RH: Once you reached base camp, the climbers did the entire route to the summit without any aid from high-altitude porters. In the film, I noticed some fixed ropes. Did you put all those up before the filming began? What was it like climbing and setting up camps completely unaided?
CB: It’s a lot of hard work. On that expedition, I was telling you, we didn’t have any porter support, and so a few of us ended up doing most of the work. ... The fixed lines were already up. There were a few expeditions that had already been there before us and they already had rope up earlier that season, so we just used it. We might have put in some extra rope in certain sections. God, that’s a long time ago, in 1999.

RH: On summit day, you had a long, difficult climb to a tent that someone had left high on the mountain. Then you continued without a rest to the summit. The narrator mentions that you still had eight hours to go. And of course you had to get back down. Can a person who has never done this sort of thing (at 26,000 feet) really comprehend what it feels like?
CB: No. That summit day was probably the hardest summit day I have ever had in the mountains. I was completely exhausted. I remember, we started out at nine, ten o’clock at night and we climbed up all throughout the night, and before that we had already attempted the summit twice before, so we were pretty tired. The expedition was now well over 60 days, and we were ready to go home, so it was really hard for us. And I remember getting up to a point and I could kind of see the summit, and I said, We’ll be up there in an hour, and this was eight o’clock in the morning, and it wasn’t until one we topped out and it was so hard, and then we had to get all the way back down again. I think we got back down to camp by five. And that day was probably the hardest day I ever had in the mountains.

RH: It was amazing.
CB: It was amazing, yes.

RH: Weren’t you truly astonished to learn that while you were high up on the dangerous mountain, an avalanche inundated basecamp far below, wreaking destruction and forcing you, as expedition leader, to return briefly to assess the damage? Normally, you would think the avalanche would happen up high …
CB: We had so many things happen to us on that expedition. We had our basecamp wiped out by an avalanche; and thank god all the local staff went down to Concordia to visit some other friends, just by chance. I think they were playing cards down there.
So, it was lucky for us nobody was hurt, but our kitchen tent, everything, was wiped out. We lost several tents. And what had happened was some freak avalanche from the mountain about a half-mile across the glacier — a huge serac came down and just went all the way across that glacier and wiped out our camp, and the Korean camp got wiped out and one other camp.

RH: That ‘s so unusual. Normally basecamps are safe from those types of inundations.
CB: Yes, you would assume. In this case, it was just a freak occurrence. And then on top of it we had several big storms hit us that completely. ... we had snow and snow, and it collapsed our kitchen tent again.

RH: Was the basecamp at around 18,000 feet?
CB: It was 5,000 meters, 5,200 meters [ca. 17,000 feet].

RH: The narrator in Ascent on G2 says that mountaineering is a solo sport? Is this true?
CB: On the bigger peaks, it’s probably, in some ways, solo, because if there’s fixed line you’re moving independently. However, it’s a team effort. And a lot of times in the mountains its just you and another buddy, and it’s you two. It’s not a solo sport.

RH: 1995, on the descent from Broad Peak’s summit, you got disoriented in a blizzard. Were you alone? How did you find your way back to camp? During this same storm, the great British climber Alison Hargreaves was killed nearby on K2.
CB: Yes, that was a big experience for me. That was after I sumitted my first eight-thousander. That’s when I first met Scott Fisher. He had his own expedition, which was on the mountain at the same time. What had happened was I was the only person in my expedition (there were four of us … ) who went to the summit that day, and when I was coming down, I was kind of following Scott Fisher’s group. They were about an hour in front of me. And that’s when that huge storm came out from the north, from China, and as I got farther away from the mountain, the winds picked up, and I couldn’t see their tracks anymore. The sun was just going down, and all I kind of remembered is the contour of the glacier. I was trying to remember that from the way I came up; I was actually heading right off a cliff, and for a brief second, the wind let up and the sun was in between the clouds, and it came out just for a brief second. I saw a dark patch and I said, “That’s Camp 3,” and I headed right toward it. I was so happy to be at camp, because I looked and I was headed right off that ice cliff. ...

RH: I am happy for you. It’ such a horrible feeling to not know where to go, get a little lost....
CB: You can get lost anywhere in the mountains; its not just the big peaks. Yes, to spend a night alone or out alone. ...

