The Man Who Skied Down Everest - Award-Winning Adventure Documentary DVD - Inspiring True Story of Extreme Sports & Mountain Climbing - Perfect for Outdoor Enthusiasts and Adventure Film Collectors

I have been fascinated with Mount Everest since reading Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air". There was an underlying message in that book that made me want to understand more about why someone would risk their life and struggle through overwelming physical challenges just to say they had climbed the mountain. There was also a picture, in words, of a rugged beauty that served, in part, to explain that puzzle. I have purchased and enjoyed a number of cinematic accounts of Everest climbs and the beauty and the questions still remain. "The Man Who Skied Down Everest" is probably the best of those videos because the cinematography is outstanding and the quest is beyond the scope of just wanting to climb Everest; Yuichiro Miura wanted to ski down it. Indeed, it did not appear that Everest was summitted but, rather, plummitted.The film begins as a sort of "how to" and shows all of the equiptment and provisions that needs to be hauled up to the base camp (I forget how many tons but it was a lot). It takes us through the route that the porters (and climbers) had to journey. That seemed like a challeging enough trek in itself. We get to the base camp area of Everest which appeared as though Miura and his crew had sole reservations to. This was in the early 1970's and was, apparently, before the climbing of Everest became such a popular sport. Knowing about the thin air from Krakauer's book and other sources, I was astonished to see one of the party smoking a cigarette. I recalled the time I did that in the Andes and almost passed out. There is a tragic accident due to a cave in and half a dozen native porters are killed. I pondered the superhuman efforts that must have occurred in order to recover the bodies.Eventually, we see Miura ski down a major portion of Everest and it is, by itself, worth the price of the DVD. The uncredited part of this video presentation is the camera work that was done to bring this event into our homes. Even on the single-file portering of the provisions up to the base camp, we get incredible camera shots from quite a distance. It may be by plane in some cases but the shots vere very steady and I'm not sure that would have happened in an air-borne vehicle at that thin-air altitude. The shots of the skiing also seemed to come from parrallel angles but the there was a noticeable decrease in clarity so it might have been shot from quite a distance at a lower altitude. Either way, we got the feeling that we were seeing things from a relatively close perspective.I remembered the title of this movie from the Academy Awards from 1975. It's title is compelling. The film is even more so.