Steph Davis - Choises

Record of the first ascent of Everest made without the use of oxygen equipment, made in May 1978 by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler. Could it be done? Would their blood vessels burst? Would they suffer brain damage leading to madness? Nobody was sure. Messner: 'I would never come here for trying Everest with oxygen. That is not a challenge for me.' A fascinating piece of history, well filmed by Leo Dickinson and Eric Jones (above the South Col Messner used a cine camera to continue the filming), featuring Messner and Habeler's thoughts. The film follows the usual sequence from Namche to Base Camp, through the Icefall, to Camps I, II and III. It also shows historical footage of the pioneering Mallory and Shipton expeditions.

This documentary tells via the testimonies of people who knew him (like Simone Moro, his companion during his last ascent), the life, the mountaineering exploits and the very tolerant character of Anatoli Boukreev. This famous mountaineer has made more than twenty-one ascents on mountains of 8,000 m altitude, without using supplemental oxygen, and has reached the summit of Everest four times. In 1996 he saved the lives of many climbers in a group led by Scott Fischer during their attempt on Everest. The documentary is based on footage shot during his tragic last ascent of Annapurna in Nepal in 1997.

This year the Mammut Teamtrip proves that you can also go climbing in Kyrgyzstan. Beginning of July Nina Caprez, Stephan Siegrist, David Lama and Giovanni Quirici have packed their backpacks and headed for Tien Shan, a mountain range in south-western Kyrgyzstan. There they are planning the first ascent of a big wall route in Karavshin Valley. Maybe it is the lack of eight-thousanders which refused the small country at the border to China to be ranked amongst big climbing destinations such as Pakistan and Nepal. It is high time to chance this.

The DLFA was a haphazard assortment of young misfits unified by their unwavering pursuit of climbing, partying, and testing the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior. During the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s they established bold first ascents at Devil's Lake State Park and elsewhere in the Midwest. Their spirit of youthful nonconformity and brash rebellion is enshrined in the group's full name: The Devil's Lake Fukness Association.

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary & Tenzing Norgay made history as the first people to reach the top of Everest. Now, 50 years later, three sons of Everest's most celebrated climbers return to the mountain to challenge it again. Join their journey as they brave the elements and face death to climb 29,000 feet of wind-blasted rock and ice. And, relive the dramatic history of Everest from great triumphs to deadly tragedies, enduring rivalries and the unsung role of the Sherpa people—as National Geographic exposes the untold stories that lurk in the mountain's epic shadow and takes you on the ultimate Everest experience.