RH: Were you prepared to bivouac?
CB: I had a sleeping bag with me.

RH: It would have been unpleasant.
CB: It would have been unpleasant. ... I would have survived the night, probably. The next day it was a beautiful blue day, crystal-blue day. We didn’t hear about the K2 incident until we got back down to basecamp. There was a Canadian team there, and they were listening to the dispatches on K2, with Jeff Lakes trying to make it down; Peter Hillary was talking on the radio, saying, “You’re almost there Jeff, you’re almost there.” Then we went over to Scott’s camp ,and they had this huge telescope and they were watching what was going on in the mountain. That’s when we realized Jeff must have died, because they were digging a grave for him; it was really sad; and we heard about Allison and Rob Slater and all those folks, and it was really sad. It was the first time that I experienced so much death in the mountains. I never thought of mountaineering as — somebody could die. For me, in that way, it was a good lesson to be learned that day.

RH: A hard lesson
CB: A hard lesson, yes.

RH: Once you reached base camp, the climbers did the entire route to the summit without any aid from high-altitude porters. In the film, I noticed some fixed ropes. Did you put all those up before the filming began? What was it like climbing and setting up camps completely unaided?
CB: It’s a lot of hard work. On that expedition, I was telling you, we didn’t have any porter support, and so a few of us ended up doing most of the work. ... The fixed lines were already up. There were a few expeditions that had already been there before us and they already had rope up earlier that season, so we just used it. We might have put in some extra rope in certain sections. God, that’s a long time ago, in 1999.

RH: On summit day, you had a long, difficult climb to a tent that someone had left high on the mountain. Then you continued without a rest to the summit. The narrator mentions that you still had eight hours to go. And of course you had to get back down. Can a person who has never done this sort of thing (at 26,000 feet) really comprehend what it feels like?
CB: No. That summit day was probably the hardest summit day I have ever had in the mountains. I was completely exhausted. I remember, we started out at nine, ten o’clock at night and we climbed up all throughout the night, and before that we had already attempted the summit twice before, so we were pretty tired. The expedition was now well over 60 days, and we were ready to go home, so it was really hard for us. And I remember getting up to a point and I could kind of see the summit, and I said, We’ll be up there in an hour, and this was eight o’clock in the morning, and it wasn’t until one we topped out and it was so hard, and then we had to get all the way back down again. I think we got back down to camp by five. And that day was probably the hardest day I ever had in the mountains.

RH: It was amazing.
CB: It was amazing, yes.

RH: Weren’t you truly astonished to learn that while you were high up on the dangerous mountain, an avalanche inundated basecamp far below, wreaking destruction and forcing you, as expedition leader, to return briefly to assess the damage? Normally, you would think the avalanche would happen up high …
CB: We had so many things happen to us on that expedition. We had our basecamp wiped out by an avalanche; and thank god all the local staff went down to Concordia to visit some other friends, just by chance. I think they were playing cards down there.
So, it was lucky for us nobody was hurt, but our kitchen tent, everything, was wiped out. We lost several tents. And what had happened was some freak avalanche from the mountain about a half-mile across the glacier — a huge serac came down and just went all the way across that glacier and wiped out our camp, and the Korean camp got wiped out and one other camp.

RH: That ‘s so unusual. Normally basecamps are safe from those types of inundations.
CB: Yes, you would assume. In this case, it was just a freak occurrence. And then on top of it we had several big storms hit us that completely. ... we had snow and snow, and it collapsed our kitchen tent again.

RH: Was the basecamp at around 18,000 feet?
CB: It was 5,000 meters, 5,200 meters [ca. 17,000 feet].

RH: The narrator in Ascent on G2 says that mountaineering is a solo sport? Is this true?
CB: On the bigger peaks, it’s probably, in some ways, solo, because if there’s fixed line you’re moving independently. However, it’s a team effort. And a lot of times in the mountains its just you and another buddy, and it’s you two. It’s not a solo sport.

