14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible (2021)

My wife and I walked to Everest base camp in 2006. Carried our own gear too. That was a hard trip.
I got a bit of altitude sickness, my eyes felt like they were going to Pop. It sucks arse.
We hiked kala patthar at 5644M for sun rise which was beautiful. It's right next to the last town (Gorak Shep) on the way to base camp.
And when I say hiked, that's all it is, point yourself up the mountain and start walking.
One thing that really stood out to me was the difference between climbers and mountaineers. (I'm a rock climber)
Mountaineering people reminded me of road cyclist, rude as hell.

This shows in the movie when they found the bloke dieing and asked for help, no body came.
They found a few guys lost on different mountains, no body was there for them and they got left behind..
I don't get that at all.

If you do the Everest hike, do the Cho La pass on the way back!! It is amazing.

Intrinsic said:

I have absolutely zero concept of what a 8,000m mountain looks like. The highest point of Arkansas is 840m. And I once saw Pikes Peak from a few miles away somewhere in Colorado Springs.

Click to expand...

The Himalayas are on another level of scale. Here's a few quick links to scan through to get a sense. Mt. Rainer is the 3rd most prominent summit in the U.S. since it was linked previously. Mountains and their ranges create a perception problem even standing in front of them.

Prominence is a measure of how much the mountain rises up from its surroundings. In Rainer's case the base sits 1200 feet above sea level.
The summit rises to 14,411 (4394 m). Its prominence is 13,200 ft.(4026 m)

An ultra-prominent summit is a summit with at least 1500 meters (4921 feet) of topographic prominence.

Here's the US list - it has photo gallery at the bottom to see a few of them in situation.

Prominent Summits in the US

"Of these 200 most prominent summits of the United States, 84 are located in Alaska, 17 in California, 17 in Nevada, 14 in Washington, 12 in Montana, 11 in Utah, nine in Arizona, seven in Colorado, seven in Hawaii, six in Oregon, four in Wyoming, four in Idaho, four in New Mexico, two in North Carolina, and one each in New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee, Texas and Maine. Four of these peaks lie on the international border between Alaska and British Columbia, four lie on the international border between Alaska and Yukon, and one lies on the state border between Tennessee and North Carolina."

Global List of Prominence

I highly recommend two more short films:

Cold (First winter ascent on Gasherbrum II - 26,354ft, no supplemental oxygen)

K2: The Impossible Descent (First ski descent on K2 - 28,251 ft, no supplemental oxygen)

When we did the trek it was the 10 year anniversary of Rob Hall dieing on the mountain, his family was doing the Walk at the same time.. quite emotional.
Their 10 year old kid was bouncing around the whole way with no effects at all. I was super jealous..
We were fit as at the time too.

I'd love to take my kids there and In 3 years it might be possible when they are old enough.
Youngest with be 9.5ish
When you see how happy the people are with nothing we have it's a real breath of fresh air.
We almost stayed in Nepal to live back then..
Probably should have.

I don't get the using oxygen critisism.

These mountains have death zones, why wouldn't you use all equipment available? It's dangerous enough already and I'm not sure having the luck/genetics to exist in death zones longer is any sort of skill to be condescending about.

Great documentary by the way, was a good recommendation. Blows my mind that K2 and G1/G2 are so remote that they don't even have names.

@Tearsofsoul That's amazing, thanks for sharing.

Using oxygen has always been a controversial topic. It's like bike across country, drive across country, or fly across country, very different experience. In this case, would you rather climb at the mountain level, or at your own level? It can be trained regardless of genetic.

Tearofsoul said:

Using oxygen has always been a controversial topic. It's like bike across country, drive across country, or fly across country, very different experience. In this case, would you rather climb at the mountain level, or at your own level? It can be trained regardless of genetic.

Click to expand...

It seems more comperable to wearing a seatbelt rather than different mode of transport?

Chris said:

It seems more comperable to wearing a seatbelt rather than different mode of transport?

Click to expand...

You've had a lot of terrible takes lately.

Chris said:

It seems more comperable to wearing a seatbelt rather than different mode of transport?

Click to expand...

That's why its controversial. On one hand, you are right its all about reducing the risk for some. But on the other hand, it's about pushing the boundary between what's possible and what's not.

Some people see using oxygen when mountaineering as cheating..

Me, I don't see the issue

Buuuuuttttt .... In the rock climbing world it could be like chipping holds.
People would use a hammer and chisel to make holds bigger on cliffs so they could hold on.
That is cheating!!
While chipping holds is bad and damaged the natural environment you are not damaging the environment when using oxygen.
So maybe a bad reference..

Also.. the amount of rubbish at base camp shocked me and my wife .
The year we were there, the Sherpas carried down over a tonne of soda cans that were dumped.

Also, on the way back down, I did go to the crashed Russian helicopter and took a small part off it haha
Not sure if it still there, it was 16 years ago.

Cho La pass. It's epic.
We hooked up with 2 young Japanese guys to do the pass together. Us and them were traveling unaided so it was a good thing to team up.
There are stories of people going missing in the mountains, yeah right they are just stories right?,


That's me in the middle.
Well, we did the pass and got to a T intersection.
Wife and I pointed one way and they pointed the other.
That's were we left them knowing we were right but wouldn't go that way. They wouldn't listen so had to let it go .
A few hours of freaking out that we were the last people to see them alive ..

Made it to the next town and sitting wondering what to do. ( Still fairly high and brains not on the ball)
Out of nowhere they appear on the mountain over the valley coming down to us.. thank fuck for that.
Book them a room and order hot food for them to be ready when they got to us..
Poor guys were exhausted..

If you go unaided, learn how to read a map. It was stressful.
Funny now though.

Also, don't believe Sherpas when they tell you how long a section of trail takes..
Cho La was a 2 hour trip. It took us 8 hours and got pass by Sherpas a few times.
Sherpas are always in beast mode

Tearofsoul said:

Using oxygen has always been a controversial topic. It's like bike across country, drive across country, or fly across country, very different experience. In this case, would you rather climb at the mountain level, or at your own level? It can be trained regardless of genetic.

Click to expand...

I’m sure training helps but there is no way that training can overcome the genetics of people who have been living for centuries in the Himalayas imo.

There are simply going to be physiologic adaptations that were selected for in that population that were not necessary for the rest of our species.

Training doesn't just help, it is essential. Another piece to that puzzle is long and boring acclimatization.

Genetics on the other hand, does help, but it's not essential. Also keep in mind that the selected group of people who have been living for centuries in the Himalayas do NOT live at 8000m, they live at between 4000-5000m as far as I know. Porters & Sherpa who died from altitude sicknesses DO happen.

Anyway, a better example to say climbing at 8000m with supplemental oxygen is like running marathon with the help of an exoskeleton.