Up: My Life’s Journey to the Top of Everest. Ben Fogle
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chance of getting to the summit. Climbing on Everest is only possible in a window of relative calm, just before the monsoon season arrives and with it hurricane-force winds on the summit. This means most attempts happen from mid to late May every year. We had left little margin for error and certainly no time to hang around in Kathmandu waiting for my missing bags to turn up.
We had one day to track the bags before leaving for Lukla on 14 April. They were tracked to customs. It was Friday, a national holiday and the offices would be closed until the following Monday. We had no time to wait. I took a gamble that my bags would catch me up somewhere along the trail.
There is something rather liberating about turning up at the airport with nothing. So often in my job, I travel with a crew and dozens of boxes and bags of equipment. This flight was no different; between Kenton and Victoria there were nearly 20 bags.
This count had been substantially increased by the addition of a new member to our team. I had briefly asked a couple of broadcasters whether they might be interested in our expedition and the lukewarm response had cemented my resolve to climb the mountain without a film crew.
I have a love–hate relationship with the camera. On the one hand, it is my profession, it is essential to my livelihood and it’s my day-to-day workmate, but on the other hand it also has the power to dominate. Let’s be clear, I owe my entire career to the camera. It is the TV lens that has opened the world to me, but I suppose, like anything in life, it can become a little overwhelming. The camera can be empowering, but it can also do the reverse. At times, I find it has the power to soak up everything in its lens. Great for the viewer, but not so great for the subject.
This happens in a number of ways. Sometimes people reserve and conserve all their energy for the camera – they literally switch themselves on and off – which can be deeply confusing for the people they’re working with.
The camera can also become the unintentional ‘leader’, particularly where a team is involved. People still seem to have a slightly unhealthy reverence for the film camera. I see it all the time. They get star-struck and go all strange whenever a TV crew is about.
When we filmed Castaway for the BBC, it was decided that to ensure a more honest, real film, we would film most of the year ourselves. The act of observing will always affect those that are being observed. It is a well-documented truth of psychology, which is why I’d argue that much of modern ‘reality’ TV is no longer real. It is inhabited by a cast of subjects who are painfully aware of the cameras, often modifying their behaviour for the lens. They simply become caricatures of themselves while they play up for the cameras.
So, after nearly 20 years in front of the camera, I was looking for a break from its prying lens. I saw Everest as a very personal goal and ambition and one I was happy to undertake without the interruption of a camera, because one of the strange side effects of working in front of the lens for so many years is that any type of camera always feels like work, even a stills camera. I know it sounds daft, but I find myself almost allergic to any kind of camera when I’m not working.
But about two weeks before we were due to depart, I had an email from CNN. They knew about our climb and wanted to know if we would make a film. I am very easily swayed, and besides, I thought, it would be a beautiful record of our climb for my children and grandchildren. Agreeing to make a film of the expedition is one thing; making it happen is another. Above all, we had to find a cameraman who was capable of climbing Everest at such short notice. There were only two candidates.
The first was Ed Wardle, a brilliant Scottish cameraman who has climbed Everest with a camera multiple times as well as making his own Channel 4 TV series, Alone in the Wild, in which he had spent 12 weeks alone, foraging in the Yukon. Most recently, he had filmed a re-creation of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s open boat journey with the explorer Tim Jarvis. In short, Ed was hard as nails and easily up to the task.
The other candidate was more of a wild card. Mark Fisher, a former mountaineering guide from the USA, had filmed with Kenton Cool on a number of climbs. Although he had never climbed Everest, he had filmed at over 8,000 metres and Kenton was sure he was up for the job.
I sent e-mails to both. Ed was busy, but Mark was available and within days he had been signed up as our fourth teammate. Looking back, it was quite a big gamble. I had never met him before. I had no idea what he was like as a person. I didn’t know his filming style. Nothing. It was all based on trusting Kenton’s references.
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