Oh, God, where to start. It isn't Rainer, or even Everest. It is an extremely remote location with limited access; just reaching K2 takes about a week, on foot, packing all your gear. People do not helicopter in, unless it's the military, airlifting an injured climber. The base camp alone is at over 16,000 FT; the trek in is part of a climber's acclimation process. So the scene of the BC party, with multiple wood fires for ambiance, is silly. There are no trees, no wood anywhere nearby. (Maybe the billionaire could afford to have packers trek it in, or got the military to fly in a helicopter full of firewood.) Speaking of helicopters, maybe a stripped-down Llama equipped for high altitude might get to a climber on a mountain, but, an injured climber can wait for some time before even getting a ride out of base camp there. The reality just goes downhill from the opening scenes. Almost everyone behaves like idiots; climbing K2 is exciting and dangerous enough without having multiple climbers packing nitro for whatever ridiculous reason (perhaps they need more avalanches), and, and, and. I liked Scott Glen's character, but when he and Chris find Scott's frozen enamorata, he says they're at the vertical limit, yet they are walking around and breathing as if at sea level. Emphasis on level - the architecture of K2 at that altitude is very steep- unless they've found a snow cave inside the frightening Balcony serac. I'm sure others will have much more relevant criticisms than my poor observations. The mountain scenery is nice, though.
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starry-messenger
9 years ago
I'm not a mountaineer but I do know several people who have driven them. This movie seems fake. There was no mention of cannibalism. Not a hint. Also where are all the Yeti? There were not even yeti foot print although that could be explained by frequent avalanches. Perhaps they were scared away or even injured by the constant avalanches. They may have been scared by the exploding boot.
These avalanches, which the movie disparately attempted to down play were caused by Global Warming. Al Gore had warned of this. The good news was with the rising sea level the Vertical Limit was several thousand feet higher and Scott Glenn did not need his pressure suit from the Right Stuff.
Most real mountaineers are not as smart or as safety conscience as the people in this film. Few of them have the foresight to carry nitroglycerin which can be very useful on a mountainside.
Besides downplaying all the avalanches and cannibalism, this film tried to make mountain climbing appear much safer than it really is. Notice that several mountaineers survived the film. This may have been for a sequel
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