Dying for Everest

In 1994, New Zealand mountaineer, Mark Whetu, summitted Mt Everest with climbing partner and friend Mike Reinberger. However it was late in the day and after a freezing night on the summit, Whetu was faced with a terrible decision...to leave Reinberger or stay with him forever.

The Douglas Mawson Antarctic Expedition of 1912 is considered one of the most amazing feats of endurance of all time. Although his two companions perished, Douglas Mawson survived, but how? In a bold historical experiment, scientist and adventurer Tim Jarvis is retracing the gruelling experience, with the same meagre rations, primitive clothing and equipment to uncover what happened to Mawson physically — and mentally — as a man hanging on the precipice of life and death.

Mt. Kilimanjaro – it’s here that World Hang Gliding Champions Bill Moyes and his son Steve defy freezing temperatures and lack of oxygen to break the World Descent Record by flying their hang gliders from the 3 mile-high peak.

In 1991, in a field near the Nepalese hamlet of Gokyo, four men climbed into two fragile wicker baskets and poured flame into their hot air balloons. They were to become the first balloonists to fly over Mount Everest. For Leo Dickinson and Chris Dewhirst, the cameraman and pilot in one of the balloons, the flight was to settle old scores after three previous attempts and several life-threatening crashes. This documentary follows their successful flight over the finest panorama on earth in the oldest of flying machines, before their final crash landing in a remote corner of Tibet. Their voyage remains the only balloon flight over Everest to this day.