Episode 1 Steve Backshall's Extreme Mountain Challenge

I went to Venezuela looking for adventure...

No way!

..and got rather more than I bargained for.

I think we just nearly got killed by that plane.

My name's Steve Backshall. I'm a naturalist and adventurer...

Honestly, the wing tips looked like they were about

that far off the ground.

..and this was only the beginning of my expedition.

I'm here to explore Venezuela's tepuis.

Ancient sheer-sided mountains.

Lost worlds cut off from the jungle below.

They're often called "islands in the sky",

and many have never been climbed.

Who knows what's up there?

The bold aim of our expedition...

Oh, wow!

'..to take on these mountains...'

Whoa!

..from the outside...

and the inside.

Oh, that's tight. I'm not built for this.

'But first...'

Boys, we need to stick together.

'..we had to work out how to climb one of these monsters...'

It's steep.

That is not steep, that is overhanging.

'..to search for wildlife on top.

'The trouble is, tepuis just don't like being climbed.

'Freak weather...

'rockfall...'

No, no, no! MAN SHOUTS

'..and raw fear.

'I had no idea what was going to happen...'

We've got to get off this thing. Someone's going to die.

'..nor the kinds of decisions we'd be forced to make.'

It's just really dangerous, isn't it, up here?

We're heading to the south of Venezuela

and the Canaima National Park.

It's one of the largest national parks in the world,

about the same size as Belgium, and to my mind it's

the most exciting place on the planet for exploration.

We've got together a team of climbers,

of expedition professionals,

and also of film-makers who are the very, very best in the business.

Our first objective is to try and make

the first descent of a mountain which hasn't been climbed before.

What we find on top, we have absolutely no idea,

but hopefully over the next month

we're going to be able to achieve something really, genuinely special.

First, let's get our bearings.

This is where we're heading -

the remote heart of Venezuela in South America.

A land of over 100 huge flattop mountains called tepuis.

And this is our goal.

The tepui we're planning to climb - Amaurai tepui.

We're flying in two planes.

In mine, the film crew, and next to me, former Royal Marine Aldo Kane,

our expedition medic.

In the other plane are our two main climbers,

John Arran and Ivan Calderon.

Like me, they're dying to see the tepuis.

Oh, yes! Fantastic!

-Just peeking up through the clouds, we've got our first view...

-Wow!

-..of a tepui. Wow!

-Unbelievable!

That is out of this world!

Look at the clouds, they are just rolling down.

That's my first ever view of a tepui.

From the air you really do get a sense

of why this place is so unexplored.

The terrain here is impossibly difficult to move through,

it's all covered with forest. It's very, very steep.

And then you get to the rock faces themselves,

they're vertical or overhanging, they're hundreds of metres high.

It's no wonder this place has remained so untouched,

so undiscovered for so many years.

They're just like islands.

Anything that's up there has been separated from the rest of the world

for possibly millions of years.

I wonder if we can see our other one.

Yeah, it should be over here on... There it is, there it is!

-There it is.

-That's it! That's our mountain.

You could not ask for any better.

We've seen nothing but cloud for nearly an hour

and there it is, it's just appeared out of nowhere.

'Amaurai tepui. Even from this distance,

'it's obvious that trying to get to the top

'will take everything we've got.'

Holy...cow!

Touchdown is in Kamarata, the closest village to our mountain.

Wow!

'But there's still one more plane to come.'

DOG WHINES

This is the plane that's coming in with all of our cargo.

He's just doing a pass, just to check, I guess,

that the landing strip's all right.

This thing should be in a museum - it's a relic!

MUSIC: When the Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin

I'm very glad that it's our kit inside that and not us.

We've got well over a ton of gear here.

Everything from all of our climbing stuff,

everything we need to film the expedition

and a month's worth of food as well.

That's it. Good job, guys, good job. Gracias!

I just can't believe this thing is still flying.

It's got fabric wings, it's all rusty, bolts are falling off it,

and then instead of an instruction manual in the front,

they've got a Bible.

