''Skiing Everest'' is a 2009 American adventure documentary directed by

Les Guthman Les Guthman is an American director, writer, editor and production executive, who has the distinction of both having produced three of the ''20 Top Adventure Films of All Time'', according to ''Men's Journal'' magazine, and having won the National ...

and Mike Marolt; written by Les Guthman, and featuring high-altitude ski mountaineers Mike Marolt, Steve Marolt, John Callahan, Jim Gile,

Hans Kammerlander Hans Kammerlander (born 6 December 1956, Sand in Taufers, South Tyrol, Italy) is an Italian mountaineer, living in Ahornach, a hamlet nearby Sand in Taufers. He has climbed 11 of the 14 8000m peaks. In 1984, together with Reinhold Messner he ...

, Chris Davenport, Laura Bakos, Mark Newcomb. The film also features Fredrik Ericsson, who died skiing on K2 in 2010. Filmed by Mike Marolt over ten years, ''Skiing Everest'' tells the story of a group of friends, led by Marolt and his twin brother Steve, who grew up in

Aspen, Colorado Aspen is the List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city that is the county seat and the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population ...

, and went on to become the first skiers from the Western Hemisphere to ski from above when they skied from the summit of

Shisha Pangma Shishapangma, or Shishasbangma or Xixiabangma ( zh, s=希夏邦马, p=Xī xià bāng mǎ), is the 14th-highest mountain in the world, at above sea level. The lowest 8,000 metre peak, it is located entirely within Tibet. Name Geologist Toni Ha ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

in 2000, and then tried the highest slopes in the world on

Mount Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...

and

Cho Oyu Cho Oyu ( Nepali: चोयु; ; ) is the sixth-highest mountain in the world at above sea level. Cho Oyu means " Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan. The mountain is the westernmost major peak of the '' Khumbu'' sub-section of the Mahalangur Him ...

. The film follows the Marolts and their childhood friends Jim Gile, and John Callahan, who was an Olympic cross-country skier, on skiing expeditions into the

death zone In mountaineering, the death zone refers to altitudes above which the pressure of oxygen is insufficient to sustain human life for an extended time span. This point is generally considered to be , where atmospheric pressure is less than . The co ...

above 8,000 m, without using oxygen. ''Skiing Everest'' also tells the history of high-altitude skiing, dating back to the 1930s, and includes interviews with Hans Kammerlander, who was the first to ski from the summit of Everest; Laura Bakos, the first woman to ski from the summit of an 8000-meter peak; and Chris Davenport, the two-time world extreme skiing champion, who is an avid ski mountaineer as well. And it tells the Marolts' personal story: the sons of U.S. Olympic skier Max Marolt, who grew up in Aspen, before it became an internationally famous ski destination and who took to skiing in the hope of escaping what was an isolated, decaying former mining town. ''Skiing Everest'' was shown in film festivals and theaters in 2009-2011 and was bought by

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

in July 2011 for broadcast in the United States and Europe. It debuted on ESPN Classic in November 2011 with six primetime broadcasts over the weekend of November 18–20.Skiing Everest Weekend on ESPN Classic
/ref> ''Skiing Everest'' was converted from 2D to 3D in 2012 by Blue Hemisphere 3D. It will premiere in December 2012 and be released in theaters and on 3D

Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...

in January 2013.

References

External links

* * {{IMDb title, 1359029
Denver Post

2009 films 2000s English-language films Climbing and mountaineering films

See also

References

External links