BOOK: The Ledge (2011)

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The LedgeYear: 2011Author: Jim Davidson and Kevin VaughanLength: 288 pages Humans are incredible creatures. There's a resilience for life that shows up in the most dire of circumstances. This is prevalent in many mountaineering books—especially the ones about climbing disasters. The Ledge is the harrowing real-life story of survival against the odds on Mount Rainier. Granted, most stories like this are usually framed with the benefit of hindsight, which can also highlight the risks that led to the disaster. It's amazing that anyone survived this situation, which is what makes this book an entertaining read. There are a lot of extreme outdoor people in Colorado. My risk tolerance is usually low enough that I think what they do is crazy. I know it's easy to judge when things go wrong, so it s comforting that the situation that led to the titular ledge was mostly because of bad luck. An alignment of poor conditions can take even the most experienced mountaineers by...
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MOVIE: Free Solo (2018)

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Free SoloYear: 2018Rating: PG-13Length: 100 minutes / 1.67 hours For those who view climbing as a serious hobby, most climbing documentaries are a way to live vicariously through those climbers who dare to do something impossible. And while the plot structure of these climbing documentaries all feel nearly identical, there was something special in Free Solo (2018) that made it better than the rest. Perhaps it was the recognizability of El Capitan. Maybe it was the danger involved. Either way, Free Solo was well deserving of its Best Documentary Feature Oscar. Part of why I didn't connect with Meru (2015)—the previous film by these directors—was that I had never heard of that mountain before I sat down to watch it. Having never climbed El Capitan, I was at least aware of its significance. Knowing how hard this climb is, the premise of climbing it with no kind of safety gear is intriguing, to say the least. Of course, most climbing movies seem...
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MOVIE: The Summit of the Gods (2021)

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The Summit of the GodsYear: 2021Rating: PGLength: 95 minutes / 1.58 hours As the tallest mountain in the world, there are more movies about Everest than any other mountain in existence. A good chunk of these movies are documentaries, and even the "Hollywood" movies are about actual events (like Everest (2015)). From my own experiences climbing mountains, there comes a point where movies about mountain climbers end up all looking the same...especially when the mountain they're climbing is the same. Fortunately, The Summit of the Gods (2021) takes a novel approach to this repetitive type of story: by using animation. Based on the manga of the same name, The Summit of the Gods has a story to tell that's much more interesting than the adrenaline junkies who feature in other mountain climbing movies like Meru (2015). Sure, there's still the link to actual people and events, but The Summit of the Gods uses animation to its advantage to tell a story that...
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MOVIE: Meru (2015)

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Meru Year: 2015 Rating: R Length: 90 minutes / 1.50 hours Having done my fair share of hiking in the Colorado mountains, I know how deadly these rocky monuments can be. Meru (2015) highlights this in spades as it documents the conquering of one of the last untouched routes in professional mountain climbing. It's no wonder such a daunting spire of rock remained un-summited from this approach, and this film highlights all the challenges that combine to make Meru as difficult as it is. Of course, because it's a mountain climbing documentary, it follows most of the tropes and cliches common in the genre. One of my biggest qualms with the mountain climbing genre of documentaries is how they all tend to be about the same progression of events. There's always some storm that prevents the team from summiting. Somebody always gets injured. Success is always just out of reach. It also doesn't help that there's no way for the uneducated viewer to tell this...
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