Now it really feels like we're on an expedition.

But then the expedition nearly comes to an abrupt end...

No way!

Holy...!

LAUGHTER AND CHATTER

Maybe that's why he carries a Bible in there.

Maybe it is, yeah.

He's flying with God on his side,

and not an enormous amount of intelligence.

So we've made it, more or less safely, into Canaima National Park,

but with no roads through the jungle to our mountain,

we now need to travel by river.

We're not getting a lot of kit in that, are we?

Well, no, but the guys will go in the big one

-and we'll go in the small one.

-OK.

So we're heading to a base camp now

which is probably about 40km downstream from here

and setting up a base camp that's near our mountain.

Our journey from Kamarata will take us north

through thick jungle on the Acanan river.

It should take two days in a traditional dugout canoe

to reach our base camp

and leave us within hiking distance of our mountain.

'Aldo and I set off first.

'The climbers, led by John, still need to prepare their gear...'

Right, shall we steer ourselves out?

'..so they'll catch up tomorrow in motorised canoes.'

-Say hi to the crocodiles!

-See you tomorrow, guys.

Packing gear,

or a day to quietly paddle down a jungle river looking for wildlife?

No contest, really.

It's kind of easy to forget where you are paddling along these rivers,

just surrounded by this green cavern of forest

and then you just go round a corner and see that.

Just a towering fortress of rock,

and that's a kilometre higher than we are,

1,000 metres of rock looming over the river.

I can't think of anywhere else on the planet

that feels as much like an adventure as this does.

What a stunning place to be in a canoe.

It just takes your breath away... but something's not quite right.

The water at the moment is kind of cloudy.

Normally it would be very, very clear, and the reason for that is

that it's been raining very heavily upstream of here,

which is really bad news for us.

We're desperately trying to keep ahead of the rainy season,

because if we're on the rock face and we get hit by a storm,

then it will be really dangerous.

'Not much we can do about it though,

'so rather than dwell on the weather...'

Let's just pull in here.

'..with the light fading, it's time to make camp.'

Just go scope it out.

This is perfect. It's perfect, Aldo.

'Well, perfect for a wildlife lover.

'The forest floor is crawling with bugs...

'..but the creepiest creatures come out at night.

'On the edge of camp I find an animal...'

Oh, wow!

'..that commands complete respect.'

Got something. Come around here.

You see that in there?

That there is every arachnophobic's worst nightmare.

It's by far the most dangerous spider

found in this part of the world, a wandering spider.

They've got enormous venom glands and the venom is very, very toxic.

On men, it has the unfortunate side effect of causing endless priapisms.

If you don't know what that is, look it up, it's pretty unpleasant.

And after three days of endless erection, you'll probably have

total loss of sexual function for the whole of the rest of your life.

So you definitely do not want to get bitten by this spider.

Right, I'm just going to see if I can get it out into the open.

But the real reason that they're dangerous to us is because they

actually go out and actively hunt around the forest floor at night.

And when it comes to the end of the darkness,

they find themselves a crack or a crevice

where they can lay up for the daytime.

All too often, that's someone's clothing or boots

and you put your shoe on and get bitten.

A great reason to shake out our boots every morning.

Next morning, we're loading up the boats...

but then I spot something that stops me in my tracks.

A wasp that hunts tarantulas.

Got her, got her!

I've got to be ever so careful here.

'Getting her out of the net...'

HE GIGGLES NERVOUSLY

'..isn't so easy.'

There she is.

Ow! Balls!

I was asking for that.

-A tarantula's here.

-Is it?

-I think it's been stung.

Oh, my God! Amazing, amazing, amazing!

OK, I've got to catch her somehow.

Ah, not again! Ooh, it hurts so much!

BUZZING

Come on, baby. Yeah, got her.

So...this is one of the most extraordinary insects

found in the entire world.

Incredibly beautiful, actually.

It's what's called the tarantula hawk wasp,

the largest species of wasp found in the entire world.

These will go out, catch, sting and paralyse a tarantula,

lay their egg on it and the egg will hatch out into a maggot

which eats the tarantula from the inside out, living on its flesh.

