– [Narrator] The pollutions and pressures of modern civilization are spreading far beyond our cities.
Getting away from it all becomes more difficult, and yet more necessary, as technology begins to rule our lives.

– [Climber] What we need somewhere on this planet of ours are still places where people can  go and really take your dog for a walk, really go to get away fromall of these other things which tend to be the same wherever you go. It’s important to keep an element of choice so that we can have either wilderness or serviced areas. We’ve got cities. We want an alternative to cities.

– [Narrator] Eight young mountaineers went to look for that alternative on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic.
But even on Baffin Island, the climbers could see that their coveted wilderness could quickly be changed by the onrush of technology and tourism from the neighboring giants, the United States and Canada.

– [Climber] Well, we just hope that the Canadian government will declare this area a wilderness area and not let any trappings o f civilization at all come in.

– [Narrator] For climbers, pleasure cannot be packaged. They challenge nature, while the ordinary tourist
goes to look at it. Adventure dies with hotels.

– [Climber] If there were hotels at the foot of the peaks, then this side of the mountain area on Baffin Island would totally disappear.

– [Narrator] A new hotel has arrived on Baffin Island at the Eskimo village of Pangnirtung. For the tourists’ benefit, one team of huskies are kept, but they’re a piece of the past, since the Eskimos too have mechanized transport and Coca Cola now.

– [Climber] It’s very difficult to find places which are any different
from anywhere else. The same Coca Cola stands in North America, they’re also in Scotland, you know?
It’s almost getting to the extent where it’s the same blank face on the person that’s selling it to you.
Any kind of character and local differences are all being ironed out.

– [Narrator] The village of Pangnirtung may have the trappings of civilization, but the Arctic wilderness
and its mountains are only 50 miles up the fjord.The expedition, sponsored by  the Mount Everest Foundation and John Player & Sons, set out to tackle th e sheer rock faces of the Baffin Island mountains.The eight-man team consisted of one Canadian, two Americans, and five Britons. On the journey to base camp, there was time to wonder and worry about the future of places like Baffin Island.

– [Climber] Already down in the valley, there are a few planks of wood which have been dropped byhelicopter for a future hut. We all feel that this is the thin end of the wedge, that that hut will be erected one year, will be turned into a hotel, will have annexes.There’ll be a road driven up the valley. There’ll be a helicopter terminal there, and all the trappings of a tourist resort could come, if it’s allowed to come.

– [Climber] Even in the Himalayas, Japanese are building hotels. This is a wonderful area, and these things should all be kept like this so that not only mountaineers, anyone who wants to go to a beautiful area anywhere in the world can find this. If they want to escape themselves or just drop out, these places will always be there.

– [Narrator] Base camp, and the sorting out of equipment. The climbers are now alone with the mountains and the challenge of the climb.

– [Climber] When you get there, it’s you, yourself, and the mountain, and you go through a lot of things when you’re climbing that are not very easily explained. The travel can be interesting, but the most interesting part is you yourself putting everything you’ve got, your resources against the mountain, and you wanting to come out on top.

– [Narrator] The steady rhythm of the climb begins. A mountain cannot be rushed, nature sees to that, and the preparations are almost a ritual. Carabiners and cramp-ons, clamps and pitons are pulled out from the
tangle of ironmongery that has been brought to base camp. The climb is the thing, but the preparations and the life at base camp are part of the climb too. For two months, a complete change of lifestyle.

– [Climber] In order to get to the mountains, you have to make certain adjustments to your way of life, that you have to take time off work, or you have to save up money, or maybe this affects your whole way of life. Climbing, certainly to me, it’s so important that even when I’m a long way from the mountains it’s still governing the whole of the rest of the way I behave and summed up my life. I would say it was a religion.

– [Narrator] The climbers are dependent now on themselves. Even the Eskimos are far away. Life becomes simpler and more direct.

– [Climber] It’s been said time and time again, it’s almost cliche to say it once more, but just getting away from the city, from people, and being in small groups totally committed to doing a thing together, it’s so unusual these days that we’re determined to keep it in climbing.

– [Narrator] It was the first time mountaineers had attempted such difficult and dangerous routes in the Arctic.

– [Climber] If you go to the Alps, every possible line has been climbed by somebody. But in Baffin Island, there’s a lot of virgin rock, rock where no one’s ever been. The rock peaks are usually bounded by vertical sides, sometimes 3,000 feet. The climbing here can be as technically hard as anywhere in the world.

