Snapchatting Everest climbers look back on dramatic journey
For weeks, "CBS This Morning" showed the first-hand account of two professional climbers working to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Cory Richards and Adrian Ballinger shared their adventure on social media, capturing their attempt in real-time on their Snapchat handle, EverestNoFilter.
After making it back to the ground last week, the pro climbers joined "CBS This Morning" in person to recap their dramatic journey, their Mount Everest hairstyles intact and still feeling the effects of the daring climb.
"I feel a little wasted," Richards said. "I've gotten a little sick. I mean, I think it's pretty normal you come down and your body sort of just releases."
"That's compared to actually standing on other summits that I have, I feel more tired and broken down this time," Ballinger said. "I think the cold and the fight my body went through ... I feel really destroyed."
But to the Snapchat followers of "EverestNoFilter," this may not have been as obvious because of the pro climbers' lively personalities. They constantly joked around as they chronicled their journey - like with the hashtag #HairbyEverest, which one of their followers invented because of their crazy hairstyles on the mountain.
Despite the risks of climbing Everest, Ballinger noted they were not "adrenaline junkies."
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"It's two months up there of climbing ... and if you get to a point where you feel adrenaline - that shot of adrenaline - that's because something went really wrong and you're in a rescue situation," Ballinger said. "My goal is to use our decision-making to avoid those situations."
Richards made it to the top of the world's tallest mountain, becoming just one of less then 200 people to complete the feat without any supplemental oxygen. But Ballinger had to make the "heart break decision" to turn back, just 1,200 feet away from the summit, after he began to feel warning signs that he wouldn't be able to make it.
"So when we started climbing, I was already shivering and cold [from the night before] and so that just sort of affected my whole day. I was a little bit behind Cory throughout and I could feel the cold getting deeper and deeper," Ballinger explained. "And I was doing things like slurring my words and having trouble with basic climbing techniques."
Richards attributed his success in part to Ballinger's decision. And while only one of them completed the feat, they stressed that it was a victory shared by both.
"The whole story that we're actually telling is not about climbing Everest... but it really is about partnership. It's about friendship. It's about the relationship that you form," Richards said. "Climbing is sort of iconic in that way.
Both climbers' passion for climbing goes back to their childhood. Richards' father was also a climber and would read to him and his brother from his library of mountain books. Ballinger's interest in climbing was also sparked by a book about climbing and said he dreamed of reaching Mount Everest's summit without supplemental oxygen since he was 14 years old.
While he fell just short this time, Ballinger is already planning on his next shot with Richards, which they are planning for the fall.