Everest '96: Trapped in the Death Zone | Mountain Madness | 1

Against The Odds

Wondery

Cassie De Pecol, History, Society & Culture, Dolby, Mike Corey, Dolby Atmos, Atmos

4.7 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In May 1996, two expert mountaineers and their clients set off to climb the world’s tallest peak — Mount Everest. Many of the clients have no high altitude experience and have paid upwards of $65,000 to be guided up the mountain by competing companies: Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness. As the two expeditions prepare to make their summit attempt, hurricane-force winds threaten to end their climb. Leaders, Rob Hall and Scott Fisher, must make a decision: turn around, or keep pushing for the top?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wundery Plus subscribers can listen to Against the Odds early in ad free right now.
0:05.0	Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery App or on Apple Podcasts.
0:09.0	A listener note.
0:11.0	Against the Odds uses dramatizations that are based on true events.
0:15.7	Some elements, including dialogue, may be invented, but everything is based on research. Doug Hansen grips the rope and pulls himself up a steep snow-covered incline, one agonizing step at a time.
0:41.0	He's near the back of a long line of mountain climbers.
0:45.0	A freezing wind swirls around him,
0:48.0	and the cold cuts through his layers of protective gear.
0:52.0	Doug pauses, takes three breaths and then keeps moving.
0:58.0	He's so close to the top. He can't stop now. The 45 year old postal worker has been climbing
1:06.8	mountains for 11 years now and all that time he's dreamt of being where he is right now, ascending the tallest
1:15.8	mountain in the world. This is Everest. And if he can climb just 300 feet higher he'll be standing on the summit.
1:27.0	Doug can feel himself getting dizzy.
1:30.0	He's tall and lean and in excellent condition.
1:34.0	But at 28,000 feet, the air has about a third of the oxygen he's used to.
1:40.0	Despite the breathing mask he's wearing, his body is crying out for air.
1:46.7	It wasn't easy for him to get here. He paid a hefty price to join this expedition,
1:51.8	led by a 34-year year old New Zealander named Rob Hall, a mountaineering
1:57.0	legend who submitted Everest four times.
2:00.7	To raise the $65,000 expedition fee, Doug worked the night shift at the post office so he could take on construction jobs during the day.
2:10.0	He even took out a second mortgage on a Seattle home, but as he pulls himself up onto a small dome of ice, he knows it was all worth it.
2:21.0	He's made it to the South Summit, not too far below the main summit of Everest.
	...

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