Skiing Everest is a 2009 American adventure documentary directed by Les Guthman and Mike Marolt; written by Les Guthman, and featuring high-altitude ski mountaineers Mike Marolt, Steve Marolt, John Callahan, Jim Gile, Hans Kammerlander, Chris Davenport, Laura Bakos, Mark Newcomb.
[1] Filmed by Mike Marolt over ten years, Skiing Everest tells the story of a group of friends, led by Marolt and his twin brother Steve, who grew up in Aspen, Colorado, and went on to become the first skiers from the Western Hemisphere to ski from above 8,000 metres (26,000 ft) when they skied from the summit of Shisha Pangma in Tibet in 2000,[2] and then tried the highest slopes in the world on Mount Everest and Cho Oyu.
[3] The film follows the Marolts and their childhood friends Jim Gile, and John Callahan, who was an Olympic cross-country skier,[4] on skiing expeditions into the death zone above 8,000 m, without using oxygen.
And it tells the Marolts' personal story: the sons of U.S. Olympic skier Max Marolt,[8] who grew up in Aspen, before it became an internationally famous ski destination and who took to skiing in the hope of escaping what was an isolated, decaying former mining town.
Skiing Everest was shown in film festivals[9] and theaters in 2009-2011[10][11] and was bought by ESPN in July 2011 for broadcast in the United States and Europe.