"14 Peaks" The Movie

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

The guy was U.K. Special Forces for 10-years. I'm pretty sure his fitness, survival skills and training are elite levels and yes I'd say quitting is not in the blood of such a person. He doesn't strike me as an average guy in any way at all. Quitters don't make it in special forces.

I'm interested to see what he does from this point. Looking up his military service I stumbled across his commercial website. Its clear he intends to capitalize his new-won fame and good for him, and his team. Its high time a Nepalese guiding company thrives on the scene. Its also clear he has other big goals, perhaps goals worthy of future movies. I'm interested to see what and how he promotes for Nepal and her people too. 

I don't understand the need to nitpick at the guy or his accomplishments. I don't understand the need to compare him to other mountaineers. Can't he just be himself and let his body of work do the talking? I sure hope so. And I hope he, his company, his guides and support crew all do very well and make lots of money doing it.

UKSF and Gurkha, these guys are some of the hardest and craziest people you could ever meet. I didn't know that about him going into the movie but as soon as that fact was explored all of it started to make sense. His way of carrying himself, his emphasis on teamwork and going for it no matter what. From the first second all of that screamed Gurkha. I thought he came across as quite a nice guy all things considered, emphasising his team's hard work as well.  

I really enjoyed the movie. I missed only two things: more explanation of why Messner needed 16 years to do it aside from the oxygen (there's also 50+ years of climbing standards, gear innovation and weather forecasting development to take into account) as well as just more emphasis on hardship. For some of these mountains, especially for example K2, it was just like basecamp>small bit of climbing>summit>party. As if the whole thing was just a fun time. Granted, with only 90 minutes for 14 mountains, that's bound to happen. That's not even 7 minutes per mountain.

Gotta mention the traditional WWII story (apocryphal but mostly attributed to Field Marshal William Slim who was a Gurkha Battalion Officer)

Story goes that during WWII, the Brits planned to drop a company of Gurkhas behind Enemy lines to help slow an enemy advance. A British major explained the plan to the Gurkha sergeant major, saying: “We’ll drop you from 600 feet.”

The sergeant major talked to his troops, then went back to the major: “Sah, the men say 600 feet too high. They want to be dropped lower.” The British major said: “All right, sergeant major, we’ll make it 500 feet.”

The sergeant major spoke to his troops again, and again went back to the major: “Sah, the men say 500 feet is still too high and want to be dropped lower.” The major said: “Sergeant major, we could go down to 400 feet to drop you but that wouldn’t leave enough time for the parachutes to open.”

Sergeant major: “Ooohhh, paraaaachutes???”

another quote from a British officer who worked with the Gurkhas was  “Any man who says he’s not afraid to die, is either lying or a Gurkha”

It should be noted the winter ascent of K2 was done without O2. Of course doing all 14 w/o O2 would have been better style. But, with the time frame given, it seems unlikely to be done any time soon.

James Wwrote:

Yeah, exactly, and he’s this overweight pudge at the beginning of the film.  Definitely a strong, bold, badass climber - but it also seems a soft record where the greatest barrier is a bunch of money to cover logistics.  

There was a statement made that his project had an efficiency to his end goal of just getting up the peaks given combining approaches, acclimatization, etc. of multiple peaks at a time.  Given he’s dealing with family and partying between phases, it all seemed less astonishing than witnessing true athletic limits.  

What I saw is how non-elite the entire pursuit is - for this guy to waltz in and crush everyone.  Freesolo El Cap or break even 4 hours on the Nose or freeclimb any of those routes in 5 yrs - not as likely.

6/10. Good troll, but it gets a bit obvious after a re-read.

Ward Smithwrote:

Watching it now.  Awesome, but funny that he's compared to Messner and others who did them all without oxygen.  Doing them without oxygen would be the comparison.  In high altitude climbing, "altitude" is all about lack of oxygen.  

The physiological limitations at reduced pressure are immense and a never ending learning experience, even for those who design for it day in and day out.  Oxygen isn't the panacea people think it is.  I don't know jack about high altitude mountaineering, but keeping pilots functional up at "altitude" was part of my job.  There's a lot going on up there.

I finally saw this. Amazing feat. Was looking forward to it but I was very disappointed with how little detail about the climbing, logistics, etc. there is in the movie. I know this is not a way to make a commercially successful film, but wish it had been two or three times as long and included more.

what is nims up to in 2020/2021/2022

anyone got any vlogs or posts to share links to? 

i recall that at the end of 14  he promised another great adventure is coming 

I saw a sponsored post on IG in which he said he was guiding somebody on Antarctica. 

A mind blowing accomplishment.  Physically.  Mentally.  Logistically.

amazing movie

Chris taurez Yes that is a shitty attitude.. 

Stunning movie. to be in the middle of that quest and stop everything to risk your life and help others shows charecter.  absolutly amazeing and deserves as much credit if not more than if it was a bunch of westerners. 

Ward. think of it as a speed climbing attempt.   Speed climbing they break all kinds of normal climbing rules to make up the time.  think of oxygen as the French free of high altitude mountaineering..  speed climbers on El cap grab gear all day long.   Apparently the gig with oxygen is that its a trade off. in order to use it you have to carry it but they explained that it gave them an extra window of safety up there.  Imagine being in the middle of a speed climb and stopping to help other people. Not everyone does that in the mountains. In fact on big mountains most people seem to ignore the dying while pursuing their own goals.