(1991)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

POOPER:
Taylor and Harold are the only members of their team who make it to the summit of K2 (Dallas and Takane lose their lives to hypothermia, Philip comes down with edema and must remain at the base camp, and Jacki stays with Philip to take care of him), and though Harold sustains a badly broken leg during their descent, they get off of the mountain alive.

LONG VERSION:
While Taylor (Michael Biehn), Harold (Matt Craven), Dallas (Luca Bercovici), and Takane (Hiroshi Fujioka) are resting at the fourth camp, Philip (Raymond J. Barry) – who is at the base camp suffering from edema – radios in. After Dallas tells him that all is a go for reaching the summit, he declares that two can go for the summit, but two must stay back at the camp in reserve, and he was going to leave the decision of who would go to Dallas. Dallas selects himself and Takane as the summit team.

That night, Takane returns to the camp alone, injured from a bad fall and suffering from severe hypothermia. After telling Taylor and Harold that Dallas wouldn’t come down and that they lost their tent, he dies. Harold radios Jacki (Patricia Charbonneau) soon after to tell her about what happened to their teammates, and he adds that they won’t be able to look for Dallas until morning. Jacki tells them that Philip’s health is worsening, and Malik (Jamal Shah) is trying to get a military chopper up to the base camp to get him off of the mountain, so they need to get back as soon as possible.

The next morning, Taylor radios to Jacki that he and Harold are going to look for Dallas and try for the summit. Though they fail to find Dallas, they reach the summit, and report both things to the base camp. Philip tells them that the chopper is coming to get him tomorrow night, and if they don’t make it back to the base camp by then, then they will be left behind.

The next day, as the duo make their descent, Harold slips on bad ice and falls, which causes him to lose the climbing rope and sustain a badly broken leg. Believing that he’s doomed to die now that he can’t move, he tells Taylor that he must go on without him. He gives him his wedding ring and tells him to give it to his wife, along with instructions to tell her and their son that he loves them. He lastly tells Taylor to look after his son.

Despite his extreme reluctance to do so, Taylor continues on alone, but then he comes across the frozen body of Dallas. Seeing a glimmer of hope for Harold, Taylor takes Dallas’ climbing rope and supply of epinephrine with auto-injector and heads back up to him. He gives Harold some epinephrine just as he is fading into unconsciousness, waking him up and shutting out his pain, and the two then struggle on down the mountain.

Meanwhile, the chopper arrives at the base camp and collects Philip, Jacki, and Malik. Malik forces the pilot to make one pass around the mountain to look for Taylor and Harold, since he doesn’t believe they’re dead and because he owes Harold for saving his life earlier in the film. The group succeeds in finding the duo, and as they land the chopper to pick them up, the two celebrate.