Real Survival Stories - Blind and Alone on Top of the World

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

In 2024, amateur mountaineer Brian Dickinson is attempting to scale his fourth major peak in just three years. It’s the turn of Mount Everest, as the navy veteran takes on the tallest of them all. But after the triumph of reaching the summit, Brian’s whole world suddenly turns white and his life hangs in the balance. When prolonged sun exposure bleaches his corneas, he’s unable to see. All alone, with no means of communication and no chance of rescue, he is going to have to overcome Everest again… and this time he’ll be doing it blind… A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. Written by Rhys Bevan | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound Supervisor: Matt Peaty | Sound design by Jacob Booth | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is late morning on the 15th of May 2011. Soaring above the clouds, 29,000 feet above sea level, the famous triangular peak of Mount Everest gleams bright white in the morning sun. This is the highest point of our planet, a whopping nine kilometers up into the sky. Everest's historic Tibetan name, Chomolungma, means mother goddess of the world. The sky is a clear, cerulean, in blue, and the white, gold daylight illuminates a scene of snow and stone and peaceful emptiness. Today, the ridges and rock faces of the topmost section of the mountain, the upper 3,000 feet

known as the Death Zone, are strangely devoid of climbers. This hotspot is often overburdened with individuals keen to reach the world's highest point, but right now it stands quietly, gloriously empty. Well, almost. Just beneath the summit, inching along a razor-thin ridge, a solo climber makes his way back down the mountain. He is edging along the famous Cornice traverse, a thin crest of ice with deadly stomach-churning drops on either side. Were he to fall, it could be 10,000 feet, or nearly two miles, before his body came to rest. But that isn't the only reason this climber is being particularly cautious and setting a particularly slow pace.

Right now, his every tiny movement is laden with terror. For although 36-year-old Brian Dickinson has just completed a historic solo ascent of Everest, he is now suddenly in terrible peril. He isn't injured. He hasn't lost any equipment. It's something worse than that. right now Brian cannot see about I don't know 10 15 feet into my descent everything just went completely white and I went snow blind Brian is having to do everything by touch

he feels his way along the rope left by previous climbers digging his feet in just enough to anchor himself without destabilizing the compacted snow suddenly his hands begin to move differently the ground is flattening then rising upwards, which is good news. It'll be safer to climb up in this state than down. Brian starts to haul himself gradually up the south summit.

A secondary peak is already scaled once this morning coming the other way. He pauses at the top, breathing in and out, oxygenating his blood as best he can in the thinnest atmosphere on earth. He turns his head, squinting, trying to pick out patches of darker rock against the sea of white in his vision. It's no good. He feels around for another handhold, something to grip onto

before beginning his descent of the South Summit. And then, as he makes his move, the world seems to disappear beneath his feet. Took one step and just slipped out, and I was just head over heels, just falling. And that was the scariest thing I've still ever felt in my life. It's like, go to your roof, close your eyes,

and jump off. It's just, it's so helpless. Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to real survival stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet 36-year-old amateur mountaineer Brian Dickinson.

In 2011, Brian is attempting to scale his fourth-maid, a major peak in just three years. The Navy veteran is taking on the highest mountain in each of the seven continents, and in May 2011, it's the turn of Mount Everest, the tallest of the moor. By mid-morning, Brian has achieved something very few climbers have, a true solo ascent. But then, seemingly from nowhere, his whole world turns white, and his life hangs in the balance.

When prolonged sun exposure bleaches his corneas, Brian's vision suddenly takes. suddenly disappears. He must feel his way alone with no means of communication and no possibility of rescue back down to the nearest camp. He's going to have to overcome Everest again, and this time he'll be doing it blind. I remember thinking I'm at the highest point in the world. I'm completely alone. I'm blind and no one's coming to get me. There was 99.99% chance I was going to die. I had to figure out a reason to survive. I'm John Hopkins.

From the Noysa Podcast Network, this is real survival stories. It's early morning on April 3rd, 2011. In the mountain town of Lukla, in the Koshi province of northeastern Nepal, the alpine songbirds are finding their voice in the blue light of dawn. The town itself still seems half asleep. The peaceful scene is only punctured by a faint but persistent buzzing sound. a tiny passenger plane hovers into view before dropping down abruptly to land at Luhler's Tensing-Hillary Airport.

aboard the Yeti Airlines twin Otter aeroplane, 36-year-old Brian Dickinson exhales, relieved. That was an interesting landing. This 500-meter strip of tarmac is too short for conventional aircraft. Tensing-Hillary Airport carved into the mountains with soaring peaks on every side, and a runway that appears to plunge off a cliff has the unenviable title of the most dangerous airport in the world. But with a plane landing safely, the first stage of Brian's adventure is ticked off the list. Minutes later, he steps down from the aircraft and lifts his head to admire the glorious Himalayas all around him. An excited grin appears on his face. It's happening.

