A Movie “The Summit” 10/30/13
October 30, 2013
K2 is an extension of the northwestern Himalayan Mountain range and is located between Pakistan and China. It is known to be the second most murderous mountain in the world, the fatality rate is one in four climbers. There are only about 300 climbers who have reached the summit, and have seen the view from the planet’s second highest peak. More than a quarter of those who made to the top didn’t live long enough to share their stories because many accidents have happened on their descent. Of course, this high risk mountain has been attracting many climbers for their challenge spirit. In August 2008, 25 climbers from several international expeditions were at the Camp 2 to get ready for their dream K2 summit climbing. 48 hours after they started to ascend to the summit, 11 people had been killed or had been vanished. This incident makes the worst accident in K2 history. This film was made by Ireland Film Crews, a director Nick Ryan, and features Ger McDonnell as a legendary climber who vanished in this incident, and portrays the surviving members around him. It is a strong movie to tell the emotional story behind this horrible accident.
The incident has been criticized by their unwise planning to attack this notorious mountain. And I see that too. It is very costly to prepare for this kind of climbing and those climbers went through the lengthy preparation to come to the base camp. And somehow at the last moment to attack the top, they did not have principle rules figured out. I think the bad thing led to the next bad thing, and went on to the point no one could control the situation. And the people died one by one. On the way to the summit, American expedition team is the only one who decided to give up the summit after they realized their ascending timing was too slow to make to the top, and to come down before dark. You can read about this incident in more details on internet. This movie may not be showing in many theaters, but if you are close to one of them please go to see it.