Alan Arnette welcomes guest Guy Cotter to the podcast in the latest episode. Guy was the alpine supervisor in the new biopic Tenzing, premiering on AppleTV October 16th. He scouted locations in Nepal and New Zealand, then kept up to 150 actors, stunt doubles, and crew safe on Aoraki Mt Cook and the Tasman Glacier in mid-winter, with temperatures as low as -23C/-9.4F. In this conversation, Guy explains his nerves around the shoot and walks through his “status light” approach to risk. He describes bolting a camera crane to a cliff while a helicopter held it to recreate the Hillary Step, and pulling 60 people off the Grand Plateau just before a three-day storm closed in. They also talk about what history got wrong about 1953, and why Tenzing’s story matters for every Sherpa and mountain worker today.
Then they turn to the proposed 7,000-meter rule for Everest. They discuss this year’s accidents on Broad Peak, Himlung, and Manaslu, and what all of us should learn from them about snow, patience, and turning around.