“A figure in green walks towards the summit of Mount Everest. There’s the elemental clamour of winds buffeting a range stretching across 1,500 miles and five countries.
“Snow spins lightly. Clouds roll like giant tumbleweeds over the peaks. “This is the most fantastic day of my life. Over,” the figure announces breathlessly as she approaches the top of the world.
“This is how Chris Terrill’s haunting feature-length documentary The Last Mountain (BBC Two) opens.
“We see archive footage of the moment on 13 May 1995, when Alison Hargreaves became the second climber in history, and the first woman, to reach the top of the 8,849m (29,031ft) mountain without bottled oxygen or Sherpas carrying her gear.
“However you feel about the brief, vexed history of the human (mostly male, western, white) obsession with conquering the world’s apexes, it’s astonishing to witness.”
Read more at The Guardian