RH: 1995, on the descent from Broad Peak’s summit, you got disoriented in a blizzard. Were you alone? How did you find your way back to camp? During this same storm, the great British climber Alison Hargreaves was killed nearby on K2.
CB: Yes, that was a big experience for me. That was after I sumitted my first eight-thousander. That’s when I first met Scott Fisher. He had his own expedition, which was on the mountain at the same time. What had happened was I was the only person in my expedition (there were four of us … ) who went to the summit that day, and when I was coming down, I was kind of following Scott Fisher’s group. They were about an hour in front of me. And that’s when that huge storm came out from the north, from China, and as I got farther away from the mountain, the winds picked up, and I couldn’t see their tracks anymore. The sun was just going down, and all I kind of remembered is the contour of the glacier. I was trying to remember that from the way I came up; I was actually heading right off a cliff, and for a brief second, the wind let up and the sun was in between the clouds, and it came out just for a brief second. I saw a dark patch and I said, “That’s Camp 3,” and I headed right toward it. I was so happy to be at camp, because I looked and I was headed right off that ice cliff. ...

RH: I am happy for you. It’ such a horrible feeling to not know where to go, get a little lost....
CB: You can get lost anywhere in the mountains; its not just the big peaks. Yes, to spend a night alone or out alone. ...

RH: Were you prepared to bivouac?
CB: I had a sleeping bag with me.

RH: It would have been unpleasant.
CB: It would have been unpleasant. ... I would have survived the night, probably. The next day it was a beautiful blue day, crystal-blue day. We didn’t hear about the K2 incident until we got back down to basecamp. There was a Canadian team there, and they were listening to the dispatches on K2, with Jeff Lakes trying to make it down; Peter Hillary was talking on the radio, saying, “You’re almost there Jeff, you’re almost there.” Then we went over to Scott’s camp ,and they had this huge telescope and they were watching what was going on in the mountain. That’s when we realized Jeff must have died, because they were digging a grave for him; it was really sad; and we heard about Allison and Rob Slater and all those folks, and it was really sad. It was the first time that I experienced so much death in the mountains. I never thought of mountaineering as — somebody could die. For me, in that way, it was a good lesson to be learned that day.

RH: A hard lesson
CB: A hard lesson, yes.

RH: Once you reached base camp, the climbers did the entire route to the summit without any aid from high-altitude porters. In the film, I noticed some fixed ropes. Did you put all those up before the filming began? What was it like climbing and setting up camps completely unaided?
CB: It’s a lot of hard work. On that expedition, I was telling you, we didn’t have any porter support, and so a few of us ended up doing most of the work. ... The fixed lines were already up. There were a few expeditions that had already been there before us and they already had rope up earlier that season, so we just used it. We might have put in some extra rope in certain sections. God, that’s a long time ago, in 1999.

RH: On summit day, you had a long, difficult climb to a tent that someone had left high on the mountain. Then you continued without a rest to the summit. The narrator mentions that you still had eight hours to go. And of course you had to get back down. Can a person who has never done this sort of thing (at 26,000 feet) really comprehend what it feels like?
CB: No. That summit day was probably the hardest summit day I have ever had in the mountains. I was completely exhausted. I remember, we started out at nine, ten o’clock at night and we climbed up all throughout the night, and before that we had already attempted the summit twice before, so we were pretty tired. The expedition was now well over 60 days, and we were ready to go home, so it was really hard for us. And I remember getting up to a point and I could kind of see the summit, and I said, We’ll be up there in an hour, and this was eight o’clock in the morning, and it wasn’t until one we topped out and it was so hard, and then we had to get all the way back down again. I think we got back down to camp by five. And that day was probably the hardest day I ever had in the mountains.

RH: It was amazing.
CB: It was amazing, yes.

RH: Weren’t you truly astonished to learn that while you were high up on the dangerous mountain, an avalanche inundated basecamp far below, wreaking destruction and forcing you, as expedition leader, to return briefly to assess the damage? Normally, you would think the avalanche would happen up high …
CB: We had so many things happen to us on that expedition. We had our basecamp wiped out by an avalanche; and thank god all the local staff went down to Concordia to visit some other friends, just by chance. I think they were playing cards down there.
So, it was lucky for us nobody was hurt, but our kitchen tent, everything, was wiped out. We lost several tents. And what had happened was some freak avalanche from the mountain about a half-mile across the glacier — a huge serac came down and just went all the way across that glacier and wiped out our camp, and the Korean camp got wiped out and one other camp.

