01x01 - Wrong Place Wrong Time

[bunniefuu]

[wind howling]

[man 1] Holy moly, look at this place.

Whew!

[he groans]

[soft music playing]

[he mumbles]

Okay.

Ohhh

It's a big crevasse.

Focus on the rungs,

not the drop.

Focus on the rungs,

not the drop.

Oh, boy.

Pretty wild.

[soft music slowly building]

[man 1] Ah!

Cha-cha! I'm okay.

[music stops]

[man 1] That's rain.

[deep, loud rumbling]

[loud, deep crashing]

[man 1] A f*cking earthquake?

[foreboding music grows]

[loud, deep rumbling]

[man 1] Ah, f*ck.

[foreboding music grows]

[man 2] f*ck. Everything is shaking.

- [man 3] Holy sh*t.

- [man 4] f*ck!

[crowd yelling]

- [man 5] Go!

- [man 6] Go!

[avalanche rumbling]

[man 1] f*ck!

f*ck! f*ck!

f*ck!

[loud rumbling]

[rumbling fades]

[soft melancholic music playing]

[wind howling]

[man 7] For people climbing Everest,

after trekking for ten days,

you come down off an escarpment,

and then you get to the beginning

of the Base Camp.

[soft melancholic music continues]

[more upbeat gentle music playing]

[man 7] As a mountaineer,

you're going there to start your journey.

[indistinct buoyant chatter]

[man 8] When you come

into Everest Base Camp,

the walking is done.

Basically, you've reached a dead end.

And to go in any other direction now,

you're gonna need to climb.

[Dave McKinley]

The Base Camp environment is a

It is a village, it's

It's beyond a village these days.

It's a town.

And the start of that season, it was busy.

[indistinct chatter]

[Dave McKinley] It was a busy year.

With all these people

on different expeditions,

with different expedition companies.

My smile was so big

when I got to the Base Camp.

I felt like I arrived somewhere.

You feel happy all of a sudden.

You're like, "I got to the Base Camp!"

And I was smiling.

There's so many tents.

Different colors, different brands.

And diversity of the people.

You see the whole world.

The whole United Nations

is in the Everest Base Camp.

Hey, buddy!

[man 9] Sha-pow!

[Dave Hahn] I think there are

some preconceptions

that people that would come

to climb Everest

are all rich

or privileged.

And that that doesn't really capture it.

There are also

some delightfully ordinary people.

[upbeat soft music continues]

[speaking Nepali] Reaching base camp

was a totally new experience for me.

I'm neither a professional climber

nor a member of the Sherpa people.

I was a single person with one Sherpa

and even less budget.

My first priority was my safety.

Because I didn't have

any training for this.

I didn't even know how to tie knots.

That was my situation.

I only had one thought in my mind,

which was that I must climb Mount Everest

at any cost, and also return back.

[Dave Hahn] Just getting

to Everest Base Camp,

that's already quite an accomplishment

for a number of people.

But then there is climbing

the mountain itself.

There are four camps,

and, uh, it's a process weeks long

of going progressively higher

on the mountain,

spending some nights to acclimatize.

And coming back down to Base Camp,

resting,

going a little bit higher still,

until one of those climbing rotations

involves going for the summit.

[Sara] To prepare my body

mentally and physically,

we did some acclimatization hikes.

But climbing Everest

was so out of my comfort zone.

[traditional Nepali bells ringing]

[Sara] When I was at UCLA,

my professor told me

that I'm too shy

and I need to start working on that.

You need to work on your self-confidence,

come up with a project,

something that

you can't even think of doing

in your wildest dreams.

Somebody behind me,

she was talking to her friend,

and they were talking

about Everest Base Camp,

and I felt like

[gasps] I really want to be there.

I really want to be there.

I want to climb Mount Everest.

I was so excited about Everest

that I went home and I googled,

"How to climb Everest." [chuckles]

And the very first link, I clicked on it.