– [Narrator] Bad weather brought climbing to a halt midway through the six week expedition, but already some of the toughest peaks on Baffin Island had been conquered. After three weeks of waiting for the weather to clear, the climbers prepared themselves for the major objective of the expedition, a huge rock wall on the mountain called Boulder. The rock wall on Boulder is 3/4 of a mile high, and as hard as any route in the Alps.

But on the Baffin Island mountains, unlike the Alps, there would be no hope of rescue from outside if anything happened to the climbers on the sheer face of Boulder. The three climbers who set out to tackle Boulder had all had experience of big face climbs before. They were determined to climb this rock wall with as little technical help as possible, and not to conquer it with a mass of equipment.

– [Climber] Each part of climbing, each category has its rules. The idea of having rules is to make the game a satisfying thing to do. We were determined that we would not break any of these rules. For instance, we wouldn’t leave ropes hanging down behind us as we went up the mountain so that we could easily retreat if bad weather came in. We were determined not to drill holes. We’re following a crack system, putting in pit arms or hand jamming, and then suddenly there’s no crack at all. Well, it is possible to drill holes in the blank section, put in bolts and hang from there to make traverse that way. We tend to feel that this is an unnatural thing to do, and it’s breaking the rules to do that. If you drill holes, the outcome is fairly certain. It’s tackling a mountain, not knowing whether you’re going to get up or not, which makes the whole thing an adventure. If you remove that, then the
thing becomes meaningless.

– [Narrator] The lead climber fixes the rope for the second man to follow, using the special clamp that slides up but locks on the rope when the climber’s weight is on it. Hauling bags are used for the gear and food needed on the climb. Once each pitch is finished, the pattern is repeated. Lead climber finds the route and fixes the rope, his companions and hauling bag follow.

– [Climber] You built yourself up, you’ve kicked yourself to do this thing. All the time it’s curiosity which is driving you along to go the climb, to find out what it’s got in store for you, to find out all the hidden secrets of that route, whether cracks are going to carry on to the top or disappear into blank rock, whether there’s gonna be ledges to stand on to belay, or places where you can lie down to bivouac. Well, when you fail, you go away, and for months afterwards you’re wondering what the devil was that climb gonna be like. If it’s an impressive enough climb, you’re gonna come back and try it. Your curiosity’s just gonna bring you back again.

– [Climber] The disappointment that you would get if you didn’t get up it is the disappointment that you get from not fulfilling your own objectives. Another great thing about climbing is that not imposed objectives from anybody outside, but you set your own objectives. And similarly, if you did get up it, then that is the satisfaction from having set yourself a problem and having succeeded, successfully solved that problem.

– [Climber] It’s something to do with your own personal judgment. It’s my decision, I’ve made this decision for myself, and I don’t want anybody else to interfere with it. The real thing about it is that there’s absolutely no room for any kind of misinterpretation. When you’re actually there on that hard point and you’re just about to make that move, that’s as near truth, absolute truth, as you ever get in life. Because if you’re wrong, then you’ll possibly be dead.

– [Climber] On the second or third pitch, the rope was tied off and the second I started to climb this rope, suddenly there was a horrible jolt because the rock was so loose at this point one of the pins came out and the rope went down with the climber on it. Luckily, not that far, but it really made us think that we’re like flies going up this wall, quite easily fall off it.

– [Steve] We came to this big blank wall section which we had to cross, and I was doing mine behind, Dennis was leading. I thought the obvious thing to do across this blank wall was a bolt or a peg or something across the wall, but Dennis shot on ahead free climbing, way ahead of us, higher up. It looked completely impossible, and was. Then he inserted a peg higher up, you see. I was still trying to work out what was happening, and Doug said that “The thing to do now, Steve, “is to do pendulum. “A big pendulum pitch is going to take place now.” And I thought pendulum is like a big clock pendulum. This is what happened. Dennis got all the rope and just started to swing backwards and forwards across this rope above this fantastic drop below and across this blank wall section. That’s the only way we could do it without using bolts and pegs.

– [Climber] It was obviously dangerous, but you still keep moving on. It’s like you put a peg
in, it might be a bad one. You move up on it and trust it and you think that’s not as bad, and you move up to the next one and put that in, it even seems worse. You’re about to go past a loose piece of rock, you try everything to get around it, and you’re watching where the ropes go, and this is a worrying time. But once you grab on to something else, it seems to be you’ve forgotten what’s below, and all the time you’re just building up confidence.

