Everest Expedition: Decision Time at the Summit

In 1991 Mount Everest is a very different place than it is today. A young American arrives at the remote outpost of Base Camp intent on tackling the planet’s tallest peak. Using the last of his student loan, Dan Mazur has blagged his way onto a Soviet climbing team. But his unlikely friendship with the group will come under the severest strain as things unravel on the mountain. When his partner collapses near the summit, Dan must make a terrible choice. What happens next will change him forever… A Noiser production, written by Angus Gavan McHarg. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Shop Black Friday appliance savings and get up to an extra $1,250 off select appliance purchases like GE Profile. Plus, free delivery on appliance purchases of $398 or more. Make life easier with the fridge that doubles as your personal kitchen assistant. Or upgrade your laundry room with the UltraFresh Vent System Plus Front Load Washer. So your clothes stay fresh after every single wash. Shop Black Friday appliance savings with fast, free delivery at The Home Depot. Offer valid November 4th through December 2nd at participating stores and at HomeDepot.com. U.S. only. See store online for details.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 0:34Speaker 03

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from Star.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  Filmed for IMAX.

• 0:38Speaker 03

  Make them remember you.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.

• 0:48John Hopkins?

  It's October the 10th, 1991. Golden light shimmers across the snow-covered Himalayas. Vast glaciers weave down valleys, jagged rivers of ice frozen in time.

• 1:03John Hopkins?

  Above all, a titan looms: Everest.

• 1:09John Hopkins?

  Epic tales are etched into this mountain, written by those who dare to climb it.

• 1:15John Hopkins?

  In the highest reaches, 26,000 feet up, the air is ice-thin. Wind and snow swirl all around. The temperature is minus 30 degrees Celsius and plummets further as the sun sets.

• 1:32John Hopkins?

  Just below the summit, a lone climber trudges on the perilous slopes. 28-year-old Dan Mazur is a tiny grain on an endless rock face.

• 1:45John Hopkins?

  Not long before, he was descending the mountain, attempting to escape the freezing peak before nightfall.

• 1:53John Hopkins?

  But he has had to turn back around, because his climbing partner, Raman, is missing. Somehow, he's fallen so far behind that Dan has lost track of him.

• 2:05John Hopkins?

  Dan steadies himself against the rising winds and scans the snowy ridge for his friend. In the twilight, he is nowhere to be seen.

• 2:16Speaker 05

  We're hiking down, it got dark and got really windy. We had our headlamps on. And then I didn't see Romain's headlamp. And so I went back up there to see if I could find him and he was laying in the snow.

• 2:31John Hopkins?

  Dan scrambles towards his fallen companion. He drops to his knees and tries to shake Romain awake. His headlamp begins to flicker. Low battery.

• 2:42Speaker 05

  I was like, "Romain, are you okay?" I wasn't sure what happened to him and I started like checking his oxygen mask and checking mine and then I think I realized that his oxygen had run out.

• 2:56John Hopkins?

  Dan rapidly straps his oxygen mask over his friend's mouth, leaving his own face exposed to Everest's icy wrath. But Romain is still not moving. Dan tries to lift him up and he crumbles back down into the snow.

• 3:11John Hopkins?

  Time is running out.

• 3:15John Hopkins?

  The nearest camp is over an hour away and the route is narrow and jagged, often falling away on both sides into a glacial abyss. One wrong step would be fatal.

• 3:28John Hopkins?

  Dan's survival training kicks into gear. He starts to dig next to Romain, clawing at the bone-chilling snow, every breath cutting through his lungs. Dan hauls Romain into the snow hole, a makeshift shelter to keep him semi-protected from the freezing wind. He barricades Romain behind bags and two oxygen tanks, then curls up against him for warmth.

• 3:53John Hopkins?

  The situation is dire. Romain is in serious trouble and soon Dan could be too.

• 4:00John Hopkins?

  Deep in Everest's so-called "death zone," tens of thousands of feet up, he has an impossible choice to make.

• 4:08Speaker 05

  Should I stay up there with Romain and would I be alive in the morning? Or should I go down?

• 4:18Speaker 05

  I decided to go down.

• 4:27John Hopkins?

  Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives.

• 4:49John Hopkins?

  In this episode, we meet mountaineer Dan Mazur. Dan is no ordinary climber. To many around the world, he's the stuff of legend. In 1991, at the tender age of 28, he has already summited the highest peaks in the Americas, climbed all over the Soviet Union, and now wants to conquer the Himalayas.

• 5:11John Hopkins?

  But things don't go to plan.

• 5:14John Hopkins?

  After blagging his way onto his first Everest expedition, Dan and his climbing partner are thrown into enormous danger, battling the extreme hostility of the world's highest mountain.

