Darjeeling, June 6: The highest mountain on earth is set to make a comeback in an IMAX film featuring one of Darjeeling’s favourite sons, Jamling Norgay Sherpa.
Return to Everest, the world premiere of which is scheduled for March 4, 2009, will focus on the rescue mission that followed the 1996 Everest disaster in which 12 climbers died. Eight of them were buried alive within a span of 24 hours after being caught in a storm above 26,000 feet.
The film will be produced and directed by IMAX film-maker Greg Macgillivray. IMAX (short for Image Maximum) is a film format that has the capacity to display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film display systems.
Macgillivray’s first film on Everest was shot in 1996, when his team had to rescue some of the victims of the May 10 tragedy.
The 1996 IMAX team included Jamling, whose father Tenzing Norgay took part in the first successful ascent of Everest. Jamling’s team-mates included Araceli Segarra, the first Spanish woman to climb Everest, and the American Ed Viesturs, who has summitted all the 14 highest peaks of the world without supplementary oxygen. All three will feature in the new film.
Recently, an eight-member team, which included Jamling and Segarra, went a little above the base camp of Everest where the two climbers recounted their experience of the disaster and the subsequent events. Viesturs will join the group during the next few shoots.
“We were in Camp II (at 21,300 ft) on May 10, 1996,” recalled Jamling, back in Darjeeling after the shooting. “Since around 30 climbers were trying to reach the summit on that particular day, our team decided to wait for the traffic to ease.”
A thumb rule for all Everest expeditions is to start climbing down by 1 pm. “The weather in the afternoon becomes unpredictable. However, on that fateful day we saw climbers going up till 3 pm,” Jamling told The Telegraph.
The storm broke soon after, catching the climbers by surprise. When the storm ended the next day, the IMAX team decided to abort its own mission and rescue the stranded mountaineers.
“We finally went up to Camp IV (at 26,000 feet) and rescued about a dozen people,” said Jamling.
After the rescue mission, the team did finally make it to the summit on May 23. It remains Jamling’s only ascent to the top of the world.
Apart from the 1996 IMAX team’s experience, the film will also focus on the changes that have taken place on Everest in the past decade. There will also be an aerial shot of the summit taken from a helicopter.
“The lives of the Sherpas have improved a lot. They are getting paid well and are more educated and well versed in climbing techniques. Even the mountain is much cleaner now,” Jamling said.
(TheTelegraph)
