In 2019, a movie "The Climber" was released, which was based on real historical events.
It tells the story that between 1960 and 1975, the Chinese mountaineering team climbed Mount Everest twice and paid the price of their lives to complete the feat of the world's first summit on the north slope of Mount Everest.
For a long time, climbing Mount Everest was the highest challenge for mountaineers, and many mountaineers regarded it as the ultimate dream.
Mount Everest is one of the most difficult mountains to climb and can be a life-and-death challenge even for experienced climbers.
One of them is Francis Distefano Yasentijevi from the United States, whose dream is to one day climb Mount Everest. , and her husband Sergey are both lovers of mountaineering.
The two once climbed Mount Everest together, but they didn't expect that at the top of the mountain, Sergei would "brutally abandon" Francis. Before dying, Francis begged her husband not to leave her and to take her with him, but Sergei went down the mountain alone.
What happened to the two on Mount Everest? Why did Sergei abandon his wife so ruthlessly? Today, let's talk about the story.
Frances with her husband Sergei
Francis was born in 1958 in Hawaii to a middle-class family, and his parents were both mountaineers, and they often traveled together to climb mountains around the world.
The words and deeds of her parents have taught her daughter to love mountaineering from an early age, and she is adventurous and likes to challenge difficult mountains.
When Francis was six years old, her parents took her to climb Colorado Peak, which gave little Francis great satisfaction and hoped to devote her life to mountaineering.
During a mountaineering campaign, Francis met her husband, Sergei, who was quite the same age. He is Russian, and has been very passionate about mountaineering since he was a child, and when the two met, he had already challenged the five peaks of Russia and was a veteran mountaineer.
The common hobby allowed the two to have endless topics to talk about, and after climbing the mountain a few times, they gradually fell in love and determined each other for life, and later entered the palace of marriage with the blessing of their parents.
After getting married, Francis and Sergey used their vacations to challenge the peaks around the world, and during the more than ten years of their marriage, they climbed many mountains together, until Francis became pregnant.
After giving birth to her son, the flame of climbing in Francis's heart burned again, and he was eager to go out and challenge higher mountains, and his biggest dream was to climb Mount Everest.
On Francis's 40th birthday in 1998, Sergei gave his wife a surprise gift, which was to take her to conquer the temple of climbers, known as the world's highest peak, Mount Everest.
Francis was overjoyed to hear the news and made a wish on her birthday that she could become the first female climber in the world to reach the summit without an oxygen tank.
In May, Francis and Sergey set off for Mount Everest, and the two were well prepared, and Francie even left her own oxygen tank at the camp and hiked up the mountain with her husband.
Oxygen cylinders are very important in mountaineering, and Frances is brave enough to push the envelope, but she underestimates the difficulty of climbing Mount Everest.
Climb Mount Everest to the limit
The reason why Mount Everest is called the holy place of death above the clouds, in addition to the complex terrain and difficult to climb cliffs, is also because of the low oxygen of Mount Everest, which is about 8,000 meters high.
Its mountain is in the shape of a giant pyramid, and the further you go to the peak, the more scarce oxygen becomes, and it is difficult to breathe without an oxygen tank, and there will be various uncomfortable physiological reactions. Even professionally trained climbers with extremely high physical fitness struggle to overcome their physical limits.
Many climbers with oxygen tanks will also die suddenly at the top of the mountain due to exhaustion of oxygen. Naturally, Francis thinks of all sorts of unforeseen situations, but she still thinks that she can challenge success with superhuman perseverance.
Although the husband Sergei did not approve of this behavior, he did not oppose his wife's approach, hoping that his wife could challenge and succeed in realizing her dreams, which may be what they think of as an adventurer.
The two planned the route of the climb, adjusted their condition and prepared to go, and the moment they set foot on Mount Everest, Francis felt that the air had changed.
She constantly adjusts her breathing and climbing speed, trying to adapt to the thin air of the snowy mountains, so as to make up for the lack of an oxygen cylinder.
At the beginning, the two climbed very smoothly, arrived at each climbing point in an orderly manner according to the existing plan, and even enjoyed this rare beauty with laughter and laughter along the way.
Standing on the top of the mountain, Francis's heart was surging overlooking the snow-capped mountains, and he lamented that he had made the right decision, and even felt that he would break the world climbing record and become the first woman in history to climb Mount Everest without oxygen.
With this goal, Frances was motivated, but reality quickly defeated her. After two-thirds of the climb, Francis's breathing became uneasy and he began to experience intense altitude sickness.
While the air is thin, the surrounding terrain has become more complicated, full of craggy cliffs, and if you are not careful, you will fall to your death.
Large numbers of backpacks, tents, and even clothing began to appear on both sides of the road, covered in thick snow, revealing only a corner of the road. It is conceivable that underneath this is the skeleton of a mountaineer.