The most extraordinary thing is

is that it somehow knows to eat around

the vital organs of the spider

so that the meat stays fresh and the spider stays alive.

It's one of the most gruesome things that's found in

the whole natural world, and there it is.

Small tarantula, looks dead, but it isn't, it's just paralysed.

One sting, and this spider...

Well, I mean, it is all over for it.

Charles Darwin, probably the greatest biologist of all time,

was a religious man,

the only thing that led him to question the existence of God

was wasps like this, because he couldn't believe that

a beneficent, omnipotent God could expressly create wasps

with the intention

of them raising their young inside the living bodies of other hosts.

I've been waiting at least ten years to see this,

but actually seeing it happen, that is a once in a lifetime thing.

And when I release her, she is going to be absolutely furious,

so I suggest that everyone gets out of here quite quick.

Right.

And she's off.

Back on the river, big tepuis are soon looming over us.

These mountains, with their vast, flat summits,

formed over 100 million years ago during the time of the dinosaurs.

Lost worlds, just waiting to be explored.

Upriver, the climbers, led by John,

are in their motorised canoes and catching up fast.

By mid afternoon, Aldo and I are closing in on the place

we plan to stay the night.

But then...

..rapids.

Minutes later, the climbers catch up with us, with all their gear.

We wanted to get the boat to one shore

and off-load most of the bags in the hope that

we now have enough stability to be able to run the rapids,

but I'm still not convinced that it's going to work.

John and the climbers carry on unloading to reduce weight,

while Aldo and I lower down our canoe.

But this is the easy bit.

The big boats are next.

This is an enormous job.

Each one of these massive dugouts must weigh several tons,

and water's coming really hard,

so having to do this, it's a seriously dangerous prospect.

They're placing them.

I've got so much respect for these guys.

Bravo, bravo!

Loaded up again, we push on.

As dusk falls, we get the first clear view of our mountain

and its towering rock walls.

THUNDER RUMBLES

As lightening lashes the face, it's easy to imagine how terrifying

and genuinely dangerous it could be up there.

THUNDER RUMBLES

The mountain kind of looks really intimidating this morning.

Maybe it's because the faces are dark

and because it's still shrouded in cloud,

but it looks really forbidding.

It just looks like trouble.

It is so big, so huge,

it kind of feels like you could just reach out and touch it,

but I reckon it's going to take us at least two days,

even just to get to the rock face from here.

Just when it seems the jungle will never end...

Wow! Savanna.

..we break out onto a vast expanse of savanna,

but the weather is still ominous,

storms rampage along the walls we will soon be living on.

Now our tepui, Amaurai, dominates the view.

With every step, the daunting scale of our challenge

is becoming more apparent.

If there were people on it now you certainly wouldn't see them.

I think if there was a double-decker bus on it,

you probably wouldn't see it either

By late afternoon, we're after a camp site,

and they don't come much more unusual...

Whoa!

..than this!

What an awesome hunk of metal.

Look at that!

Whoa. 'A spectacular place to spend the night.'

It's just magnificent.

And a menacing reminder that

some expeditions in these mountains don't end well.

But the boys don't seem intimidated.

After days of hard travel,

and with the mountain now tantalisingly close...

Everybody on board?

LAUGHTER

..we're ready to let off some steam.

Start the engine.

Don't open the sunroof!

This is probably the coolest camp site in the whole world.

We've made great progress,

but there's still a big day tomorrow to reach the foot of the tepui,

so up go the tents and we settle in for the night.

Although, not everyone opts for a tent.

(Look at that, all the climbers fast asleep in their hammocks,

(and it's like, it's about nine o'clock at night.

(Who says climbers are tough?)

It turns out they chose the best place to sleep.

The rest of us get soaked.

So the dreaded rains have arrived - with a vengeance.

Mercifully, next morning the rain clouds clear for a while

and we have a chance to pick our climbing route.

John, we've got a big hunk of rock like this

that's has never been climbed before. How do you even start?