But he has a long journey ahead. It's 38 miles on foot to get to Everest Base Camp, which is at 17,500 feet. So just base camp alone, it's a long ways in, it's up there, and you can have altitude issues just getting to base camp. Everest's lowest camp sits more than three miles above sea level. The UK's highest mountain, Ben Nevis, is about a quarter of that height. The air at base camp contains 50% less oxygen. oxygen per breath than the air at sea level. So those 38 miles on foot can be slow going.

But with his kit on his back and his head down, Brian tackles it one step at a time. It takes about a week and a half. But this is a time when you're just immersed with Shurpa, which are the local people that live there in Nepal and Tibet, and just going through their villages, living with them, and just amazing people. And you're in the Himalayas.

Like you're walking through these areas on these cliffs that are just dropping down, crossing these suspension bridges, yaks, you know, helping carry stuff. And it's just, it's amazing. You just see God's Great Earth. It just really gives you perspective. And that was awesome. After several days of hiking up through snow-covered valleys and via colorful mountainside villages, Brian finally arrives at base camp. It's a wide, rock-strewn plateau with, snow dappled slopes all around. The air is cold, thin, and incredibly fresh. While here, Brian

stops to take part in a Puja ceremony with the Sherpa. The ritual, performed by a spiritual leader within Tibetan Buddhism, is traditional before an ascent. In the ceremony, the mountain goddess is beseeched for permission, protection and safe return. But even as Brian enjoys the ritual, something is bothering him. An acute pain has started to form behind his eyes. It's like a vice on your head. It's horrible. I didn't know if I was having like acute mountain sickness or what the deal was,

but I ended up staying one night and it was like one of the worst nights ever at base camp. On his first morning in base camp, Brian wakes up in agony. He resolves to do something about it, deciding to head back down to a lower altitude to see if that improves his condition. There is a village called Dingboche, about 3,000 feet below, which seems like a good place to try to recuperate. So with his head pounding, Brian gathers his gear, heaves on his pack, and hikes out. Every step is an ordeal. The searing pain in his head only adds to the full body exhaustion of trekking at altitude.

Brian massages his forehead with his fingers, feeling for a swelling, a sign of high-altitude cerebral edema. a potentially fatal condition. When he finally reaches Dingbochet, the air thickens and Brian can feel his blood oxygenating. But his illness persists. Noticing his condition, a Sherpa recommends a local remedy, pure garlic soup from the tea house. It's a pungent, steamy brew, but Bryant slurps it down while staring forlornly at the wooden tabletop. He just hopes this works. He can't turn back now.

He's come too far. Brian grew up in the 80s in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. His was a challenging childhood. As a kid, didn't have like the healthiest situation. You know, dealt with a lot of abuse and trauma. I saw things that, you know, kids shouldn't necessarily have to experience. But I've never been one to camp in those experiences.

I've been always the one to move forward. The great outdoors was always an escape for Brian. He was an adventurous youth, and living in the mountains of southern Oregon was always hiking, biking, or wild swimming. Brian's ultimate goal was to get out of his small town and explore the world. But the year before he graduated, he got himself in trouble. Did a little time, stole some computers from a school, and did a little heist and, you know, turn myself in

because it's small town and it's going to happen anyways. I did a weekend and juvie and served my time. And I don't know, there's a time of reflection of, wow, I could really end up going a bad route. It was a turning point for the young man. Brian's father, brother and grandfather had all served in the Navy, a ready-made solution for the troubled kid who needed discipline and who wanted to see the world. Soon, Brian was leafing through the Blue Jackets Manual, the basic handbook for U.S. Navy personnel since 1902.

He was searching for inspiration when he saw a picture that made him pause. There's one page where a guy's jumping out of a helicopter, rescuing someone. I'm like, oh, that looks cool. So let's go do that. Then from there, just went through all the training. Brian wanted to become an aviation rescue swimmer. The selection process was tough, with a 60% dropout rate and a brutal training regime designed to test extreme physical fitness,

water competency and calmness under stress. Brian threw himself in at the deep end. But then in the middle of his training, he received some devastating news from home. Like I said, my situation at home wasn't great. The one thing that was was my grandpa, who lived across the creek for me. And he was my father figure.