In this land of death, if Sergei and Francis retreat back to the camp in the face of difficulties, there may be a chance of survival. But in the spirit of adventure, the two thought that as long as they relied on tenacity and perseverance, they could persist in climbing the rest of the distance.
At that time, the two were only close to completing their dreams, and neither of them wanted to give up, so the husband and wife cheered each other on for the final journey.
Extremely exhausted, Francis simply could not overcome the pain of altitude sickness, and she was 40 years old at the time.
Over time, Francis became dizzy, nauseous, and weak, and his chest was suffocated and he couldn't breathe properly. Seeing his wife's symptoms, Sergei proposed to pitch a tent in place for a night of rest and continue the climb the next day.
After a night of repair, Francis's condition not only did not improve, but became more and more serious, and she could only support her body and her husband to continue climbing.
With her husband's encouragement and mutual support, Francis slowly climbed upwards and was not far from the summit of Mount Everest. If she can persevere, it is not impossible to become the first woman in history to climb Mount Everest without oxygen, but it is a pity......
Resting on a snow-capped mountain
The dream was soon replaced by the harsh reality that followed, and Francis's body was so heavy that his lungs were so overwhelmed that he couldn't breathe, and he fell to the ground in the darkness of about two hundred meters from the peak.
Sergei's physical strength was basically exhausted, and it was simply not enough to carry his wife, and he checked on his wife's condition and tried to wake her up. Francis gradually regained consciousness, but was unable to get up and continue descending.
With more than ten years of experience, Sergei understood that if two people were here together, they would obviously die, and they had to find a way to save themselves as soon as possible, and he soon came up with a way, which was to leave his wife where he was and go back to the camp alone to find rescue.
Sergei stood up and walked down the mountain ruthlessly, and Francis begged Sergei with his last remaining consciousness not to leave him, not to leave her alone in this ice and snow, "Please don't leave me!" ”
This cry for help was quickly muffled by the howling wind, and Sergei went down the mountain without looking back, looking at the back of the departing Francis, his heart was filled with infinite despair.
Lying on the cold snow, Frances felt the passage of life little by little, and realized that he would be buried in this snowy mountain, never to go back to see his parents and children, leaving tears of grief.
It is reported that there were climbers passing by Francis, but no one chose to rescue them, and saving others in such an extreme environment is tantamount to suicide.
A mountaineering team tried to help Francis, but after deliberation, it was found that there was almost nothing that could be done, and Francis could no longer move, and to save her from Mount Everest, he had to carry her on his back or several people to pull her down with improvised tools.
But the journey was too dangerous and full of uncertainties, and those who were close to the summit were exhausted of their physical strength, and no one had the strength to carry Francis down the mountain. They were also unable to leave the oxygen cylinder for Francis, and in the end, the team chose to abandon the rescue after comprehensive consideration.
After a person leaves, a desperate Francis quietly waits for death, and as the minutes pass by, she gradually loses hope of life.
In pain and despair, Francis reluctantly closed his eyes, and his body was buried in the snow and rested on Mount Everest.
In fact, Sergei did not abandon his wife, and when he returned to the camp, he learned that there was no good way to rescue Francis from the mountain, and that he could only rely on Francis himself to walk down the mountain.
Sergei didn't care about resting, and immediately returned to the snowy mountain with supplies and oxygen cylinders, hoping that Francis could recover his strength and slowly descend the mountain after getting enough oxygen and food.
Unexpectedly, on the way back, Sergei unfortunately fell off a cliff and died while climbing a slope due to lack of physical strength, and the husband and wife both died on Mount Everest.
The place where Sergei died was only a few hundred meters away from Francis, and they were not able to see each other again at such a close distance.
The following year, a mountaineering team was at the summit of Mount Everest, and Sergei's stiff body was found on a slope, carrying a backpack with supplies brought from the camp and two oxygen cylinders clutched tightly in his hands......
A few years later, the mountaineering team was so angry that they couldn't rescue Francis that they felt guilty and left Francis behind.
After learning the story of Francis and Sergei, when they climbed Mount Everest again, they put Sergei's body and Francis together, and the couple were able to reunite and rest at an altitude of more than 8,600 meters.
Francis, also known as the "Sleeping Beauty" by mountaineers, and she and Sergei became new landmarks on Mount Everest, and their sincere love was widely circulated.
Francis used the lesson of paying the price of his life to tell us that people should not despise nature, and that the spirit of adventure is valuable, but we must challenge and explore under the premise of ensuring the safety of our own lives, otherwise we will eventually become the martyr of adventure.
Poor Francis's ten-year-old son will never wait for his parents to return, and perhaps one day he himself will climb Mount Everest to visit his parents......
What do you think differently about this?
Into the Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, 2013
Chemical Concentration Characteristics of Surface Snow at Extremely High Altitude of Mount Everest - CNKI (cnki.net)
Mount Everest - CNKI (cnki.net)