There was a phone number.

I called them and I said, "Hi,

I want to climb Mount Everest.

What should I do?"

[indistinct chatter]

[Sara] And that's how I realized

there is a way to do it.

I have to have experience.

I have to climb so many other mountains.

It might take years for me to get there.

But there is a way.

- [Dave Hahn] It's got a red light on.

- [Sara] Okay, that's it.

[Sara] And I finally got to Everest

in 2015.

[Sara gasps]

[Sara] This one This one is even deeper

than the other one.

[Dave Hahn] No, it's a good ladder.

You're doing awesome.

[ladder creaks]

[Dave Hahn] Awesome job.

Wow. Perfect.

[Sara] This is longer.

[Dave Hahn] You got it. You got it.

- You got it.

- [woman 1] You got it, Sara.

[Sara] During the acclimatization,

we set up ladders

to get used to crossing ladders

because the next step

was the Khumbu Icefall.

The very first time that somebody told me

about Khumbu Icefall,

they said this is

the most dangerous part of Everest.

I thought

No, they just say that.

They want to scare me.

I decided to just google it

and maybe watch a little short video

of Khumbu Icefall.

After watching

that five-minute video of Khumbu,

I was really scared.

- [clock ticking]

- [mountain rumbling]

[Dave Hahn] It's a place where the glacier

is trying to get through

a narrow, steep path,

and it ends up just turbulent,

like the rapids in a river.

It's a little stunning to realize

that as you're standing there

at Everest Base Camp,

that's the easiest way to go.

[Sara] It's like pieces of ice

the size of a building

are hanging at 45 degrees and you're like,

this thing can break on me at any second.

And there are all sorts of ladders,

45 degrees, horizontal,

four attached together

over a big crevasse.

It's just it's really scary.

[speaking Nepali] When the sun comes out,

the main problem is

that it can melt the ice

and it can all collapse on you.

In all honesty, it scares the out of me.

Totally. Every single time

I've been through it,

I have really not enjoyed myself.

[dramatic music playing,

foreboding drumbeat grows]

[music stops]

[Sara] So we were all in the dining tent

and our guides announce

that in two days we're gonna go up.

[soft foreboding music playing]

[Sara] And, uh, I was kind of nervous,

and at the same time I was excited.

I'm like, okay, perfect.

All the things that we practiced,

I'm gonna use them.

[more upbeat soft music playing]

[Sara] It felt like I trained all my life

for that moment,

and I thought,

I am ready for the challenge.

[deep rumbling]

[man 10] Nepal, in general,

it's incredible.

It's it's such an extreme environment.

It's not just the Everest Base Camp.

There's so many different places

to go in Nepal.

And one of the highlights for me

is the Langtang Valley.

This place is really, really difficult

to get to.

There are no roads.

You can't drive a car up to Langtang.

You can't even drive a motorcycle

or a bicycle up there.

[river water rushing]

And that's one of the more

beautiful things about it,

is that it's so remote and so extreme

that you can only make it there by foot,

and one hell of a foot walk it is.

Eight months earlier,

before traveling,

I finished my military service

after five years.

And the first thing I want to do

was just get out.

And have a great time

with my two best friends, Shahar and Yaar,

three 25-year-old guys just

just having the time of our lives.

Going to Nepal sounded like

a perfect fit for us.

[Shahar] Like most Israelis my age,

I was looking for peace and quiet,

maybe a chance to find myself.

A chance for us young Israelis

to do something

before we start our real, adult lives.

[man 11] You know,

just being the three of us together

up on a gorgeous mountain

we had the best time of our lives.

[Yuval] After we finished hiking

the Annapurna trek,

we had five days left in Nepal.

And, uh, thinking what we could do

with the five days left,

that's when we first heard

about the Langtang trek.

I mean, it's a simple one.

You just go up the valley

to Langtang village

and then up to Kyanjin Gompa,

which is the last village of the valley.

