NOVA Online | Everest Quest | Assault on the Summit

Assault on the Summit
by Liesl Clark, Broughton Coburn, Audrey Salkeld, and Charlie Houston

"I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and the summits."—Reinhold Messner

Getting the News from Everest
Letters from the mountain, received weeks after they were written, are now replaced with instant communication by satellite phone. A call wakes us up with a start in the middle of the night: bad news from Base Camp. Information and greetings are rushed and frantic, and the connection goes dead because the generator powering the satellite phone gives out. We call back and finally get through. Members of Base Camp put the phone up to a radio so we can talk with the team at Camp 3—direct communication with an exhausted voice at 24,000 feet on Everest: "We're all fine and will return to Base Camp in 2 days—over," says David.

mountain scenic

The MacGillivray-Freeman IMAX/IWERKS Science Expedition on Everest has turned back to Base Camp after taking part in a massive rescue effort on the mountain. Eight climbers are now reported dead and several more are suffering from severe frost bite and hypoxia, which is lack of oxygen. Rather than reporting on the rescue effort, which you can read about in depth in our Newsflashes, we will explore the physiological effects of altitude on the body to shed some light on the factors that may have contributed to the recent deaths on Everest.

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Photos: (1-2) courtesy Robert Schauer.

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