There's an area on the right there

that's just clean rock, virtually the whole way up.

That is just a magnet.

Yeah, but to me, even from here, it looks utterly impossible.

The dark sections are wet and maybe a little vegetated,

the green sections are just horrible.

We're looking at the orange.

Try and follow the most orange possible.

It's like a puzzle, you know,

because you have to try to attach all the cracks and lines,

and if you do it, for sure, you'll get to the top.

-Game of chess.

-Yeah, every move is important decisions,

so that's a good thing about this kind of climbing.

-You mean, nobody's written the guidebook yet?

-LAUGHING:

-Not yet.

So here's our route.

We're guessing five days to reach the top,

sleeping on the cliff face each night.

Only then will we be able to start exploring the summit plateau.

But first, one more haul to the base of the mountain.

The savanna is a dream - easy walking -

and all morning we're storming along.

But then, the grass runs out and we plunge back into the jungle.

And it's horrible.

THUNDERCLAP

Going from savanna to forest

is kind of like going from midday to midnight in a blink of an eye,

and it also doesn't help, this hammering down with rain.

THUNDER CONTINUES

This is really not a good omen.

You know what, Aldo?

-I reckon this would make a really good base camp.

-Yeah.

'There's no time to rest.

'We've got to push on to the cliff face

'if we're going to find somewhere to start the climb tomorrow.'

We found a really steep terrain up towards the rock wall,

which is looming through the trees,

it's like an ominous presence above us.

This is steep.

'We know where we need to get to...'

Boys, we need to stick together.

'..but getting there is much easier said than done.'

There are no trails now, so out come the machetes.

Jungle terrain like this is the worst in the world

to navigate through cos

you've got no visual landmarks, it's just one big green cavern,

but we can see the rock, it's just up there.

But it doesn't look like the going will get any easier.

Unfortunately, this massive block came from the rock face,

so now we can add rock falls to the potential dangers ahead.

And then, finally, the forest runs out

Wow!

I've never seen anything so overhanging in my entire life.

Now it's real, and deadly serious because this rock we can see

is only the beginning.

We're only looking up as far as an overgrown ledge

about a quarter of the way up.

-It's steep.

-Steep?

-Yeah, steep.

That is not steep, that is overhanging.

The rock here is wet, slippery and unclimbable,

so there's no option but to push on in the failing light.

We're pretty close now.

I'm desperately hoping we'll find better rock further along.

But it's all just plain grim.

It's looking pretty bleak, actually,

just a slippery black mess, so we're backtracking.

Even worse than that though, is the fact that now

we have to make our way back down to camp in the dark.

Very, very steep, very slippery, and it's starting to rain.

All the kind of things where you don't want to be moving

in the jungle, and that's what we're going to have to do.

An hour of muddy sliding later and we're back in base camp,

trying our best not to be disheartened.

Tomorrow, we start climbing - somehow.

The night before the climb is when it all starts to become real.

I am genuinely nervous, bordering on scared,

particularly having seen the rock.

I'm not the world's best climber, I'm average at best,

and this is a really, really serious route,

even for people like John and Ivan,

who are some of the best in the world.

For me, it's way out of my pay grade

and the possibility of something going wrong is high,

and if anything goes wrong out here it's going to go badly wrong.

We're all keen to get going, but first things first.

I've got a pressing problem that needs sorting out.

This is the glamour end of the job.

Sticking plasters on Backshall's backside.

Anybody who thinks that this expedition business is glamorous,

I'm currently having a plaster applied to my butt

by our hairy Scottish medic.

I managed to chafe off a big area of skin oN my backside yesterday.

Everyone becomes very good friends on an expedition,

you kind of have to.

It feels good, I feel like a new man.

We're going to be spending a week in the vertical world.

This is big wall climbing.

Our lives will depend on our kit -

hundreds of metres of rope and other climbing gear.

We also need supplies for our exploration of the summit,

so we repeat the previous night's hike, but this time with heavy bags.

Lots of loose rock up here, boys.

