TEETERING ATOP THE WORLD: `EVEREST' OPENS AT ST. LOUIS SCIENCE CENTER'S OMNIMAX THEATER

`There is a place above all others, a place where dreams are chased like clouds.' -- `Everest'

ST. LOUIS -- One-hundred-fifty people have died trying to climb Mount Everest, at 29,028 feet the highest mountain in the world. One third were swept away by avalanches, the rest simply fell off the side of the mountain or into a crevasse or succumbed to the blinding winds, the searing cold of 100 degrees below zero or the debilitating lack of oxygen.

Most people will never confront these dangers or behold the beauty where they abide, but the new IMAX movie "Everest" is a potent surrogate.

The film opens Sept. 11 at the Omnimax Theater at the St. Louis Science Center. It continues daily through Jan. 7.

Breathtaking helicopter pictures of team member Araceli Segarra rock climbing in Baja and deputy leader Ed Viesturs mountain biking in Utah give way to the arrival in Kathmandu, prayers for a safe climb and finally arrival at base camp on April 3, 1996. The team of climbers and cinematographers is 17,600 feet up the mountain and already 3,000 feet higher than the highest peak in North America.

They spend five weeks acclimating themselves at 22,000 feet. Cinematographers David Breashears and Robert Schauer must cross crevasses -- walking atop a ladder is the usual means -- with a 42-pound IMAX camera modified for mountain climbing.

Also along are lead climber Jamling Tenzing Norgay, whose father was the Sherpa who summited Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953, and another world-class climber, Sumiyo Tsuzuki.

The hardship and sublime beauty of climbing captured in "Everest" then are interrupted by tragedy as 23 climbers from other teams returning from the summit are lost in a sudden storm. The "Everest" team abandons everything to try to help save them.

Eight people, some of them close friends of the film expedition, die in the May 10 storm. The worst tragedy in Everest history, now documented in the book "Into Thin Air," devastates the "Everest" team. They return to base camp undecided about whether to try again.

They do, which means they must walk past the bodies on the way up. The dead remain on Everest because carrying the bodies down is impossible and helicopters can't fly this high.

Viesturs heads up the final 12-hour climb, known as the "Death Zone," without the aid of oxygen, a near superhuman feat. He expects the others to catch up to him but summits alone on June 23. Later, the 26-year-old Segarra walks as if in slow motion to become the first Spanish woman to summit Everest. Embracing her is Tenzing Norgay, who leaves photographs of his mother, father and the Dalai Lama.

Reaching the summit is a spiritual experience for Tenzing Norgay. Later he says he touched his father's soul above the clouds. "It was as if he knew all along I was worthy to climb the mountain."

Breashears and Schauer capture it all on film. Only Tsuziki, who has cracked ribs from one of the coughing spells caused by the lack of oxygen at high altitude, does not reach the top.

Schauer, whose role was assistant cameraman, spoke after a recent advance screening of the film. He trained for only two weeks before the climb but reminded the audience that he has been climbing tall mountains since he made his first Everest summit in 1978.

"You have to step into that arena with some sort of respect," he said.

He compares the stamina needed to climb Everest to that required to cross a desert or sail between continents. In all three, the natural elements are an opponent much greater than athletes normally face, he said.

"You must face danger and have to know how to avoid danger. You get some sort of sixth sense."

In his view, "Everest" is "a tool to tell people what climbing is all about and cautionary as well.

"We probably have gotten people to avoid that kind of experience," Schauer said.

The movie may represent one of the best matches of subject with IMAX technology yet put on film. In IMAX, avalanches thunder down the mountain and cover viewers in sound and snow. And IMAX provides those who will never climb a mountain with intimations of why others do.

`Everest' events

-- Sept. 10, 1998, 5:30 p.m., St. Louis Science Center: Ed Viesturs, one of the leaders of the "Everest" expedition, discusses his experiences. The evening includes a showing of the movie and cocktail reception. Tickets are $100 and benefit the Science Center Scholarship Fund. Phone (314) 289-4450 to request an invitation.

-- Oct. 30, 1998, 7:30 p.m., St. Louis Science Center: Araceli Segarra, who at 26 became the first Spanish woman to summit Mt. Everest, speaks. Segarra is a physiotherapist and experienced ice, rock and alpine climber. Tickets are $35.

-- Nov. 8, 1998, 7:30 p.m., Saint Louis University High: Dr. Tom Horbein, St. Louis native and inventor of the oxygen mask and apparatus used in high-altitude climbs. He first used the equipment during his summit of Mt. Everest in 1963. Tickets are $25.

-- Dec. 5, 1998, 7:30 p.m., St. Louis Science Center: Dr. Beck Weathers, the subject of the book "Into Thin Air" and featured in "Everest," speaks about surviving the tragedy that claimed eight of his fellow climbers on Everest in 1996.

-- Jan. 15, 1999, 7:30 p.m., Saint Louis University High: Jamling Tenzing Norgay, the lead climber in "Everest," will discuss 45 years of climbing on the mountain. Jamling Norgay's father, Tenzing Norgay, was the Sherpa who first summitted Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953.

"Everest" is showing daily in the Omnimax Theater Sept. 11-Jan. 7. For information and ticket prices, phone (800) 456-SLSC.