1 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:09,400 Subtitles by Eugene 2 00:01:29,980 --> 00:01:31,960 Okay, here we go then. 3 00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:36,240 Yeah. No, I will be good with this. 4 00:01:37,860 --> 00:01:41,260 - Okay. I'm ready. - Right. Thank you. 5 00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:33,600 To those who are enthralled by mountains. 6 00:03:35,270 --> 00:03:38,220 They're wonders beyond all disputes. 7 00:03:48,760 --> 00:03:50,500 To those who are not. 8 00:03:53,500 --> 00:03:55,960 They are always a kind of madness. 9 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:05,780 What is this strange force that draws us upwards? 10 00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:15,360 This siren song... Of the summit. 11 00:06:41,940 --> 00:06:44,090 Only three centuries ago 12 00:06:44,100 --> 00:06:48,880 Setting up to climb a mountain would have been considered an act of lunacy. 13 00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:58,900 The idea scarcely existed that wild landscapes might hold any sort of attraction. 14 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:14,500 Mountains were places of peril, not beauty. 15 00:07:16,460 --> 00:07:20,560 An upper world to be shunned, not sought out. 16 00:07:25,640 --> 00:07:29,300 How then have mountains now come to hold a spellbound. 17 00:07:30,700 --> 00:07:33,180 Drawing us into their dominion. 18 00:07:34,700 --> 00:07:37,200 Often at the cost of our lives. 19 00:10:50,660 --> 00:10:55,180 Because the mountains we climb are not made only of rock and ice 20 00:10:57,060 --> 00:11:00,020 But also dreams... And desire. 21 00:11:06,760 --> 00:11:08,540 The mountains we climb 22 00:11:11,160 --> 00:11:12,920 Are mountains of the mind. 23 00:12:31,680 --> 00:12:37,920 To humans high mountains were once considered the home of either the holy 24 00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:39,200 Or the hostile. 25 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:43,020 There was nothing in between. 26 00:12:47,560 --> 00:12:52,160 Around to be revered from below but never entered. 27 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:04,440 Go around mountains if necessary, along their flanks but not up them. 28 00:13:06,440 --> 00:13:10,100 For only gods and monsters dwelt at heights. 29 00:13:29,640 --> 00:13:35,250 The upper world was a sacred landscape to which we directed our devotion 30 00:13:35,260 --> 00:13:37,600 And our rituals of awe. 31 00:13:40,940 --> 00:13:43,840 But always from the safe distance. 32 00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:07,360 Daily life brought ample hardship and danger. 33 00:14:08,580 --> 00:14:11,060 There was no need to seek out more. 34 00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:09,930 Gradually though the dragons and divinities were put to flight and our feelings toward mountains underwent an astonishing change. 35 00:16:09,940 --> 00:16:12,860 Fascination replaced trepidation. 36 00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:16,640 Adventure replaced reverence. 37 00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:24,860 As cities grew and we insulated ourselves away from nature 38 00:16:25,540 --> 00:16:28,620 The mountains called us back. 39 00:16:29,820 --> 00:16:32,820 The magic of mountains strengthened 40 00:16:33,860 --> 00:16:36,400 Their fierce beauty, 41 00:16:36,420 --> 00:16:38,800 Their power to enchant, 42 00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:41,760 Their challenge 43 00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:49,900 We went in search of places that were intimidating and uncontrollable. 44 00:16:49,900 --> 00:16:54,810 That inspired in us the heady blend of pleasure and terror. 45 00:16:54,820 --> 00:16:58,580 Which we came to call the sublime. 46 00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:09,120 This search for the sublime do us outwards and upwards. 47 00:17:27,220 --> 00:17:33,120 The great peeks of the world begin to exert a force upon the imagination. 48 00:17:42,560 --> 00:17:46,580 A siren song that was easy to hear. 49 00:17:47,620 --> 00:17:49,440 Hard to resist. 50 00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:55,920 And sometimes... fatal. 51 00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:10,920 But legends of death in high places spread the spell of the mountains wider still. 52 00:18:27,780 --> 00:18:32,760 Slowly the blank spaces on the maps were filled in. 53 00:18:35,340 --> 00:18:41,900 The imperial aim was to grid, girdle and name the upper world. 54 00:18:45,260 --> 00:18:52,180 To bring it and it's peoples within the realm of the known and the owned. 55 00:18:56,600 --> 00:19:00,260 To replace mystery - with mastery. 56 00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:11,560 And the greatest mystery of them all... 57 00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:13,560 Everest. 