{"id":660629,"date":"2026-10-29T12:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T12:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/660629\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T12:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T12:52:10","slug":"what-compelled-jim-morrison-to-ski-down-the-tallest-mountain-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/660629\/","title":{"rendered":"What Compelled Jim Morrison to Ski Down the Tallest Mountain on Earth?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The deaths of elite climbers and skiers have become so common that, in 2018, Conrad Anker helped bring a psychotherapist on staff at The North Face for the primary purpose of helping athletes on the brand\u2019s team cope with trauma. Anker himself had barely survived an avalanche on Shishapangma in 1999 that killed his close friend Alex Lowe and cameraman David Bridges. In 2019 three of the team\u2019s young superstars, Jess Roskelley, David Lama, and Hansj\u00f6rg Auer, had been killed by an avalanche while climbing together in Canada. As recently as July 2026, ski mountaineer and team member Guillaume \u201cGee\u201d Pierrel was killed in an avalanche in Pakistan. When Nelson died in 2022, she had been the captain of The North Face team, a leadership role that, among other things, helped mentor younger athletes. Morrison said he knew he\u2019d need a therapist to help him with the trauma after he lost Nelson.<\/p>\n

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\u201cJim has a huge amount of survivor\u2019s guilt,\u201d Anker told me recently. \u201cI\u2019ve talked to him about it. It\u2019s like, \u2018Why wasn\u2019t it me?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Climbing and ski mountaineering sometimes suffer from a public image problem, and lethal accidents don\u2019t help. The incidents tend to be dramatic, take place in exotic locations, and garner lots of attention, often critical. There is also the growing concern that, because of climate change, alpine environments are becoming less stable and therefore more dangerous. Still, accusations that climbers are reckless, heedless, or have a death wish are often a distortion. Some argue that the reality is just the opposite. It\u2019s one of the reasons Chin started making films about the sport and its community in the first place. \u201cMaking films, for me, was a reaction to misperceptions about climbing,\u201d Chin told me when we met up in Telluride. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about the act of climbing. It\u2019s about friendship. It\u2019s about real people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/p>\n

Chin co-directed the National Geographic documentary Everest: The Other Side with Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi.<\/p>\n

Henry Leutwyler<\/p>\n

Chin has referred to climbing as a calling. Morrison describes it as his passion. But such language always seems to fall a little short when it comes to a questioning public. Whatever the description, the point is that those committed to the activity have a difficult time turning away from it. For better or worse, it is part of their DNA.<\/p>\n

Climbers have struggled with literal explanations for decades. Mallory\u2019s famous quip, \u201cbecause it\u2019s there,\u201d is sometimes interpreted as a sarcastic response to persistent reporters. Chin told me that, in lieu of a simple or direct answer, he hopes he\u2019s able to create empathy among an audience. It\u2019s empathy, he said, that ultimately leads someone to change their perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The deaths of elite climbers and skiers have become so common that, in 2018, Conrad Anker helped bring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46,297324,297326,297323,297325],"class_list":["post-660629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jim-morrison-everest-the-other-side","tag-jim-morrison-jimmy-chin","tag-jim-morrison-mount-everest","tag-jim-morrison-skiing-down-mount-everest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}