Encore: K2 - The Savage Mountain I The Death Zone | 2
Against The Odds
Wondery
4.7 • 7.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2024
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An international group of climbers are close to summiting one of the world’s tallest, and most dangerous, mountains. Their goal was to reach the peak by mid-afternoon and get down before dark when temperatures drop to 40 below and the thin air and darkness can leave climbers confused and lost. But problems with the rope line have put them behind and they are using all of their strength to push past the traverse. The summit is so close… but so is nightfall, and not all of them will make it back.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to against the odds early in ad free right now. |
| 0:05.0 | Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundry app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:09.0 | This episode originally aired in 2021. |
| 0:13.0 | It's |
| 0:15.0 | It's |
| 0:17.0 | It's 4.30 p.m. August 1st, 2008. |
| 0:28.0 | Cecilia Scug stands on a vast snow field staring up at the summit ridge of the second tallest mountain in the world. |
| 0:34.8 | She's been climbing non-stop for almost 20 hours except for a short nap at Camp 4. |
| 0:41.0 | But for a moment she forgets her aching muscles. The sight is breathtaking. |
| 0:46.4 | The snow sparkles in the brilliant sunshine and the top of the mountain is finely visible, |
| 0:52.4 | silhouetted against the immaculate blue sky. |
| 0:55.8 | The most dangerous parts of the climb are behind her for now, the icy traverse and the steep |
| 1:01.0 | narrow bottleneck. Now she just needs to put one foot in front of the other and dig in. |
| 1:06.0 | As she makes the slow trek up the 30-degree slope through the deep snow, |
| 1:12.0 | her breathing is labored in the thin air. |
| 1:15.2 | At 28,000 feet, many of the climbers on the mountain are using supplementary oxygen, |
| 1:20.9 | but Cecilia left her bottle below with her husband Rolf. |
| 1:25.0 | Without oxygen, it feels like breathing through a straw with a 10-pound sack of potatoes on her |
| 1:29.8 | stomach. |
| 1:31.2 | But she tries to keep her mind on the goal. |
| 1:34.0 | She turns to her teammate, Lars Nessa. |
| 1:37.2 | Have you ever seen anything so perfect? |
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