• 5:26Speaker 05

  I couldn't feel my fingers or my toes, and I laid down, and I was crying, and I just realized like, Roman is dead right up there, and this is where I'm gonna die.

• 5:39John Hopkins?

  As exhaustion tightens its grip, will the elements engulf him? Can he fight his way to safety? And was it the right decision to leave his friend behind? I'm John Hopkins. From Noiser, this is Real Survival Stories.

• 6:20John Hopkins?

  It's late September 1991, in a climbing store in Kathmandu. Amidst the busy streets of Nepal's capital, a young, American climber lingers around ropes, poles, helmets, and snow jackets.

• 6:35John Hopkins?

  Soft chimes, muffled motorbike exhausts, and the scent of tea filter in from outside.

• 6:42John Hopkins?

  Dan Mazur, however, is not here for the equipment.

• 6:47John Hopkins?

  He wants to join an expedition to the Himalayas. He's been told that hanging around a climbing shop is the way to do it. But today, much like yesterday, is a slow day. The shopkeeper gives Dan a wry smile, as if to say, "Maybe soon."

• 7:05John Hopkins?

  The door swings open. A large, grizzled man enters the store and heads towards the hiking boots. The shopkeeper calls Dan over. Pointing out the stocky, graying customer, he whispers:

• 7:20Speaker 05

  "That guy there is going to Everest." And I looked at him and I could tell he was a Russian climber because I'd just been in the Soviet Union and I knew how they dressed and everything. I went up to him and I was like, "Are you gonna climb a mountain?" And he's like, "Yeah, we're going to Everest." And I was like, "Really? Could I go with you?" And he said, "I don't know. Come to our hotel and meet our leader."

• 7:45John Hopkins?

  Finally, this could be a chance to climb the world's highest mountain. It's an opportunity too good to miss.

• 7:56John Hopkins?

  During his early years, Dan always sought out adventure in the wilderness, far away from his childhood home of Deerfield, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

• 8:05Speaker 05

  So I grew up in a really flat, boring place, so I wanted to be in more of a hilly place. I grew up on stories of my grandfather, who was kind of my hero. And he had great stories about being in the wilderness. As a young lad, I spent a lot of time in the summers in Canada in canoes and we used to paddle our canoes everywhere. We thought people that would carry any heavy weight on their back and hike up a hill were really complete idiots. Why would you do that? Why would you carry a huge sack on your back and hike up a hill when you could just canoe there?

• 8:39John Hopkins?

  But after finishing high school, Dan arrived at the University of Montana and began to understand why people fall in love with climbing.

• 8:48John Hopkins?

  On his very first day, whilst most students settled into their accommodation, Dan trekked up the nearby Mount Sentinel, a challenging 5,000-foot peak.

• 9:01Speaker 05

  I mean, it takes your breath away when you see these amazing views to look out across the whole massive valley and spot where you've come from way down there. It's a tiny dot. The following weekend, someone had a car and we decided to go to the local national park, which was a couple hours away called Glacier National Park. And we went up there and climbed up to Gunsight Pass. I was doing those things right from the beginning, right from the first day at school. It was just something that I wanted to do. I love the outdoors and it was something that I could do with my own two legs.

• 9:45John Hopkins?

  By the 1990s, climbing became Dan's raison d'etre. After summiting a few local peaks, he climbed Mount Denali, North America's highest mountain. Not long afterwards, South America beckoned. Dan traveled to the Andes to scale the tallest mountain in all of America's Aconcagua in Argentina.

• 10:05Speaker 05

  Climbing a mountain or going out on a big ocean or floating down a roaring river, it's almost like a way of going to church, closer to God or closer to nature or nature is God or, you know, I think that's something that a lot of people would share in those kind of outdoor experiences.

• 10:27John Hopkins?

  Dan has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. A chance meeting in January 1991 kickstarted his journey to the Himalayas. In the university laundry room, Dan struck up a conversation with an interesting exchange student.

• 10:42Speaker 05

  We were talking and he told me he was from Siberia and I had read that there were some 7,000 meter peaks in the Soviet Union. And then he said that he had some friends who were part of a club in Siberia.

• 10:56John Hopkins?

  After exchanging a series of emails with this Siberian climbing club, Dan flew out that summer to join his new buddies scaling enormous peaks in the Soviet Union. The pinnacle of which was summiting the Kuzenevskaya mountain in Tajikistan, more than 23,000 feet high, Dan's greatest climb yet.

• 11:18John Hopkins?

  But there's more to come. With the last of his student loan, he headed to New Delhi in order to reach the most formidable mountain range in the world, the Himalayas.

• 11:29Speaker 05

  I met a person in the youth hostel who mentioned they had just come from Nepal. I hadn't really thought about that. And then they told me about it and I went to Nepal on a bus. And then I rocked up in Kathmandu after a few weeks.

