First Ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler in 1978. This is the actual expedition documentary filmed by highly acclaimed adventure filmmaker Leo Dickinson. Winner of "Best Expedition Film" at both the Banff Film Festival and Telluride Mountain Films at the time.

This film documents a milestone, an illustrious chapter in the history of mountaineering. It also has some rare historical footage of the early Everest expeditions: the tragic Mallory expedition, the pioneering Shipton expedition and the successful first ascent expedition by Hilary and Tenzing.

For Messner and Habeler, two of the finest Alpine climbers of our time, the expedition is a combination of confidence and fear. They both feel they can summit Everest unaided, "by fair means" but have no way of knowing the consequences - can they return without brain damage due to excessive exposure to the thin, freezing air? As they begin their climb their progress is rapid and confidence is high. Habeler recovers from a bout of food poisoning and they make a bid for the summit. Bad weather drives them back. The situation is now critical. Both men have been at high altitude for a long time. They set off in bad weather conditions. They stumble and crawl up, struggling for breath, inching toward their goal.

They have climbed Everest without oxygen masks, and have survived. Now they have to go back down. Messner who has lifted his goggles too often is snow blinded. They have made a pact with one another, for survival's sake, to abandon the other should he become incapacitated..... Everest Unmasked captures the dangers, the suffering and the elation of this historic milestone expedition.

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Leo Dickinson's thoughts

- before the expedition:

"If Messner and Habeler were to be successful this time in reaching the summit of Everest without oxygen, then it would bring the whole story neatly back full circle to those early pioneers: Odell, Somervell, Norton, Mallory and Irvine…. They would have approved of an ascent without the use of "English Air", as the Sherpas affectionately called the oxygen bottles. I am quite sure that Mallory would also have been in sympathy with Messner's "by fair means" ethic, by which Messner means, quite simply, giving the mountain a chance. For a man who has climbed over 2,000 serious alpine routes (and the majority of them solo), who has been to the highest points in all the major continents, and who had, at that time, already scaled 3 of the world's "8,000-meter" peaks, one could be forgiven for questioning who was being fair to whom. Weighed against this, however, Messner has lost all his toes through frostbite, his brother was killed climbing with him on Nanga Parbat, and his wife, Uschi, left him because of the time and obsessive love he lavishes on his mountains. Still, in climbing matters, he clearly loads the dice very heavily in his favor, and nothing is allowed to stand in his way."

- after the expedition:

"Reinhold made it to the top. But the peril was not over. There was still the danger of brain damage - or, in Reinhold's case, further brain damage. The chances were that this would first manifest itself in the form of burst blood-vessels in the eye-ball, loss of memory, impaired speech functions and the sudden, irrational urge to participate in stupid television programs. Most of these symptoms duly appeared. Nevertheless, Reinhold's achievement could not be gainsaid. He and his friends have proved that it is not enough to risk your neck. It is in the nature of man to risk his brains as well."

Everest Unmasked

VHS video in NTSC released by Adventure Eye Inc April 2000
Color, digitally remastered. Run time approx. 52 minutes.
ISBN: 0970816936

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