It was clear to anyone listening to the Mount Everest radio traffic that Rob Hall had decided to die. For Hall, there seemed to be little drama in the decision--but for someone in his position, there rarely is. In the brutal cold and almost oxygen-free air found at Everest altitudes, a sort of woozy resignation sets in. Decisions to climb or descend, rest or trudge on, get made with a fatalistic shrug. At the moment, Hall was shrugging toward death.
David Breashears and Ed Viesturs were in radio contact with Hall as he made his decision. Filmmakers and climbers who had known the famous guide for years, they were 8,000 ft. below him, in the relative safety of a mountainside campsite. Hall, on the other hand, was 400 ft. shy of Everest's 29,028-ft. summit--the highest peak in the world--stuck on an outcrop where he had spent the night after a sudden blizzard pounded the mountain. The situation was probably not survivable, and yet the other climbers were determined to help Hall live through it. "Think about Thailand," Viesturs said. "Once you come down, we'll tour the beaches and finally see those skinny legs of yours out of a snowsuit."
Hall laughed weakly, but didn't stir. Quickly, someone in camp patched a satellite call to New Zealand, where Hall's wife, pregnant with their first child, was waiting. "I'm looking forward to making you completely better when you come home," she called to her husband when the connection was made. On top of his mountain, Hall may have smiled. "I love you," he said. "Sleep well, my sweetheart. Please don't worry too much." No one ever heard from Rob Hall again.
It was May 11, 1996, when Hall spoke his last, and he was not the only one the mountain claimed that day. Just 36 hours earlier, 33 people had set out for Everest's peak. When the storm at last subsided, eight had perished. The story of that disaster, one of the worst in climbing history, became the subject of magazine articles, television specials and a growing collection of books, notably the best seller Into Thin Air, by journalist Jon Krakauer, who was a survivor of the murderous climb.
But part of the story has never been told. Breashears and Viesturs were on the mountain that week to try something never before attempted: to capture the ascent to Everest's summit in the highest-quality movie film available, the dizzyingly realistic 65-mm IMAX format. Resting at their campsite in preparation for the grueling mountaintop filming, they became unintended participants in the tragedy, as well as unexpected heroes. Their film, which tells the story of Everest and the drama that unfolded on it, will premiere next spring. This week they offer an advance look at it as the book Everest: Mountain Without Mercy (National Geographic Society, $35), authored by outdoors writer Broughton Coburn and filled with IMAX images, appears in stores.