• 11:47John Hopkins?

  To explore the mountains, however, Dan needs to obtain a permit. And the best way to get one of those is to join a climbing group.

• 11:55John Hopkins?

  Dan has chatted to tea vendors, he's pinned flyers on restaurant notice boards, and he's lingered around the city's many mountaineering shops. But no opportunities have come his way. That is, until a grisly Soviet Georgian strolls into one of his climbing store hangouts. Dan's picked up some basic Russian and figures now is the perfect time to use it.

• 12:17Speaker 05

  And he was like, where are you from? And I said, I'm from America, but I've just been climbing in the Soviet Union. I named a couple of the mountains that I climbed. He's like, oh, wow.

• 12:27John Hopkins?

  Roman is a hard-nosed but friendly 54-year-old.

• 12:32John Hopkins?

  Impressed by Dan's exploits, he invites him back to the Russian Embassy Hotel to meet the team. Roman is a veteran mountaineer who is attempting to become the first Georgian national to summit Everest. And if he succeeds, he'll become the second oldest person ever to climb the world's highest mountain.

• 12:53Speaker 05

  So I went to his hotel and then I met the team, the leader and everybody. And they were like, there's no way you can't. I told him my story, you know, I was in the Soviet Union climbing these peaks. And they're like, there's no way you can't join us.

• 13:06John Hopkins?

  The climb of a lifetime is slipping through Dan's fingers. But he might just have an ace up his sleeve.

• 13:14Speaker 05

  Then I realized that I had in my pocket, I had a card, a business card, that one of the people on the trip had given me when I was in the Soviet Union. And they looked at the card, they flipped it over, studied it. And they were like, how do you know this person? I was like, well, he was like our guide. They said, oh, you know, this is him and you climbed with him? And I was like, uh huh.

• 13:39John Hopkins?

  The Soviet team sends Dan out of the room so they can discuss.

• 13:45John Hopkins?

  An anxious wait ensues.

• 13:47Speaker 05

  And then after a while, they said, okay, you can come back in. And then they said, okay, he can go.

• 13:57John Hopkins?

  Once again, right place, right time. Using the last of his money to get his name on the climbing permit, everything is set.

• 14:06John Hopkins?

  And just four days later, Dan finds himself standing in the vast, frozen valley of Everest Base Camp, staring up at the highest mountain on Earth.

• 14:18Speaker 00

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• 14:47Speaker 01

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games!

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Filmed for IMAX.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Make them remember you.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Leaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.

• 15:06John Hopkins?

  Fifty million years ago, the Indian subcontinent crashed into the Eurasian tectonic plate, driving the vast seafloor upwards and creating the colossal Himalayan mountain range.

• 15:21John Hopkins?

  Embedded inside a subrange, which runs along the China-Nepal border, sits the goddess-mother-of-the-world Everest.

• 15:31John Hopkins?

  Layers of limestone, shale, and marine fossils are woven into the bedrock of the mountain, revealing its ancient oceanographic origins.

• 15:42John Hopkins?

  The climate on Everest is incredibly harsh: freezing temperatures, high winds, and, in the upper reaches, blizzards, avalanches, and low oxygen levels.

• 15:53John Hopkins?

  The first serious attempt to climb Everest was made 100 years ago, in 1924, by British mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. They never made it back.

• 16:05John Hopkins?

  It was only in 1953 that Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary became the first climbers to reach the summit. Since then, Everest has drawn thousands of climbers.

• 16:17John Hopkins?

  In October 1991, it's Dan Mazur's turn.

• 16:26John Hopkins?

  Over the next few days at base camp, the team prepare for their ascent, organizing equipment, carrying out practice climbs, and acclimatizing themselves to the high altitude. The team consists of seven Soviets and, including Dan, three Americans. It's a remarkable group.

• 16:45Speaker 05

  I realized that I was on the Soviet national climbing team, and these people were like supermen. They were incredible. They would skip camps. So they would go from base camp to camp two, skipping over camp one. But I was not incredible like that. I was just a normal climber.

• 17:08John Hopkins?

  The south route up Everest consists of four camps before reaching the summit. Climbers first face the treacherous Kumbu Icefall, a shifting glacier with deep crevasses and towering ice sheets.

• 17:23John Hopkins?

  Next, they'll head across a flat valley and up the steep Lotse Faced the South Co, the fourth and final camp before the summit. But difficulties start to arise almost immediately. A French Nepalese group, who they meet at base camp, ask Dan's team for $300 each to use their trail up the Kumbu Icefall. Short on cash, the Soviets refuse. Subsequently, they spend two days fixing their own route up. However, an explosive avalanche rips through the mountains and destroys the potential route. Fortunately, nobody is climbing at the time.

• 18:05John Hopkins?

