"The deadliest day on the world's most dangerous mountain."
I'm a sucker for documentary films, and The Summit looks insanely intense. It follows a group of people who make an attempt to climb K2. Unfortunately, some of them never made it. 24 people set out on the journey... 11 of them didn't make it back. If I ever try to get adventurous and do something like this, please talk me out of it. The last time I did something crazy I almost died -- in case you're curious, it was an insane mountain biking adventure in Moab Utah.
The movie is set to show at 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and this one is definitely going on my list of must watch films while I'm there. Here's the full synopsis:
In August 2008, twenty-four climbers from several international expeditions converged on High Camp of K2, the last stop before the summit of the most dangerous mountain on earth. Forty-eight hours later, eleven had been killed or had vanished, making it the worst K2 climbing disaster in history.
In a century of assaults on K2, only about 300 people have ever seen the view from the planet's second highest peak. More than a quarter of those who made it didn't live long enough to share the glory, or to tell the tale.
At the heart of The Summit lies a mystery about one extraordinary man, Ger McDonnell. By all accounts, he was faced with a heart-breaking dilemma-- at the very limit of his mortal resources, he encountered a disastrous scene and a moral dilemma: three climbers tangled up in ropes and running out of time. In the death zone, above 8,000 metres, the body is literally dying with each passing second. Morality is skewed 180 degrees from the rest of life. When a climber falls or wanders off the trail, the unwritten code of the mountain is to leave them for dead. Had Ger McDonnell stuck to the climbers' code, he might still be alive.
The Summit is about the very nature of modern adventure. Those who survive carry with them a commodity to sell-- The Story. This one remains contentious and fiercely debated.
Now watch the trailer and tell me this doesn't look like a crazy movie!
THE SUMMIT TRAILER 2 from Nick Ryan on Vimeo.