Austrian.

He had died of altitude sickness a couple of weeks earlier.

I carried on. The morning had broken.

I felt the exhaustion. My body felt as heavy as lead.

Those were very tough hours and doubts crept into my mind:

Why are you doing this?

Are you really so addicted that you'd do this to yourself?

For a second these questions enter your mind.

Camp 1, come in. - Yes, Hans?

I think I'm having a crisis.

I climbed too fast. I can't carry on.

I'll try to recover a bit...

And then I'll start to descend slowly.

Hans, be careful. Don't take any risks.

You're experienced enough to make the right decision.

There's a dead Austrian in camp 3.

He also tried to get to the summit without oxygen.

Now he'll stay up here forever.

No one can rescue him. - Hans?

Your voice sounds very fit. You don't sound tired.

And this one sentence: "Your voice sounds very fit",

it brought me back.

I saw two of the Indians who had died a couple of days earlier,

not far from the summit.

These are images no one wants to see.

My plan was very bold. I hadn't even taken an ice pick along.

Then something really great happened.

Just when I really needed one,

to my surprise, I found an ice pick.

The key to success is rhythm.

At high altitude, you can't recover your strength.

That's why they call this altitude the "death zone".

Someone who climbs at high altitude with oxygen

experiences a totally different world.

You don't feel the cold that much.

And it feels like half as much effort.

Climbing an eight-thousander with supplemental oxygen

is like taking part in a bicycle race on a light motorcycle.

Heini, I can't go any further. - Are you already at the summit?

Yes, I made it!

Fantastic, Hans! - Bravo, bravissimo!

The panorama is incredible. And it's not that cold.

17 hours is just... That's really fast.

I'll take some time,

maybe half an hour, or 15 minutes, to relax

and then I'll have to leave this place.

Over for now. Ciao, ciao, ciao.

Take care, Hans. See you in a bit.

And then you're up there and think to yourself: what a success!

Why do I have to clip on my skis and go down the risky way?

But if I don't try to go down on my skis, which had been my goal for many years,

then when I'm back down, I'll be unhappy

because I didn't take the chance.

The most intensive moment of my life on the mountains

was definitely bringing myself to ski down from there.

Down onto the endless slope of the mountainside.

My plan had been to ski down the Great Couloir,

down to the Rongbuk Glacier.

But soon I realised it wasn't possible. The snow was too hard. It was icy.

The skis have to be at a right angle, and never point to the valley.

You'd pick up too much speed, lean back and that'd be fatal.

I was tensely sliding down the mountain, braking at every step.

It was really tough, so I decided to stop sliding down sideways.

I knew I had to cross some rock ledges.

And I had to go back in the direction of the ascent route.

I had to take off my skis and go across.

Then I suddenly spotted an old, weathered fixed rope between the rocks.

So I decided to use the fixed rope to cross the cliffs.

I could see the snow gully on the other side,

so I could put on my skis again and go down.

I went along the rope, but didn't hold on too tight.

I couldn't hold on, because my gloves were too slippery.

So I took one glove off with my teeth.

Then I realised I was trapped there.

The rope was gone which would have helped me to cross.

And I didn't have enough strength to go up again.

I realised that I was in a pretty bad situation.

I'd totally forgotten that I'd taken along that ice pick.

While I was fiddling around

I lost one of my gloves, which I had taken off.

And I knew only too well: without a glove I would get hand frostbite.

Luckily I remembered that just a little further down from where I was,

I had seen a dead Indian on my way up.

If I hadn't found the glove

I'm pretty sure that I would've lost my hand.

KAMMERLANDER MADE IT

First man to ski down Everest 11th eight-thousander

RECORD ON MOUNT EVEREST

This exciting experience of skiing down from the summit took almost six hours.

And then I was safe again.

And my crazy dream of ascending and skiing down Everest had come true.

There was quite a hype around him in the media and on the Alpinist scene.

Of course, it's important

to celebrate and enjoy your success for a while.