58 00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:21,920 And so began the campaign to vanquish it. 59 00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:41,640 Everest was placed under siege. 60 00:21:17,620 --> 00:21:21,040 Until at last it succumbed. 61 00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:48,080 This was the moment that mountaineering as adventure entered the popular imagination. 62 00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:54,640 Our fascination became an obsession. 63 00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:13,560 Now our need for mountains runs deep and wide. 64 00:22:19,020 --> 00:22:27,820 For most of us exist for most of the time in environments that are humanly arranged and controlled. 65 00:22:58,820 --> 00:23:02,640 But mountains are wild and ungovernable. 66 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:07,330 This is the source of their danger 67 00:23:07,340 --> 00:23:10,100 And also the source of their allure. 68 00:23:18,180 --> 00:23:23,380 And so a longing for the unknown that cans us onwards 69 00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:28,120 Like echos cave 70 00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:34,000 The unknown will answer back with whatever you call into it. 71 00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,680 To travel to the high peaks is to cross a threshold 72 00:25:41,700 --> 00:25:45,880 Into a space where time warps... And bends. 73 00:25:47,500 --> 00:25:51,040 And sensations are thrillingly amplified. 74 00:27:55,840 --> 00:28:03,080 Stone and ice though are far less gentle to the hand's touch than to the mind's eye. 75 00:28:13,580 --> 00:28:18,780 The mountains of the Earth have often turned out to be more resistant, 76 00:28:18,780 --> 00:28:20,780 More fatally real 77 00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,440 Than the mountains we imagine. 78 00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:41,140 These are matters of hard sharp rock and driving ice. 79 00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,500 A bone deep cold. 80 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:08,540 Nothing ideal. 81 00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,180 Injury and nausea. 82 00:29:23,620 --> 00:29:25,500 Fizzing fear. 83 00:29:35,500 --> 00:29:38,180 Of stomach turning vertigo. 84 00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:46,020 But... They're also places of unspeakable beauty. 85 00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:07,300 And so the peaks summon us still. 86 00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,260 Sharpening our sense of being. 87 00:31:13,060 --> 00:31:15,560 Setting life on a knife edge. 88 00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,020 For danger can hold terrible joys. 89 00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:54,680 Dreadful splendors. 90 00:32:16,780 --> 00:32:23,100 Today mountains are considered among nature's most exquisite features. 91 00:32:23,100 --> 00:32:29,960 No longer due to their chaotic forms upsetting the spirit level of our minds. 92 00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:17,720 Now we migrate to them in our millions each year pursuing our strange pilgrimages. 93 00:33:43,140 --> 00:33:47,260 A very modern mountain worship has taken hold. 94 00:35:56,740 --> 00:36:01,900 A worship that requires the modification of the mountains. 95 00:36:11,420 --> 00:36:14,700 And the management of their risks. 96 00:36:59,300 --> 00:37:00,880 And in doing so 97 00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:07,540 We have come to forget something of their power. 98 00:37:21,220 --> 00:37:24,240 What odd devotions we undertake. 99 00:37:25,020 --> 00:37:28,260 What curious performances we put on. 100 00:37:28,260 --> 00:37:31,220 With the mountains as our theater. 101 00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:19,800 To certain people the call to adventure is irresistible. 102 00:40:21,060 --> 00:40:26,480 As everyday life has become safer and more comfortable for some. 103 00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:30,280 We've begun to seek out danger elsewhere. 104 00:40:43,700 --> 00:40:45,200 We court danger. 105 00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:50,740 We pay for it. 106 00:41:07,060 --> 00:41:10,560 Risk has become its own reward. 107 00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:28,460 At height you can be taken right to the brink. 108 00:41:33,340 --> 00:41:40,120 For you never feel so alive knowing that at any minute... You could die. 109 00:43:01,020 --> 00:43:06,320 So up to the mountains we go in headlong pursuit of peril. 110 00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:16,440 Or a testing ground on which the self can best be illuminated. 111 00:43:42,740 --> 00:43:50,020 Today's adventurers are driven by the lust to reach somewhere no-one has reached before. 112 00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:57,420 And to do something no-one has done before. 