The Wormlips Scrapbook

I got this e-mail from MoveOn:

“CNN is now reporting that up to 100,000 people have died from the cyclone that hit Burma. The scale of this disaster is hard to even imagine, and relief is urgently needed. So we wanted to pass along this email from our friends at Avaaz.org (the global online progressive group) letting you know how you can help.”

Trusting that MoveOn knows from a worthy organization, I donated through the Avaaz site: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/burma_cyclone/77.php

Speaking of south Asia, I’m a day away from making my plane reservations. I’ve finally chosen the whitewater trip I want to do and have booked space on it. Actually, I would’ve preferred to run a different river because this one is more dangerous than I’d like, but I couldn’t get other dates to fit my schedule.

Here’s some of what the out-of-print book White Water Nepal says about the trip:

“…Wild and unpopulated with some of the most pristine jungle scenery in Nepal and abundant wildlife… The valley narrows into a series of canyons, the river speeds up, and there are big rapids, one leading into another, almost continuously… This is a trip for expert rafters, and considering the wilderness nature of the terrain, it should not be underestimated.

“The Karnali isn’t a trip for softies: the two-day trek to the start is not hard but neither is it a Sunday afternoon walk… class 4 big white water rapids will work you hard… Dave Allardice says, ‘This is a remote region. A swim in the middle canyon could have serious consequences, as one huge powerful rapid leads straight into the next.’”

Why do I do these things? Don’t tell Mom.

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This incredible film is the original 1953 documentary of the Hillary/Norgay team’s ascent of Everest. I hadn’t realized the expedition had been documented in movie form, and found out only by accident when I discovered it hiding on Side B of the Into the Thin Air of Everest DVD.

The beginning is inauspicious: a classic propaganda film [produced by Countryman Films] with waving Union Jacks and the newly coronated Queen Elizabeth buoyed down the avenue in a carriage borne by those fuzzy-topped marching dudes. Soon, though, patriotism fades to the back as the real story begins.

I think the most powerful thing is the pace. It’s slow. It’s tedious. It’s anything but romantic: the antithesis of its methamphetamine-driven counterpart, Into the Thin Air of Everest. In The Conquest of Everest, the interminable scenes of treacherous crawls over crevasses, vicious winds, backbreaking efforts to axe steps into the ice, life-threatening effects of altitude on breathing and movement … all capture the unrelenting brutality of the experience. Subsequent expeditions have been made much easier because of work done on this trip.

Oddly, I also understand a little more why these people put themselves in such danger and misery to climb a mountain … and the rewards afterward, for those who survive.

Another great thing about the movie is that every phase of the journey is chronicled, from the moment team members first meet to the preparation and testing of climbing equipment to the long trek to base camp to the actual ascent.

I recognized a lot of the scenes that have been excerpted for contemporary documentaries, and what was really fun was seeing the footage that those films leave on the cutting room floor: children and wives of porters watching as the men start up the trail, oceans of rhododendrons, close-ups of glacial rivers, passing flocks of birds… some of the best stuff, if you ask me.

The route they took to Everest Base Camp is roughly the same as what we’re planning if my goddamn foot gets better in the next few minutes, so that was of particular interest to me. Also amazing to see the base camp looking virginal, not yet littered with empty oxygen tanks and whoknowswhatall, as today’s guidebooks show.

Oh, and finally … the music: violins mark the touching moments, while deep brasses sound danger, like the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz. Wonderful!

The unsung hero of this documentary (well, aside from all the Sherpa porters) is the filmmaker, Thomas Stobart, who — invisible to us — endured inhuman conditions, and whose work took patience, courage and a creative eye.

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Poor old Peak 15. It’s like a brilliant woman whom men see only for her perfect body.  Into the Thin Air of Everest: Mountain of Dreams, Mountain of Doom portrays Everest as remarkable mostly because of its recreational opportunities, which afford humans infinite potential to chalk up “firsts”:

• First attempt
• First successful summit
• First via the south
• First by English [Chinese] [American] team
• First without oxygen
• First without porters
• First solo
• First American woman to summit without dying (surname: Allison!)
• First climb in the name of international peace…

It reminds me of those toys I used to see when M was little: Baby’s First Purse, Baby’s First Tackle Box, Baby’s First Golf Clubs, Baby’s First Laptop Computer Playset, Baby’s First Cell Phone, Baby’s First Baby…

So, back to the movie: the production style is offensive, produced in Fear Factor style with driven techno music and dizzying sequences of oddly angled images. The script bugged me, too: it kept referring to the mountain as though it’s a scheming enemy to be subdued: climbers attack it, assault it, conquer it.

On another level, though, the film is worthwhile. It’s the only one I’ve seen in which a present-day Sir Edmund Hillary appears, and there are interviews with a bunch of other climbers important in Everest’s mountaineering history. The ones active before the 70s are pretty cool people: true adventurers and athletes. But the newer crowd appears vacuous. Some are there as entrepreneurs, leading the inexperienced up the mountain for $60,000 a head. Others seem more dazzled by the fancy, high-tech climbing gear than by climbing.

Anyway, for the Fear Factor generation there’s footage of people with faces black with frostbite, and the last minutes of various people shortly before they toppled to their deaths, and some of the frozen corpses that speckle the mountainside. One in five people dies in trying to reach the summit.

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