RH: That ‘s so unusual. Normally basecamps are safe from those types of inundations.
CB: Yes, you would assume. In this case, it was just a freak occurrence. And then on top of it we had several big storms hit us that completely. ... we had snow and snow, and it collapsed our kitchen tent again.

RH: Was the basecamp at around 18,000 feet?
CB: It was 5,000 meters, 5,200 meters [ca. 17,000 feet].

RH: The narrator in Ascent on G2 says that mountaineering is a solo sport? Is this true?
CB: On the bigger peaks, it’s probably, in some ways, solo, because if there’s fixed line you’re moving independently. However, it’s a team effort. And a lot of times in the mountains its just you and another buddy, and it’s you two. It’s not a solo sport.

RH: 1995, on the descent from Broad Peak’s summit, you got disoriented in a blizzard. Were you alone? How did you find your way back to camp? During this same storm, the great British climber Alison Hargreaves was killed nearby on K2.
CB: Yes, that was a big experience for me. That was after I sumitted my first eight-thousander. That’s when I first met Scott Fisher. He had his own expedition, which was on the mountain at the same time. What had happened was I was the only person in my expedition (there were four of us … ) who went to the summit that day, and when I was coming down, I was kind of following Scott Fisher’s group. They were about an hour in front of me. And that’s when that huge storm came out from the north, from China, and as I got farther away from the mountain, the winds picked up, and I couldn’t see their tracks anymore. The sun was just going down, and all I kind of remembered is the contour of the glacier. I was trying to remember that from the way I came up; I was actually heading right off a cliff, and for a brief second, the wind let up and the sun was in between the clouds, and it came out just for a brief second. I saw a dark patch and I said, “That’s Camp 3,” and I headed right toward it. I was so happy to be at camp, because I looked and I was headed right off that ice cliff. ...

RH: I am happy for you. It’ such a horrible feeling to not know where to go, get a little lost....
CB: You can get lost anywhere in the mountains; its not just the big peaks. Yes, to spend a night alone or out alone. ...

RH: Were you prepared to bivouac?
CB: I had a sleeping bag with me.

RH: It would have been unpleasant.
CB: It would have been unpleasant. ... I would have survived the night, probably. The next day it was a beautiful blue day, crystal-blue day. We didn’t hear about the K2 incident until we got back down to basecamp. There was a Canadian team there, and they were listening to the dispatches on K2, with Jeff Lakes trying to make it down; Peter Hillary was talking on the radio, saying, “You’re almost there Jeff, you’re almost there.” Then we went over to Scott’s camp ,and they had this huge telescope and they were watching what was going on in the mountain. That’s when we realized Jeff must have died, because they were digging a grave for him; it was really sad; and we heard about Allison and Rob Slater and all those folks, and it was really sad. It was the first time that I experienced so much death in the mountains. I never thought of mountaineering as — somebody could die. For me, in that way, it was a good lesson to be learned that day.

RH: A hard lesson
CB: A hard lesson, yes.

RH: Once you reached base camp, the climbers did the entire route to the summit without any aid from high-altitude porters. In the film, I noticed some fixed ropes. Did you put all those up before the filming began? What was it like climbing and setting up camps completely unaided?
CB: It’s a lot of hard work. On that expedition, I was telling you, we didn’t have any porter support, and so a few of us ended up doing most of the work. ... The fixed lines were already up. There were a few expeditions that had already been there before us and they already had rope up earlier that season, so we just used it. We might have put in some extra rope in certain sections. God, that’s a long time ago, in 1999.

RH: On summit day, you had a long, difficult climb to a tent that someone had left high on the mountain. Then you continued without a rest to the summit. The narrator mentions that you still had eight hours to go. And of course you had to get back down. Can a person who has never done this sort of thing (at 26,000 feet) really comprehend what it feels like?
CB: No. That summit day was probably the hardest summit day I have ever had in the mountains. I was completely exhausted. I remember, we started out at nine, ten o’clock at night and we climbed up all throughout the night, and before that we had already attempted the summit twice before, so we were pretty tired. The expedition was now well over 60 days, and we were ready to go home, so it was really hard for us. And I remember getting up to a point and I could kind of see the summit, and I said, We’ll be up there in an hour, and this was eight o’clock in the morning, and it wasn’t until one we topped out and it was so hard, and then we had to get all the way back down again. I think we got back down to camp by five. And that day was probably the hardest day I ever had in the mountains.

