A series of stories and a short video I prepared last month at Everest Base Camp have finally come out. Here is the top to the main story:
EVEREST BASE CAMP, Tibet - Wim Hof likes extreme challenges. The Dutchman has held his breath under polar ice for more than six minutes and run a half marathon barefoot in the snow. This year he's climbing Mount Everest - in shorts.
Hof, who goes by the nickname "The Iceman," is far from alone in seeking to conquer the world's tallest mountain and garner some publicity en route. Also on the mountain this year are a Norwegian who lost his arms in an electrical accident and a Canadian with an artificial heart valve.
The violent and icy landscape of Mount Everest has become a magnet for a blend of commercial interests, individual achievement and runaway vanity, turning the peak into a venue of bravery and folly, a place where egos rise in thin air and life can evanesce like oxygen.
To read more, click here.
Another two stories touch on the physical travails of climbing in extreme altitudes and the macabre scene near the summit of the world’s highest mountain.
EVEREST BASE CAMP, Tibet - On the high reaches of Mount Everest, the air is so thin that the human body begins to shut down.
Blood thickens and becomes sluggish. Dehydration is a constant threat. Delirium can strike rapidly. A desire to sit down and fall asleep, even in severe cold, can intensify.
Click here to read more.
EVEREST BASE CAMP, Tibet - To reach the summit of Mount Everest, climbers must ascend through a field of corpses - the bodies of climbers who didn't get off the mountain safely.
Frozen solid, the dead climbers are too heavy to remove easily from the treacherous high slopes. Some perch eerily on rocks; others lie stiff in caves.
Story continues here.
I and a colleague prepared this short video and graphics editors created this aerial map and slide show about Mount Everest.
Now, those who have been following this blog know that I encountered serious problems in Tibet, ultimately ending in a call into the Foreign Ministry for a formal reproach. I want to make clear that the purpose of my trip was to do the stories above. I asked for formal permission. I was not granted it. China is a sovereign nation and can block anyone it wants from going anywhere it deems inappropriate. That said, why do you think China would not want a reporter going to do the stories I did, cited above, from Mount Everest?
The video was a nice touch. Watching and hearing you gasp for air really brought home the altitude issue, and the scenery is fantastic. I really must make the trip myself, though I've heard Beijing likes freelancers even less.
Posted by: Chris | May 20, 2007 at 11:59 PM
They didn't want harm to come to you :)
Posted by: Jimmy | May 21, 2007 at 10:31 PM
Well, you did have a history of working with Student for Free Tibet (SFT), and coincidentally, despite your claim of no prior knowledge, 5 members from SFT were again staging a flag unfurling in the Himalaya Base Camp you were visiting.
I am sorry but Public Security Bureau seem to have a very good reason to be suspicious. Maybe you need to inform PSB you no longer maintain a working relationship with SFT, and any future run-in with SFT flag unfurling will be purely coincidental.
http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/china/2006/06/the_news_media_.html
Posted by: bingster | May 22, 2007 at 01:00 AM
Okay, bingster, I won't delete your posting. But your suggestion that I have a "history of working with Students for a Free Tibet" is not based in any fact. I and several other curious foreign correspondents in Beijing once showed up outside the Beijing railway station for one of their banner unfurlings. I wrote a blog about it that was quite critical. I've also showed up at the White House for an event or two with President Bush. Does that give me a "history of working" with him? I've visited Shining Path rebels in prisons in Peru and cocaine traffickers in Colombia on different stories. So I guess I have a "history of working" with them, too. I've interviewed a spokesman for Hamas. I confess. I'm a journalist. I'll gladly have a history of working with anyone who might lead me to where there is news.
Posted by: Tim | May 22, 2007 at 01:37 AM
Acknowledging that "China is a sovereign nation", you still went where you were not allowed to. As a guest, the least you could do is to show some respect for the regulations in your host country. It's not for you to decide whether it's a good reg or a bad one. Foreigners in the U.S. are prohibited to do a lot things, sometimes perfectly unharmful things like taking the patent bar exam, not to mention working in a national laboratory. If someone does things he is not supposed to, he will lose his legal status and practically never be able to get into U.S. again. Yet you seem to be living comfortably in Beijing.
Posted by: Lina | May 22, 2007 at 02:06 PM
It seems I can't edit my own comment.
"It's not for you to decide whether it's a good reg or a bad one." I took it back. What I really meant is, good reg or bad one, it's not for you to decide which one to follow.
Posted by: Lina | May 22, 2007 at 02:20 PM
Fkn fair play to you mate. I'd like to do the base camp jaunt myself at some point in the not too distant. Give me a shout if you have a spare evening in BJ for a beer and a chat.
Posted by: TaiTai | June 03, 2007 at 11:48 AM