On days like this, the jungle is a big greenhouse -

hot, wet and very humid.

I just want to get climbing.

But when I see the rock face up close,

I feel like heading straight back to base camp.

It's going to be horrific getting up there.

Under normal circumstances, no-one would climb rock this slippery,

but we have no choice.

As the strongest climber on the team, John takes the lead.

-Good to go?

-Yeah, stay safe, John.

-'But his first step...'

-Pretty slippery.

'..the rock might as well be covered in oil.'

This is less like climbing than vertical gardening.

I don't envy him one little bit.

The challenge for John isn't just slippery rock,

but in finding places to secure himself, and it's not looking easy.

As John's going, what he's looking for are cracks and crevices

that he can put bits of gear into which he'll then clip

the rope through which will protect him if he falls,

so it's called protection.

(Oh, grim!)

-His last protection is far away from him.

-Yeah.

If he comes off from there,

-he will come all the way down to where we are now.

-Yeah.

I really wasn't expecting this to get so serious so quickly.

We're down here, somewhere in the trees.

Our goal for the day is

to reach the overgrown ledge

that we saw last night,

but the climbing is slow and dangerous.

In this kind of climbing, there is a cataclysmic gap between

the person who is leading, the person who goes first,

and everybody who comes after.

He's the one that has to find the route,

but also the one that has the biggest chance of making a fall,

so this is the really dangerous bit.

'Finally, after a long struggle...'

-Take me off!

-That's John safe.

'..he secures himself to the rock face.'

We're up.

OK, this is it. Climbing, John!

'Now it's my turn.'

God, this stuff is awful.

I'm soon grateful to be attached to John's rope...

HE SCREAMS

-Are you all right?

-Yeah, fine.

'With such slippery rock and limited hand holds,

'I'm grabbing anything I can.'

Oh, this is hideous!

'But climbing this kind of cliff face comes with extra risks...'

Oh, heads, heads!

'When the rock's this grotty,

'loose boulders on overgrown rock faces are a real danger.

'But having got away with that one,

'I clutch a tree root and clamber up to a safe point...

'..and out of the jungle at last.

'It's not much of a reprieve.'

I can't quite believe you're about to attempt this, John.

-Hm.

-This isn't pretty, is it?

-Uh-uh.

It's dripping wet.

Are you sure about this, John?

Honestly, I can't even watch.

It's just SO slippery.

It's making me feel sick watching you do this, John.

I've been climbing for 20 years

and I've never seen anyone try and climb anything like this.

This is ludicrous.

OK.

Oh, John.

Oh!

That hole just snapped off, the flake I was using.

I know, I know, I saw.

Oh, that shook me up a bit.

This whole business of picking your way up through the rock,

trying to find a weakness,

trying to find a portion that's climbable is the trick.

Unfortunately, it's beginning to look like

this portion that we're pushing through now

doesn't have that weakness.

It may be simply impossible.

And if that happens, our expedition's over.

John and Ivan know we simply have to find a route up to

the ledge we saw last night.

If they make it, they can fix ropes for us all to easily ascend tomorrow

and our climb will be back on track.

But with darkness falling, there's no more I can do.

I head down dispirited.

They climb on into the dark, hoping to follow down later.

Back in jungle camp, the whole climb hangs in the balance.

Tough.

That was a really big day.

I've left John and Ivan still pushing on,

despite the fact that it's now dark.

I'm really, really hoping that

they'll be able to drop down some lines

and tomorrow morning we'll be able to start fresh and early

and this whole adventure can really begin,

cos so far it's been desperate.

This is much, much harder than any of us expected.

It's all pretty tense.

Right now I care less about the climb than

the safety of my friends in the dark high above us.

-Hey, hey!

-How are you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. John, what's the story, what's happening?

We did make it to the terrace, eventually,

and then we abseiled down in the dark into exactly where we started.

Ah, unbelievable! That's incredible.

So you've got one set of ropes that are now...

We've got A rope going from the terrace to the ground.

-That is...

-We're good to go tomorrow.

-Oh!