He was just really there for me. During rescue swimmer school, two weeks in, he ended up attempting suicide. shot himself, and I had to take emergency leave and, you know, come home. Brian's grandfather had very recently lost his wife and then subsequently fallen very ill himself. Wired up in hospital, nearing the end, Brian's hero had a final piece of advice for his grandson. I remember the last thing he ever said was that he was proud of me and do what you have to do and be the best at what you do.

and that was the last thing I remember him ever saying. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore. On October 14th, the Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision. How is this possible? Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest.

Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Coming October 14, only on Disney Plus. This October on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators Returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On short history of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On real survival stories, a modern Viking adventure,

as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews, and in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the sign of four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

Brian completed training and spent his next years on the USS Constellation, an aircraft carrier twice deployed to the Persian Gulf. It was a life of rescue operations and medical evacuations of vigor and excitement. But by the late 90s, things were about to change for Brian again. In 1998, I was on a Navy soccer team. A week before I got out, snapped my ACL, had to extend a full year for surgery. So I couldn't fly, couldn't do my job or anything else. I was just like hanging out.

So it was at that time I got into the high-tech industry. I worked at the space in naval warfare, was doing networking and server computer work. And that's kind of where my career pivoted. Ended up finishing my bachelor's and then my master's, my MBA in technology management, working for high-tech industries in the Pacific Northwest. Quite suddenly, Brian had switched careers. He also met his wife, Joanna. They started a family and settled down.

After so much drama, it was a calm, comfortable life, but something was missing. It's interesting when you're wired a certain way and you live a lifestyle, specifically military. I mean, you're ready to jump on a grenade for someone. There's just the camaraderie, there's the training, there's just the intensity of what you do and the purpose. And then you get out and you're sitting behind a desk. And it's difficult. And I realized, like, I'm wired for adventure, and I had that adventure gap, and I decided to fill it. Having enjoyed climbing from an early age, one day Brian decided to summit Mount Rainier, a peak close to his home in Washington State.

But while preparing for the ascent, a friend mentioned the seven peaks. This challenge, which involved climbing the highest mountain in each of the seven continents, instantly appealed to Brian. He could push himself to his limits and travel the world. It was perfect, though he got off to a rocky start. The first on my list was Denali. So Denali's the highest peak in North America, 20,000 feet. And it's up in Alaska. And I was up there for a three-week expedition,

and we were pinned down at high camp at 16,000 feet. And one climber came through, ditched his crew, he got blown off the top. They still haven't found his body. But we were stuck. The weather was not good. We finally had just a small break. We went up, got within a thousand feet from the summit and turned back. It was the right choice. I've still never stood on top. And I think that's a part of my story is it's okay to fall short. Like you can kill yourself trying to just stand on top of a stupid mountain. So I try to like put things in perspective. Still, Brian dusted himself down and went again.

Climbing was helping to quench his thirst for adventure. The next year he summited Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Mount Elbrus in southern Russia. His seven peaks challenge was back on track. Next stop, Everest. Now Brian sits in a Himalayan village, finishing off a bowl of soup. He drops his spoon into the empty bowl. He sighs and his face relaxes into a small, half smile. The pain in his head is beginning to ease. The next day, I was good. I rested that one day,

and then the day after that, I hiked in, headed up back to base camp to start my rotations. So Mount Everest, it's highest mountain in the world, 29,000 35 feet. So one of the 14,8,000 meter peaks in the world, anything above 8,000 meters or 26,000 feet is considered the death zone. There's only a third of air, third of the ozone, so you cannot survive. You pluck your body from where we're at, put you on the summit, you would pass out and die. You just can't survive. It's the same elevation that major jet airliners cruise at. So that's why you have oxygen drop down if the cabin depressurizes. So in order to survive on those mountains, you have to acclimate. Everest has two base camps, one on the north side in Tibet and another at the foot of the

Kumbu glacier in Nepal. Brian is now back at the latter of these. Everest South Base Camp is a pop-up city of bright orange tents laid out across a monochrome landscape of white and gray. This wide pockmarked plateau of rock and ice lies within the valley carved by the glacier, its ice flow running right alongside the tents. The camp is surrounded by a crown of towering peaks and a sky close enough to touch. At a time, a sky close enough to touch. At a At 17.5,000 feet, it is the highest the human body can live for an extended period. The perfect place for Brian to spend the next few weeks getting his body used to climbing at altitude. As a process, it's as repetitive as it is grueling.

The body's pretty amazing. So you climb high, you come back, you sleep low. So it's a long process. But what that does is it forces your body into these oxygen-deprived areas, which then produces more red blood cells, which carry oxygen. So then the next time you go up, it's not as bad, but every time it's a suffer fest, you know, it just sucks. You go up and you just feel you have headaches, you want to barf, and then you come back down and you rest for a few days and then you head back up. It takes about a month to acclimatized to the altitude on Everest, and even then you can only do so up to Camp 3, around 23,000 feet.