But at some point, you have to come back to earth

and think about other important things.

I admire him for what he accomplished.

But he found it hard to put his feet back on the ground.

His motto had always been:

I'd rather live a short, but full life than a long and boring one.

But it's also possible to live a short and intensive life,

followed by a long life after that.

Hans became a real super star.

Within just a few years, he shot up from the Alpine meadows into orbit.

It also changed him, because he got swept away by the hype.

A lot of people jumped on his bandwagon and there were too many women.

And there was no place left for me in his life.

I couldn't go on like that anymore.

Hans is a person with two faces.

His true personality

is very focused and ambitious.

A very likeable person.

His second personality

is stubborn,

neglectful,

and a little undisciplined.

When you consider how many mountains Hans has climbed,

and how many eight-thousanders he did,

you also think about what might have happened to him.

The chances of something happening are fifty-fifty. On every expedition.

But it never occurred to me, and it probably didn't occur to anybody,

that destiny would strike him in a completely different way.

Are there any paths that you won't be able to finish?

Is there anything incomplete, unfinished?

The car accident, of course...

I'll have to live with this burden.

I have to come to terms with it. I am very sorry that it happened, but...

"That it happened" sounds like a thunderstorm.

It didn't just happen.

You were driving while above the legal alcohol limit

and caused the death of a young man.

You shouldn't be driving a car with an alcohol level of 1.4. Everyone knows that.

And yet, naive as I was, it was me who caused that mistake.

It's the biggest mistake in my life.

And it will haunt me for the rest of my life.

The feeling of guilt is always with me and I can't get rid of it.

What happened?

Can you hear me?

THE FALL

The deadly accident casts long shadows

And the shadows are here to stay.

I can't... I can't...

I just can't undo this.

There was a storm of outrage, and it was like I was guilty twice over:

"You get special treatment as a celebrity, so you got a mild sentence."

On the contrary: if you're famous,

you feel the blow of a mistake like that much harder.

The sentence you get from the court is your smallest problem in a case like that.

The worst thing is the blame that weighs very heavily on me.

If you also have children the same age, who even went to school with him,

then you really feel for the family.

That was a difficult time.

And it still is, because you can't get rid of it.

You can't change anything.

That was the ultimate penalty.

He wasn't in a good place after the accident. Not at all.

But he couldn't change it.

It's what happened and there's nothing you can do about it.

It was something...

You go through hell.

It was certainly a huge blow for the family.

And also for Hans, who has to live with the blame.

You knew the parents of the young man.

You had also to face them.

I mean not only in court.

Those were... Those were really tough times.

I know his parents really well. Especially his father.

And in the hospital they told you how the accident had happened.

It was all very confused.

I was told, and that was also what the papers said,

that I'd been coming from the other direction.

The accident was such a mess that the first records were all wrong.

According to the first media reports, Hans wasn't to blame for the accident.

But Hans put it right, and only a few people know that.

That Hans went public and said: "No!

I was driving in the wrong lane.

I caused the accident."

And suddenly,

nothing he had done before, nothing he had accomplished was worth anything.

So then he decided

to stop giving comments and to withdraw and accept his own guilt.

And to learn to live with it.

South Tyrolians are caught between different cultures.

They are also a little opportunistic.

And as opportunists,

they praise and applaud you when you're successful,

they also envy you, but then they drop you and crush you.

That's what happened to Hans.

There are incidents that you can never process completely.

They will haunt you all your life.

Your mind wanders for a second and the memory is there again.

No matter how much good you do in your life,

those wounds will never heal.

I planted this tree at the inauguration of the school in 2006.

Now it's a huge tree.

Everybody in this village is grateful for the Kammerlander School.

After all these years, it's time to return to my fateful mountain, Manaslu,

to face up to the tragedy back then.

I want to come to terms with this inner pain by climbing the mountain once more.

So I can make peace with the past and live on.

When I came here for the first time

I just came for the mountains and nothing else.

The summits, the faces.