-Good to go.

Absolute legend. That's incredible.

The climbing today was very scary.

I didn't even have a head torch.

I have my phone, so I have a torch on my phone and...

You were climbing by the light on your phone?

Absolutely, yeah.

You have properly made this expedition happy today.

-You've kicked everything off.

-We kicked it off...

-there's a lot to go...

-There is.

-We're only a quarter of the way up.

Well done, guys. Well done, seriously.

-Cheers, Steve.

-Thank you.

Yeah, let's get some food inside you.

We're just packing for getting on the wall today.

This is the last day that we'll be down here,

so each of us needs only one bag for

the next four or five days, and it's just the basics -

toothbrush, toothpaste, sleeping kit and a whole load of sense of humour.

Of course, we're filming our climb, so cameraman Keith

also has to pack for the rock face.

Well, the whole operation depends on so many tiny widgets.

You forget one tiny widget

and the whole thing will collapse like a stack of cards.

Which reminds me, where's my fork?

Whilst we slog up the trail with all our climbing and camera gear,

high on the wall above, John and Ivan are already on the ledge,

having ascended on the rope they left in place last night.

Welcome to our home.

This will be our base for the night.

The first in a series of camps higher up the rock face.

The only problem - dangerously loose rocks -

lumps of quartzite sandstone,

some of the hardest and sharpest rock on earth.

If this is going to be our bedroom, it's got to go.

Maybe if we clean it and we throw some blocks.

-We need to let the others know before we drop those.

-Yeah.

With the rest of us well out of the way at the base of the wall...

OK! You're good to go!

..John and Ivan begin clearing the loose rocks.

I am very glad I'm not underneath that lot.

There's a wonder there's anything left of the tepui,

I think, at the moment.

One of these things coming down from that kind of height,

it would smash a helmet to smithereens,

and some of the bigger stuff would, without doubt, be fatal.

'With the route cleared...'

You've got that there, that there.

'..it's time to head up.'

-See you later, guys.

-Yeah, enjoy.

-OK.

'So I'm on my way at last, up the ropes, out of the trees,

'heading for clean, dry rock.'

Our climb to the summit is back on.

What a view.

This is utterly extraordinary.

Wow!

Suddenly I feel unstoppable, confidence is sky-high.

Hello, mate.

Well done. Welcome home for the night.

-Well, thank you.

-Have you seen that rain?

We're finally here, up on the ledge,

way above the tree tops,

looking down on a monster storm.

But we're going to be in here,

under this massive overhang,

and protected from the rain.

-And coming up below me...

-Oh, it's dry here, isn't it?

Yep! ..is Keith.

The ledge is pretty cramped,

so sleeping spots need some creative thinking.

I think my best bet is to try

and hitch a hammock between some of these trees.

They don't look very fixed, Steve.

That one doesn't. That one's completely... Whoa!

HE GASPS

Just had a lightning bolt crack down very, very close to us.

THUNDER RUMBLES

I'm very, very glad we've got this rock ceiling above us.

Whoa!

Have you seen the waterfall behind you now, Steve?

That is epic.

You can see how much these places change in heavy rain.

All of a sudden now there's a vast waterfall falling where

no more than an hour ago there was nothing.

'I'm longing for a chance to relax.

'No chance.

'We've got uninvited guests for dinner.'

It seems we're not alone on our ledge.

As if it's not enough that there's a 100-metre drop

just off to the side of me, and it's hammering down with rain,

and there's an electrical storm, we're sharing it with scorpions too.

But I'm past caring.

Food and bed - that's what I need.

Good night, then, Aldo?

Yeah, good night's sleep in between thinking about scorpions

that were up here, that we were sharing the ledge with

and a 100-odd metre drop on that side and the rain that

blew in through the middle of the night, but apart from that, awesome.

-We've got coffee. Everything's all right.

-Yeah.

Do you know what? The thing is, when you're tired

and when you're outside and when you're working hard,

everything tastes a billion times better, doesn't it?

We have a beautiful rainbow down there.