  But it means the team has to scramble together all the cash they can and return to the French Nepalese group with their tails between their legs. Among the crags, craters, and colossal slopes of Everest, things can yo-yo very quickly.

• 18:21John Hopkins?

  It's a lot for Dan and Raman, who are both finding it difficult to keep up with the pace of the other climbers.

• 18:28John Hopkins?

  It earns Dan a casually sexist nickname.

• 18:32Speaker 05

  The leader came into the dining tent one evening in between vodka-drinking sessions and said that they called me Daniela. They didn't call me Dan or Daniel. I was called Daniela, the feminine version of my name. And they said Daniela and Raman would be climbing together. And I thought to myself, why would that be? And I realized that was because we were considered the dynamic duo of not being able to climb Everest.

• 19:08John Hopkins?

  In his mid-50s, Raman is no longer a speedy climber, but he is a very experienced one.

• 19:15John Hopkins?

  He and Dan take the gibes from their team with grace and are quickly bonded together, enjoying the adventure despite the challenges. One of which is the equipment. It becomes clear that the Soviet climbing team's gear is far from cutting-edge.

• 19:33Speaker 05

  So they produced this kind of like gray dome tent, like nylon, but it had no poles. They couldn't find the poles. So I scrounge around base camp and I found some bamboo stakes or wands, as we call them, and I made the poles by duct taping the bamboo together. So we had a tent.

• 19:54John Hopkins?

  Despite their slow speed and sub-par equipment, Dan and Raman prepare as best they can for the treacherous path ahead.

• 20:03John Hopkins?

  With a clear route finally established, the team splits into pairs. The first climbers start their ascent on October 3rd.

• 20:12John Hopkins?

  Ready or not, four days later on October 7th, Dan and Raman set off, facing the biggest challenge of their lives.

• 20:27John Hopkins?

  It's 2 AM on October the 10th, 1991. The South Col, a barren, wind-scouted plateau 26,000 feet up. The final camp before the summit of Everest.

• 20:42John Hopkins?

  Dan and Ramon struggle to get comfortable in their makeshift tent as a storm wails outside.

• 20:49John Hopkins?

  It's just the two of them now, having climbed at their own steady pace. But after three punishing days, the end is in sight.

• 21:00John Hopkins?

  They discuss plans for the final push. From the South Col camp, climbers typically start hiking up to Everest's peak at around midnight. But the conditions tonight are poor, so Dan and Ramon are having to wait. Though delaying for too long could mean getting caught in the darkness on the way back down. Something to avoid.

• 21:22Speaker 05

  And we looked out of the tent at 2:00 in the morning and it was really cold and really windy. It just looked nasty and so we decided to go back to sleep. So we got up at around 5:30 when we could see the wind had dropped a little, so we decided to go for the top and we started going up to the summit. We left around 6:30 and we hiked and it was a beautiful morning. We hiked up in the sunshine.

• 21:51John Hopkins?

  The bright new day beckons the men to the top.

• 21:56John Hopkins?

  With oxygen tanks strapped to their backs and masks over their faces, Dan and Ramon trek up towards the South Summit, a high point on the southeast ridge. The route, narrow and jagged, often falls away steeply on both sides into a vast icy chasm.

• 22:15John Hopkins?

  Known as Everest's death zone, at this altitude, there is insufficient oxygen to sustain human life for long. Nevertheless, on this clear October morning, the world unfolds beneath Dan in an extraordinary panorama of pointed peaks and endless sky. His climbing partner, however, is struggling.

• 22:37Speaker 05

  From climbing with Roman for a few days, I'd come to realize that he didn't have a water bottle, that he was part of the Soviet national climbing team, and they thought you should just bring a little stove, and whenever you needed to make water, you should make some, like, strong tea and drink that and then keep going. So I learned from, you know, being with Roman, I'm like, I knew from climbing other peaks, like, this guy needs a water bottle. He didn't have any snacks, so I brought chocolate for him. So I would stop along the way on the climb, you know, give him water, give him food, like, "Okay, Roman, drink this water, you know, chew this chocolate, you're gonna need this."

• 23:22John Hopkins?

  With Dan coaxing Roman along, they keep climbing. The bright sunshine and blue sky hold until late afternoon, guiding the two men along the slender ridge. At around 4:00 PM, Dan reaches the South Summit, a rocky outcrop 300 feet below the very top of Everest. Standing in his way is the Hillary Step, a 40-foot vertical rock face named after Sir Edmund Hillary. Dan waits. Behind him, Roman remains a speck on the distant crags. He's getting closer, but very slowly.

• 24:07John Hopkins?

  Eventually, just after 5:00 PM, Roman arrives. He holds himself up onto the snowy platform, breathing heavily into his oxygen mask.

• 24:19John Hopkins?