But now, I come back here because of the people.

Over the years, I've got to know the country and its people much better.

And I'm totally fascinated.

Whenever I return from a trip to Nepal,

I always feel like I've recharged my batteries.

What I like most about the people here is their absolute calm

and balance.

Before you reach your goal, the mountain,

you usually have to walk for a week.

There are no roads, no noise. Everything is slow-paced.

And you have to be open to this.

Things sometimes don't go as planned, and you might have a delay.

And coming from a frantic world, this is something really beautiful.

Although you're determined and you have a plan, but on your way to the mountain,

you experience so many nice things in the country and with the people

that you focus on what's important.

And if you watch the people here, you see how little they need

to be happy and content.

To me, that's an essential part of every expedition.

Of course, the summit is my goal, but everything on the way to it

is an essential and beautiful part of the journey to Nepal.

Stefan is a very important partner for me,

because he has a connection to the mountain, he's experienced it,

he's also been through some very hard times on the mountain.

The huge avalanche could have hit him as well.

It wasn't a typical avalanche.

We found people on the surface, killed by the ice and serac.

I was surprised that people had survived.

But we also found 11 dead.

It didn't take the helicopters long to arrive.

But there was nothing they could do to help.

It looked like a bomb had exploded. People weren't buried by the avalanche.

The pressure wave had been so strong that everything was on the surface.

All you could do was collect the stuff and rescue the people and evacuate them.

You have to be patient. You have to wait.

What a beautiful backdrop. - It's a magnificent moment

every time you step out of the forest and see your goal.

If everything goes well, we'll be up there in 14 days.

If things go well.

But we have to decide there and then.

The mountain doesn't care about you and your plan.

You have to adapt to the mountain.

You can only lose if you try to fight against a mountain.

Let's go in here. - Yes.

What a fog.

Pure luxury. - And that at an altitude of 4,500 metres.

Tomorrow, we'll cross the pass.

If the weather forecast was right. - It will be in the morning.

The ascent is pretty steep.

And the path isn't much better. - It's not easy for the porters.

Without them it would be much harder to reach our goals.

We wouldn't even make it to the base camp.

It took me a very long time to realise that mountains were not to blame

for my friends dying there,

on Manaslu.

I learned a lot from my Nepalese friends about accepting strokes of fate.

After all, my friends had died in a place where they had been happy.

And when you get back home after the trip, things are very different.

We have a completely different mentality and a different approach to death.

Our compassion is very often fake.

You'll never escape people's reproaches.

Ordinary people can't understand why we go up these high mountains

when it's so dangerous.

I can understand them because there is always some risk

when you're at a certain altitude or generally in the mountains.

When you plan to go up a high mountain, it's important to listen to your inner voice.

You must ask yourself: Do I still have the strength?

You must have the strength,

or you must be ready to give up on a summit, even if you're already very close.

I see these children, they're so sturdy,

in such good health.

They don't need a pharmacy as soon as they cough a bit.

We've become very spoiled.

I will try, and I hope I'll succeed,

to bring my daughter along soon.

I think it would be a really valuable life experience for her.

The help of the locals is essential.

I've watched them. The porters who help us to get to the base camp,

I raise my hat to them.

What has changed completely over the past 26 years

is the lower part of the mountain.

The glacier has receded so much.

When you get here, you don't recognise the lower part of the mountain.

That doesn't mean it's easier to climb.

I think it's even more dangerous because of all the icefalls.

Oh man! That was exhausting.

It's like home. - Yes.

Hi.

It's so amazing. They're not tired at all.

They carry the heavy stuff all the way up, but they're not tired.

They look so fit.

Many of your best friends aren't alive anymore.

They died in the mountains. And now you're rather alone.

It is alarming

how many friends I have lost along the way.

They were all people who weren't reckless.

We don't want pity, because nobody forces us to go up there.

If something happens, you have to live with the consequences.

I've never felt the value of life sitting on my couch.

Whenever I had to be clear-headed

and fight to survive, that's when I learned to cherish life.