It's great, isn't it?

At last, things seem to be going our way.

-OK.

-I've got you, John.

-Thanks, Steve.

-Be safe.

-It's loose.

Very mossy and wet at the bottom.

After breakfast, John pushes on...

..while Aldo packs up.

Our plan is to make a new camp, higher up,

to save coming down again at the end of the day.

-You climbing?

-Yeah.

-OK.

STRAINED: It's harder than I might have hoped, just to start off with.

Ah, there you go, there you go, that's a nice hold.

That flake is obviously all right for John's weight.

I hope it's all right for mine.

Phew! Yeah!

Spread the weight...

Nice one, Steve.

..and move.

All of a sudden,

all of that slog of grime and sweat and frustration feels worthwhile.

Like Ivan says,

this really is a game of chess, just figuring out your next move.

Oh!

Oh, wow!

I'm climbing behind a huge curtain of water.

The vast overhang above us is acting like an umbrella.

'This is where we've got to, inching our way up

'and daring to get excited about what we might find on top.'

This is some of the most unconventional climbing

in the whole world.

Now he's climbing a sapling,

probably about four or five hundred metres up.

Oh, oh!

He's right on the limit.

I can't see any protection from here on in.

John's obviously finding it quite hard and he's in a dangerous bit.

A bit worried he's not protected at all.

He's got no gear into cracks in the rock face, so if he falls,

he falls big.

There's a very good chance I might have to pull up on this vine.

What are you, Tarzan?

OK, tree, how strong are you?

'Unfortunately...'

Oh!

'..not very.'

JOHN EXHALES

-Are you all right, John?

-Yeah, I'm fine.

Whoa! That was a biggie. How far did you fall?

-Oh, about 30 feet.

-30 feet? Wow!

With all this rock still to be climbed,

there's no point kidding ourselves.

Climbing Amaurai tepui may be beyond us.

Our exploration of the summit hangs in the balance.

Usually John's climbing is absolutely effortless,

even on really, really difficult ground,

but I can hear him puffing and panting

and hear his deep breathing.

If he's struggling then this really is something very, very serious.

This stuff's unclimbable.

Oh!

Oh, Jesus Christ! You all right, John?

JOHN PANTS

I'm beginning to run out of ideas.

Exhausted, John calls it a day.

This is where he got to, a tiny figure a very long way up.

We've made progress, but not enough to warrant building a new camp.

With the light fading across the jungle,

we reluctantly retreat back down to scorpion ledge...

-Hey, Steve?

-Yeah.

-You want some arepas?

'..where Ivan is rustling up something to lift our spirits.'

-Hey, Ivan.

-Hey, Steve, welcome to the party.

Amazing. Look at this!

This is like typical for us here in Venezuela.

This is like our bread.

Yeah, I know it's typical in Venezuela,

but it's not typical hanging off the side of a mountain face though.

-Yeah.

-THEY LAUGH

Oh, that's fantastic, Ivan.

Mwah! It's haute cuisine.

-A lot of people prefer to stay in five-star hotel, you know.

-Yeah.

We have here one billion star hotel. Just look at that.

THEY LAUGH

Day four on the rock face and we're all aware we're behind schedule,

so John takes the lead again, needing to make real progress.

Oh, good, there's a good little ledge here.

He finds a different route through the previous day's

impassable rock and makes it look easy.

Problem is, where John leads, I have to follow.

I'm not someone that's scared of heights,

and looking down doesn't bother me.

Looking up at that really does.

HE EXHALES OK.

-OK, John, climbing!

-OK, you're on.

Come on, Backshall. Get it together.

Go on, Steve.

Yes!

OK.

-Yes, I've got it.

-Well done.

Whoa! Oh, it's really hard.

Keep working your feet up, if you can.

'Several big blocks are just too loose to risk touching.'

Is that one loose?

-OK, taking it, John, OK?

-OK.

HE BREATHES HEAVILY

Hanging on the rope, I recover my strength.

OK.

Brilliant.

Woo!

Good effort.

Where's the others?