  The afternoon is eliding swiftly into evening, and even though they're so close, Dan remains cautious.

• 24:27Speaker 05

  And I asked Roman, I was like, "Roman, what do you think? Should we go back down? You know, it's getting late and maybe we should just go down." And Roman looked at the summit, you know, we were standing on the south summit and then looking over at the Hillary Step and all, and he said, "Well, I think I want to go up."

• 24:50John Hopkins?

  That's that.

• 24:52John Hopkins?

  Dan asks his partner to go first, so he can keep an eye on him.

• 24:57John Hopkins?

  Roman starts to scale the rock face slowly, his pickaxe methodically plowing into snow-covered stone.

• 25:06John Hopkins?

  His limbs may be aging, but his mountaineering mind remains sharp.

• 25:11John Hopkins?

  Dan follows, not far now.

• 25:15John Hopkins?

  At the top of the Hillary Step, in the distance, Dan spots some Tibetan prayer flags. These multicolored squares are draped over a faraway snowy mound. It's the summit. Dan increases his pace, catching up with Roman so they can reach the peak together. And finally, as the sun sets, the two men make it to the top of the world.

• 25:41Speaker 05

  It was around like 7:30 at night, and the sun was going down. It was a gorgeous sunset, and we could see like the curvature of the earth looking out towards the Annapurnas and Dolgiri, and we could see Kanchenjungga looking out into the Tibetan Plateau. And it was an incredible view. We took our pictures, our photographs on the summit, and then we started going down.

• 26:08John Hopkins?

  It's sweet, but short-lived. They have to start descending. With alarming speed, the light fades and the glacial winds rise. Dan and Roman slowly scramble back down the Hillary Step. Shards of ice start to ricochet off their oxygen masks.

• 26:28John Hopkins?

  But they make it back to the southeast ridge in decent time. It's a tricky trail in the middle of the day, but now, descending at night in harsh conditions, it could be lethal. They'll take it steady.

• 26:42John Hopkins?

  Dan gradually trudges down the slope as stinging gusts of wind cut through the darkness. His muscles ache. He has to stop for a rest.

• 26:54John Hopkins?

  Headlamp flickering in the swirling snowdrifts, Dan glances back up towards his partner. But Romain is nowhere to be seen.

• 27:04John Hopkins?

  He waits and waits, but he never appears.

• 27:09John Hopkins?

  Dan turns back, hauling himself up the slope he's just come down. After a couple of minutes, he spots a glowing light buried in the snow.

• 27:20Speaker 05

  I went back up there to see if I could find him, and he was laying in the snow. I was like, "Romain, are you okay?" I wasn't sure what happened to him, and I started checking his oxygen mask and checking mine. And then I think I realized that his oxygen had run out.

• 27:45Speaker 06

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• 29:10Speaker 00

  Shop Black Friday appliance savings and get up to an extra $1,250 off select appliance purchases like GE Profile. Plus, free delivery on appliance purchases of $398 or more. Make life easier with the fridge that doubles as your personal kitchen assistant. Or upgrade your laundry room with the UltraFresh Vent System Plus Front Load Washer, so your clothes stay fresh after every single wash. Shop Black Friday appliance savings with fast free delivery at The Home Depot. Offer valid November 4th through December 2nd at participating stores and at homedepot.com. U.S. only. See store online for details.

• 29:43John Hopkins?

  Across the south ridge of Everest, a blizzard intensifies. Somewhere inside the storm, Dan and Raman lie coiled up together in a shallow snow hole, barricaded in by their packs and oxygen tanks. Raman is unable to stand. Dan digs further, trying to deepen his makeshift shelter and create some protection against the raging elements. But the snow is getting harder, and he can no longer feel his fingers. Dan turns, securing his own oxygen mask onto Raman's face. His breathing is rattling and irregular. Dan, meanwhile, is shattered. His body tells him to rest, just for a minute.

• 30:28John Hopkins?

  Now, without oxygen, he starts feeling disorientated.

• 30:33Speaker 05

  I started to see stars in front of my vision, weird like sparks of light. And I thought to myself, you know, if I stay in this snow hole, will I see the sun rise? Will I even be alive when the sun comes up?

• 30:51John Hopkins?

  A terrible decision now presents itself. Raman can't move, that much is obvious. And if Dan stays here much longer, there's a good chance they'll both perish in the snow. If he leaves, he might just be able to get help, and at the very least, save himself. But is he condemning his climbing partner, his new friend, to death? His headlamp is now out, and you can hardly see a thing. They're about an hour from the South Cole Camp. Can he make it?

• 31:26John Hopkins?

  Dan hauls himself out of the snow hole and gets to his feet.