That was probably one of the reasons why I kept seeking this solitude and danger.

If you've completely lost touch with your childhood,

then Alpine climbing is no longer the right thing for you.

Because you're not free anymore.

The child in you should still be there, otherwise you shouldn't do it.

Of course, you think about things

like what will happen if there's as much snow up there as here.

Particularly on this expedition, where we're going up off season

with a pretty small team for a mountain like this,

I can find what I've been looking for all my life: to have the mountain all to myself.

To me, this is ultimate freedom, the kind that hardly exists these days.

I don't think about a worst case scenario or what I'd do then.

I trust that nothing will happen.

Is this the spot?

That's exactly the spot.

Somewhere within a 50-metre radius, Friedl was struck by lightning.

And after that all hell broke loose for 20 minutes.

Of course, as bizarre and terrible as it may sound,

the value of life is measured against

the number of those who are dead now.

And on Manaslu you lost two of your friends on the same day.

Your circle of friends gets smaller, and now you stand here alone.

It's this oily water again. - The snow is also covered in a black film.

It'll be quite windy up there.

This cold is brutal.

Look! - What?

They've set off. - Really? Let me see.

Very good! Just in the nick of time.

Hold on for a second. I'm untying myself.

It's too cold.

I'm going back. - Okay.

One of them is coming down. - I can see. Who is it?

The last on the rope. - Do you see him?

I think... That must be Friedl.

He can probably feel his old frostbite.

From Kangchenjunga? - Yes.

He got frostbite on his toes.

It must be very cold up there. - Yes, very.

Let me see. - Oh, Friedl...

Pity.

If he can't go on, it's better to turn back.

But I bet the other two will reach the summit in no time.

If we go on like this, we'll be hit by the blizzard. I'm going back.

Maybe you'll make it on your own. Take care.

We'll meet at camp 3. In the tent.

Now Karl is going back, too.

They haven't got much time.

And Karl probably couldn't keep up with Hans.

Bloody fog. I can't see anything now. - There's a storm coming.

Base camp, Hans speaking. Come in.

Yes, Hans. This is base camp. Come.

I'm turning back. The expedition is now officially over.

I copy you, Hans. You're turning back. Take care, okay?

Okay. I'll radio you when I'm at camp 3.

Tea. Tea.

Great. - Thank you.

We're not superstitious, are we?

What can happen because of a couple of prayer flags?

Friedl! I'm back.

I couldn't make it. The wind was so brutal.

I felt like an ant that was about to be blown away.

I already thought it wouldn't work out today.

I guess Karl will be here any minute, too.

What do you mean?

He turned back just after you. He's probably sleeping in his tent.

He's not here.

Where could he be?

He's not here? - Maybe he went down to base camp.

But all his equipment is here. He would have said something.

What on earth... Karl!

Look.

His ice pick.

Karl!

Look, down there.

Is that him? - Karl!

Karl!

Karl.

He's dead.

He's only got one crampon on.

The slope isn't that steep. How could he have an accident here?

The serac!

He must have got his ice pick from the tent. - Maybe that's what I heard.

He probably lost a crampon up there.

He must have fallen and hit the ice. And the collision broke his neck.

Hey, Lois. When Friedl comes back this evening,

we'll tell him that Marianne is going to join his next expedition.

It's great you invited her. She's never been on an expedition.

Tonight, we'll open a bottle of wine

and eat the caviar that the Russians left for us.

Base camp, this is Hans. Come in.

Yes, Hans. Base camp here. Come in.

I have terrible news. Karl has had an accident. He's dead.

What? How? Karl is dead?

We just saw him walking up and down up there.

He's dead.

It's a horrible situation. He fell.

I have no idea how it happened.

We'll get in touch later. Come in.

We copy you, Hans. Over.

Thea and him were getting married. Did you know?

He told me just before we came here.

You okay? - Okay.

We've got plenty of time.

There's no way we can make it to base camp in this shitty weather.