[soft music becoming more dramatic]

[Yuval] After Kyanjin Gompa,

there's nowhere else to go up the valley

besides the viewpoint of the whole valley.

It's probably one

of the most beautiful places in the world.

And, uh a place where

we just wanted to be.

[epic music growing]

So, the first day of the Langtang trek

was perfect.

I remember it very, very good.

It felt like walking through

through kind of like a fairyland.

I don't know how to explain it,

but the energy

was extremely positive.

But we had no idea at the time

that we were in the wrong place

at the wrong time.

[foreboding drumbeat and music]

[wind howling]

[whooshing]

[foreboding deep drumming]

[man 12 speaking Nepali]

I'd always dreamed of making it big.

When I arrived in Kathmandu,

I realized something:

you could only survive there

if you were fearless.

If you showed any fear, you'd get whacked.

That's the world that created me.

[chuckles]

[horn honking]

[Arjun] People said,

"This guy's a gangster."

"He's a fighter, he stabs people."

"His name is the 'Golden Blade.'"

I would always carry two khukuri knives

stashed down my back.

[soft dramatic music playing]

[speaking Nepali] People said my dad

was a gangster. They said it all the time.

No one could touch me

because my dad was like this.

So I wasn't afraid of anything.

When I was a kid, we bought a hotel.

The hotel was right opposite

the bus station.

[Arjun speaking Nepali] It was eight

and a half stories high. It was very tall.

[ominous music crescendos]

[Arjun] Our guests were mostly

migrant workers waiting to go abroad.

I'd suffered as a kid,

and wanted a better life.

And now I felt like I could do something.

I was a boss.

I used to roam around Kathmandu

looking for work in these hotels.

But look at me now, owning a hotel.

My wife ran the hotel.

[Aashika] When guests came,

my mother would be at the counter.

She used to do

whatever was needed at the hotel.

[woman 3] I was always against the idea

of buying the hotel.

But no one listened to me.

So they bought the hotel

against my wishes.

Sangeeta said,

"Don't worry, I will run everything."

[horn honking]

[man 13] The thing you need to understand

about Kathmandu is

most of the building is unsafe,

poorly constructed,

in a very unstable landscape.

This highly vulnerable capital

is one of the most densely populated

cities in the world.

And most of those people are not prepared

for the incoming disaster.

[soft dramatic music playing]

[ceremonial chanting in Nepali]

[Sara] The day before we go up

the mountain, we had this ceremony

to ask permission from the mountain

to go up the mountain.

[chanting continues]

And we had a little ceremony at the end

for the people who passed the year before.

[chanting continues]

[Dave Hahn] The Khumbu Icefall

was on everybody's minds

because of, of

the disaster that had ended

the 2014 season.

[deep rumbling]

[Dave Hahn] There was an avalanche

into the icefall,

off the west shoulder of Mount Everest.

An ice avalanche that k*lled 16 Nepalis.

- [man 14 over radio] Base Camp.

- [man 15] Go ahead.

[man 14] We need help here.

Yeah, we need people

to dig out the bodies.

Everyone, please come up.

[man 16 in Nepali] In 2014,

I had gone to Everest to guide one

of my American clients up the mountain.

I was the lead guide

and I had two other assistant guides.

One of those guides was my brother,

and the other was a Sherpa.

[Dave Hahn] When we got up there,

yes, most of the rescue work,

it really turned out to be recovery work.

[melancholic music playing]

[Dave Hahn] As we were climbing up

through the icefall,

the helicopters were flying past us

with bodies

uh, slung from the the cables below.

[Tul in Nepali]

Twelve dead bodies were brought down,

but my cousin wasn't among them.

Finally they told us

they couldn't find the remaining bodies.

And those bodies

are still in the Khumbu Icefall.

[Sara] In 2015,

the guides wanted to give us

some confidence

that this is not gonna happen again.

"You are okay. You're safe."

