Meru Film Opens This Week

Yesterday I shared the second trailer for the upcoming Everest film, which judging from the traffic on that post there is a great deal of interest amongst reader. But that isn't the only mountaineer movie that we'll be able to catch in theaters over the next few weeks, as Meru is also releasing to a more limited number of screens starting this week.

This documentary follows the 2008 expedition to Mount Meru by Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk to attempt to climb the Shark Fin, a 4000-foot (1219 meter) big wall in the Indian Himalaya. The trio of climbers faced difficult conditions, avalanches, harsh weather, and some of the most challenging pitches found anywhere on the planet on their way up the 21,000-foot (6400 meter) peak. Along the way they were pushed to their absolute limits as they gave into their obsession for reaching the summit.

For my money, Meru is the most important mountaineering film we'll see of the two new releases. It is raw and real, with the actual climbers telling the story. Everest on the other hand is a big Hollywood production that – judging from the trailer – is filled with melodramatic dialog. Don't get me wrong, the climbing scenes look well done for this type of movie, but Meru is using actual footage from the real expedition, and the scenes haven't been recreated for the purpose of telling the story.

The documentary will go into limited release starting this Friday, and will slowly make its way into other theaters in the weeks ahead. You can check to see where it will be playing in your area by clicking here. In my case, it arrives in my town on Sept. 4, two days after a depart for the South Pacific for my honeymoon. That means it may not be still playing here when I get back home, but I am eager to see it none the less.

For an idea of what Meru is all about, check out the trailer below. It does a fine job of showing us what to expect. Can't wait to see it at some point.

Video: Trailer for An American Ascent

In June of 2013, a team of of all African-American climbers traveled to Alaska to climb the highest peak on the continent – Denali. That team would be the first of its kind on the mountain, and hoped to inspire others to follow in their footsteps in seeking outdoor adventure. A documentary film was made about that expedition called An American Ascent, and it is currently screening across the country. The video below is the trailer for that film, and will certainly give you the gist of what it is about. It will also compel you to seek out the film for yourself. Hopefully this comes to Netflix, as I'd very much like to see the whole thing.

 An American Ascent - Film Trailer from Distill Productions on Vimeo.

Video: The Trailer for K2: Siren of the Himalaya

With the summer climbing season about to begin, I thought it was worth sharing the trailer for the film K2: Siren of the Himalaya that was released last year. It is a fantastic documentary that takes a look at this amazing mountain, and the men and women who are drawn to climb it. The film is available to purchase or rent via a number of outlets, including iTunes and Google Play, and is well worth the money. If you want to know more about what mountaineers face on the "Savage Mountain," you'll certainly want to give this film a look.

Kickstarter Project: The Long Way to Everest

I generally get several emails a day from someone asking me to help promote their crowdfunding project. Most of them are of little interest to me, or those who read this blog. Some are simply asking others to help fund their travels, which I find somewhat distasteful. But occasionally I get an email about a project that I do find incredibly interesting and worth mentioning, which why I will post about some crowdfunding efforts from time to time. Take for example a new project from a budding filmmaker named Daniel Foutz who has come up with a unique idea for a documentary film that I think many would enjoy seeing.

Daniel calls his project The Long Way to Everest, and he has just launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his idea. You see, as a child Daniel read books about Everest, and the mountain became a place that he fell in love with even though he had never seen it in person. That is something a lot of us can probably relate to. He often organized climbs with his friends back in his home country of the Philippines, and while they didn't come close to comparing to climbing the Himalaya, it spurred on a young man's imagination for adventure.

Now, Daniel would like to make the trek to Everest Base Camp himself so he can visit the place that he has read so much about. But unlike most trekkers who make that journey, he wants to skip the flight to Lukla and trek from a village called Jiri instead. You see, Jiri is the place where Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay – along with the rest of their climbing team – began the trek to Everest on the historic expedition that ultimately produced the first ascent of the mountain. The hike from Jiri adds quite a few kilometers and days to the journey, which Daniel believes will take about three weeks to complete.


Prior to the construction of the airport in Lukla, Jiri and other villages along the original route received an influx of visitors that brought money to the local economy there. But now, those villages are all but ignored. Daniel says that in 2011 more than 37,000 people visited the Everest region. Only about 400 of those passed along the route that begins in Jiri. The idea behind The Long Way to Everest project is to follow the old route to the mountain and explore how the villages along that section of the trek are faring these days.

While the focus of the trek is to make a documentary film about the original trekking route and the villages that are found along the route that Hillary and Norgay used, there is another intriguing element to the project as well. Daniel also intends to carry a geocache time capsule with him to Base Camp which will contain historical information about the mountain, mementos from the trek, and letters from supporters of his efforts. He intends to lock that cache when he hides it, but provide clues to the combination to that lock which will be scattered along the trekking route. The coordinates will be shared for geocachers to find later, and whoever collects the clues gets to unlock the capsule and discover what is inside.

Not only do I think this sounds like a very interest project, I also applaud Daniel for not asking for others to completely fund it for him. He has set a very modest goal for his Kickstarter campaign of just $500 CAD, which is roughly $400 US at the moment. He has nearly reached halfway to his goal with more than 20 days to go, so hopefully he'll be able to get the funding he needs to get his project off the ground.

As someone who has made the trek to Everest Base Camp himself, and had some first hand experience in the villages that fall along the route, I think a documentary of this type would be very interesting. Hopefully we'll all get a chance to see it in the future.