Altitude Everest Expedition 2007

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First True Climb of North East Ridge Route Completed

VOOM HD Networks invites you to follow the expedition team as they retrace the route of legendary British explorer George Mallory at www.ueverest.com
PRESS RELEASE


New York, NY - 14th June 2007

Today, two of the world’s leading climbers, America’s Conrad Anker and Britain’s Leo Houlding, are the first people to free climb the famous North East Ridge of Everest. This is the first confirmed true, i.e. unaided, ascent of the route. The Altitude Everest Expedition 2007 is part of a feature documentary investigating whether Mallory and Irvine could have been the first men to summit Everest, in 1924.


All confirmed ascents of this route used a ladder bolted (in 1975) to the Second Step, a 100-foot rock wall just beneath Everest’s summit at 8,600m. George Mallory and Sandy Irvine would have faced the formidable Second Step without this additional climbing aid on their fateful 1924 Expedition. The Chinese authorities have given special permission for the removal of the fixed ladder and ropes, enabling Houlding and Anker to confront the Second Step very much as Mallory and Irvine might have done 83 years earlier.


Producer, Anthony Geffen said, ‘This is a unique and remarkable achievement by two of the world’s leading climbers, and adds further weight to the tantalising possibility that George Mallory and Sandy Irvine were the first men to summit Everest.’


The Altitude Everest Expedition 2007 is a major multi-platform documentary project that includes a theatrical film, a behind-the-scenes documentary and an interactive website. The www.ueverest.com website is one of the most innovative and ambitious online experiences yet to be launched. The daily expedition diary includes video despatches from the climbers as they make their ascent to the highest point on earth, photographs from the mountain, and personal insights from the climbers and key members of the expedition team. In 2008, the feature length documentary film of this expedition will be premiered theatrically under VOOM HD Networks’ new theatrical initiative VOOM HD Pictures and released worldwide thereafter. In conjunction with the release of the film, a behind-the-scenes documentary will also air in 2008 on VOOM’s RUSH HD, a high-definition channel dedicated to extreme adventure sports.


The Altitude Everest Expedition 2007 is led by world class explorer and mountaineer Conrad Anker. Anker discovered Mallory’s body lying on the mountain in 1999, 75 years after Mallory was last seen climbing into the clouds near the summit. Anker is searching for the real man behind the Mallory legend, seeking to resolve the great mystery Mallory and Irvine left behind – were they the first men to climb to the top of the world’s highest mountain? Anker, named as the world’s Number One adventurer in ‘Outside’ magazine, has climbed the world’s most technically challenging terrain, but ever since he discovered Mallory’s body, Anker has been obsessed by the mystery of his disappearance.


Anker is accompanied by British climber Leo Houlding. Houlding has set a blazing trail through the climbing world, specialising in speed climbing and Base jumping. As well as appearing on the BBC’s Top Gear programme when he raced Jeremy Clarkson up the face of the Verdon Gorge in France (while Clarkson drove up), Houlding has free climbed the El Niño route in Yosemite and recently completed the first free ascent of the Cassarotto pillar on Fitzroy in Patagonia. Anker and Houlding are supported by specialist high altitude cameramen and a back-up team that includes technical and medical support. The expedition is being coordinated by Russell Brice, one of the most professional leaders of all guided expeditions to the Himalayas.


The Altitude Everest Expedition 2007 has taken the latest high-definition cameras to the summit of Everest to retrace George Mallory’s the last steps. Three decades before Everest was conquered by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, Mallory stood higher, quite literally, than anyone before him. In June 1924 Mallory, along with his climbing partner Sandy Irvine, was spotted just a few hundred yards short of the summit before a snowstorm closed in. They were never seen alive again. The 2007 expedition team are investigating Mallory and Irvine’s last journey in forensic detail; testing the durability of their clothing and equipment in the unforgiving conditions of Everest; and piecing together eyewitness accounts – all to reconstruct Mallory and Irvine’s final, fateful hours.


The project has been put together by Altitude Films, which has hired the award-winning Atlantic Productions to co-produce the film. Since it was set up in 1992 by former BBC producer Anthony Geffen, Atlantic has earned a reputation for creating high-end documentary films such as the BAFTA-nominated Munich: Mossad’s Revenge (Channel 4/ Discovery Channel), the feature-length special Richard The Lionheart & Saladin: Holy Warriors (BBC/ PBS), the Emmy-nominated Nefertiti Resurrected (Discovery Channel/ five) and the BBC/ PBS series The Greeks: Crucible of Civilisation, hailed by The New York Times as ‘one of the first fully convergent media projects of the digital age’.


Rainbow’s VOOM HD Networks (www.voom.com) comprise the world’s largest suite of high-definition content for distribution through satellite and cable operators. With programming in categories as diverse as sports, movies, fashion, music and art, the VOOM HD Networks are available in the U.S. on Echostar’s DISH Network. Building on Rainbow’s history of original programming innovation, VOOM HD was developed to meet the growing worldwide demand for quality high-definition programming. Rainbow Media Holdings LLC is a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC). Rainbow Media is a leading producer of targeted, multi-platform content for global distribution, creating and managing some of the world's most compelling and dynamic entertainment brands, including AMC, IFC, WE tv, Rainbow Sports Networks managed FSN Bay Area and FSN New England, LIFESKOOL, SPORTSKOOL, and VOOM HD Networks. Through its IFC Entertainment division, Rainbow Media also owns and manages the following: IFC Films, a theatrical feature film distribution company; IFC First Take/IFC in Theaters, a day and date theatrical feature film/VOD initiative; the IFC Center in New York City; IFC Productions, a feature film production company; and IFC Entertainment, which owns and operates a film library.


Altitude Films is working with a distinguished list of prestigious partners on the project. Including VOOM HD Networks, RUSH HD, AOL, Google, YouTube and 9th Insight. Sponsors and official suppliers include Berghaus, DMM, Grabber Warmers, Icebreaker, Jamieson & Smith Shetland Wool Brokers Ltd, Jetboil, John Smedley, Julbo, La Sportiva, Linde Werdelin, Meteotest, Peak District National Park Authority Stanage Forum, PowerBar, Smith Optics, The North Face, Therm-a-Rest and Woodlands Organics Distribution Ltd.


source: Marie V., Litzky Public Relations:
201-222-9118, mariev@litzkypr.com