Lou Kasischke has a gentle voice and a kind face. When he talks about surviving the Mount Everest tragedy of May 10, 1996, it's with the introspection of someone who has spent a dozen years sorting out the meaning of it all.
He was 400 vertical feet away from the summit when he decided to turn back. Others in his expedition kept going. Four of them died.
“I could have gone the short distance to the top, but I'd still be there,” he says softly.
The 65-year-old attorney no longer practices law and now lives mostly in Harbor Springs, in northern Michigan. He has told his story many times to churches, schools and civic groups.
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“Frontline: Storm Over Everest”
1996 blizzard threatens a climbing expedition
When: 9 tonight
Where: KPBS/Channel 15
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This week, Kasischke will share it again. He'll be among the survivors featured tonight on “Storm Over Everest,” a PBS “Frontline” documentary by David Breashears about the ferocious blizzard that killed eight people on the world's highest mountain.
A noted filmmaker and mountaineer, Breashears was in the middle of co-directing and photographing the first IMAX movie about Everest when the storm hit. He and his crew were part of the effort to help the stranded climbers.
In 2004, Breashears made his fifth ascent to Everest's summit to shoot footage for the “Frontline” project. Starting in 2005, he spent a year talking to survivors, accumulating 62 hours of interviews that he winnowed down.
The two-hour film contains footage of the beauty and danger of the mountain and harrowing re-creations of the storm. But much of the time, it's people talking, telling in remarkably intimate and gripping detail what it was like to be there.
The story of the mountain's worst tragedy has been told several times before, most notably in Jon Krakauer's acclaimed best-selling book, “Into Thin Air” (Krakauer was climbing that fateful day, on assignment from a magazine to write about the commercialization of Everest, but he isn't part of the Breashears documentary).
“Storm Over Everest” isn't an account that questions the skills or motivations of people who paid as much as $65,000 to join Everest expeditions. It doesn't turn those involved into superheroes, either. Instead, Breashears shows the complexity and humanity of the climbers.
There are revealing moments, like Beck Weathers, who was left for dead, explaining that profound depression was his reason for climbing because the physical exertion provided relief from thinking.
In a heartbreaking segment, a woman at the base camp, Helen Wilton, recalls helping patch through a phone call between expedition guide Rob Hall, who was trapped too high for rescue, and his pregnant wife back home in New Zealand. Wilton describes how she wept as the couple exchanged their last words.
“Every time I see that, I get a lump in my throat,” Breashears says.
From the outset, the climbers knew they had to reach the summit by a certain time in order to have a safer descent. It was slow going that day, and a fierce storm was about to move in swiftly.
In the film, Kasischke, who'd scaled the highest peaks on six of seven continents, recalls nearing the summit and looking at his watch with a sick feeling, knowing it was impossible to get there by the 1 p.m. turnaround.
“My heart was beating so hard. I felt like it was going to jump right out of my chest. I was almost shaking as I was struggling inside of myself with what am I going to do? Am I going to keep going because I'm so close, or am I going to turn around?”
Instead of going farther, Kasischke returned to what was called Camp Four. Buffeted by massive winds in his tent, terrified and lonely, he realized that he wanted to say goodbye to the people he loved. He didn't want to die alone.
Later, when he made it to the safety of base camp, he cried as he never had before.
Talking from his home in Harbor Springs, Kasischke, who hasn't seen the documentary yet, says it's been “a process and a struggle, for that matter” to come to terms with the experience.
“This, for me, was a love story,” he says. “What I call the voice of the heart finally came through, and I changed my mind and turned around. I see it as two people deeply in love. I was married 29 years at the time – 40 years now – but whose future life together was at risk because of my own selfishness and taking these extreme risks.”
Tonight's season finales
“Beauty and the Geek,” 8 p.m., KSWB/Channel 69
“According to Jim,” 8:30 p.m., KGTV/Channel 10
“Law & Order: SVU,” 10 p.m., KNSD/Channel 39/Cable 7
“Women's Murder Club,” 10 p.m., KGTV/Channel 10
