The other side of Everest

The Discovery Channel has been running a documentary series called Everest: Beyond The Limit. You may have caught the big marathon over the weekend. It's an interesting look at what goes into making an attempt to summit the world's tallest peak. And there is some truly amazing footage included along the way. But there is more to the story. It seems that expedition leader Russel Brice is not the most popular guy in mountaineering circles.

In poking around the internet looking for more information on the show, I ran across a couple articles that may be of interest to viewers of the show. They take Brice to task and paint a much different picture of the man than what we have seen in the Discovery documentary.

Explorersweb has a feature article about what they call "The most shameful act in the history of mountaineering." It's about the unfortunate death of David Sharp on Everest and how he was passed up by some 40 climbers as they made their way up and down the mountain, leaving him to freeze to death. In the article they talk about how clients and guides from Himex (Brice's outfit) initially said that Brice had ordered them to pass by Sharp, but Brice later released a press release denying knowledge of it. The story is further clouded by the fact that cameras worn by Brice's sherpas captured footage of Sharp not only alive, but talking. The article goes on to discuss Brice's past and his dealings in commercializing Everest.

Along similar lines are two articles over at everestnews.com. They focus on what they call the north side rope debate. It seems that there has been quite a bit of shenanigans where fixing rope for climbers is concerned, with Brice possibly taking credit, and money, for work that wasn't actually done by his outfit. More disturbing is the part of the story that accuses Brice's team of removing ropes after their climbers had summited, but while other climbers were still up on the mountain.

There is a great amount of he said/she said to all of this, but it does make for an interesting addition to the series as presented by Discovery.