"This year the path is really good.

You're gonna be fine."

But I didn't know if they are saying it

to calm us down,

or it's actually the truth.

[Gopal in Nepali]

I knew that there was a risk.

I was aware of it.

Lots of people, even my family,

told me not to climb it.

But I needed to do it.

I know I'm not an educated person

or an intellectual.

I'm HIV positive and an ex-drug user.

I'd almost died so many times,

so I wasn't afraid of death.

I wasn't frightened, I was excited.

I turned my HIV into a strength

to promote my country,

and to show everyone that HIV victims

are not physically weak.

[Dave Hahn] 2015,

that was my 21st Everest expedition.

Ended up being the the last.

I hadn't really planned on quitting it.

I think the mountain

planned my exit for me.

[mellow melancholic music

becoming more upbeat]

[Yuval] So we arrive at Langtang village.

I really loved being able to be

so distant from civilization.

I loved it that there's no internet

there in the valley.

And just a beautiful, beautiful place,

where it's just you,

the locals,

and this incredible valley.

[soft uplifting music playing]

[man 17 in Nepali] One of the reasons

we get a lot of foreign tourists

is they come to see the glaciers

and the mountains

and they are interested

in our lifestyle and culture as well.

2015,

24th April,

Friday.

That day, we had a ghewa in our village.

[traditional Nepali music and singing]

[Jhangbu] In Buddhism,

a ghewa is a ritual we perform

49 days after someone has died.

No one can stay home during a ghewa.

Everyone must come to the monastery,

everyone.

[traditional music continues]

We kind of, like, heard, I guess,

some sort of rumor

that something big

was happening in the temple.

And we were thinking, okay, I guess

this is something we really have to see.

[chanting in Nepali]

[Jhangbu] Everyone from

the Langtang Valley had gathered there.

Not only that,

but relatives had come from far away.

That night,

our monastery was full of people.

There were more than 300 of us,

including children and the elders.

The whole community came together.

We chant the mantra and dance.

[chanting continues]

We dance till the next afternoon.

[chanting continues]

[Jhangbu] That was the last ghewa.

[chanting grows louder]

[Yuval] It's such a tragedy that

such a ceremony suddenly becomes,

you know, the last living moment

of the village.

[chanting continues]

[chanting fades]

[wind howling]

[Dave Hahn] It was tough to sleep.

There's all this anticipation.

And you can hear the glacier

that you're sleeping on

and that you're gonna climb through,

you can hear it popping.

You can hear ice and rock crashing down

in various places around the valley.

[mountain rumbling, ice cracking]

[Dave Hahn] Our alarms went off.

Turned on our headlights

in our individual tents.

Uh, it was go time.

Put on the climbing harnesses.

Put on our packs.

Grab our ice axes.

And we're filing out of Base Camp.

The sherpas light juniper

and send up some of that smoke

as an offering to the gods.

And then we're walking out there,

one behind the other,

and making our way into the icefall.

It feels pretty good finally,

after all the build-up

and all the wondering about,

"Would this climbing season come off?

Was it gonna work?"

And there we were finally

walking uphill, making it work.

And we were on the way

to Camp 1 for the first time.

[Sara] When we woke about 4 a.m.,

I kicked my head out of my tent

and I saw lots of lights on the mountain.

I'm like, oh,

everybody's on the mountain already,

and we haven't even had breakfast yet.

And we were kind of a little bit concerned

about the crowd on the mountain.

Like, "This many people would go

up the mountain together?"

So I was really happy that my guides,

they decided to do it at 5 a.m.

The plan was to go up to Camp 1.

[Dave Hahn] Once you get to the corner,

don't waste time waiting.

Just grab the rope with your hands

and keep going.

[breathing heavily]

[Sara] Our guides wanted us to go fast

because the Khumbu Icefall is not safe.

