Last night we watched “Learning to Fly,” a documentary on ultra-marathoners on Prime.

So what you’ve got here is mostly mountain people, the other, who have dedicated themselves to this insane sport which is far from lucrative. And as I’m watching I say to myself, I KNOW THESE PEOPLE! Because I used to live amongst them, I used to be one of them.

Not that there are ski bums anymore, they’ve been priced out of the resorts, rent is just too high. But back in the day, there was a subset of people, some college graduates like myself, many others dropouts, and even some who stopped their educations after high school, who moved to the mountains so they could ski every day. Living essentially off the grid.

Now in the mountains it was not about physical assets. No one had any money and no one owned anything other than a few pairs of skis and a season pass. No, it was how good you were at your sport, and that was all we talked about, day after day after day. How you looked, what you wore? Essentially irrelevant. But to be able to be out in the mountain air every day, testing limits, that was enough to make your life work.

Thank god I got out, many do not. Most who do not ultimately fall into day jobs, stop skiing and end up on the lower end of the economic scale.

But my heart is still there.

That’s why I went to college in Vermont, because of the landscape, because the college had its own ski area. Truly.

But the mountains are much bigger out west.

And at first they focus on a 100 mile run in California, up Squaw Valley, over the mountains to Auburn. Forget running, I don’t think I could WALK that far! And to be honest, I have a hard time running these days anyway.

And then they go to Chamonix.

Now the Alps are not as high as the Rockies. But the landscape is breathtaking, jaw-dropping. Reminded me of the last time I was there, back in 2011, just staring out the bus window, stunned at how steep these mountains were, the ones of your fantasies.

But none of them compare to the Himalayas.

Now “Learning to Fly” got good reviews, and it’s an interesting picture, but “The Last First: Winter K2”? I’d say it’s a must-watch, assuming you’re into the monta?as, are fascinated by Everest.

K2 is number two, the second highest peak on the globe. But K2 is no walk in the park, unlike Everest K2 demands technical climbing, it’s not a long hike, but truly a challenge.

And it had never been climbed in the winter.

So…

From the beginning you know that people are going to die. Unfortunately, they rarely make films about wholly successful attempts, people want to see the gore.

Not that the blood and guts is in this movie, however.

They’re on the valley floor, surrounded by these peaks… This is far from civilization. But not as far as it used to be. Now there are satellite phones and internet… Nowhere on earth are you truly disconnected, hell, even your iPhone can speak to the satellite.

I used to crave that isolation, it made me feel alive. But that’s something we’ve lost with the technological revolution. I’d rather have the advances than the loneliness, did you read about the guy who was trapped by a boulder and called for help using his AirPods and Siri?

“Oregon Man Pinned by Boulder Calls 911 Using Siri From His Earbuds – The man was trapped under a boulder that the police said likely weighed a ‘literal ton’ and could not reach his phone. He used Apple’s Siri to call 911, his mother said.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/us/oregon-man-pinned-boulder-siri-rescue.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GlE.QNMp.z1oAstUam88M&smid=url-share

In the old days he would have withered on the vine. In this case, drowned as the tide changed. So give me that connection all day long.

But still, the Himalayas are daunting.

Unlike in the Everest films, there is ice climbing involved. You’ve got to bang the toes of your crampons into the ice and haul yourself up with your axe and one false move…

That’s how critical your steps are. It’s usually black or white, you live or you die.

Now along with the raw issue of climbing the mountain, there is an underlying story about the people involved, the competition, love… I wouldn’t quite call these people daredevils, but there is no margin for error, people die all the time.

So it’s forbidding. The wind is blowing. Are the ropes intact?

And it always comes down to bad judgment. People ignore instructions. Even a casual reader of Everest stories know there’s a turn around time, ignore it at your peril, it’s there for a reason. You might make it up, but good luck making it down.

And this ain’t America, where corporations are so fearful of being sued that they dot every “i” and cross every “t”… Seven Summit Treks is a Nepalese company… That’s right, like sisters, the Nepalese are doing it for themselves, the westerners have been squeezed out.

Reminds me of being on a scary chairlift in Chile. In America when you’re scared you can easily tell yourself not to be, there are so many regulations involved, the odds of an accident are extremely low, but in a foreign country? You can take the American out of America, but he does not take America with him, he’s subject to the rules of the society he has traveled to.

Now I may lament the passage of isolation, aloneness, but with the concomitant rise in technology… The images in this film are spectacular, and on your hi-def set…

So if you’re a mountain man or woman, fascinated by the hills, which are not alive with music in this case, “The Last First: Winter K2” is required viewing. But everybody is fascinated by the human condition and the challenges of nature. The tension between the steadfast mountain and human beings is inherently interesting, and it’s depicted in this film, which is included in your Apple TV subscription.