Review of Meru (2015) by V H — 04 Oct 2015

In "Meru", a documentary about three guys trying to climb a Himalayan peak of the same name, we learn that mountain climbers are nuts and that elite mountain climbers are the nutsest of then all.

While for most of us, climbing Mt. Everest seems like an incredible accomplishment, for these guys Everest is child's play. One of them not only climbed it, he skied back down from the summit.

Unlike Everest, Meru has no Sherpas hauling the gear or setting the ropes. And because it's topped by a sheer granite wall known as the "Shark's Fin", so much gear has to be hauled up the mountain in order to complete the climb that all previous attempts to reach the summit were failures.

Conrad Anker, the most experienced climber of the crew, is the expedition's leader. His primary motivation is to fulfill the dream of his former mentor, a guy with the improbable name of Mugs Stump who died in a climbing accident (fell into a crevasse). Anker's former climbing partner also died in a climbing accident (avalanche) and his current partner and former mentee Jimmy Chin was swept down a mountain by an avalanche and by all rights should also be dead.

In case you haven't noticed, dying in climbing accidents is a common theme. So is the whole mentor/mentee thing. The pattern seems to be that experienced climbers become mentors to younger climbers and then proceed to fall into a crevasse or become buried in an avalanche. They talk a lot about managing risk but apparently they aren't that good at it.

The third and youngest member of the expedition is a guy name Renan Ozturk. Ozturk busted a hole in his skull while working with Chin on an extreme skiing photo shoot and is told that high altitudes may cause him to have a stroke. Naturally this doesn't dissuade him from getting back on the horse.

"Meru" features stunning cinematography (by Chin), gripping climbing footage, and insights by Jon Krakauer (who wrote "Into Thin Air"). Chin maintains his sense of humor even in the grimmest of situations (running out of food while waiting out a multi-day blizzard in a cramped portaledge hanging from the side of the mountain), and makes the climbers seem a little less deranged and a little more relatable, as if they're just like you and me except for their bizarre compulsion to repeatedly undertake dangerous, arduous, brutally uncomfortable endeavors until one day they fall into a crevasse and die.

For those of us who prefer to experience our adrenaline rushes in the comfort and safety of a movie theater while munching on a bag of buttered popcorn, "Meru" is just the ticket.