We'll have to spend the night in camp 1.

It's not far from here.

So let's wait until it gets better.

Yes, you're right.

Sit down.

Hans, wait!

You can't see where you're going.

I'll never comprehend the fact

that two separate accidents happened within four hours of each other.

The air is totally charged. - I can feel it too.

A thunderstorm is coming.

We're not on a summit. We'll be fine.

Friedl!

Friedl!

Come on!

Friedl, come on! Let's go!

I went back to my spot

and tried to cover myself with snow.

It was a matter of life and death.

Friedl!

What are we doing here?

What are we doing here?

I just untied my rope.

And at the same time, I knew the rope was no use if you're alone.

You need a partner as a counterweight.

Then I thought I could stick the skis into the snow

and use them as an anchor for the rope.

But then I saw the sparks along the edges of the skis.

They weren't discharged yet. Electricity was everywhere.

So I threw the skis back into the snow right away.

And I crept back into my hole and stayed there.

I only had a tiny glimmer of hope that I would get away from that spot.

From the moment it all started with that first stroke of lightning,

it felt like an eternity.

You have to do something. You can't just sit there and wait.

And the only solution is to get away as fast as you can.

And then, all that was left was a feeling of loneliness.

And, of course, the question: Why are you here?

I couldn't believe how much had happened in the past few hours.

I was still alive,

but I would have swapped places with either of my friends any time.

If the lightning hits the tent...

And no matter what happens, if I have to descend alone,

I might fall into a crevasse and there's no one to belay me.

Then I took the camera, held it to my face and took a picture.

If I didn't make it to the base camp,

they would find the tent and the camera inside it,

and the pictures would show them that I had been in the tent.

I was tired beyond words,

but I tried to focus

and think of a couple of sentences to radio to the base camp.

I had to recover. I didn't even realise that I was still alive.

Base camp, come in.

Base camp, come in.

Yes, Hans. This is base camp. Come in.

Friedl is dead. He was struck by lightning in the thunderstorm.

Hans, do I copy you right?

Friedl was struck by lightning?

He was a couple of metres behind me.

I'm sorry, but it's true. He was struck by lightning.

Friedl is dead.

Hans, how are you? Where are you? Did anything happen to you?

I'm in camp 1.

All hell has broken loose.

Hans, can we do something for you?

Nothing.

You can't do anything.

Stay where you are.

There's no point coming to my rescue. There's no point.

Hans, do you copy me?

Hans, please come in.

Brigitte, I copy.

Hans, please come down from the mountain.

Okay. I'll get in touch later.

No, Hans! Come down from that bloody mountain!

Hans, do you hear me? Come down from that bloody mountain!

Come down...

Hans, do you copy? Please stay where you are for the night.

Stay in the tent. We'll come in the morning after the storm.

We'll come up to you, okay?

Friedl was a very close friend of mine.

And whenever I was touring with Friedl,

I always felt so safe. He seemed invincible on the mountain to me.

Friedl was much more cautious than I was back then.

And I survived and he was dead.

It was a long, long night.

Friedl, come on! Let's go!

My friends met me approximately halfway between camp 1 and base camp.

I described to them precisely where Friedl had died.

I gave them my bracelet from Nepal

and asked them to put it on Friedl.

The lightning.

I also asked them

to bury Friedl in a crevasse, if possible.

That way, the glacier would take his body someday.

When you're sitting in the tent, knowing that you've survived,

then it really dawns on you

just how long it can take

until death really comes.

I was sure it would be my last descent from a mountain.

I would never climb up to a summit again.

It was too much. I just wanted to get away.

I just wanted to get down to the valley.

If you climb these mountains, then you know from the start

that the risks are very high.

And then, if something terrible happens,

like losing your friends on the mountain, it's incredibly painful.

And, of course, you keep wondering why.

You look for a reason.

The days after the tragedy were very, very tough.

It's impossible to describe it.

And telling somebody that their loved one won't be coming back

is way harder than anything,

even harder than witnessing the accidents and seeing your friends die.

