Aside from "Big Brother 10", I watched a program I'd recorded on my DVR over the weekend but then totally forgot about.
It was an IMAX film called "Kilimanjaro" and it's about a group of folks being guided to the summit of this fabulous mountain/volcano. Included in the group were a geologist, a 13-year-old girl and her dad (her mother was part of the technical crew behind the scenes), an English woman in her late 60s or early 70s, and a young woman from Denmark. It was quite spectacular in high def, and it was most amazing as the mountain is in Tanzania at the equator, yet there has been snow on its peaks for tens of thousands of years.
The journey started at the base -- actually, in mud in a rain forest that surrounds the base of the mountain. This was the "equatorial" climate. As the climbers ascended, they experienced something akin to walking from the equator to the arctic in just over a week's time. There were interesting examples of amazing plants that have adapted over the aeons to the climactic extremes -- brutal cold at night and tropical heat during the day.
At a point when they attained the "alpine desert" region, just under the "arctic" level, they encountered the bones of an elephant! What, they wondered, could have led an elephant up that high, and over such a treacherous landscape? The narrator was either their guide or someone speaking for him, but he said that he had also encountered the bones of antelope and a leopard, all at the same level.
The fabled "snows" of Kilimanjaro are actually a glacier formed during the last ice age. Once, the summit of the mountain would have been unattainable as the glacier could not have been breached. The first time anyone ever managed to get to the top was in the 1800s. Some have attempted and failed. Some have died. One of the problems encountered is altitude sickness. At 16,000 feet, there is only half the oxygen that there is at sea level. The key to survival is to go easy. Don't rush the process. This group took longer climbing the final 4,000 feet than they took for the first 16,000 feet.
The glacier is disappearing, but it's not melting. Through a process of sublimation (I think that's what it was called), the ice disappears as it vaporizes. This has been going on for thousands of years. One day, the snows will be gone. And, of course, one day the snows will return with a new ice age...thousands of years from now.
The photography was stunning, the music score by Alan Williams was John Barry-esque, and the actual attainment of the summit by all the climbers -- youngest to oldest -- was rather exhilarating.
If any of you have an opportunity to see this program, I highly recommend it.