RH: It was amazing.
CB: It was amazing, yes.

RH: Weren’t you truly astonished to learn that while you were high up on the dangerous mountain, an avalanche inundated basecamp far below, wreaking destruction and forcing you, as expedition leader, to return briefly to assess the damage? Normally, you would think the avalanche would happen up high …
CB: We had so many things happen to us on that expedition. We had our basecamp wiped out by an avalanche; and thank god all the local staff went down to Concordia to visit some other friends, just by chance. I think they were playing cards down there.
So, it was lucky for us nobody was hurt, but our kitchen tent, everything, was wiped out. We lost several tents. And what had happened was some freak avalanche from the mountain about a half-mile across the glacier — a huge serac came down and just went all the way across that glacier and wiped out our camp, and the Korean camp got wiped out and one other camp.

RH: That ‘s so unusual. Normally basecamps are safe from those types of inundations.
CB: Yes, you would assume. In this case, it was just a freak occurrence. And then on top of it we had several big storms hit us that completely. ... we had snow and snow, and it collapsed our kitchen tent again.

RH: Was the basecamp at around 18,000 feet?
CB: It was 5,000 meters, 5,200 meters [ca. 17,000 feet].

RH: The narrator in Ascent on G2 says that mountaineering is a solo sport? Is this true?
CB: On the bigger peaks, it’s probably, in some ways, solo, because if there’s fixed line you’re moving independently. However, it’s a team effort. And a lot of times in the mountains its just you and another buddy, and it’s you two. It’s not a solo sport.

RH: 1995, on the descent from Broad Peak’s summit, you got disoriented in a blizzard. Were you alone? How did you find your way back to camp? During this same storm, the great British climber Alison Hargreaves was killed nearby on K2.
CB: Yes, that was a big experience for me. That was after I sumitted my first eight-thousander. That’s when I first met Scott Fisher. He had his own expedition, which was on the mountain at the same time. What had happened was I was the only person in my expedition (there were four of us … ) who went to the summit that day, and when I was coming down, I was kind of following Scott Fisher’s group. They were about an hour in front of me. And that’s when that huge storm came out from the north, from China, and as I got farther away from the mountain, the winds picked up, and I couldn’t see their tracks anymore. The sun was just going down, and all I kind of remembered is the contour of the glacier. I was trying to remember that from the way I came up; I was actually heading right off a cliff, and for a brief second, the wind let up and the sun was in between the clouds, and it came out just for a brief second. I saw a dark patch and I said, “That’s Camp 3,” and I headed right toward it. I was so happy to be at camp, because I looked and I was headed right off that ice cliff. ...

RH: I am happy for you. It’ such a horrible feeling to not know where to go, get a little lost....
CB: You can get lost anywhere in the mountains; its not just the big peaks. Yes, to spend a night alone or out alone. ...

RH: Were you prepared to bivouac?
CB: I had a sleeping bag with me.

RH: It would have been unpleasant.
CB: It would have been unpleasant. ... I would have survived the night, probably. The next day it was a beautiful blue day, crystal-blue day. We didn’t hear about the K2 incident until we got back down to basecamp. There was a Canadian team there, and they were listening to the dispatches on K2, with Jeff Lakes trying to make it down; Peter Hillary was talking on the radio, saying, “You’re almost there Jeff, you’re almost there.” Then we went over to Scott’s camp ,and they had this huge telescope and they were watching what was going on in the mountain. That’s when we realized Jeff must have died, because they were digging a grave for him; it was really sad; and we heard about Allison and Rob Slater and all those folks, and it was really sad. It was the first time that I experienced so much death in the mountains. I never thought of mountaineering as — somebody could die. For me, in that way, it was a good lesson to be learned that day.

RH: A hard lesson
CB: A hard lesson, yes.

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