"The man who skied down Everest"

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Jay H

Jay H

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Anybody catch this on Discovery HD channel last night? I saw the last hour of the 1.5 hour documentary of a 1970 climb and ski by a Japanese Climber:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073340/

Interesting as it is all old style sking and the guy used a parachute to control his speed. Supposedly did 6600ft vertical in 2 minutes 20 seconds which also included an insane looking 1300ft slide where he basically slid down past the yellow band and almost (250ft) into the Bergshrund when he lost control. Me thinks that parachute saved his life for sure or he would of surely hit rocket speed on that steep descent....

I also fell asleep somewhere into the movie and woke up before they showed his final run. they climbed the peak from the south, through the Khumbu icefall, etc..etc. but I didn't see where he actually started skiing.. Obviously, he didn't ski through the icefall and managed to slide about 1300 on his side/back but I guess it still counts?

The narration of the whole thing was really weird, kind of that matter-of-fact spooky Alfred Hitchcock movie feel to it!

jay
 
Jay,

Maybe Naomi Uemura? The documentary was an award winner when it came out. He also skied off the summit of Denali and a bunch of other mountaineering and ski mountaineering expeditions. A legend at the time.
 
Peakbagr said:
Jay,

Maybe Naomi Uemura? The documentary was an award winner when it came out. He also skied off the summit of Denali and a bunch of other mountaineering and ski mountaineering expeditions. A legend at the time.
Click to expand...

And I think Mt. Vinson, antarctica
 
No, Uemura I think is younger than this guy whose climb was in 1970. The film is dated 1976, in fact, part of it is them in base camp watching dubbed transfers of Bonanza! ya know.. the old western TV series

I'll find his name through Google, I wont attempt to try to name it without getting the spelling right... hold on..

listed in the IMDB as characters:

Yuichiro Miura
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuichiro_Miura

6 Sherpas died in the Icefall during the climb and that was just about the point where I saw it, I missed the first 1/2 hour...


Jay
 
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Naomi Uemura was a climber and polar adventurer, not a skier. He was the first Japanese to summit Everest, the first person to reach the North Pole solo by dog sled, the first person to summit Denali solo, and the first person to summit Denali solo in the winter.

He disappeared on the descent from the last one. I was living in AK at the time. I think the only place he's admired and liked more than in AK is his home country. He loved the outdoors and was a big hit with kids in Japan.
 
I have it DVR'd and have seen it a few times. This was an Academy winning documentary in the early 70's. Pretty cool movie, actually. You see his prep, route to the mountain, as well as the skiing.

"Skied down Everest" is a loose interpretation. IIRC, he slid on his ass for most of the way!
 
FYI, it is playing tonight (11/19) on Discovery HD at 5pm...

Somebody on the IMDB site called it the man who fell down Everest.

I'll have to watch the part that I missed tonight...

Jay
 
Peakbagr said:
He also skied off the summit of Denali and a bunch of other mountaineering and ski mountaineering expeditions. A legend at the time.
Click to expand...
He skied each of the 7 summits including Vinson with Dick Bass

Note that he did not climb all the way to the summit of Everest, he started near the S col

Some European glissaded off the summit of Everest which I felt was even nuttier and not often repeated
 
"Some European glissaded off the summit of Everest which I felt was even nuttier and not often repeated"

When Peter Habeler and Reinhold Messner did their oxygenless ascent of Everest (the first of its kind), Habeler was concerned that they'd spent too much time in 'the death zone'. Besides being a phenomenal climber, Habeler was a world class ski mountaineer and did a boot glissade a good part of the way from near the summit of Everest to the South Col. He wanted to get off the summit as fast as possible, and when Messner first saw the tracks, thought Habeler had fallen.

The subsequent breakup of that parnership a couple of years later denied the climbing world of some epic adventures.
 
Film

I have also seen another film of a guywho skied off of Mt Everest where the skier wore a helmet camera. Not sure if it is the same guy as in this film.

JohnL
 
JohnL said:
Film

I have also seen another film of a guywho skied off of Mt Everest where the skier wore a helmet camera. Not sure if it is the same guy as in this film.

JohnL
Click to expand...

Doubt it. This was originally filmed over thirty years ago, before helmet cams were en vogue.
 
dug said:
Doubt it. This was originally filmed over thirty years ago, before helmet cams were en vogue.
Click to expand...

Clarification. When I said "this film" I meant the one to which I provided the link, not the older film.

JohnL
 
Yuichiro Miura; you can find his book on the used book sites, such as ABE.com (there is a copy for $6). Strange that his name is not mentioned in the 1975 movie link above .
 
I watched is last night - He said he skied 6,600 feet in 2 minutes and then slid 1,300 feet.
I replayed this several times and I am sure that is exactly what he said. He originally estimated he would be skiing 100 MPH. I am not a great downhill skier any more, (and not to take anything away from him because I am too damn scared and lack the intestinal fortitude to even get on a bunny slope anymore), but it did look like he was snowplowing a lot at the top.

By my calcs at 6600 feet in 2 mins, that's 30MPH.
if you add the slide in then the 7900' comes out to 44MPH - Much slower than 100MPH....
Did anybody else catch this?
 
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