For the other 6,000 feet required to summit the mountain, climbers can take supplementary oxygen, in seven kilogram canisters. The extra weight are price worth paying in the thinnest of atmospheres. Eventually, Brian is ready, and the weather is favorable for an attempt at the summit. Brian starts his climb while it's still dark, his headlamp guiding the way through the snowy labyrinth. The first challenge on route to Everest's summit is the Kumbu Icefall, a river of solid ice, with constantly moving building-sized blocks called Sirrax, that can can collapse at any moment. Brian takes it slow,

testing with every crunch of his crampons, every dig of his pickax, the unstable ice that could shrug him off in an instant. Straight out of base camp is arguably the most dangerous area. In 2015, a massive piece of the ice cabbed off and killed 15 Sherpa. The route changes every single time you go through. Super dangerous.

For much of the ascent, Brian will be climbing independently. There is a Sherper named Passong, who is supporting him along the way, climbing in advance and assessing the route. Periodically, they meet at agreed points to check in. But often, Brian is alone, using fixed lines left by former climbers as a guide, soloing his way up through the frost and rock and snow to the top of the world. Gradually he navigates the Kumbu Icefall. His head torch finds aluminium ladders crisscrossing the ice.

They were secured here by previous expeditions and allow climbers to shimmy over the dark, endless crevasses that pepper the mountain. His fingers, numb from cold, grip the metal rungs as tightly as they can, and every time he lifts a hand or a foot to move forward, he shifts his body to counterbalance the swaying ladder separating him from the abyss.

Don't look down. On highly glaciated peaks, you always climb through the night because once the sun comes out, things become very unstable. So once the sun comes out, they can become loose. So just headlamp and cruising through. It's hardly an easy start, navigating a shifting ice maze in total darkness, but eventually Brian makes it through.

From here he picks up the pace. After the Kumbu Icefall comes Camp 1 at 20,000 feet, and swiftly after that, Brian moves on to the Western Kuh. This is one of the safer stretches of the climb, saved for one enormous, bottomless crevasse that requires five ladders strapped together to traverse. As Brian inches along, the rickety, makeshift bridge, his eyes can't help but stray to the darkness below. A few days earlier, while at base camp, two bodies had turned up, plucked from the ice. They were climbers who had fallen into this very crevasse over 20 years ago.

Brian takes a breath, adjusts his grip, and reaches for the next run. Camp two is now within touching distance. It's like 21,000 feet is advanced base camp or camp two. And this is where you have like cooking tents and different things. You spend a little bit of time there. And then from camp two, you start heading up L'OTSE. L'est is the fourth highest mountain in the world, and on this approach must be overcome before you attempt Everest.

Halfway up, Brian meets Passong at Camp 3, where tents are anchored at 45 degrees on the side of a steep snow cliff. With great care, they pitch up. Their tents seeming to defy gravity, partially overhanging the side of the mountain. Though right now, Brian could sleep anywhere. It's been a successful first day, but an exhausting one. Time for some shut-eye. When Brian wakes the next day, on the morning of May the 14th, there is some bad news. We woke up the next morning and there was 70 mile an hour winds.

So we're heading up out of Camp 3, and it was kind of one of those days where it's like every step forward is two steps back. It's painfully slow going. Flurries of snow held into Brian's face as he pushes his way onwards and upwards. Eventually, about 1,000 feet above Camp 3, Brian has to stop to take a drink. But even that's not easy. I have to take my system off, which is my mask and my goggles and then drink water. I wrapped my goggles around my wrist. And as soon as I was taking my oxygen mask off, my foot slipped out.

And I remember even though I was anchored off, you know, as my reaction was to grab the rope. And as I did, my goggles slid off my wrist. It all happens very fast. His foot slips. His arm jerks out to grab the rope. His goggles fly off his wrist. Brian watches horrified as they tumble down the slope. They fall 500 feet or more.

Surely they're gone. On an expedition like this, you take as little as you can afford to carry. Spare goggles did not make the cut. Without them, however, Brian is unlikely to make it much further. It looks as though this attempt is over. But then some luck is on his side. I didn't know what I was going to do, but then looking down, I'm looking like straight down,

and some Sherpa that were coming up to a higher camp three were waving at me, and a miracle that they had got my goggles, like, slid to them, rappeled down, and when I got to the goggles, I noticed they were cracked. So goggles have an internal and external lens, and the internal lens was cracked. With the internal lens damaged,

Brian's goggles keep misting up, freezing between the two layers. As he continues on his climb, time and time again, they become so frosted that he struggles to see. In the end, Brian rips the internal lens out. This seems to do the trick, and Brian and Passang continue up to Camp 4, the last checkpoint before the summit. They use the camp radio to check the weather. More 50-mile-per-hour winds are forecasted for the next day, but it's due to be calm tonight. They discuss their options.