'Down below, on the previous day's high point,

'Aldo and support climber Fuko are building a new camp.'

Where's the ones for there, then?

Once complete, these hanging portaledge tents

will be our base for the night.

No more scorpion ledge for us.

Even so, the animals just keep coming.

My feet, which are pretty unpleasant at the best of times, are stained

bright, bright yellow from all

the dye running out of my climbing shoes,

and a couple of big cockroaches have just come to investigate.

They've clearly never seen a big pair of yellow hobbit feet before.

Where did they go? No, he's going over my toes!

He's going over my toes!

'A brave move, even for a cockroach.'

All right, you going to lead on, John?

I am, once I've got me shoes on.

Shoes in place, John surges up, and makes such great progress

that our team is soon scattered up the wall

in three separate, isolated positions.

Here's Aldo and Fuko, building the portaledges,

and here's John, pushing the route

up ever more challenging

and dangerously loose rock.

And this is me, on my own,

right below him, with a moment to reflect.

From the very start, this climb has been relentless.

The tension's getting to me.

This has all just been a bit too much for me.

I just can't get to the top of this thing quick enough.

You know, I've got an awful lot to live for.

I've got a girlfriend at home that I love very much,

and I really want to get back to her. And at the moment, we are

one piece of loose rock away from that not happening.

I'm usually the world's most positive person,

but somehow it just doesn't feel right.

I'm not wrong.

Conditions deteriorate - fast.

WIND HOWLS

The birds are all coming in to roost.

There's a big storm coming and they know it.

It's bad news for the guys building camp.

John, Aldo, over.

Hello, John.

This wind's getting pretty strong, mate.

I can hear the trees down in the jungle at the bottom breaking, over.

MUFFLED REPLY

We've got strong winds and rain...and we are

completely lost in the cloud, at the moment.

I've got no communication with the guys above or below.

It's...really pretty frightening.

We set off in bright sunshine,

but now we're taking a beating from the wind and rain.

Fuko is on the brink of hyperthermia.

-You all right?

-A bit cold.

-Cold?

And high above, John is in similar trouble.

We've got to get down from our exposed positions.

Fuko goes first...

and I follow,

but then it happens.

My foot dislodges a rock.

No, no, no, no!

-Heads!

-No, no!

-Heads!

Everyone OK?

-BLEEP.

-I just don't want to kill anyone.

-This is ridiculous.

-All right, we're just like,

-"This isn't going to get any better."

-Someone's going to,

-we've got to get off this thing.

-Yeah.

-Someone's going to die.

-It's getting colder.

-Are you all right?

-Yeah, yeah.

-We're good.

Is everyone OK? That was a big chunk came off.

Yeah, we're good. Fuko's OK down below?

Yeah, he's over to the right, luckily.

That chunk I pulled off would have killed you boys, even just,

even here, let alone down there.

It just brings it all into perspective,

especially in the storm.

-This is serious.

-Yeah, no, we, we...uh...

It's only a mountain, you know.

We... Nothing is worth risking this for.

Let's get down and reassess,

-once we get down on that next ledge.

-Yeah.

'I can't get down fast enough.'

Be safe, boys. Get out of here as quickly as you can.

'John, soaked and frozen, isn't far behind.'

-You OK?

-Yeah, OK!

So, here we all are again,

driven back down to the scorpion ledge.

Day four on Amaurai tepui has taken a heavy toll.

Yeah, I made a very, very quick phone call home and erm,

I said, "You know, we're making slow progress,

"cos it's really difficult",

and she just said, you know, "You all right?"

And uh...

It's just really dangerous isn't it, up here?

-It's going to be all right, mate.

-Yeah.

Yeah, we're good, we're good.

'We're down - but not out.

'Despite everything we've been through, I can't let go

'of the summit dream,

'yet nothing could prepare us for what followed.'

-Next time...

-'Steve, we've had a bit of an incident up here.'

..the climb continues...

..and we go inside a tepui, an unexplored cave,

before attempting an epic abseil

off the highest waterfall in the world.