– [Climber] Obviously, the more climbing you do, the more confident you become. You don’t think so many bad thoughts, but I’m sure no climber can say that he doesn’t have some of these thoughts, that he’s going to wonder if that cloud bank down the valley isn’t going to come up and cover him with a drenching mist, and later be a driving blizzard. I think you’ve always got doubts in your mind.

– [Climber] You can easily come to a psychological barrier, where you can get down from this point or you can carry on, and then it’s up to you. In lots of cases, it’s actually like in America, in California, on these big face climbs. A lot of climbers set off on these climbs, but as soon as they reach that point where it’s a sort of psychological barrier where they can get up or come down, a lot come down. This year now, for instance, there’s a number of people
who’ve been rescued. It’s just incredible. A helicopter can go out and land on the top of the mountain and pick someone off and take them away and they’re safe. Whereas in Arctic areas, this just doesn’t exist. Your only real rescue team is your own little team.

– [Climber] There’s just no one else around at all. If you get into trouble, you’ve got to get yourself back to civilization, which is about 50 miles away.

– [Climber] They’re not gonna be able to help neither, because they’re only Eskimos. They’ve got no understanding of rescue techniques. You’re committed, there’s no doubt about it.

– [Narrator] The end of the first day, and a place to spend the night. It will take another day’s hard climbing if they are to reach the summit 1/4 of a mile above. No one can tell what pain and what pleasure the second day’s climbing will bring.

– [Climber] If you’re on a long route, you take on the role that an ascetic takes on. You deny yourself sleep. You are hurting your body, literally, the bends of you fingers rip open rock, you go without food, you sleep in peculiar positions during the night, and you sleep very lightly. The result, for.

– [Narrator] Today, the push for the summit. Arms and legs are weary
from clinging to the face, and after a cold and uncomfortable
night on the rock ledge. But it’s time to get moving on the day’s first pitch.

– [Climber] You may be 20 or 30 feet above your last point of aid. You can be hand jamming, free climbing. You just go on and hope that something’s gonna turn up, a ledge to rest on, to take the pressure off your arms and shoulders and to relieve the cramp that grows in your fingers. Any good thing which anyone’s ever done, any creative artist or anything, is invariably suffered somewhere along the line to do that creation. I think it goes with climbing, the more you put into it, the more you suffer, the more satisfaction you get out of it, ultimately.

– [Climber] It’s difficult to think of an activity where you use so many parts of your faculty, your physical strength, your balance, the mental capabilities, your experience, your integrity, your judgment, all of these things, all at the same time, you know?

– [Climber] Invariably, the things that you’re doing in society are fulfilling things that are
requirements of other people or requirements external to yourself. It’s very rarely that you get a chance to just do something for the sheer pleasure of doing it.

– [Climber] Again, with every rope’s length, we did get a ledge. Every pitch was superb climbing. Some pitches were just slightly overhanging. Every time you went around a corner, you’d see some sort of crack system or some line you could follow to carry on. And again, you’ve got some sort of ledge where you can stand on to bring up your mate. Nowhere did it detract from being a really beautiful climb, all the way to the top.

– [Climber] A lot of the satisfaction from climbing a route comes on reflection, when you look back and you go, did I get over all those obstacles? Whereas at the time, you’re probably petrified. You look back and you think that was great now. When you’ve gotten to the top, you look back and you feel really satisfied, really happy with yourself.

– [Narrator] The summit is reached, an obvious success. But the expedition has meant something else beside to the climbers.

– [Climber] By going out into a wilderness area like that, you get a much greater degree of freedom, and consequently much more satisfaction and much more realization of your own importance in nature, because you’re less dependent on other people. You’re less dependent on the services of modern society. The further away you can get from this kind of thing, the more aware you are that you’re entirely dependent on your own resources.

– [Climber] I think you can’t help but feel disgusted. After being on Baffin Island so long, and living on it, sleeping on it, walking on it, you get to the stage where you’re almost avoiding
stepping on flowers. You come back to Montreal Airport, with its jets every few minutes belching out clouds of purple fumes. Everything is just incredibly fast.

– [Climber] This is something just in a bit of a way of life, but I’m afraid that materialism and money governs me, and I’ve gotta live and I’ve gotta drive a car and throw up and give out fumes. So where does it all end? Where’s it end, I don’t know.