113 00:44:59,500 --> 00:45:04,400 Our wish to be first induces in us forms of insanity. 114 00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:10,840 And forms of grace. 115 00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,780 Adventurers sometimes liken fear to a rat. 116 00:47:49,780 --> 00:47:54,360 When you take risks you feed the rat with fear. 117 00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:58,460 But each time you feed that fear it grows fatter. 118 00:47:59,460 --> 00:48:02,940 So then you must feed it more fear to sate it. 119 00:48:02,940 --> 00:48:06,280 And yet more again and then still more. 120 00:48:07,060 --> 00:48:09,760 Until a madness bites. 121 00:48:23,140 --> 00:48:25,280 How has it come to this? 122 00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:32,200 The mountains as a stage set for a pumped-up poker game of high stakes and high returns. 123 00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:36,020 All driven by big brands and online views. 124 00:49:46,200 --> 00:49:50,550 Many who traveled among the tops are half in love with themselves 125 00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:53,340 And half in love with oblivion. 126 00:50:55,180 --> 00:50:59,040 Today's mountain mania culminates on Everest. 127 00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,600 Where the wish to test one's limits 128 00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:10,120 Or to battle one's demons draws thousands of people to the peak each year. 129 00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:51,220 Attempting Everest offers a way for the ordinary person to be briefly extraordinary. 130 00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:07,620 But the nature of the challenge has in many ways changed. 131 00:53:16,180 --> 00:53:18,580 This isn't climbing anymore. 132 00:53:18,580 --> 00:53:19,940 It's queuing. 133 00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:24,780 This isn't exploration. It's crowd control. 134 00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:29,540 This is the modern industry of ascent. 135 00:53:29,540 --> 00:53:34,900 In which the risks are often taken most by those who have least. 136 00:54:33,340 --> 00:54:36,200 But mountains exceed our command. 137 00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:39,860 They slip our grip. 138 00:54:59,900 --> 00:55:04,720 And there is no glory for those who are left behind. 139 00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:33,940 Mountains are so much more than a challenge... Or an adversary to be overcome. 140 00:55:39,740 --> 00:55:43,080 For mountains humble the human instinct. 141 00:55:44,500 --> 00:55:47,200 And reveal our insignificance. 142 00:55:50,260 --> 00:55:54,320 They live in deep time. In a way that we do not. 143 00:55:56,700 --> 00:56:02,540 Behind and beyond the mountains stretch eons too fast for us to comprehend. 144 00:56:05,100 --> 00:56:08,760 They were here long before we were even dreamed of. 145 00:56:10,020 --> 00:56:12,200 They watched us arrive. 146 00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:15,360 They will watch us leave. 147 00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:37,160 Born of fire. 148 00:59:38,260 --> 00:59:39,520 Born of force. 149 00:59:40,800 --> 00:59:42,200 Mountains move. 150 00:59:45,580 --> 00:59:48,460 Over epochs they rise and fall. 151 00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:57,560 This is the symphony of the Earth. 152 01:00:00,580 --> 01:00:08,620 A rhythm of uplift and erosion that makes not waves of water... But waves of stone. 153 01:00:52,900 --> 01:00:56,300 And from these waves of stone flows life. 154 01:03:59,900 --> 01:04:07,340 Being in the mountains can ignite our astonishment at the simplest transactions of the living world. 155 01:06:06,600 --> 01:06:11,260 Anyone who has been among mountains knows their indifference. 156 01:06:11,260 --> 01:06:16,800 Has felt a brief blazing sense of the world's disinterest in us. 157 01:06:20,000 --> 01:06:23,780 In small measures... This feeling exhilarates. 158 01:06:27,260 --> 01:06:30,540 In full form... It annihilates. 159 01:07:32,260 --> 01:07:36,100 Coming back to Earth from the high peaks 160 01:07:36,100 --> 01:07:38,100 You can feel like a stranger. 161 01:07:38,920 --> 01:07:44,340 Bearing experiences that are beyond expression... And beyond price. 162 01:07:45,680 --> 01:07:51,580 Time has flown over you but left a shadow behind. 163 01:08:19,240 --> 01:08:24,020 Mountains don't seek our love... Or seek our deaths. 164 01:08:27,500 --> 01:08:29,560 They want nothing from us. 165 01:08:37,280 --> 01:08:40,480 And yet... They shift the way we see ourselves. 166 01:08:43,200 --> 01:08:45,020 They weather our spirits. 167 01:08:48,680 --> 01:08:50,660 Challenge our arrogance. 168 01:08:53,680 --> 01:08:55,560 Restore our wonder. 169 01:09:04,640 --> 01:09:08,620 More than ever... We need their wildness.