They agreed to climb through the night in the better weather and tackle the winds on the way down. So at sunset, Brian and Passan head out, unaware that they are the only two people attempting the summit. Started moving up through the night. All we see his headlamps, one step in front of the other. I started edging away from Passang. And he's a young guy, had a couple summits,

and he's definitely had more sense. So it was unusual. So we had a rendezvous point. at 27,500 feet. And I waited up there for an hour, maybe more, just moving around, trying to stay warm. Just saw his headlamp just slowly, and then it would stop, and then he would start moving again.

And he finally made it up, and he just said he wasn't feeling great. Hassan is struggling. Up here, ignoring your body's warnings can be fatal. He agrees to stop. But if Brian wants to continue to the top, that's fine. He'll wait for him at a spot known as the Balkan about 1,300 feet below the summit. He'll have an extra tank of oxygen ready for Brian when he returns.

Brian forces down a snack, sips his water, and looks up into the darkness where the peak awaits. I had a big decision. The things I went through my head were, you know, how's the weather? Weather was fine. How was I? I felt strong. But most importantly, how was my friend?

How was Passang? He assured me he was totally fine. So without overthinking, I just turned and I, I, I saw. start moving up. The sun slowly rises, casting Everest's grand, triangular shadow over the rest of the Himalayas. And on Brian goes, scraping and scrambling his way over boulders and through thick snow. His strides quicken in the glow of dawn, the beauty of his surrounding spurring him on. He scales the south summit, Everest's false peak, before edging along the razor blade that is the cornice traverse.

Finally, he clambers up the Hillary step, a 40-foot rock face that requires technical climbing, and then at last it's there. The sole purpose of all the training, all the acclimatizing, all the exertion. Brian's boots crunch on pristine white snow, and then he's made it. He looks out at the world below, entirely, exquisitely alone. Having it to myself, you know, I checked the Himalayan database later. I was like one of just a handful that I've ever had the summit on a given day, solo. After taking pictures and the highest selfie, made a radio call down,

and just said this is Brian checking in from the summit of Everest. It was just a very emotional moment. Brian takes in the jagged expanse of snow-capped peaks, interspersed with white clouds. It stretches endlessly towards a deep blue horizon. He's done it. He stays at the summit for an hour, though it passes in a moment. Before I knew it, I had to get going.

So I got a snack, got some water, and then put all my gear back together and start heading down. It's a long journey back for the highest man on earth, but his movements are purposeful, fueled by a renewed energy. He steps and slides and shimmies his way downwards. But he's not gone far. when suddenly everything changes. A stinging pain grips Brian, and he stops dead in his tracks. About, I don't know, 10, 15 feet into my descent,

everything just went completely white, and I went snow blind. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore. On October 14th, the Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision.

Oh, is this? possible. Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Streaming October 14th, only on Disney Plus. This October on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators Returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On short history of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley,

the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On real survival stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind all alone at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews, and in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the sign of four.

Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus. It's mid-morning on the 15th of May 2011. At the highest point of the Himalayan mountain range, the wind is beginning to stir. Until now, the weather has been fine, a calm night giving way to bright sunlight and a blue sky as clear and deep as an alpine rock pool. But the forecasted gales have arrived, and as they whip across the ridges of Mount Everest, they tugged. of the ice and rock threatening to destabilize the entire mountain face.

A little way down from the peak, a single climber stands stock still for a moment. Brian puts a hand up to his goggles, waving it across his eyes, testing his vision, and then he drops to the floor. I remember at that moment just dropping down,

grabbing the rope I was attached to and assessing the situation. Brian's compromised goggles have allowed too much sunlight to pass through them into his eyes, and already the damage is done. After prolonged UV exposure, Brian's corneas are inflamed. He's snowblind, and his vision won't return for at least 24 hours. He tries his radio, but can't connect to the frequency, not uncommon at this height. Even if he could communicate with other climbers, no one is making an ascent today. It's too risky. Brian has a finite supply of oxygen.

His sight might return in a day if he's lucky, but by that point it would be far too late. All in all, he finds himself in one of the worst situations imaginable. I remember thinking I'm at the highest point in the world. I'm completely alone. I'm blind, and no one's coming to get me. And without overthinking it, I got up and I just started moving. What else can he do? The alternative is to do nothing and slowly perish in the cold.

