QUESTIONING THE STORY:
Did Rob Hall really call his wife shortly before dying on Everest?
Like in the movie, Rob Hall spoke to his wife on his radio via a satellite connection patched through by Helen Wilton from a mountainside campsite roughly 8,000 ft below him. He had spent the night of the blizzard on an outcrop that was about 400 ft below Everest's 29,029-ft summit. Alone in the brutal-cold near-oxygen-free air, Hall had come to terms with the realization that he was going to die. As in the Everest movie, the true story confirms that after naming their unborn baby "Sarah," he told his wife Jan, "I love you. Sleep well, my sweetheart. Please don't worry too much." That was the last time anyone heard from Hall. -TIME.com
Which accounts is the Everest movie based on?
No single book or account was cited as the inspiration for William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy's screenplay, but the press materials for the movie mention both Jon Krakauer's bestselling book Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster and Beck Weathers' Left for Dead: My Journey Home From Everest. Krakauer is a journalist/mountaineer who was on assignment from Outside magazine as part of Rob Hall's Adventure Consultants team. He is portrayed by Michael Kelly in the Everest movie. Josh Brolin portrays Weathers, a Dallas pathologist.