[breathing heavily]

Everybody on the team,

we were all clipped into the rope,

which was the rope

that went all the way to Camp 1,

through the Khumbu Icefall.

[breathing heavily]

[Sara] And you have to walk through it

as fast as you can because at any point

any piece of ice can just break

and fall on you.

And you can fall into crevasses.

[Dave Hahn] Good job, Sara.

[Dave Hahn]

You're down within the glacier.

There's ice over your head.

[guide coughing]

You're stepping over these crevasses.

You're teetering across ladders.

[Dave Hahn] Good job, Sara.

No more than that.

- Good job.

- [man 18] Looking good, Sara.

[Dave Hahn] Big chunks of ice,

uh, towering around you.

There's more chance

of something coming off

the walls around you,

and it's real.

[coughing]

[indistinct chatter]

[heavy breathing]

[coughing]

[dramatic drumbeat]

[Yuval] We woke up Saturday morning,

it was 6 a.m.,

we were already ready to go.

And the weather was bad, it was terrible.

Our porter, he told us, um

that he has a bad feeling

and that we shouldn't go.

That's what he said.

"Listen, I have a bad feeling."

"Um, something's not right,

we shouldn't hike up."

[ominous music playing]

[Yuval] And, you know, there's always

the thought of why why push it?

We made it up to Langtang village.

This place is beautiful as well.

It's not necessary

to try and push our luck.

On the other hand, we really wanted a shot

of making it to Kyanjin Ri.

We wanted a shot.

We said, "Worst case scenario,

we'll walk up to Kyanjin Gompa,

the weather will stay bad,

we won't make it up to the Ri.

Okay, then we'll go back."

"Then we'll walk back down the valley

and out of the valley."

And that's when we made the decision

to leave Langtang.

At the time, we didn't know

it was a life-or-death decision.

We walk up to Kyanjin Gompa.

We take it pretty easy because it's

the altitude already is pretty high.

It wasn't as beautiful.

We couldn't see the mountains around us.

We couldn't feel the scenery.

And we make it to Kyanjin Gompa.

One of the guides says, "Listen,

I've found a good place for us to stay."

It was the tallest guesthouse

in the village,

four stories high.

Good price. We said,

"This is where we want to stay."

But reflecting on it,

we were completely unprepared

for what was about to happen.

[dramatic drumroll]

[menacing deep drumbeat]

[indistinct chatter]

- [Dave Hahn] Good job, Sara.

- [man 19] You're good.

[heavy breathing]

[Sara] We got to the bottom

of this big wall, big ice-wall.

[Dave Hahn] Awesome job, Sara.

[Sara] So you climb the wall one by one.

Whoever finishes the ladders,

you yell "Clear!"

So the next climber can unclip

and then can walk to the bottom

of the ladder and start climbing.

[Dave Hahn] You got it, girl. Go Irish!

Looking great.

Good job, Sara.

[heavy breathing, coughing]

[Sara] Ah, so I went off the ladder,

and the whole time I was telling myself,

"Oh, I got this. I'm so strong.

This is so good."

I finished the fifth ladder

And I yelled, "Clear!"

- [loud deep rumble]

- [Dave Hahn] Oh, f*ck.

[rumbling continues]

[loud boom]

[birds screeching loudly]

- [loud commotion]

- [building crashes]

[woman yelling]

- [loud deep rumbling]

- [man yelling]

[people shouting]

[yelling and screaming]

[people yelling]

[Sara] My heart was pumping so fast.

I couldn't breathe. I was really

gasping for air, like [gasps]

[heavy gasping]

[Sara] And I thought

I guess this is it.

This is I'm gonna die.

[loud deep rumbling]

[indistinct chatter]

[man 20] Go! Go!

[rumbling]

[man 20] Straight ahead.

[man 21] Holy sh*t.

[panicked yelling]

[Gopal] Death was in front of me.

There was only one thing on my mind:

"Run, and save yourself."

[yelling]

[man 22] f*ck! Come on!