• 31:31Speaker 05

  I don't think there's any really easy decisions in this case, so I decided to go down. I kind of buried Roman with more snow. And I put a ski pole in, sticking up out of the snow as a kind of marker. And then I started down.

• 31:52John Hopkins?

  Just before he leaves, he shouts to Roman over the storm, promising to come back with help. There's no response, just the howl of the tempest.

• 32:07John Hopkins?

  In the intense dark, Dan staggers down towards the south col as quickly as he can, dragging his leaden legs through deepening drifts. Without oxygen, the snow pulls him down like quicksand.

• 32:20Speaker 05

  And I was falling, my headlamp was dead, I had no oxygen, I was rolling, I was tumbling, I was crawling.

• 32:30John Hopkins?

  With visibility at near zero, Dan relies on gravity and intuition to guide him down the precarious ridge. He stumbles every few steps, numb hands breaking his fall. Adrenaline courses through his veins, keeping frostbite at bay. But he has no idea how long he has been walking, minutes, hours? At this altitude, time becomes stretched and warped.

• 32:57John Hopkins?

  His whole body starts to feel numb, his muscles are seizing up.

• 33:03John Hopkins?

  At this height, climbers are at risk of developing cerebral edema, an often fatal swelling of the brain. This starts with severe altitude sickness, followed by bouts of hallucinations. He's already experienced both.

• 33:20John Hopkins?

  After what feels like an age, Dan notices that the ridge at last begins to plateau.

• 33:28John Hopkins?

  The wind knocks him down once more, like taking a right hook from a heavyweight boxer. The gusts are now so strong and his body so weak that he can no longer stand.

• 33:41Speaker 05

  I was on my hands and knees and I couldn't go any further. I couldn't feel my fingers or my toes and I laid down and I was crying and I just realized like this is Roman is dead right up there and this is where I'm gonna die.

• 34:01Speaker 05

  And then I don't know what happened, but I woke up. It was still dark. I could see all the stars. The wind was still blowing hard. It was kind of gusting and then it would let up a while and then I was like, hey, I'm not dead. And then I just started to crawl.

• 34:23John Hopkins?

  Somehow, from somewhere, Dan has rallied. He keeps crawling meter by meter. He drags himself along the plateau. His body begs him to rest, but he keeps on. And eventually, through frozen eyelids, Dan sees a flickering of light.

• 34:45Speaker 05

  And then I saw a shape in front of me and it was a ripped up tent blowing in the wind. I could hear this nylon blowing and then I crawled a little further and I saw another tent. And I went to the tent and I got my head right on the zipper, my face, and I heard some voices and I tried to shout. I couldn't really shout. I was like banging my hands together, banging on the tent.

• 35:10John Hopkins?

  Finally, the tent unzips.

• 35:15Speaker 05

  There were people in there and I was shouting and they shouted my name, Daniela, Daniela. And there was my two friends, Gennadi and Alex from our climbing team who had climbed up there that afternoon.

• 35:27John Hopkins?

  Gennadi and Alex haul Dan out of the storm and into the tent. But he's so cold, he can hardly speak.

• 35:35Speaker 05

  They were shouting at me and what are you doing? And then I was like, you know, water, water, please. And they gave me some tea, hot tea to drink. And then I explained to them that Roman was up the hill and they need to go get him. And he's right up there. I had left him. He's still alive.

• 35:59John Hopkins?

  Dan's frozen lips and babbling Russian make communication difficult, but the two Soviets understand.

• 36:07John Hopkins?

  In a flash, Alex pulls out his oxygen tank and starts breathing into the mask, checking everything works. Gennadi picks up a spare head torch and passes it to Alex. Dan wants to emphasize just how bad it is out there, but can't muster the words. Armed with oxygen and as many layers as possible, Alex unzips the tent and heads out into the blizzard. Dan is left inside, dazed and convulsing. As the warm tea filters through his body, he slowly regains feeling in his hands and feet.

• 36:47John Hopkins?

  All he can do now is wait, and hope that he made the right choice in leaving Ramon behind. About an hour later, Alex returns, alone.

• 37:00Speaker 05

  And he was like, "I can't find Ramon. He's not up there." And then I really cried, and I really broke down, and I realized that I had killed Ramon. Because I was so selfish to want to get to the top. I had coaxed him up there through my own selfishness, where he had no business being. He was totally unprepared, and I had lured him up there because I was so afraid to climb Everest by myself, that I wanted to have someone with me that I led him to his death.

• 37:45John Hopkins?

  Alex removes his head torch and warms himself up with tea. He asks his climbing partner Gennadi what to do next, as the blizzard swipes at the tent. They decide to wait for the storm to pass. Even though he's exhausted, sleep eludes Dan. He lies there, wide awake, haunted. Eventually, the wind begins to ease.

