NY Times covers Nat Geo’s ‘Wildest Dream’

The New York Times profiles National Geographic’s upcoming film, The Wildest Dream, which focuses on George Mallory’s obsession with becoming the first person to reach the highest place on Earth.

“The Wildest Dream” is devised as a kind of “Julie & Julia” for the rugged. It follows Conrad Anker, an Everest veteran, and Leo Houlding, his protégé, through an attempt in 2007 to mimic, if not quite duplicate, the ill-fated climb in which both Mallory and his companion, Andrew Irvine, died near the summit.

This required a difficult assault from Tibet, in the north, as Mallory about 85 years ago had no access to a less demanding southeastern alternative from Nepal. It also meant scaling a rock formation near the top, the Second Step, in the way Mallory and Irving would have had to do it — without the benefit of a metal ladder that for years has been giving climbers a leg up.

If Amy Adams’s Julie Powell affected a retro look once or twice while cooking her way behind Meryl Streep’s Julia Child in “Julie & Julia,” Mr. Anker and Mr. Houlding went one better. For part of their climb they wore gear modeled on that used by Mallory and Irvine, including the tweeds and climbing boots.

Mr. Anker said in an interview that his fascination with Mallory had grown since 1999, when he was part of an expedition that discovered Mallory’s frozen body near Everest’s summit.

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