And so, with the utmost caution, Brian starts to move. He feels his way down the mountain, every movement a high-stakes gamble. Snow blindness is a strange, frightening sensation. The world doesn't go dark, it goes light. as essentially sunburn to the protective front layer of the eye, it can be brutally painful. If you put a light bulb, you know, right in front of your face, like an inch in front of your face, you can't see anything.

You can move your finger between the bulb and your eyes, and you'll notice a shadow just moved, but you cannot focus on it. And it feels like, you know, like potato chips. If you break those up and put them in your eyelids, It's just, it's really unpleasant. As Brian creeps down the mountain, he begins to rely more heavily on his other senses. He feels his way along previously laid ropes and clambers over obstacles.

He is starting to make some progress when he cocks his head, turning his ear. He can hear a sudden gust approaching and flings himself to the floor, attempting to avoid one of the 50-mile-an-hour gusts coming up the South Summit. He hunkers down. and lets the wind whip over him. As he lies there, waiting for another squall to pass, he regulates his breathing, trying to lower his heart rate. I know when military panic kills,

as soon as you start thinking you're dead, you're already dead. I know there was a low survival rate. I'd never allowed that to get into my head. I just kept moving. Anything negative that came in, I could feel my heart rate increase. I would just suppress it. I'll deal with that later.

one slow step at a time, using my other senses. Brian descends like this slowly, inching forward and stopping regularly, his jaw set in concentration, and his breathing controlled and steady. Then Brian feels the safety ropes suddenly plunge downwards and away from him. He stops still. With careful maneuvering, he's got this far, but he now faces an altogether different challenge. I got to the top of Hillary's step,

the 40-foot rock climb. Fumbling about, Bryant manages to take the rope, anchor himself, turn around, and begin inching his way down the rock face. But almost as soon as he does, he slips. Started rappelling down. I remember I just slipped out and just pendulumed. I remember just swinging, just kind of out of control, hit the rock, and then slowly slid down to the base.

I remember laying there, my heart reach is going, and just assessing. any damage. Like, am I broken? I think I'm okay. Incredibly, Brian is in one piece. It's not the most elegant way to descend the Hillary step, but it's one difficult obstacle complete. He takes a drink of water and moves on to the next one. The cornice traverse.

This ridge, only a few feet wide, is legendary among climbers. It is said to have a two-mile drop either side. one side into Nepal, the other into Tibet. It's a place that has claimed many lives, and the winds aren't making it easier. The 50-mile-hour gusts were definitely kicking up at this point, so I'd hear them, and I would really hunker down, just grab onto that rope, take another step.

With nothing but thin air to his left and right, he cannot afford a single slip. Each step is a leap of faith. Every dig of his crampons into the ice, a gamble on its strife. structural integrity, every pull on the rope, potentially his last. Another gust forces Brian to lie low. He waits for it to subside before continuing on, step by careful, patient step.

And then the world started getting steeper, so I realized I was at the South Summit. I had to climb back up that. In Brian's state, it's actually safer to climb upwards, as any fall is less likely to see him tumble down the mountain. He shimmies to the top of the South Summit and pauses to hydrate again. He takes a deep breath, checks the rope, and starts the more arduous business of descending the other side of the South Summit. But all it takes is one misstep. On the other side, took one step and just slipped out. And I was just head over heels, just flying, like falling.

And that was the scariest thing I've still ever felt in my life. It's like go to your roof, close your eyes, and jump off. It's just, it's so helpless. His hands grasp for a rope that they cannot find. His body twists desperately in anticipation of impact. Flailing and blind Brian plummets. Until. I accelerated quickly, but that rope I was attached to, shock-loaded.

And I remember just the impact of that and just saved my life. I would have gone for over a mile. But I was upside down. my oxygen was ripped from my face, my bottles outside of my pack. Brian slams to a stop, hanging upside down, panting. His face exposed, his lungs, sucking in the icy air, desperate for oxygen. He strains to haul himself upright, tensing his core and gritting his teeth. With an ice axe, he begins cutting a small shelf in the slope.

Brian's heart hammers in his chest. When the shelf is big enough, Brian swings to warm. towards it and scrabbles on. He needs to take a minute. He rests, calms himself, and takes the time to reattach his oxygen mask. Once his breathing has returned to a steady rhythm, Brian steps out again to continue his descent. I took a sidestep to my left, facing the mountain to my left, still attached to the ropes. As soon as I did, because it was warming up, a slab avalanche kicked off.

He just can't catch a break. With the sun now rising, a section of compacted snow has partially melted and come loose. The entire slab now hurtles down the mountain, taking Brian with it. All he can do is grip onto his safety rope and go along for the terrifying ride. Writing it out, I grabbed the rope, and it immediately burned a line through my leather glove. That's how fast I was falling. I still have the gloves with the line through it. Clouds of snow and ice explode around him as he careens downwards.

