Movies in the Mountains: Meru — the ultimate film for Revelstoke climbers and adrenaline junkies

Is achieving the ultimate mountain peak worth dying for? That’s the risk three avid climbers contend with as they take on Northern India’s indomitable Shark’s Fin.

This feat is captured in the stunning documentary Meru, the latest film in Revelstoke Performing Arts Centre’s Movies in the Mountains series, showing on Wednesday, Nov. 23 at 7:30 p.m.

Revelstoke residents are no stranger to the passion and awe of the mountains and for many the daily toil of climbing to new heights is a part of life.

But Meru goes beyond to the ultimate high-stakes game of big-wall climbing. The Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru has seen more failed attempts by elite climbing teams over the past 30 years than any other ascent in the Himalayas.

The layout of the 21,000-foot mountain’s perversely stacked obstacles makes it both a nightmare and an irresistible calling for some of the world’s toughest climbers, including lifelong friends Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk who first tackled Meru In October 2008.

Hauling over 200 pounds of gear up 4,000-feet of technical, snowy, mixed ice and rock climbing is actually the simple part of this endeavor. After crossing that gauntlet you reach the Shark’s Fin itself: 1,500 feet of smooth, nearly featureless granite. There are few pre-existing fissures, cracks or footwalls. It is simply a straight sheet of overhanging rock.

What was meant to be a seven-day trip for this team, with the equivalent amount of food, became a 20-day odyssey in sub-zero temperatures thanks to the setback of a massive storm that showered the mountain with at least 10 feet of snow. Like everyone before them, their journey was not a successful one. But they had reached further than anyone else, beaten back just 100 meters below the elusive summit.

Adventure writer Jon Krakauer of bestselling book Into Thin Air explains the mindset needed to take on Meru. “You can’t just be a good ice climber,” he said. “You can’t just be good at altitude. You can’t just be a good rock climber. It’s defeated so many good climbers and maybe will defeat everybody for all time. Meru isn’t Everest. On Everest you can hire Sherpas to take most of the risks. This is a whole different kind of climbing.”

The North Face Meru Expedition, 2011. Photo: Jimmy Chin

Heartbroken and defeated, Anker, Chin and Ozturk returned to their everyday lives, swearing never to attempt the journey again. But they faced sudden physical and emotional challenges back home, too, challenges only exacerbated by the siren song of Meru, one that Anker perhaps heard the loudest. By September 2011, Anker had convinced his two friends to undertake the Shark’s Fin once more, under even more extraordinary circumstances than the first time around.

Meru is the story of that journey — one of friendship, sacrifice, hope and obsession.

Climber Chin directs the film with his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. Vasarhelyi’s input was to show the other side of climbing.

“In these kinds of stories, people often get caught up in the accomplishment, but there’s another side, of course,” she said. “Being married to Jimmy, I’m especially interested in what the female characters in the story—the ones back home, often wringing their hands — had to say. How did they tolerate the risks these climbers, their closest family members, take as part of their professional careers? What drove their lives, and what kept them steady?”

This personal touch and the film’s wider appeal didn’t go unnoticed by Variety Magazine’s film critic Dennis Harvey.

“One of the best sports documentaries of its type in recent years, with the potential to break out beyond extreme-sports enthusiasts to a broader demo,” Harvey wrote.

Watch Meru on Wednesday, Nov. 23 at 7:30 p.m. at the Revelstoke Performing Arts Centre on 1007 Vernon Avenue. Tickets are $8 and can be purchased in advance online (revelstokeartscouncil.bigcartel.com) at Art First! or the Visitor Information Centre, or on the night.