It's terrible, but breaking the news to someone is even worse

because you know what lies ahead of you.

You try to figure out how to put the first few sentences.

The people who have to hear this news,

their whole life is turned upside down.

Look, there they are.

Look, there they are.

Will you tell her? - Come on, we have to go to them.

Hi. At last!

Fuck.

It's all fucked up.

Friedl was struck by lightning. He's not coming back.

What?

He was struck by lightning.

Never again?

It's true. Friedl isn't coming back.

Karl and Friedl are dead.

What an icefall!

It's a great experience for me

to be here with Hans on the route he climbed 25 years ago.

I've read all his books and I never dreamed this would happen.

And now I hope that we'll make it together

up to the summit of Hans' last eight-thousander.

It's a race against time, because it's rather late in autumn,

the jet stream will be lower, the winds will be stronger.

And the big problem I see here is that we've had a long period of good weather.

So we might get hit by the next rainfall and that's bad.

So we have to hurry up over the next seven to ten days

and prepare the route between camp 2 and 3.

Then we'll improve our chances and be closer to our goal.

And if the winds subside up there, we'll make it to the summit.

When I look back at the 35 years

that I've devoted to this race, I can see that I paid a dear price.

Only three of my eight-thousander expedition partners are still alive.

I have lost so many friends.

And also our sporting rivals, those who competed with us...

They're friends and rivals at the same time.

80 percent of them haven't survived this path.

Alpine mountaineering in its extreme and pure form

means that there are no safety nets.

You have to rely on yourself.

And you can't make the tiniest mistakes, because they can be fatal.

That's why, of the top mountaineers who climb eight-thousanders,

only very few are left.

And if they look back on their careers,

they also have to admit that they had a lot of luck.

Pure luck.

Sometimes there are situations you can't predict.

One person is hit and killed by a rock,

the other survives when it just misses his head and falls into the valley.

You can't even see the crevasses. It's unbelievable.

If it stays like this, I'm pretty pessimistic. - Yes. Stephan, be careful.

There's a crevasse. - Okay.

The wind up there is nice to look at from here. I wouldn't want to be up there.

It'll suffocate you. - It's definitely 100 km/h up there.

Yes, definitely. Maybe even more.

We have a tailwind going up to the summit, but we wouldn't be able to come down.

No. You can't breathe with a wind that strong.

It's like cotton wool. - That won't do.

It's because we've had two weeks of good weather.

And it hasn't been touched. - It's exactly the same. Look.

And the sun has no effect.

If we can start early in the morning when it's still dark,

we can make the first slope in the dark, and avoid the storm.

That's our only chance. I hope the wind up there has subsided.

And I hope the wind has churned up the snow a bit.

If we get to camp 3, then the odds are good that we'll make it.

Exactly. We have to start early. Very, very early.

When I held my newborn daughter in my arms for the first time,

I knew I had responsibilities now.

I was no longer just responsible for myself and my own life.

And that moment helped me to make a decision:

I'm done with the race I've been part of for so long.

I'm done with Alpine climbing.

I think it'd be best to turn back.

Let's go back to camp 2.

I don't like it, but it makes no sense. And it won't get any better.

We've gone as far as we could.

Going on would be a risk and we didn't come here to take risks.

Especially not on this mountain.

I'm glad we turned back.

Now I know why you're still here, despite all the tours you've done.

Turning back is a good idea sometimes. It was the right decision.

I was never interested in the figure 14. I was interested in the route.

I have no interest at all

in setting myself the goal of being the oldest man on an eight-thousander.

No, I'm never going to do that.

My goal is: when I'm 90, to sit on top of my backyard mountain,

on Moosstock, where I started at the age of 8.

Then I'll be happy, because it will be a wonderful full circle.

My mountains will get smaller, and at some point I'll only go for a walk on a meadow.

And I hope I'll be happy.

Subtitling: Mandana Taban taban translating films GmbH, 2019