Then, thankfully, he starts to feel himself slow. The slope eases, the snow settles, and the avalanche stops. Again, he's somehow unharmed. Brian stabilizes himself, his safety rope now firmly fused to the palm of his leather glove. After a few minutes and some deep breaths, Brian dusts himself off and continues his journey downwards. Next, he reaches a place he knows must be the balcony. It's a small, exposed, snowy shelf

and a frequent resting place for climbers. This is the checkpoint where Passong agreed to wait for him. Brian calls out the relief in his voice palpable and waits for a response. But the weight goes on and on. Got to the balcony, called out for Passang. He wasn't there. And I remember I just figured,

he must have went down. It's a blow. Passong's illness must have been so intense that he had to think of himself and get to a lower altitude. Brian does not let this setback affect him. He remains focused and determined. With the oxygen in his tank running low,

he can't stand still. So he resumes his journey, but almost instantly something causes him to stop again. A blurry orange shape swims in a sea of white. It's so bright even Brian can see it. There's something on the ground. Passan may not be here, but he has left a vital gift. I almost walked right past the extra oxygen bottle he had left.

It's like this bright orange thing, and I remember like this thing was glowing next to me. I'd laid down, pulled off my regulator, just fumbling with it, tried that bottle, and it just, it wouldn't work. I didn't have all day to troubleshoot. I knew I'd be out soon. just based on the time I'd been using it. But I put mine back together,

and I grab that extra 15 pounds, and I put it in my pack. Even though it doesn't work and adds an extra 7 kilos to his load, Brian still decides to take Passung's oxygen bottle. And on he goes. The next section involves rappelling along fixed, pitched lines, which means Brian will have to turn around and abseil down a near vertical face. This is actually welcome,

as it's mostly rope work. Brian can feel his way through it. He eases himself down slowly, using his hands to double-check every connection and test every rope. And then, about 20 feet down. I ran out of oxygen. And at this point, I'd been climbing

for about 33 hours from the day prior to this point, completely blind alone. And at that moment, I had been trying so hard to do it on my own. and I reached a point where I just couldn't and I just prayed. I just said, God, I can't do this alone. Please help. He is still above 27,000 feet,

still within the death zone where each breath brings in about a third of the oxygen. Without supplementary O2 and with his blind descent taking more than twice as long to complete, Brian doesn't stand a chance. He rests on a ledge on his knees,

his breaths rasping and shallow. And as he mutters an appeal to the heavens, something seems to happen. In that moment when I said that that simple prayer, I felt this energy come over me. And I stood up. And first thing I did, tried that extra oxygen bottle that previously failed. And I got a positive flow. And I remember taking five deep breaths and just the pain of air reentering my veins, my body.

It burnt. It felt like fire. And again, didn't overthink it. put my gear back together and just started repelling down. Slowly, carefully, he continues to shimmy down on the ropes, bolstered by his fresh tank of oxygen. At the bottom of the abseil, Brian unclips, turns himself around and resumes walking forward. He peers into the whiteness, searching for any clues as to where he might be.

Then he stops and squints into the distance. Is his snow blindness playing tricks, or is that something he recognizes? He hikes closer, and sure enough, he can just about discern a rounded outline of glistening white. It's an ice bulge, which suggests he has reached a milestone. He's at the south call, an ice-covered saddle between the peaks of Everest and Lhotse. Only a little further down lies Everest's highest camp, Camp 4, and the promise of help. It's so close now. Brian just needs to put one foot in front of the other. Exhaustion from his marathon climb is emptying his legs and drying his mouth with every step.

Again, in the blur of his vision, a vague image seems to materialize. It sharpens. It looks like a person. His heartbeat increases. But then as he gets closer, the image changes again, morphing from a person into a boulder. Brian is beginning to hallucinate. After all the effort, the pain, the fear, is his body finally shutting down. What else might he have misinterpreted in his warped, blinded state?

Perhaps he's still hours from the camp. Perhaps he's entirely lost, disorientated and dying in an endless void of white. Then from nowhere, a great force hits Brian. He feels arms enveloping him, squeezing him tight, threatening to crush his very bones. Out of nowhere, Pesong just hugs me. Never saw him coming. He's like, Brian, you're alive. Yeah.

I remember I'm saying, I'm so sorry, I left you. And I just gave him a hug. And, you know, at that point, just it was that first human contact when I knew I was going to survive. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore. On October 14th, the Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision.