• 38:10Speaker 05

  And then after an hour or two, the other climber in the tent, Gennadi, said, "I'm gonna go look for Ramon." And he had a brighter headlamp, and he had been drinking tea, and he had all his gear on. And then, I passed out.

• 38:35John Hopkins?

  It's dawn. Dan slowly wakes.

• 38:40John Hopkins?

  Gingerly, he tries to move his bruised and stiffened limbs.

• 38:45John Hopkins?

  Outside the tent, he hears something. Voices. He lifts his head. The voices edge closer. The tent zip begins to lower. In the gap, an arctic hat appears, followed by some shoulders and a torso.

• 39:04John Hopkins?

  Dan recognizes the coat. It's Raman.

• 39:10Speaker 05

  And they rolled Raman into the tent and slid him in on his back. And his face was totally gray. And his lips were like a bluish-purple. And his eyes were like frozen shut. And I took some tea and I poured it on my hand and I rubbed it around on his face. And it was like a piece of frozen chicken. One eye popped open, then another eye. And Raman was alive. And I couldn't believe it, the guy lived. And he was actually kind of okay.

• 39:48John Hopkins?

  It's a miracle on the mountain. Raman begins to regain consciousness despite being semi-frozen in Everest's death zone for hours.

• 40:01John Hopkins?

  It's now clear that rather than killing Raman by making it to the South Col, Dan has actually saved him.

• 40:16John Hopkins?

  Dan and Raman, energy stores utterly depleted, still have to make their own way down to the safety of Everest Base Camp. There's no time to lose.

• 40:28Speaker 05

  Him and I went down the mountain that same day because it was already morning. We were totally on our own. Ganati and Alex stayed to try to get to the top.

• 40:40John Hopkins?

  They're out of the treacherous death zone, but they must still descend colossal walls of glacial ice, hike down snowy valleys and scramble through deep crevasses.

• 40:51Speaker 05

  We were so exhausted, we would fall over every few feet, lay on our backpacks for a while, try to get up. The ropes were all melted out. The ladders were all caved in. Like it was really scary getting across some of those crevasses in the Kumbu Icefall.

• 41:05John Hopkins?

  The Kumbu Icefall, a constantly shifting glacier, is known for swallowing climbing equipment and obscuring previous pathways. It's slow going. But with every step down and every new camp reached, they are that bit closer to safety. Finally, after three grueling days, Dan and Ramon make it back to Everest Base Camp.

• 41:32John Hopkins?

  They have faced the world's biggest mountain, top to bottom, and somehow lived to tell the tale.

• 41:49Speaker 00

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• 42:19Speaker 02

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games. Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  Film for IMAX.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  Make them remember you.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, made in PG-13.

• 42:37John Hopkins?

  It's mid-October 1991. The Russian Embassy Hotel in Kathmandu.

• 42:44John Hopkins?

  Celebration is in the air. There is chatter, the popping of champagne corks, the clinking of glasses. A world away from the hostile peaks of the Himalayas.

• 42:55Speaker 05

  I was at a party at the Russian Embassy Hotel back in Kathmandu. We were there and they were all celebrating and stuff and, you know, their success and and I was kind of hanging out on the sidelines and then Gennadi, the person who had been the one to save Roman and bring him in, he came up to me at the party, he's like, Daniela, I have to tell you something. So we went over to the side of the room and he said, Daniela,

• 43:21Speaker 05

  did you know that Roman only has one lung? And I was like, what? You gotta be kidding me.

• 43:32John Hopkins?

  Gennadi explains that Roman lost a lung at the age of 10 due to childhood tuberculosis. He also admits that they paired them together because none of them thought that either Dan or Roman would succeed in reaching the summit. They presumed they'd turn back together. Happily, Gennadi says, they were all proved wrong.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  I went all the way up there with this guy with no food and water and he only has one lung? Incredible. So I guess Roman became the first person from Soviet Georgia and maybe the first person with one lung to climb Everest.

• 44:13John Hopkins?

  Despite saving Roman's life, Dan says he still feels uneasy about what happened that night on the summit of Everest.

• 44:21John Hopkins?

  Did he push his partner too far?

• 44:24Speaker 05

  You know, I could have insisted that we turn around on the South Summit. When I waited for him for like an hour and then gave him our last food and water and then asked him what he wanted to do, kind of baiting him. What was I doing? You know, I should have just been like, look, it's way too late. It's nighttime almost. If we rush, we might get down to a decent elevation before dark, but we what, continue to go up? Like, what a suicidal move right there.

• 44:59John Hopkins?

  Professional mountaineers often find themselves in difficult, moral situations. Feelings of guilt, even in the aftermath of a successful rescue, can weigh heavily. But with his gift for being in the right place at the right time, Dan goes on to be involved in other, high-profile mountain rescues. The most notable of which is the famous rescue of Lincoln Hall, also on Everest, in 2006. By this point, Dan is a veteran mountaineering leader.

• 45:28Speaker 05

  With the Lincoln Hall thing, you know, we were up there, right below the summit, on a brilliant day. Everything's looking good, the sun is rising, and then, there's a fellow sitting on the ridge, right on the path, sitting there, talking to us, with his jacket off, you know, and on a freezing cold morning, at 8,600 meters.

• 45:58John Hopkins?

  Lincoln Hall had been left by his climbing team the day before. Because he was suffering from hallucinations, frostbite, and dehydration, they deemed it too dangerous to try and save him. After somehow surviving the night without oxygen, Dan's team find him the next day, and decide to abandon their own climb to rescue him.

• 46:18Speaker 05

  There's an element of rescueability when you're way up there, you know, and that's got a lot of ethical issues, right, in itself, but Lincoln Hall was obviously rescuable. And still, in our own little group, there was division of people's feelings.

• 46:43John Hopkins?

  It seems Dan's first rescue experience with Ramon is a formative one, and goes on to influence his judgment on other difficult rescues. Dan's profile now draws climbers from around the world to his ice-climbing expeditions at the Seattle Glacier School. He's seen by many in the climbing community as mountaineering's moral compass. Although Dan will probably disagree with this label, his knowledge of the Himalayas gives him a shrewd insight into the changing nature of mountain climbing. Conquering Everest has become a more commercial pursuit, which comes with positives and negatives.

• 47:23Speaker 05

  Where someone is putting themselves at risk and then other people have to take the responsibility for cleaning up, rescuing them, extracting them, getting them out of there. If you look at Mount Everest, it's really built on that and it's evolved into a huge risk-taking kind of machine, if you will. We have so much stuff in place now on Mount Everest, like fixed ropes, ladders, lots of Sherpas support. Now there's whole fleets of helicopters that move in and out of there, taking climbers out if they're

• 48:02Speaker 05

  ill. You know, the risk level is much reduced now. Now, a lot of people might say, but the people who are going are less prepared. So in a way, they're more risky people. So the risk is there and is it justifiable? Is there such a thing as like justifiable risk?

• 48:27John Hopkins?

  Dan continues to work to make climbing as safe as it can be. And in 2018, he has awarded the Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal.

• 48:37Speaker 05

  It was a really huge honor that they gave that to me. And I think they gave that to me for the rescues that I did and also because I was doing a lot of charity and I still do. A lot of charity work out in the Himalayas with local people, with building schools and hospitals, environmental projects like the waste treatment plant for Everest Base Camp. We're designing and outfitting low-cost medical kits for Sherpa guides to carry when they're in the mountains, guiding groups or with their own teams of people climbing. My philosophy is that wherever you are, wherever you live, wherever you

• 49:17Speaker 05

  work, wherever you go, try to give back to the people there and the environment. You're only on earth for a short time.

• 49:29John Hopkins?

  Whenever Dan comes across Georgians climbing around the world, they already know his name. After all, he's the man who saved one of their own.

• 49:39John Hopkins?

  Roman used to write to Dan regularly, but he hasn't heard from him in a while. However, 12 years after their Everest expedition, the two unlikely climbing partners did bump into each other. Once again, right place, right time.

• 49:56Speaker 05

  I saw him at the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest. At the British Embassy, they had a big kind of party. Sir Edmund Hillary was there and a lot of famous people were there. And Roman was there, and that was so cool. And his daughter was there, so I could talk to him. And that was really, really special, to see him and talk to him. And, oh my God, we just laughed. And that was an amazing thing.

• 50:38John Hopkins?

  In the next episode, we meet recently-retired theatre teacher Maury Pearceall as he sets off on a later-life adventure.

• 50:47John Hopkins?

  Maury is on a stunning voyage, taking him across the Atlantic from the US to Iceland. He is part of a sailing crew of three with a combined age of nearly 200. But when a freak wave strikes, Maury's grand retirement plan becomes something far more sinister. He'll face freezing temperatures, the constant threat of drowning, and memory blackouts. And even if help can reach them, getting out of this situation will take a monumental effort.

• 51:19John Hopkins?

  That's next time on Real Survival Stories.

• 51:26John Hopkins?

  Listen to Maury's story today without waiting a week by subscribing to Noiser Plus.

• 51:33Speaker 00

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• 52:04Speaker 00

  Black Friday is happening now at The Home Depot, and we've got just the tree for your style, space, and budget. Keep it merry and bright, then make it yours with ornaments and trimmings for every holiday style. With festive favorites starting at just $49, shop for the perfect tree at the number one Christmas tree retailer. Find the tree that feels just right with low prices guaranteed at The Home Depot. Exclusions apply. Visit homedepot.com/pricematch for details.