How is this possible? Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television. Vision's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Streaming October 14th. Only on Disney Plus. This October on the Noiser podcast network, Real Dictators Returns.

We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On short history of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On real survival stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica North vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea and a man is struck blind all alone at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews and in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the sign of four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

It's the 15th of May 2011 around mid-afternoon. Up in the clouds, saddled between the twin summits of Everest and Lozze, the first and fourth highest mountains in the world, sits a small encampment of tents, rippling in the crosswinds. This is Camp Four, the highest on Everest. Two men shuffled their way towards the camp, one guiding the other. Passong gently leads a stumbling, exhausted Brian over to one of the tents. He urgently needs warmth and rest. I passed out for about 15 hours.

My eyes were glued shut, just the creche and everything, I'd lost 20 pounds, just in my summit push, all muscle. So that sucks. All the good stuff's gone, but I still had to get down the mountain. With Passong's help and his supplies replenished, Brian continues his slog down the world's mightiest mountain. Down Lozze, through a maze of crevasses where Brian comes perilously close to a fall. Down, slippery slopes over ice and ropes and boulders. Hours later, when he reaches Camp 2, he is finally able to call home and speak to his wife, Joanna. I had a French-Canadian friend who was at Camp 2 dial her number on a sat phone,

and just said, I've soloed the summit and I'm blind, and then the phone cut out. It's a worst phone called a spouse in history. It's a full day before Brian can reach his wife again. He crawls blindly across the rickety aluminum ladders in the Kumbu icefall, feeling his way along, trusting Passong with his life. At last, he reaches base camp and has an uninterrupted call with his wife. He recounts his tale through tears of relief. He will see her again, but not for a little while.

I still had 38 miles to get out on foot before then getting halfway back around the world. And, yeah, I didn't regain my eyesight for. for two months. There are over 340 recorded fatalities on Mount Everest. Around 200 of those who have died are still on the mountain. Their bodies deemed too remote or too dangerous to recover. Brian was very nearly one of them. I could have easily just closed my eyes and become a permanent fixture.

So you deal with Survivor's guilt and it's a lot of trauma in retelling my story over and over. As soon as I got home, everyone wanted to hear everything. and I'm on stage and in the press and bright lights and the different news channels and I know that was all important but I needed to heal

and it took a lot of years to get to a more healthy place Brian finds writing to be a more therapeutic way to tell his story so he publishes a book he's now an author, public speaker and podcast host but he's still not totally free of the trauma 15 years later I would think things would get

easier and time heals and everything else. But even now, I still feel the tension. I think I was more extroverted prior, and I've 180 just shifted. I'd rather just be closed up in the house, and I think that's just what drama does to you as well, though. So it's just something to work through. Brian holds a truly unique climbing record, the highest solo blind descent in history. When considering what allowed him to survive, his military background must have played a role. But Brian thinks there's something even deeper than that.

A lot of us, most of us, get into these roles, even first responders, because we've endured trauma in our childhood. And it's childhood trauma that we had no control over. So then we're very comfortable. We get into these traumatic environments and we're very good at it because it's comfortable. And then there's something else, something harder to quantify. Brian says that when he dropped to his knees and asked for help from a higher power, his wife is certain that she felt something at the same time. On the other side of the world, she sensed that her husband was in trouble.

She said, God, I can't do this alone. Please help. And little did I know, but around the world at that same point, my wife stood awake like, Brian needs help. Something's wrong. And she prayed. Whether it was the thought of getting home to his family or the comfort of knowing someone was watching over him. In that moment, Brian got the energy he needed to stay positive and not give into the mountain. I knew there was 99.999% chance I was going to die. I never allowed that to get into my head. I never thought about that. I had to figure out a reason to survive. I had to find a reason to take one more step forward. Next time on real survival stories, we meet professional

skydiver Craig Stapleton. One Sunday in March 2013, Craig Craig and his skydiving partner Katie are practicing a complex mid-air routine when one small error leads to a domino effect of escalating crises. With his lines tangled and his parachute malfunctioning, Craig will start scrambling to fix the situation, frantically grappling with his equipment as he plummets thousands of feet. But as each emergency measure fails one by one, the ground gets closer and closer. Craig is spiraling towards a crunching, high-speed collision with the earth. I see my altimeters getting lower and lower, and eventually, even while I'm playing with all this, I realize I realize I'm probably going to die. I'm a dead man.

That's next time on real survival stories. Listen to Craig's story today without ads and without waiting a week by subscribing to Noyser Plus. This October on the Noyser podcast network, Real Dictators returns, where in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On short history of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On real survival stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind all alone at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews and in Sherlock Holmes'

short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the sign of four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.